Guild Wars 2

I’ve been casually reading this forum for the last hour or so and i’m shocked at how many people consider the ranger a bad class, underpowered and badly designed. I know this last update was the single one where they fixed/changed anything with the Ranger, but i took it more as a compliment of good design in the first place, staying stable for a good few months after launch.

Let’s take it from the top from my perspective:

Survivability:
The ranger is a VERY survivable class, even when comparing with a Necro. I don’t know how people play it, but i run polarbear/murrelow with major trait focus on vigor/endurance. Invincibility frames from dodges are vital and aside from saving my character from a possible downed state, makes it very fun to play.

Stack in two pets which could be called characters on their own, capable of damage and survivability on their own, switchable at a keypress at full health, to take damage when you’re not in the mood and you got a class that, atleast when i play it, it’s among the last to fall on the battlefield.

To note, i run standard Power/Prec gear with a menial 15k-ish HP to hold me up.

Damage:
Wether you go longbow or shortbow, the damage rounds up to about the same, and i never complained about it. Most people compare it to the Warrior Rifle build, majorly because the F1 skill, but that’s bogus. Having to sit in one place, for 3 seconds to do that damage is bonkers when you’re comparing to the on-the-move-extremely-flexibile Rapid Fire that can be cancelled midway while still delivering half its damage.

Rangers do have to rely on the Piercing trait and really think about their positioning on the field, but once you got that down, each shot you take should intercept at least two enemies, and that’s double-damage, from a safe position, while on the move. Mix in Quickening Zephyr with a Barrage and Sharpen and you have an almost instant DoTAoE that can seriously hurt mobs.

Even in WvW, the QZ/Rapid fire can nail enemies with mostly a single barrage, maybe with a tossed 4 knockback in there for good measure.

I’m also happy with the Axe damage, considering the richochet off 1 and the AoE efficiency of 2. Add the fact that the Warhorn does some serious buffs with 5 and the pure raw damage of 4.. mix it with the Longbow above and your presence can be felt on the battlefield.

Funfactor:
While i have to say the ranger is not as enthralling as the fast and furious world of the Elementalist for example, i do enjoy a more paced experience. Constant dodging does spoil you for the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds but it’s the backbone of a fun and healthy ranger. As said, it might seem a tad bland for people but it does have its flavor.

Conclusion:
I have a Ranger, a Warrior and an Ele and i tried my hand at all the other classes, and i can truly say that for high level content and PvP, i think i’ll stick with the Ranger. It’s versatile enough, strong enough and tactical enough to do wonders. While it may not have the extreme versatility of the Ele or the superstrenght/disables of the Warrior, there is no other class i would pick if i’d have to just pick one. to do everything with.

In the end, i don’t think i could have picked a better main, and that was true during the last months, and it’s even more so now with the buffs.

I feel the same way about mine, coming from my Thief.

Post your build and I will evaluate

Cosmo.8176:

the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds

What?
Ele’s – perma vigor
Engi – perma vigor
Theifs – nigh infinite evades

Necros I have no idea, they seem to just facetank hard
Guards don’t need no stinkin’ dodges

Warriors – potentially have equivalent to perma vigor… kinda

• Edit: Mind you I’m not saying Ranger’s are bad off in the dodge/evade area. Just saying most classes have far better than the baseline dodging timers.

Could you post your build? I would be curious to see it. Thanks.

Narya

Looks like your standard GC build (15k health), facing anything bursty is not good for you.

And what constant dodge are you on about? Braxxus Is correct.

Post Utilities please.

thrice.9184:

Looks like your standard GC build (15k health), facing anything bursty is not good for you.

And what constant dodge are you on about? Braxxus Is correct.

Post Utilities please.

Bursty? Double-dodging usually saves me. Let me iterate my build, and i did not mean that i can constantly dodge, just that whenever i need to dodge, i can.

skills:
Troll Unguent/Lightning Reflexes (or Sharpening)/QZ/Signet of the Wild/Rampage(or Entangle)
traits:
30 marksmanship (damage 10% if endurance full/cripple target if under 25%/all arrows pierce)
20 Skirmishing (5s of vigor when struck by crit/longbow skilsl recharge 20% faster)
20 wilderness survival (gain vigor when using a heal skill/camouflage when knockeddown-dazed-etc)

Plus standard passives traits: 50% more endurance regen, 2s of protection on dodge, siftness/fury when swapping weapons in combat, vulnerability/opening strike/crit open strike.

