Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard that the ranger is a very bad class to play….I just want to see if its true! I want to use my ranger in WvW solo/small group roaming.

Good I be waiting for you with my thief lmao.

Jamoke.1523:

Good I be waiting for you with my thief lmao.

thats a yes I guess LOL

Don’t even bother you’ll contribute more to your team by playing another class, trust me. I’m champ hunter and my ranger have like rank 400 in wvw, but I’ve come to realize ranger class is severely handicapped

Rangers are challenging to play, but great at WvW roaming. You won’t make much money, but you can cause a lot of damage all by yourself slapping yak, taking camps and spotting zergs. Eventually you’ll be able to smash just about anybody you run into, but that takes a lot of practice.

okay…. Well, good thing i didnt start to level up my ranger

As best as I can, in a nutshell from the perspective of a hardcore WvW player:

Ranger class: Work harder for less.

Some very skilled players who have put months of dedication, practice and trial and error will achieve results that are almost comparable to the extreme players of other classes (but in a much more limited sense), but will always 100% of the time lag behind due to broken pet mechanics and traits that while now slightly better, still need some drastic adjusting and improvements on certain trait lines.

So in summary of the above; you can currently make this a “good class” or a “good character” if you work hard enough, but you can never make it a “great” one. Again, this is because of 1) broken pet and 2) lack of trait-provided additional perks on skills/on many of the traits themselves. We need more traits like Nature’s Voice that boost the effectiveness of our combat skills on the 7,8,9 tabs significantly. Other traits need to have “that little extra something” thrown in; for example, the cool down reducing trait for swords and great swords should probably have one added perk like 5% damage or something. In addition to that on the topic of traits, many of the non-chosen traits in appealing trait lines at 5, 15, 25 are just terrible and need to be replaced with useful mechanics. (Ie. pet swiftness on downed state, gg. Completely worthless.)

The class is still despite all that quite powerful in the right hands but even for those elite few players they see that it pales in comparison to what they could pull off with such dedication on a warrior, thief, or mesmer and unfortunately it’s due to same old very simple problems we’ve struggled with for over a year. On the bright side some are being adjusted monthly. Namely traits. We’ve seen some incredible trait improvements and I am hopeful our class will continue to receive useful trait adjustments in the future. Some problems sadly are apparently not easily fixed. (ArenaNet is struggling to find a way to make the pet work properly and has already acknowledged its failings while stating that there is currently no way to fix it without breaking several mechanics. Probably they will look for alternative solutions and provide band-aid solutions in the mean time which never help much.)

As another small tidbit on the bright side, if you are serious your efforts as a ranger and roll with a non-cookie cutter copy and paste build, your efforts WILL be acknowledged. Many people you fight will compliment you for your skilled use of the ranger. While partially this is because it is such a hard class to utilize with its broken mechanic, I hate to say often time this will actually turn out into a bitter sweet experience. Unfortunately many players of other classes don’t know how terrible the pet AI currently is, so the reason they compliment you is simply that from their observation, most rangers are terrible players who are content to sit behind a zerg and fire heavy hitting bow builds and just melt like margarine in a fire the moment something can bypass the zerg or group protecting them. They assume that if your pet is not landing its hits, you’re not using your class right. At best, they are just happy to see a ranger who isn’t terrible at the game. While this is sadly 100% justified in a sense; having fought so many other rangers myself as one I can tell you the majority of rangers really don’t utilize the class to its fullest and are just plain bad with it… however, this speaks to an unfortunate reality where many players just assume ranger complaints on the forums and in-game about the class stem from a player base that as a whole is without skill. While I can say 90% of ranger players are terrible, that doesn’t mean the class isn’t broken. There’s no need to try to shut down ranger complaints in the forums or in-game as some do. The ranger class suffers from some very real issues, and ArenaNet themselves have acknowledged that these are indeed issues. They are serious issues, they exist. The solutions are just very untimely. We have no ETA or further comment for any pet changes, be it AI improvements, controlling the damage ratio of ranger to pet so that we could make it more of a utility and less of a terrible AI with 30% of our damage invested into it, or anything to make it work as intended.

So again, don’t roll this class if you aren’t prepared to work harder for less and wait very patiently for fixes to the key issues it faces.

Rangers are not so bad that you simply should make a decision to or not to play them based on their perceived value.

