Rangers: A good class for a new player?
Actually the best thing you can do to understand the game is to play every class to level ~10, if you find yourself after playing with something beyond that level, then stick with that, what matters is that you have fun in the end.
Ranger is a nice class for pve and explore the world because of the pet, but you will need to learn how to control it properly, know when to attack or retreat it.
You can be a ranged Warrior, or a mix of melee and ranged.
I played a Sword/Axe + Longbow Warrior and it was great. Greatsword + Rifle was awesome, too.
Every class can do melee and ranged effectively. Except maybe Engineers, if I remember correctly.
Northern Shiverpeaks
Ill try to break it down to you and not sugar coat it.
There is no “Range class” in GW 2 or Melee class, the sooner you accept this the better. Some classes will melee or range better and its not because its supposed to be this way but because they havent gotten balance down correct yet. Lastly Ranger is not the best range class, they do fine but they are actually better in melee.
Every class does pretty much as much dps in melee as other classes and in range. With exception of warriors that do about 30% more melee damage in melee.
Rangers are 1 of 2 classes (of the 8 ) that split their dps potential between their pets, the 2nd one being mesmer. Example if melee classes do 1,000 DPS Rangers themselves will do on average 500 and their pets 500. Basically pets do 50% of the rangers damage, sometimes more depending on their on their build or slightly less.
Since pets make up so much damage of the rangers you cant treat your pet as a fire and forget damage add. You have to look out for it, they also add support/CC to your class. If you dont want to look out for your pet as an extention of your self then dont roll a ranger but if you think this is fun then roll one. They are to me my 2nd fave class next to Ele and they are a very good class but people usually play them badly letting their pet die so most ppl shun Rangers and view them as free kills.
If you want to roll one ill post a spec. Btw i have 6 80s and leveling a 7th. Pretty experienced in all the classes except Necro, i know a bit about it.
Jade Quarry – Team Savvy – #1 NA WvW Solo Guild
Puandro, you’re forgetting one setup that can successfully ignore the pet…trap rangers. Since we’re made for killing enemies through conditions, our pets are pretty much just extra damage to us.
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald
Puandro, you’re forgetting one setup that can successfully ignore the pet…trap rangers. Since we’re made for killing enemies through conditions, our pets are pretty much just extra damage to us.
No the pet is still used more for mainly CC and not damage but its still needed to kill good enemies. Trap Rangers just are good because you can make enemies eat double traps back to back on a point but any pet or range class will avoid nullify them. Not a fan of trap rangers outside of trebbing.
Jade Quarry – Team Savvy – #1 NA WvW Solo Guild
If you played MMO’s before, it shouldn’t matter which class you play aside from a mesmer maybe. Open world PvE is pretty easy compared to other MMOs, though fun on the ranger.
Dungeons are more complicated, though from what I hear they are easy compared to other MMOs aside from the Fractal one. (Never did one, as I did enough in EQ and WoW – got hooked on WvW)
End game at level 80 are dungeons and world v. world. I would dabble in world v. world a bit once you hit level 20/30 or so to see if you would like playing a ranger in WvW. You won’t have all the traits/utilities/equipment but you will have your core abilities and can see what others are doing.
When leveling my Ranger in the open world PVE, I kinda made fun of it, saying all it was, was pressing 1 (was using all beastmaster traits and skills).
Now at 80, doing dungeons etc. its alot more involved, and I feel its actually more tricky than other classes I’ve leveled and played. (trying glass cannon atm) I did take my comment back, its alot more than pressing 1.
I love my Ranger, wouldnt have leveled him to 80 in just 75 hours of gametime (/age) otherwise.
So for a new player, yes its a fun and easy class to level and simply explore the world on your own. Not so much maybe if you like to do dungeons on the same “autopilot”.
What Puandro said and more (though maybe his focus is a bit skewed toward the more challenging PvP and WvW aspects… Maybe ha!).
Also play with each weapon set as you level. (I did not even try main hand sword until recently.)