Weapons: Axe/Horn with ‘gain 25% endurance when swapping to this in combat’ and longbow with ‘gain stacks of might on swap’.

Oh, and 16088 health.

I agree. I have my longbow/greatsword ranger built mostly on cleric stats (healing/power/toughness) and I feel I can hold up for a long time during battles. I have played a ranger since head start weekend and just now I am finally comfortable with my ranger. I have found a good build and weapon setup I really like.

I really think though that it took this long for me to get a nice solid build because our trait tree is kind of all over the place. We have really strong minor traits, but I don’t know. It feels hard to make a synergized ranger build at the moment.

I must say though, the change to signet of the hunt is great. I never had that on my bar and now I always do for WvW. So I am excited for the future changes coming to our profession.

Braxxus.2904:

Cosmo.8176:

the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds

What?
Ele’s – perma vigor
Engi – perma vigor
Theifs – nigh infinite evades

Necros I have no idea, they seem to just facetank hard
Guards don’t need no stinkin’ dodges

Warriors – potentially have equivalent to perma vigor… kinda

• Edit: Mind you I’m not saying Ranger’s are bad off in the dodge/evade area. Just saying most classes have far better than the baseline dodging timers.

Warriors don’t have perma vigor, but we do have Signet of Stamina that gives us +33% bonus to endurance regeneration speed. Vigor is 100% bonus. Not bad, IMO. The fact that Signet of Stamina cures ALL conditions makes the skill all that much nicer, so it evens out in the end.

Vigor is fairly easy to come by if you’re using the right skills or specs.

My main reason I say Rangers are one of the two worst classes are pets can really drag you down. They require micro management and aren’t rewarding. There is now way to just keep them stowed. Also the trait lines are incredibly uninteresting. The only Grandmaster traits that are relatively/good interesting are Signet of the Beastmaster, Trap Potency, Natural Healing. Natural Healing require you to go 30 deep in Beastmastery which is one of the weakest trees in my opinion because you have to rely on your pet which sometimes has the AI of a rock. Signet of the Beastmaster would be amazing if the signets didn’t suck and have forever long recharge. Signet of Renewal is great but doesn’t synergize with the trait. Signet of the Hunt I lose my 25% movespeed for 24 seconds for 150% on ONE attack. Signet of Stone/Wild would be great if they didn’t have a 96 second cooldown with the signet recharge trait. If they replaced the Beastmaster’s Might with a trait that either let you keep the active effect while they’re on recharge or gave you +X power/vigor/health regen/whatever for each signet that’s on cooldown I would work with it. Traits certainly could use more of a rework.

As for weapons, I know were a RANGEr but we’re not even the best ranged class. The Longbow buff was desperately needed. People could side step the arrow, no dodge even necessary. I would like to see a slight attack speed increase and I’d probably pick every now and then. Shortbow I have no problems with I really like the design/damage. Axe mainhand is wonderful even for farming, off hand it’s not terrible but could use a little more damage on it’s 5 skill. Sword is pretty good damage wise it’s just complicated and awkward and unless you set out to master it you’re going to drop it eventually. Greatsword is kind of a joke it’s a greatsword but uses a defensive playstyle and has embarrassing damage. Torch/Warhorn I think are perfectly fine. Dagger is interesting no real problems it just doesn’t fit the flavor. I’d rather see Dagger/Dagger or Sword/Sword than Sword/Dagger. D/D could easily replace GS as the defensive weapon with an evade on attack. I’d like to see GS dropped as a Ranger weapon. I LOVE greatswords, ANet does too but it’s not really a Rangery weapon at least not with this design. I’d much rather see Hammer with traits in the Beastmastery tree. The hammer could fill a support role with a lot of CC and let your pet be the damage. Ranger’s have a very shaman/druidy feel so I could see a Staff fitting better than a GS and would fit right in the Nature Magic tree. 1 could command a vine to attack every 3rd attack applies whatever condition. Then focus on a lot of AOE like a 1 second immobilize/cripple for skill 5. Make it a more naturey version of the Mesmer staff. Focus on condtions/removal/regeneration.