Even a decent ranger can have a good contribution in a small roaming setting. Ranger utility does drop in larger zerg fights.

Realize you will be a mix of damage, cc and support. As such a full DPS ranger often doesn’t provide maximum value to a group. A spirit ranger that can quickly might stack to do damage does.

Why pick a class because its the best… How boring

I can tell you it makes it all the more satisfying to stomp people in WvW, knowing that 2 minutes ago they looked at you are thought “ooh a free lootbag”.

Cufufalating.8479:

Why pick a class because its the best… How boring

I can tell you it makes it all the more satisfying to stomp people in WvW, knowing that 2 minutes ago they looked at you are thought “ooh a free lootbag”.

absolutely agree. the problem is you have to change your guild tag every few days coz they remember you and run away

The sad fact is that people just don’t understand how handy a couple of rangers can be to a zerg in WvW. A single ranger has the ability to cripple 15+ players in less than 8 seconds, and immobilise 5 of those plus provide DPS and stacks of bleeds.* On its own that doesnt really seem that great, but here is the thing; When your “zerging” against another zerg that charges your group, having three or four rangers pump out multiple cripples and immobilises can stop that zergs charge in its tracks and easly cause it to run with a well timed counter attack.

Now that’s not to say rangers are awesome, because they are not, the class has multiple serious issues in design and implementation. But they can and do provide support to a zerg, even if people don’t realise it.

*Note
LB5~Barrage (sharpening stone skill / keen edge trait) → 2.75sec activ.
Spike Trap (traited for ground targeting) → 0.5sec activ.
Muddy Terrain → 0.75sec activ

Total cast time 4 seconds + 4 seconds for spread targetting

Cufufalating.8479:

Why pick a class because its the best… How boring

I can tell you it makes it all the more satisfying to stomp people in WvW, knowing that 2 minutes ago they looked at you are thought “ooh a free lootbag”.

Pretty much this. In WvW, the majority of players I see use longbows, and they are awfully squishy.

Most players online underestimate a good ranger. The only classes you might struggle with is condi-mesmers and condi-necros, the rest are entirely beatable.

As a ranger, warriors and guardians are often the easiest to take down. Thiefs usually take a lot of effort, but they can be the most fun to fight.

If you want to try a ranger, go for it. If you can get into the way the class fights then you’ll be great in WvW (yes, even in zergs) you can solo camps, towers and possibly keeps (I’ve only done that along with an uplevelled warrior so it wasn’t quite solo!)

Play what you enjoy. You will be good at it because you’ll want to learn more about it and be the best at it. Ranger was the last class I tried because I didn’t think I would like it, but lo and behold, my lil’ Asurn ranger is my only level 80 toon. Go figure, it’s just fun to play.

Rangers are not a bad class, there are tons of ranger hate out there that you will hear, but this spawned by all the new rangers that people constantly create.

A new ranger will most always choose a super DPS build, based on their PvE experience which is always positive for most if not all rangers. Then comes the end game content, level 80 experiences in dungeons, pvp and wvw will quickly slap a ranger in the face: you are too squishy! While most people want to pew pew pew super criticals arrow shower everywhere from far away, they never adapt. Rangers are most definitely more than a pew pew profession. You need to realize this quick, learn to fight as a melee player as well, learn all about how to kill just by traiting to use condition damage, learn how to kill by traiting only to survive and let your pet do the big damage.

All in all, ranger is and has been by far the most difficult profession to master. This is why there are not many good rangers out there. If you don’t like the play style you will move onto another profession. Some people will hate the ranger on their way out of the ranger, which is a mistake. If you like the play style and work your way to perfecting it, you will be very loved everywhere you go. It is true, even in the highly competitive world of wvw, guilds don’t like rangers because there aren’t many good enough to provide what guilds need out there.

But don’t let that discourage you, here in the forums you will find the help you need if you ask, there are strong rangers who will help you in need. At the beginning of it all we all helped each other become strong rangers; nowadays all this information is available to you.

took me a lot of time to actualy get my ranger to be pve and pvp viable and right now it kind of is. I run my own builds and not a meta (because i never run meta anyway or when i do its by accident because i dont check forums for builds) and test them on dummy and on players in pvp before using them. To run ranger or just anything correctly you need dedication and hard work.

Krisszboss.6084:

I’ve heard that the ranger is a very bad class to play….I just want to see if its true! I want to use my ranger in WvW solo/small group roaming.