Warriors need to dodge ( unlike in other games where they are meat shields).
Eles are squishy at low levels and until you learn to avoid damage (dodge).
I’d be wary about calling Ranger a “good” class for beginners. It has advantages and disadvantages like any class.
You’ll find Ranger will faceroll you through most of the open world content to the point where you can solo some champions without much trouble and by champions I mean group event bosses.
For me it’s been the easiest class underwater, especially with a jellyfish pet where rangers seem to be pretty invincible.
The problem is that the pet tends to take over a lot of the aggro, even with recent patch changes. This means that even with melee only ranger, you will rarely, if ever have to use the dodge skill, through early to mid content. Nor will you use the pet Return. So when you start getting into content where dodging and Returning is vital, you’ll be behind the curve, which can come as a shock.
As others have recommended, it’s often best to play with every class, since levelling to 10 or so takes little time and there are enough character creation options to keep gameplay for those first levels varied. In fact, you may want to reroll anyway if only to fine tune your character appearence as you learn about tiered armour/weapons.
I typically play sylvari and my first classes were ranger and thief. I decided to make a joke character, an Asura Engineer with a….unique name. I absolutely loved it. Never thought I’d enjoy an Engineer, at all, let alone the hilarity which ensued from the Asura story line.
One warning, ANET decided to take a path that most other games don’t with their “natures guardians”, and is unheard of for other classes in GW2. Pet usage is forced, even though the AI and control for pets is terrabad. There will be times when you want to play ranger without a pet and just concetrate on your toon. ANETs response is pretty much “well f*** you, you’re using them”.
I loved the idea of using pets at first, even before the game launched, I had an idea of which pets I would use. Then I found out how bad they were.
Thankfully pets now aren’t in as bad a place, they no longer draw agro from every single mob, when you’re just trying to travel at least and they’re a little more survivable in dungeons. But that’s where the “behind the curve” problem really hits you hard.
If you’re determined to stay ranger, make a habit of fighting veterans, they will help you pick up your dodge and return skills without too much danger. Try to play around with different weapon combos too, switching weapons is unecessary as ranger but can make you more adaptable and give some variety. Ranger combat can be pretty dull compared to the frantic strategising and concert-level keyboard playing required by such classes as engineer.
Ranger combat can be pretty dull compared to the frantic strategising and concert-level keyboard playing required by such classes as engineer.
Now I wouldn’t say that. At high end content it’s just as frantic strategizing, especially since Rangers tend to aggro more than any other class at any given time. But I do agree that it’s a far higher amount on an Engineer.
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald
Ranger is not a good class for players starting out if they are interested in the PvP aspects of the game or dungeons. We are not favored as PUGs for the PvE content, and to be successful in PvP, we are required to have intimate knowledge of others classes. This is due to our damage evasion being active compared to the passive blocks of warriors/guardians/engineers, the mistforms of elementalists, the stealth of thieves/mesmers, and the deathshrouds of necromancers. We rely on dodges and evades more than any class. If you don’t know when to dodge, you’re going to have a tough time.
With that said, rangers are amazing for the PvP aspects of the game, especially small-group play. We are still mediocre in dungeons, even when played well, so I’d only really suggest rolling a ranger if you plan on PvP’ing more than anything.
Menorah | Charr Cat | Some Cat Thing
Still running my old RRR build because why not
Ranger was my first character. The ranger is easy at early levels because your pet tanks for you, you can sit back and pelt the enemy with arrows. At some point (around level 55) I noticed that all the mobs were ignoring my pet and started swarming me.
It caused a lot of trouble until I adjusted. Also, if you look at the forums, the current thoughts seem to favor melee rangers over ranged rangers.
Ranger was my first toon, and what I tried in beta. I found it user friendly in almost all situations. The only thing I don’t do on my ranger is dungeons everything else though is fine.
I do agree with what some people said earlier about trying all the classes until 80 and finding out what you find more of your play-style or for fun. Good luck man.
Jade Quarry Champion Hunter
Solo/Small man WvW