TL;DR
Makes pets smarter
Let me stow my pet/rely less on it if I choose
More interesting traits
Replace/fix Greatsword (Giant sword =/= defensive weapon)

I love playing a Ranger, my primary profession was an Assassin in GW1, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t enjoy a Thief. Which is kind of funny, since Ranger was the first profession I chose in GW1 too. However, the Ranger has that oomph the Assassin had in a melee fight. The Great Sword is my weapon of choice, I love its defensive nature and it feels right that a Ranger doesn’t carry a shield for defense. The hammer might have been a more interesting reference to bunny thumpers (ala W/Mo and Mending), but I feel like a Great Sword is better for blocking and dodging with.

I feel the Ranger is extremely well designed. Whether they’re balanced I don’t know, but I do know they’re fun and feel good to play, in their own unique way.

I’m not a ranger, and my only experience with rangers is ganking them in WvW, but I’m gonna say it anyway.
You guys need an ability to stow pets and get stat bonuses while your pet is stowed.

The OP’s ranger would die fast in a WvWvW setting. Unless you’re on the walls, then again, you will still die fast. Not good at surviving, at all. Unless you’re talking PvE….
Other classes can do it more efficent.

It’s not the builds. It’s the class. If the class is bad, you can’t find working builds on it because nothing works.
You will always die fast except with the spvp gear because you are nothing more than a basketball and other classes simply play with you.
Just go to eb jp and notice everyone attacking you because they know how kittening weak ranger is, then do the same with mesmer, nobody ever wants to pick a fight with you.

The problem with the Ranger is that it’s very bad at supporting, or generally affecting, anything ells then the pet and itself. Whenever I play a Ranger in PvP, I always feel like I can’t do anything to help my allies out of a bad situation. And making a viable support build with the Rangers trait is next to impossible. As I’ve always said; the Ranger is viable, but it’s not reliable. The resent changes have done a lot, but there is still a way to go before the Ranger is something I would use regularly in PvP.

No it’s not viable.
Neither in dungeons, PvE or PvP.
It can’t do anything. If someone is finishing off a mate before you theres nothing you can do except that one longbow push back.
Other classes either cc the kitten out of that person or kill him in mere seconds.
Even the best builds available figured out by minmaxers are dogkitten.

They should just revamp the whole class. remove 90% of the skills (eg all useless ones) and make them good, also put them into the right subtree so you don’t have to spec over africa to get a small active buff other classes have built in in their lvl 5 passive.

Braxxus.2904:

Cosmo.8176:

the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds

What?
Ele’s – perma vigor
Engi – perma vigor
Theifs – nigh infinite evades

Necros I have no idea, they seem to just facetank hard
Guards don’t need no stinkin’ dodges

Warriors – potentially have equivalent to perma vigor… kinda

• Edit: Mind you I’m not saying Ranger’s are bad off in the dodge/evade area. Just saying most classes have far better than the baseline dodging timers.

This is false with the exception to thieves…

A warrior can’t even come close to perma vigor they have sig of stamina, and gain 8s of vigor on stances (4s on frenzy), so you’re not going to be rolling around nearly as much as a ranger or thief who regenerate energy like a mad man.

Engi… they have 1 skill that gives vigor and that’s only a 1/3 chance and then they have vigor when they gain swiftness, which is only 5s and engis don’t have perma swiftness in combat, only outside (in combat would completely bone them unless they’re trying to run).

Ele, roll a staff or dagger ele and try to tell me that, ONLY scepter eles have the tools to maintain perma vigor and even then they can’t do it without gimping themselves significantly (incase you didn’t know staying in one attunement is a death sentence). that being said you can build a scepter/x ele around having TONS of dodging abilities (more so, or equal to a ranger/thief) but it forces you into a specific build and weapon set where thieves and rangers can use just about what ever they want apart from a handful of trait points.