It’s not -bad- when using good builds, it just has some very stupid design choices (like all our utilities being worse than other prof utilities without 30pt investment), and the builds that do work very well tend to be super passive and boring instead of being fun to play.

They are not bad , just limited

Its not a terrible class in WvW roaming/PvP

However it lacks many things in PVE and the class also has many issues with its core mechanic.

To sum up:

We need some serious trait compression and replacement of certain traits (looking at you trappers potency)

While our pet is handy in some situations, its very unreliable for a class mechanic both in survivability(it cant dodge) and actually doing damage and the class gets punished for it in terms of weapon damage. And numerous other smaller issues.

It play very passively.

Its playable it just has some core issues which probably wont be adressed any time soon.

Ranger isn’t easy mode, so being a good ranger is about as impressive as it gets. I’m not saying I’m a good ranger, but like other people have said nothing feels better to beat somebody and have them pm you saying “dang I never knew ranger could hit that hard” or “wow you surprised me for being a ranger”…

As far as pve goes, ranger is extremely fun, and tbh in wvw I think ranger has its place as well. You can make real nice ranger cc melee builds to run with front lines in zergs, or you can spec other builds (beserker, settlers, rabid, knights…) and make a good roaming ranger. If you enjoy the idea of a ranger, and want to play a ranger type of class, then this will be a good class for you.

Plus, perma minis!!! You can’t beat that, no other class has perma minis, and we get a great selection of minis as well. I like to use the canines personally.

well, I play a lvl 80 warrior and a lvl 80 engineer and just recently leveled up a lvl 80 ranger despite all the bad attention it gets in wvw. I really like the ranger and the concept behind its weapon skills, I run greatsword and sword/axe and find it to be allot of fun. The problem is that with identical stats to my warrior it takes about 10 more seconds to kill any random creature because ranger hits like a wet noodle. Also, 50% of all ranger traits and utilities go to buffing the ranger pet, which is basically useless except for when it heals you while downed. And as a ranger, all you get is one F2 skill to activate on your pet while on my engineer I get an entire toolbelt of 4 utility skills that I don’t have to worry about interruption if I happen to cast both at the same time, because pets stop doing whatever they were commanded to do if you command them to do something else. If anything I think pets should be active for short burst situations rather than an annoying thing constanly following you around that does no damage and has clumsy abilities with enormous activation times. Also, rangers have only one blast finisher out of all their skills and utilities, that is complete crap considering how important blast finishers are in wvw, what the game was designed for. Arena net, if you are reading this, I really love the concept of my ranger, but come on, I cant even justify playing it because of all the glaring inconsistencies within its design.

Yes they are, now roll a mesmer or warrior and faceroll everything.

play what you want. not what others tell you if they want you to or not.

Just play what you really enjoy.

but… don’t play a ranger that doesn’t contribute anything to the party and expect people to want you in their party.

One thing really stands out about the ranger; pets are about the most useless and worst designed “mechanic” ever.

Otherwise rangers aren’t that bad. The pet choosing to stand/run through every AOE field anywhere this half of Tyria, not hitting/activating/using skills reliably etc. just really impede the class. There are also a lot of traits just in very awkward spots, some just straight up don’t make sense where they were placed (and I think Anet just threw them there just because they didn’t have enough traits for those trait lines…).

If you want to use the longbow; be prepared to be very squishy and hide behind a zerg most of the time (it’s pretty difficult for most players to maintain a distance that actually allows the longbow to deal damage; even with the buff they gave it last patch it’s still lacking). Still prefer it over the warrior longbow though because it actually feels like more like a bow and not a freaking grenade launcher…

Play a ranger for 6-8 months and switch to playing a warrior and you just feel so much freer to do pretty much anything… While I personally still prefer the feel of the ranger skills over the warrior, it’s difficult to say not say that a warrior just feels so much better off (traits make sense, you can spec into almost any line you want and not feel like you are lacking, mechanic actually works, etc.).

I’d say go ahead and try playing a ranger for a bit; a lot of people like them, they just end up needing a lot more work for less.

Krisszboss.6084:

I’ve heard that the ranger is a very bad class to play….I just want to see if its true! I want to use my ranger in WvW solo/small group roaming.

oh man… i’m bored as a main ranger user to see those posts… cmon let’s stop this! do you heard that ranger is a stupid class? Then DONT PLAY RANGER. When you start to think with your mind you will find that ranger works fine and it is really strong also with the underpowered power build… you can find that warriors sucks and guardian are useless but only if you really want this… if you don’t let’s think as the mass: warrior “OP”, guardian “the most usefull” thief “one shot” and go play with barbie if you don’t like those classes.

