Guild Wars 2

I feel it’s safe to assume that everyone feels that the ranger is the most hated class in pvp. Now, I’m talking about which class you would least like to have on your team, and not the exorbitant amount of cheese builds like infi-stealth thief and hambow.

The vast majority of pvp rangers run power. We know that is not the best team build: it’s squishy; it offers no team support; and it keeps you out of combat, so you’re not soaking up damage, capping points, or helping allies. But. It’s reasonable damage and easy to use. Yes, there are better builds, and, yes, a few players run them; but they’re in the vast minority.

Before I get to my main point, answer the following questions. Assume that all these questions are when you play pvp. (Even if your main is a ranger, you probably still answer ‘yes’ to some of these. I know I do.)

-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?
-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?
-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?
-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?
-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

If you do a search of “gw2 friendliest community ever”, you’ll churn up tons of results of people hailing gw2 super friendly, awesome community, etc. Frankly, I’ve never experienced that and that’s kind of sad. Sure, I’m in a great guild with great players, but the vast majority of my time is spent in pvp on my one and only character, my ranger. It feels like, as a ranger, I’m pretty well hated just for playing a ranger.(See three screenshots.)

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/ndoach.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/2w5u6ft.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/27y0kfn.jpg[/IMG]

This is pretty much the tip of the iceberg, and I’m sure everyone who players rangers has had this happen to them, not that this doesn’t happen to other classes. Now to the main reason for this post, I feel that all this hate and frustration and anger at rangers is really just misdirected. When players see multiple rangers on a team, they make assumptions like the ones I questioned above and immediately start out with a bad impression. All this frustration should be directed towards the poor balancing of the class, and brought to ANET’s attention. Let’s hope that the druid brings rangers back into good light and welcome in parties, let’s hope that rangers are shown some love, let’s hope people can get over themselves and just enjoy the game.

Truely, I love it when people act like that towards me. Most people I know get upset but I take it as a massive compliment, assuming I played well, because there is nothing more upsetting to a bad player than to lose to a spec they underestimated. Their ego just cannot handle it and I have to smile to myself because they are bad players and people in every possible way.

PvP community is pretty bad, just like every game imo. Egos. PvE though, well that is another story.

I think power ranger is the best option rangers have for team play. I also think the ranger has one of the lowest skill floors and one of the highest skill ceilings. This makes players very confused because Rangers are OP to bad players, and most Rangers are terrible having never come close to the skill ceiling. As such the ranger is considered easy mode and worthless for a team. That being said, the ranger itself does not bring much to the table, as a consequence a great ranger player would probably be better off rerolling professions. Hopefully the expansion changes this.

Pretty sure Anet is aware of this balancing issue. As to whether or not they want to address all of the concerns each class or if the Druid will bring Rangers back into a good light, well…

Mechanically, ranger is a very easy class to play. It’s simple and effective. People don’t like losing to simple and effective; It bruises their ego. It’s like playing against Sagat in a Street Fighter game. Tiger this, Tiger that. “Hey nub, quit spammin’ fireballs and fight like a man.”

Strategically, though, there’s a lot more going on with the Ranger (And Sagat!) People really only get to realize this when they’ve been assaulted by other good players while on Ranger. Most punks log in to their human female ranger, slaughter some achievement hunters in unranked or hot joins and assume the class is just that easy. They never really have to experience or learn what you have to do against an enemy that doesn’t have their head up their kitten .

TIGER!

The answer to all your questions were no. As long as Rangers finish their targets they will win if you simply down a target you really not doing anything. If your going for a damage spec your job is to kill as fast as possible.

Kill and move on don’t sit there doing nothing. Zerker rangers job is to kill. If you are out number say alive a long as you can. Keep 3 on a point for 15 second can make a big difference if your team is making the most of every second and not wasting it.

Sevans.4619:

It’s like playing against Sagat in a Street Fighter game. Tiger this, Tiger that. “Hey nub, quit spammin’ fireballs and fight like a man.”

Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! YOU WIN! PER-FECT!

I can’t say that i get much hate from people well no more then any one else in map chat for instance, but then again i rarely play LB, don’t play un-ranked and only play hot join to experiment or bearbow troll.

in answer to the questions.
-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?

No i click on their pet to see if it has opening strike.

-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?

Yes, but i assume the same thing about multiple thiefs and mezs

-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?

no, because im not going to swap class either (i cant play anything else)

-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?

Only by scrubs who complain right from the start of the game and constantly draw and ping on the mini map

-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

cant say I’ve seen any correlation between saying people saying GG and rangers, i rarely say it as i often opening chests at the end of a game.

UnitedChaos.8364:

-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?
-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?
-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?
-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?
-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

-Sort of. I don’t assume it, but I do think that there’s a decent chance. once I see the longbow though, then I assume they’re a power ranger.

-No, definitely not.

-Not really no. I don’t think people should stop playing whatever class they enjoy at the time just to have a higher chance of winning.

-Sometimes, but rarely. maybe 3-4 times a week, pvping 3-4 hours a day (when i have the time to play that much)

-Never seen that happen, specifically because of a ranger. I have seen it happen to multiple classes because they didn’t do good in a previous match though.