And necros don’t dodge… ever, it’s awful, going from ranger/scepter ele —→ necro kittened me over so badly because necros are one of those plant their feet and destroy profs (kinda like guardians).

Mesmers on the other hand, they can build themselves to be pretty dodgy, but again, not to the extent of rangers or thieves.

Bad class for bad people.
Good class for good people.

Check any older mmo and look at the class whine over the years.
(it changes every week/month – bad people have no attention span)

Arekai.5698:

No it’s not viable.
Neither in dungeons, PvE or PvP.
It can’t do anything. If someone is finishing off a mate before you theres nothing you can do except that one longbow push back.
Other classes either cc the kitten out of that person or kill him in mere seconds.
Even the best builds available figured out by minmaxers are dogkitten.

They should just revamp the whole class. remove 90% of the skills (eg all useless ones) and make them good, also put them into the right subtree so you don’t have to spec over africa to get a small active buff other classes have built in in their lvl 5 passive.

Canines, swap canine —→ knockdown, you can do that every 15s, if you have a hyena you get 2 KDs. We also have shortbow, and great sword for interrupts as well, you can also use a black widow/forest spider have an essentially on demand stun, Devourers have a KB that they will use before they will use retreat, Black Moa and the Flamingo have an on demand Daze F2 (used that to save my kitten quite a few times while downed).

We are absolutely FINE, hell, we have more ways to keep people CCed while we are downed then anyone else because we have this miraculous thing called a PET! you should use one sometime!!

Abaregi.1659:

Bad class for bad people.
Good class for good people.

Check any older mmo and look at the class whine over the years.
(it changes every week/month – bad people have no attention span)

It’s also because they all jump to whatever is easiest to play atm, for example, everyone is going from ranger to theif/warrior (warrior is significantly easier to manage then ranger, thief is easier for people who don’t manage their pets but can manage themselves fine), and then if those get nerfed or something else gets buffed they jump to that and etc.

Arekai.5698:

No it’s not viable.
Neither in dungeons, PvE or PvP.
It can’t do anything. If someone is finishing off a mate before you theres nothing you can do except that one longbow push back.
Other classes either cc the kitten out of that person or kill him in mere seconds.
Even the best builds available figured out by minmaxers are dogkitten.

They should just revamp the whole class. remove 90% of the skills (eg all useless ones) and make them good, also put them into the right subtree so you don’t have to spec over africa to get a small active buff other classes have built in in their lvl 5 passive.

Sorry to bring this up. But seriously is we got such a bad players like you tryin to play ranger with succes there ofc. will be massive failure and overall idea of bad class.

The only ability for interrupting and enemy tryin to stopm an ally you mentioned in longbow pushback is just lame.

You got gs & SB interrupts.
Pet interrupts I don’t remember how many but as far as i remember there are 7-8 pets with active knockdown/interrupt (f2) and many more with passive starting with hounds.

don’t get me wrong but as far as i recon apart from Ele & thiefs we got one of best possible interrupts in game.

Also class itself isn’t bad at all.
Im succesfully running with P/P/C build on SB/GS and i can take 2 ppl at a time on cap point with no problem.
You also mentioned we bring nothin to the team ?
Pick proper pet and you can get fear/reg on pet swap ( 2 houds ).
Slow on demand, invenurablibity.
You can trag your enemies along with you with sword skills as you get around 4-5 additional dodges with 1-3 sword skills.
With horn speed.
You can cover someone with gs block ability when you see thief going for unload.

You can use spirit traits for bonuses.
Traps for slowing down enemies.
And most important. Healing spring !!

I’ve played at least 10-20 matches with each class apart from engi and i must say that most usefull in team I always felt with guardian/ranger/mesmer.

I see Durzlla was a bit faster with this repsonse then me

It will be a good class when Anet fix spirits, pet survivability (specially AoE) and clean up the trait tree (it’s to messy).

ps. I’m ranger all the way!

Edit:
As it is now, we can do a mix bunch of stuff that other professions also can do, but we do it less effective / poorer. In other words: Other professions can do what we do, but much better!
We need something unique for the ranger! And a pet alone is not enough!
Seriously, how many of you guys are “spirit” rangers? I’m not talking a build for a few hours or experimentally, but as a main build you use all the time?? I have only seen ONE “spirit” ranger during all this time.