From what i can say: ranger is absolutely the best class (togheter with guardian, but i play offensive/support guardian not the tanky one…). If you want to see what can a ranger do give a look to my power build guide:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/A-Ranger-Guide-Power-Build/first

cya

Like what’s being said here, ranger takes a lot of work and effort to be decent at.
Most of my time is spent roaming but on occassions I go full zerk with both invul utilities,
it’s tough but I think it’s alot more satisfying than my mesmer and thief.
When Im on my mesmer, I feel really bad when I fight a ranger because I know how difficult it is to play. I come across a decent ranger and despite his skill I can just go easy mode on my mesmer and still win, which isn’t the way I wanna play.
So if you want it easy look to another class, otherwise, try the ranger.

Ranger isn’t a bad class. But it is the one that will punish you if you make bad choices. While other classes give a cushion for these missteps, ranger won’t.

You have to play well: well-skilled, well-geared, and well-traited.

And even then, you need to bring your A-game when you face players who know what they’re doing. But, yes, there’s nothing more satisfying that having someone jump you, because they see you as an ‘easy target’, only to watch them run away or die . . . from the so-called ‘weak’ ranger.

Very satisfying indeed.

awge.3852:

Rangers are not a bad class, there are tons of ranger hate out there that you will hear, but this spawned by all the new rangers that people constantly create.

Yeah…it’s not like Jon peters himself admitted all the flaws in rangers traits and pets completly broken…it’s all about the “new rangers” hate sigh

awge.3852:

A new ranger will most always choose a super DPS build, based on their PvE experience which is always positive for most if not all rangers. Then comes the end game content, level 80 experiences in dungeons, pvp and wvw will quickly slap a ranger in the face: you are too squishy!

I have like 6 or 7 sets of armors/weapons in my bank/bags for my ranger, with nearly all possible stats. offcourse you won’t play a ranger in WvWvW the same way as in PVE and you need to be more resistant.

Problem is : to be resistant you have to pull off in deep trees with nature magic and survivability, focus on vitality/toughness and so you go with a kittenty dps but yeah, you can resist..whohoo…

With my necromancer i hit 27k hp, 1800 toughness and i AOE for 2k more on 5 peeps with regen and heal on each hits….

With my warrior i got 25K hp 3k+ armor and a kitten dps with hammer/sword

With my guardian i got 20K hp 3500 armor regen + buffs and i hit for a good dps specially on greasword in AOE too

With my mesmer i have like 24k hp 1800 toughness and i hit for 4k on greatsword phantasm…

So yeah….you can survive as a ranger an being completly useless in DPS while other class can survive too and blast you away…

awge.3852:

While most people want to pew pew pew super criticals arrow shower everywhere from far away, they never adapt. Rangers are most definitely more than a pew pew profession. You need to realize this quick, learn to fight as a melee player as well, learn all about how to kill just by traiting to use condition damage, learn how to kill by traiting only to survive and let your pet do the big damage.

So you tell people to learn to use their pet? the things Jon peters say it’s completly broken right?? lot of fun to read that when you say the complaints come from newbies rangers….

awge.3852:

All in all, ranger is and has been by far the most difficult profession to master.

It’s the most difficult to master because, compared to other class, you need to build in ONE way (regen/bunker/condi build) to be able to do something in WvWvW and you’re nearly useless to a group because other class who have better dps/resistance can do that too…

awge.3852:

This is why there are not many good rangers out there. If you don’t like the play style you will move onto another profession. Some people will hate the ranger on their way out of the ranger, which is a mistake. If you like the play style and work your way to perfecting it, you will be very loved everywhere you go. It is true, even in the highly competitive world of wvw, guilds don’t like rangers because there aren’t many good enough to provide what guilds need out there.

Again this part is fun as hell…there is no good rangers out there because the class is utterly broken, pet IA is a mess and rangers doesn’t provide anything to a group (except maybe waterfield) than another class can do with better dps/survivability.

awge.3852:

But don’t let that discourage you, here in the forums you will find the help you need if you ask, there are strong rangers who will help you in need. At the beginning of it all we all helped each other become strong rangers; nowadays all this information is available to you.