As for the “friendliest community” bit, it depends where you look. arguably I’d say from most toxic – least toxic it would be

Forums(Kappa) → PvP → Dungeons/EoTM → WvW → Open world PvE

of course that’s in terms of most player bashing and such. hating on the gamemode, a different topic.

and at least from my experience from playing other mmos (I went on an mmo tour a while back, playing Rift, Tera, Archeage, SWTOR, Wakfu, Ragnarok, WoW, and Aion), GW2 has debatably the best community when it comes to just casually pve-ing, which is where I think the saying comes from (It’s also known for being the most casual friendly, fyi.)

Of course, that being said, I do think the hate on rangers is a bit overboard, and also slightly hypocritical. We go from hated for being useless, then we get buffed because of their complaints, now we get hated for being both OP and stupid/useless. And honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if we get nerfed back down once HoT rolls out and they eventually get around to balancing around specializations.

UnitedChaos.8364:

-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?
-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?
-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?
-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?
-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

- No, but my reaction is normally “Oh god, please tell me they aren’t afraid to do more than 1-2 on longbow”. My reaction there is probably worse, to be honest.

-No, but I do get worried we might not have enough build variety.

-Somewhat, but I play PvP more for fun than “wins”. I try to win, I hope we win, but I refuse to let myself get angry if we lose.

-Some times, but I usually ignore what goes on in team or map unless it pertains to taking/loosing a point. If they’re just pointing fingers, raging, or trolling, I try to let it go.

-I’m not sure, actually.

When I do take my ranger into PvP I use a condi/survival build. I’m still able to down people on it, but I’m also able to fight on a point. I tend to focus on taking and holding points, which I can’t do on a power ranger. Also, I’ve seen power rangers pew-pewing and thinking they’re amazing because they’re getting kills. On my condi ranger I quickly prove them wrong. When I close the gap on them, some power rangers can handle it, while others panic and hit all their skills to try to survive. I think some of the hate comes from the fact that it is easy to stand back and hit a few buttons, and the other players don’t know if you’re a bad ranger or a good one until someone closes the gap on you to test the rest of your abilities.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve had teammates complaining about me being a ranger, but I’ve gotten buckets of salty tears from players on the opposing team. It’s usually from players that are so bad they can’t even tell what weapons I am using and say something stupid like “pew pew some more nub” when I am running sword and axe.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Sevans.4619:

It’s like playing against Sagat in a Street Fighter game. Tiger this, Tiger that. “Hey nub, quit spammin’ fireballs and fight like a man.”

Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! YOU WIN! PER-FECT!

Go home and be a family man.

I could run in naked, kill somebody, and they’d still gripe.

Ignore the griping and play what you enjoy.

@Eurantien.4632:
I agree that Power Ranger is likely our best choice at the moment for +1-ing. There are just too many Elementalists cleansing every time they break wind for conditions to do better.

We have better builds for holding a point, but I don’t think we hold a candle to the current Shout* Warrior builds in this area. I think the new base Specializations alone will change this though.

As far as skill floor and skill ceiling … I agree on both. Ranger can be stupid easy to be successful with at the lower skill levels. The ceiling is decently high as well due to the many subtle nuances to controlling some of our weapon skills as well as our pets.

That being said, I would argue that the Ranger is not rewarded nearly as much as other classes for hitting that high skill ceiling. Just look at what the “pro” thieves can do. It is sickening at times. I often feel like I get “more” from playing well on my Mesmer than I do from playing well on my Ranger.

Now, that isn’t to say that there isn’t some really mean stuff I can do and times I go “wow, rocked that” with my Ranger … it’s just they don’t ever feel quite at that same level as the output I can get elsewhere … I can pull off some “crazy ****” with my Mesmer ;-)

Sevans.4619:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Sevans.4619:

It’s like playing against Sagat in a Street Fighter game. Tiger this, Tiger that. “Hey nub, quit spammin’ fireballs and fight like a man.”

Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! YOU WIN! PER-FECT!

Go home and be a family man.

You are not a warrior, you are a beginner.

To answer your questions:

no — I target them and see what utilities they are running and the weapon they use.
no — I may think of that as a win, actually
no — I wish they would swap builds.
no — I haven’t have that happen to me in a long time.
and no — have never seen that.

-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?

Nope. I use my eyes and my brain and look at their weapons, pet, etc.

-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?

Nope.

-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?

Nope. Melee/Support is not a requirement to win. You have to play to your team’s strengths.

-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?

Nope.

-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

Nope. Unless those other players are stupid, and I couldn’t care less what stupid people think. Those same stupid people blame anything but their selves for why their team loses … even though the only common element when they play is their selves. Just saying.

If you’re experiencing some of these, then perhaps you are not as good of a Ranger as you believe … or play with really stupid people.

UnitedChaos.8364:

-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?

A lot. But usually by people who spend more time insulting all the team in chat than playing the game, or running around the map like idiots instead of capping/defending points (it seems so difficult to understand that focusing on two points is better than running around like there’s no tomorrow, often leaving you alone against 2-3 enemies of a more organized team).
So I don’t waste my time trying to answer to these geniuses.