Trap traits should be re-made. A ranger should be able to ground target traps at default (without traits) and it should not be in the skirmishing tree! Also range of traps AND ranged pets should be 1200!

Do better ? I can’t imagine better class for inflicting bleed then ranger with SB and proper pet – lynx.

I can’t see other class having so much additional dodges in weapon skills.
I can’t see any other class beeing invenurable for 12s period of time using signet + protect me.
Show me any other class with so many interrupts possible.

Bad ranger is bad ranger.

In spvp/tpvp only classes I struggle against are thiefs with backstabb build when i don’t notice them fast enought and all kind of conditions based build as our condition removal is kinda poor

awe extender.1908:

It will be a good class when Anet fix spirits, pet survivability (specially AoE) and clean up the trait tree (it’s to messy).

ps. I’m ranger all the way!

Edit:
As it is now, we can do a mix bunch of stuff that other professions also can do, but we do it less effective / poorer. In other words: Other professions can do what we do, but much better!
We need something unique for the ranger! And a pet alone is not enough!
Seriously, how many of you guys are “spirit” rangers? I’m not talking a build for a few hours or experimentally, but as a main build you use all the time?? I have only seen ONE “spirit” ranger during all this time.

Trap traits should be re-made. A ranger should be able to ground target traps at default (without traits) and it should not be in the skirmishing tree! Also range of traps AND ranged pets should be 1200!

is that lone spirit ranger me lol? And range on traps should NEVER be 1200, that’s ridiculous, and i don’t want the stupid target trap thing, i hate that, i like putting them at my feet with one click not having to click 30 times to get the trap to drop at my feet, where i want it.

However i do feel that the signet and trap traits should be swapped, especially since traps are supposed to “punish enemies who get close” which screams “Defensive abilities for marksman!!” and if they were in marksman that condition duration would be AMAZING, giving you a total of 130% increase assuming you have no other condi duration.

And as for the things we can do that other profs can’t, be in two places at once i’m built 30 BM 30 nature magic and i can quite literally defend two locations at one time due to how sturdy both me and my pets are, especially if i throw guard into my build. Another thing rangers can do that others can’t (besides eles because they’re crazy versatile) is be able to support, do damage, AND control all with one build, and do all of those REALLY well, other profs have to essentially pick one or two and that is it. This leaves them either unable to support their allies, unable to control their enemies, or unable to hurt their enemies which is pretty major.

However, a lot of people don’t see this strength because they’re to stupid to realize how to use their pet (as shown above by the poster saying we have no interrupts). Once a lot of the ranger playerbase figures out how to use ranger it’s going to open a lot of doors people are to afraid to even touch.

Durzlla.6295:

Braxxus.2904:

Cosmo.8176:

the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds

What?
Ele’s – perma vigor
Engi – perma vigor
Theifs – nigh infinite evades

Necros I have no idea, they seem to just facetank hard
Guards don’t need no stinkin’ dodges

Warriors – potentially have equivalent to perma vigor… kinda

• Edit: Mind you I’m not saying Ranger’s are bad off in the dodge/evade area. Just saying most classes have far better than the baseline dodging timers.

This is false with the exception to thieves…

A warrior can’t even come close to perma vigor they have sig of stamina, and gain 8s of vigor on stances (4s on frenzy), so you’re not going to be rolling around nearly as much as a ranger or thief who regenerate energy like a mad man.

Engi… they have 1 skill that gives vigor and that’s only a 1/3 chance and then they have vigor when they gain swiftness, which is only 5s and engis don’t have perma swiftness in combat, only outside (in combat would completely bone them unless they’re trying to run).

Ele, roll a staff or dagger ele and try to tell me that, ONLY scepter eles have the tools to maintain perma vigor and even then they can’t do it without gimping themselves significantly (incase you didn’t know staying in one attunement is a death sentence). that being said you can build a scepter/x ele around having TONS of dodging abilities (more so, or equal to a ranger/thief) but it forces you into a specific build and weapon set where thieves and rangers can use just about what ever they want apart from a handful of trait points.