Yeah any regen/bunker/condi build will make him a good solo/roaming ranger in WvWvW, except that he won’t do anything interesting and still be limited to one role in this style of play.

Rangers complaining do it because of this limited role and a class specificity completly broken (pet)

What about deathshroud for necros completly broken? or rage for warriors? or buffs for guardians? or affinities for elems? or phantasms for mesmers?

I remember the time where phantasm for mesmer was broken as hell (we can heavily focus the mesmer and don’t be stressed by phantasm) it was corrected fast and nicely…

Rangers mechanism are still broken for 1 year….

When you throw the ranger into WvW that is where the profession shows its flaws, however you can overcome many of the shortfalls of the ranger by getting the right gear and focusing on the tasks for which the ranger can shine. I personally carry only two successful ranger builds with me: solo & group play, 2 equipment sets for each occasion and that’s it. But why do I need to run around like this? Simply because the mechanics of group play for rangers are sadly vastly different than the mechanics of solo play. This is inherent to how the ranger is currently, the issues and the lack of synergy between builds; plus some of the things other professions allow you to do in a fun way are utterly vanilla and uninteresting to try as a ranger, which streamlines the ranger even further.

However, you can certainly overcome the meta of ‘ranger sucks’ if you enjoy the profession, by traiting the right way for the situation you are going into, and by working on your combat and survival skills in solo/group/zerg play. You shouldn’t go around comparing yourself with other professions unless all you care about are numbers.

An example of what a ranger can do in WvW is: run in the middle of a group of enemies, pop signet of stone, whirling defense on them, wolf howl for fear, healing spring then lightning reflexes out and kite the mob, which is a very good way to open the door to a zerg vs zerg fight. You can compare this to a warrior using endure pain and using whirling strike, then using fear me and shake it off if he gets into condition damage problems. Anyone would tell you: so roll a warrior problem solved. What if you don’t want to play as a warrior, what if you like the combat mechanics of the ranger? After the above rotation, a ranger would get away back into the flanks with the friendly group and begin delivering pain using long bow for example, a warrior could do that too, but a warrior is much better off running a signet and banner support build when fighting in WvW zergs. A ranger cannot even be expected to provide that level of support, but rangers can be expected to do ranged damage, pressure, etc. This is just a very small example, but it illustrates a point: you want to be a ranger? Then apply yourself the right way, trait heavily into wilderness survival and then make a build from there on, pure DPS or pure conditions or whatever you want.

The thing that kitten es me off personally in large scale group play is that pets are very very lackluster. You can use them for support tactics that’s for sure, but I would say half the time at best. If you don’t learn quickly how to deal with your pet you will find yourself with pet issues constantly; it does take time and patience to use them right and contrary to popular belief, it’s better to have them around than not at all.

The ranger is on its own when it comes to combat mechanisc, just as all other professions are; but how efficient the ranger will be in combat depends entirely on you. Coping with the issues that the profession has sucks, but that’s the way to go if you really want to make it in WvW rather than break it, and once you do you will find yourself enjoying your ranger in WvW the right way.

So are the rangers really that bad? No, as long as you play them the right way, in PvE, PvP and WvW, but you cannot deny that they aren’t easy to play at high tier areas of the game.

Rangers are great! People don’t like them because they lack group utiliti.es in Zerg fights. Most Rangers will go heavy zerker for dps and become a rally bot. People feel Rangers are a selfish class because you can spec how you like not having to worry how you help a zerg out or not.

That being said, you can do some pretty good DPS and burn people down. You’re hella hard to catch. I personally think you can sway how a zerg fights is going to go. You have CC’s, Bleeds, Immobilize add in AOE fire blasts on Crits. You can burn down downies really fast. As for pets many seem to think it’s part of your dps. Sure it may help a bit in PvE and a bit solo in roaming but in WvW think of them more for group buffs like might or condition removal like shake it off (yes a bear!) Plus with a pet with high toughness and HP hit protect me and for 6 seconds your pet takes the DPS and with troll regenerating you and your pet this is really handy and keeps you alive. It’s fantastic for roaming.

Anywho it’s all in how you play and use what you have. Rangers aren’t bad, just a lot of baddies play Ranger

Gotchaz.7865:

You’re hella hard to catch

Really? One word : root…

Well you still can hope you passive conditional removal will work (if your pet is alive) or fire you 60 sec non traited signet to cure it (if your pet is alive) or burn your heal just to cure a root or have your brown bear to cure it (if F2 will fire)

But yeah, Ranger shine in solo/roaming and as developpers said in 2v2 arenas and PVE…whohooo

Sorry for the buddies who liked to play ranger as stated in the guildwars 2 website master of longbow, traps you just can’t decently compared to others class, please stick to spirits since developpers continue to think it’s the best build for the ranger (aka Water spirit)

awge.3852:

An example of what a ranger can do in WvW is: run in the middle of a group of enemies, pop signet of stone, whirling defense on them, wolf howl for fear, healing spring then lightning reflexes out and kite the mob, which is a very good way to open the door to a zerg vs zerg fight. You can compare this to a warrior using endure pain and using whirling strike, then using fear me and shake it off if he gets into condition damage problems.

I loled…seriously? One fear/stun/daze and you nice theory goes blow up….and a ranger who go in melee like this even with signet of stone, get nearly insta killed by conditions…yeah ranger don’t have conditions removal since the pets while you rush in the middle of the zerg is allready dead….

And if you go to melee with hight toughness and vitality to trying to survive the people gonna laugh at your whirling defense…

As you said, the warrior can count on shake it off, the ranger no way can count on anything than a dead pet….

Oh and the warrior can move while whirling defense is static….nice to be focused by necros wells, nullfield, and such good things…

Gorwald.6170:

Sorry for the buddies who liked to play ranger as stated in the guildwars 2 website master of longbow, traps you just can’t decently compared to others class, please stick to spirits since developpers continue to think it’s the best build for the ranger (aka Water spirit)

Water spirit is a shyt heal………. HS (heal+regen+water field+condi cleanse)is one of the better heals of GW2, and with a decent group you can heal 75%+ of your party hp.

Gorwald.6170:

I loled…seriously? One fear/stun/daze and you nice theory goes blow up….and a ranger who go in melee like this even with signet of stone, get nearly insta killed by conditions…yeah ranger don’t have conditions removal since the pets while you rush in the middle of the zerg is allready dead….

And if you go to melee with hight toughness and vitality to trying to survive the people gonna laugh at your whirling defense…

As you said, the warrior can count on shake it off, the ranger no way can count on anything than a dead pet….

Oh and the warrior can move while whirling defense is static….nice to be focused by necros wells, nullfield, and such good things…

this is not true..just get the right group with 1 war and 1 guard and the ranger can stay rly good in melee zerg..they way what i descripe is not rly good but it its possibel

@Gorwald, you do realize trapper builds are one of our best builds atm right? It’s an insanely strong home point defender, and can bring quite a bit to a team fight in terms of AoE pressure and area denial as well.

As someone else said all you need to make ranger strong in wading through zergs is to pair them with a guardian and/or warrior who can give them some stability or be a signet ranger and also use enlargement.

Durzlla.6295:

@Gorwald, you do realize trapper builds are one of our best builds atm right? It’s an insanely strong home point defender, and can bring quite a bit to a team fight in terms of AoE pressure and area denial as well.

As someone else said all you need to make ranger strong in wading through zergs is to pair them with a guardian and/or warrior who can give them some stability or be a signet ranger and also use enlargement.

The only way to be strong is to stick with a warrior/guardian? Thanks for the pro advice i guess.

The fact that you need to be paired up is quite sad its not a strong point like you seem to be making out of it.

I have 2 character of every class except for ranger. (which I have 1) That’s about all you need to know.

GrimHero.5140:

Durzlla.6295:

@Gorwald, you do realize trapper builds are one of our best builds atm right? It’s an insanely strong home point defender, and can bring quite a bit to a team fight in terms of AoE pressure and area denial as well.

As someone else said all you need to make ranger strong in wading through zergs is to pair them with a guardian and/or warrior who can give them some stability or be a signet ranger and also use enlargement.

The only way to be strong is to stick with a warrior/guardian? Thanks for the pro advice i guess.

The fact that you need to be paired up is quite sad its not a strong point like you seem to be making out of it.

You do realize I’m only talking about wading into the heart of the Zerg right? And I also said if you were utilizing the proper build you’d be able to do it yourself, reading comprehension is hard.