And necros don’t dodge… ever, it’s awful, going from ranger/scepter ele —-> necro kittened me over so badly because necros are one of those plant their feet and destroy profs (kinda like guardians).

Mesmers on the other hand, they can build themselves to be pretty dodgy, but again, not to the extent of rangers or thieves.

Any Engi who uses a build that is heavy on kit swapping can easily achieve pretty much permanent Vigor. Trait Swiftness when equipping a kit, and trait Vigor on Swiftness. Bam, if you’re a heavy multi kit swapper then you have permanent Swiftness. Even if you aren’t, you could still get it with any random kit equipped but just immediately drop it afterwards. A lot of people do this with Elixir Gun. With Runes of Altruism released many will probably be doing this with Med Kit too.

Elementalist can easily maintain permanent Vigor without really sacrificing anything as well. In fact, it has by far the most kitten Vigor generation of all classes. Ignoring Vigor on Cantrip use, Arcana tree has a 33% chance on crit to proc 5 seconds of Vigor. Add in the fact that this has no internal cooldown, that Eles have insanely easy access to Fury on top of whatever crit chance they’ve geared for, that Eles easily dish out a lot of hits in a short amount of time, that most Eles run some kind of +boon duration build, and that many Eles take 2-3 cantrips, and stacking Vigor is trivial if you want to. I regularly see well over a minute of Vigor on my boon bar left after large fights with my Ele (D/D). If they really wish to roll to their hearts content, nobody can hold a candle to them in regards to utilizing +50% endurance on weapon swap due to the nature of attunement swapping (well, maybe the Engi tops them in that now due to Sigils working with kits).

Mesmer and Guardian both have a 5 point trait that grants a guaranteed 5 seconds of Vigor on crit, with a 5 second cooldown. These are both also stupidly easy to maintain, with very tiny down times in between. This really doesn’t require any explanation. In fact, this Vigor is very important and useful for keeping constant clone generation and heals on rolls.

Warriors generally don’t have much access to Vigor. Signet of Stamina is nice though, and most Warriors use GS, which provides a free dodge combined with potentially insane burst (honestly, any decent Warrior knows that Whirlwind is far superior to Hundred Blades in terms of actually “bursting”, if given the ability to utilize it to its max) on a very short cooldown. Warriors can trait into gaining 50% endurance on adrenaline use, too. With the right builds you could basically fill 100% of your endurance every 10 seconds, if you really felt the need to.

I will stay silent about Necros because, tbh, I haven’t got a single clue about Necros (never leveled one, don’t really care to either because their sound effects HUHFDSKJLFJNJ annoying).

But seriously, if you think the other classes have a hard time dodging when they want to, you’re really off the mark.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Any Engi who uses a build that is heavy on kit swapping can easily achieve pretty much permanent Vigor. Trait Swiftness when equipping a kit, and trait Vigor on Swiftness. Bam, if you’re a heavy multi kit swapper then you have permanent Swiftness. Even if you aren’t, you could still get it with any random kit equipped but just immediately drop it afterwards. A lot of people do this with Elixir Gun. With Runes of Altruism released many will probably be doing this with Med Kit too.

It is true, Engineers can kit swap and thus get a lot of vigor. But there are other problems with this, in that it’s difficult to kit swap AND maintain dps output. Unlike Elementalists, the amount of actual benefit to constant kit rotation is highly situational.

So yes, they can get perma vigor and swiftness, but to do so they have to rotate kits. Since one kit is still much better than every other kit in nearly every situation (except healing), it’s sort of a net lose unless you’re turtling, in which case yes; Engineers can be masters of dying slowly.

If you want to see a broken class with little hope of victory as it currently stands, refer to the Engineer design.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Elementalist can easily maintain permanent Vigor without really sacrificing anything as well. In fact, it has by far the most kitten Vigor generation of all classes. Ignoring Vigor on Cantrip use, Arcana tree has a 33% chance on crit to proc 5 seconds of Vigor…

You see a lot of vigor on these tanky water+arcane skirmisher builds. Those builds are very popular because of dapheonix’s amazing videos; but you do sacrifice so much potential burst for them. Putting a lot of points into water really nerfs your burst in PvP (in PvE, you can use the vulnerability amping trait reliably so it can balance out). You will also see them in Aura builds, but even then it’s hardly perma-vigor.