Durzlla.6295:

@Gorwald, you do realize trapper builds are one of our best builds atm right? It’s an insanely strong home point defender, and can bring quite a bit to a team fight in terms of AoE pressure and area denial as well.

As someone else said all you need to make ranger strong in wading through zergs is to pair them with a guardian and/or warrior who can give them some stability or be a signet ranger and also use enlargement.

My Necro Wells build > largely any traper build of rangers.

Did traps give protection to people inside? Wells do
Did traps heal the ranger on each tick? Wells do
Did traps can crit? Wells do
Did traps can remove conditions of friends teammates? Wells do
Did traps can remove buffs of ennemies? Wells do
Did traps can blind? Wells do
Did traps can be effective while spreading points in trees? No traps need 30 points in preci/%crit damage to be effective (lol), wells are effective and you can spread points in differents lines to have passive bonus to them

Sorry to dissapoint you…but wells > traps

And saying that to be effective you have to pair with a warrior or a guardian…lol

Warrior btw give stability with elite banner, i really doubt any warrior whould break an instant rez just to give stability to a ranger….or it’s a really dumb warrior

And to have stability as a ranger you choice Rampage as one or a signet who need 30 point in a trait line to affect you…lol

Just for your information, Ranger Traps CD are much shorter than Necro Wells, Flame trap is 15sec CD, 12sec traited…

Crossaber.8934:

Just for your information, Ranger Traps CD are much shorter than Necro Wells, Flame trap is 15sec CD, 12sec traited…

And? it makes traps more useful than wells? i don’t think so, because if it was, you would see more groups in WvWvW wanting Ranger with them.

And actually it’s by far not the case, at least on high ranked WvWvW servers who play in organised zergs/groups

dont give a kitten about zerg..if you need to hide in 20-50 people hf

FYI Gorwalk trap can crit.

So what’s the general consensus here? Rangers aren’t useless just not useful?

ranger is usefull if you use him the right way not like 95% from the ranger players

I think the problem isn’t that rangers are bad, the problem is compared to other classes, a “bad” ranger is REALLY bad, other classes are more forgiving and even a bad build/player can do something a bit useful.

Atherakhia.4086:

So what’s the general consensus here? Rangers aren’t useless just not useful?

I’ve got 3 maxed out rangers and I can tell you this: when you have a choice of your dream team, either for high level fractals, dungeons, wvw roaming, spvp, ranger will always be behind the other classes. Not because it is “bad”, but because there are other classes that are “more useful” in a team.

Best regards

Corpus Christi.2057:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what’s the general consensus here? Rangers aren’t useless just not useful?

I’ve got 3 maxed out rangers and I can tell you this: when you have a choice of your dream team, either for high level fractals, dungeons, wvw roaming, spvp, ranger will always be behind the other classes. Not because it is “bad”, but because there are other classes that are “more useful” in a team.

Best regards

this is not true, for a normal pve max dmg group you need a ranger, in tpvp ranger are very strong too and dont say that ranger are bad or weak in roaming ><

Gorwald.6170:

Gotchaz.7865:

You’re hella hard to catch

Really? One word : root…

Well you still can hope you passive conditional removal will work (if your pet is alive) or fire you 60 sec non traited signet to cure it (if your pet is alive) or burn your heal just to cure a root or have your brown bear to cure it (if F2 will fire)

But yeah, Ranger shine in solo/roaming and as developpers said in 2v2 arenas and PVE…whohooo

Sorry for the buddies who liked to play ranger as stated in the guildwars 2 website master of longbow, traps you just can’t decently compared to others class, please stick to spirits since developpers continue to think it’s the best build for the ranger (aka Water spirit)

awge.3852:

An example of what a ranger can do in WvW is: run in the middle of a group of enemies, pop signet of stone, whirling defense on them, wolf howl for fear, healing spring then lightning reflexes out and kite the mob, which is a very good way to open the door to a zerg vs zerg fight. You can compare this to a warrior using endure pain and using whirling strike, then using fear me and shake it off if he gets into condition damage problems.

I loled…seriously? One fear/stun/daze and you nice theory goes blow up….and a ranger who go in melee like this even with signet of stone, get nearly insta killed by conditions…yeah ranger don’t have conditions removal since the pets while you rush in the middle of the zerg is allready dead….

And if you go to melee with hight toughness and vitality to trying to survive the people gonna laugh at your whirling defense…

As you said, the warrior can count on shake it off, the ranger no way can count on anything than a dead pet….