But a lot of Elementalists have to use their endurance to heal, and many burst specs lose 10% of their damage output when they start dodging so they really don’t want to. I think Rangers evade a lot.

I will stay silent about Necros because, tbh, I haven’t got a single clue about Necros (never leveled one, don’t really care to either because their sound effects HUHFDSKJLFJNJ annoying).

Necros use other mechanics to mitigate damage. I do not observe them having a lot of vigor. They tend to exploit the often under-appreciated and absurdly high power of regeneration.

I’m a thief player, but after the December patch I logged back in to see ranger and I’ve notice some major dps increase due to my pet keep hitting my target. So this is good, but i think what ranger lack is in power/damage build..I just can’t find a good way to put berserker amulet with this class.

My suggestion would be to rework the longbow and make it more like a sniper type of weapon with burst damage abilities like warrior killshot.

KirinDave.6451:

It is true, Engineers can kit swap and thus get a lot of vigor. But there are other problems with this, in that it’s difficult to kit swap AND maintain dps output. Unlike Elementalists, the amount of actual benefit to constant kit rotation is highly situational.

So yes, they can get perma vigor and swiftness, but to do so they have to rotate kits. Since one kit is still much better than every other kit in nearly every situation (except healing), it’s sort of a net lose unless you’re turtling, in which case yes; Engineers can be masters of dying slowly.

If you want to see a broken class with little hope of victory as it currently stands, refer to the Engineer design.

You see a lot of vigor on these tanky water+arcane skirmisher builds. Those builds are very popular because of dapheonix’s amazing videos; but you do sacrifice so much potential burst for them. Putting a lot of points into water really nerfs your burst in PvP (in PvE, you can use the vulnerability amping trait reliably so it can balance out). You will also see them in Aura builds, but even then it’s hardly perma-vigor.

But a lot of Elementalists have to use their endurance to heal, and many burst specs lose 10% of their damage output when they start dodging so they really don’t want to. I think Rangers evade a lot.

With the popularity of weapon swap sigils (in particular 3 might on swap) and the addition of altruism runes, many people are a whole lot more eager to swap weapons/kits in combat now for the bonus. Grenades still might be the highest dps, but honestly in pvp nobody really sits there lugging grenades all day except for in sieges because, honestly, nobody with a brain will get hit by those things if they’re watching. People who run refined kits and elixir gun probably swap naturally every 10 seconds anyways to pop off Super Elixir for support, or do it when they need to remove a condition. And you still have to swap to your main weapon to get full benefits out of your toolbelt skills. People swap in and out of their kits a lot. And really, if you have the time to just sit there and spam grenade 1 for 10s or more, you probably don’t need vigor, and in the span of time you actually do use a dodge, you can unequip your kit/swap and re-equip it almost right after you’re back up (otherwise, why do you even need vigor to begin with if you’re at full endurance?).

Most people go water/arcana tree for Ele because quite frankly, the other three trees feel fairly lackluster in comparison for them. Arcana is a must if you want to constantly attunement swap, so unless you plan to sit in fire all day or something, you’re going to have a lot of points in it regardless. And you really don’t need points in water for perma vigor, as arcana already gives you all you need to do it and is easily workable into any build with its myriad of awesome bonuses (fury, boon duration, boon on attune swap, reduced attunement cooldowns, etc.).

Braxxus.2904:

Cosmo.8176:

the other classes which can only dodge twice every 8-10 seconds

What?
Ele’s – perma vigor
Engi – perma vigor
Theifs – nigh infinite evades

Necros I have no idea, they seem to just facetank hard
Guards don’t need no stinkin’ dodges

Warriors – potentially have equivalent to perma vigor… kinda

• Edit: Mind you I’m not saying Ranger’s are bad off in the dodge/evade area. Just saying most classes have far better than the baseline dodging timers.

Fyi, Guard has perma vigor aswell.. And thats from only putting 5 points in a tree lol

And yes, ele can easily maintain perma vigor.. Unless your a terribad player who doesnt utilise attunementswapping..