Oh and the warrior can move while whirling defense is static….nice to be focused by necros wells, nullfield, and such good things…

Dude you clearly are in that % of rangers who just don’t know how to play it right. I am not even trying to argue one point vs yours I am providing real tested true feedback for rangers to understand that yes you can do things that are totally useful. I even go as far as saying that rangers lack in areas where other professions are simply good at. So what’s your beef? Get the point: rangers can do useful things in group fights and in wvw. To be honest with you I was skeptical of this myself for easily 6 months or more, I stuck to roaming because I knew I couldn’t provide all the support the Zerg needed, but in roaming I shined helping in any way that I could.

With the latest changes to the ranger profession (not that they were very great either, but you take what you get), I was able to experiment with group oriented builds and I found out that yes it works. By the way, to go to your point, you may definitely get targeted by wells and conditions if you position yourself poorly when you jump into an enemy zerg and do your thing.

On top of that, whirling defense reflects all incoming projectiles, which is a lot of what a zerg throws at your friendlies and its actually useful if you do it right. Not to mention that you can escape from the conditions you get blown with by teaming up in a group and tell them that you will need condi removal (aside from your own healing spring) when you rush back out of the fray. Not to mention that getting killed is always possible, but with practice and timing you can pull it off right. How do you think that a warrior jumps into the fray? How do you think they survive? 20 minute long immunity to damage? Grouping with 4 guardians? Maybe, wake up man and try this build (http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84933-sentinel-frontliner-next-level-wvw-ranger-guide/) and see for yourself. Then come back and tell me how your face looks when you realize that YES rangers are able to make a difference in group play WvW but if done the right way; because we all know how many wrong ways there are to go about playing ranger in WvW.

Bambula.3649:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what’s the general consensus here? Rangers aren’t useless just not useful?

I’ve got 3 maxed out rangers and I can tell you this: when you have a choice of your dream team, either for high level fractals, dungeons, wvw roaming, spvp, ranger will always be behind the other classes. Not because it is “bad”, but because there are other classes that are “more useful” in a team.

Best regards

this is not true, for a normal pve max dmg group you need a ranger, in tpvp ranger are very strong too and dont say that ranger are bad or weak in roaming ><

I support this, however it all depends on the ranger. I always find myself being the last man standing, not entirely depending on my build. The way I use the ranger mechanics allow me to be a kittenet to my group, which is what every ranger should bring to their party. I have also tagged with rangers who simply didn’t do enough to be up to par with the rest of the group, so you need to know who your ranger is, especially if you plan on having a ‘dream team’ type of party.

Gorwald.6170:

Durzlla.6295:

@Gorwald, you do realize trapper builds are one of our best builds atm right? It’s an insanely strong home point defender, and can bring quite a bit to a team fight in terms of AoE pressure and area denial as well.

As someone else said all you need to make ranger strong in wading through zergs is to pair them with a guardian and/or warrior who can give them some stability or be a signet ranger and also use enlargement.

My Necro Wells build > largely any traper build of rangers.

Did traps give protection to people inside? Wells do
Did traps heal the ranger on each tick? Wells do
Did traps can crit? Wells do
Did traps can remove conditions of friends teammates? Wells do
Did traps can remove buffs of ennemies? Wells do
Did traps can blind? Wells do
Did traps can be effective while spreading points in trees? No traps need 30 points in preci/%crit damage to be effective (lol), wells are effective and you can spread points in differents lines to have passive bonus to them

Sorry to dissapoint you…but wells > traps

And saying that to be effective you have to pair with a warrior or a guardian…lol

Warrior btw give stability with elite banner, i really doubt any warrior whould break an instant rez just to give stability to a ranger….or it’s a really dumb warrior

And to have stability as a ranger you choice Rampage as one or a signet who need 30 point in a trait line to affect you…lol

So what you’re saying, is because you can provide better support with wells and they have better effects (they kittening better when they’ve got double the CD) that well necro is better at home point defense than a trap ranger? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

You know how you counter a well necro? You get out of their wells, wait 12s then you go back and kick their teeth in because they can’t do jack kittening kitten now because all their kitten is on CD, for a trap ranger if you try that he’s gonna just throw his traps back onto you and knock you down in them so you get nice and dotted up.

PS: incase you didn’t realize trap builds are hybrid damage, that’s why they’re so effective at killing people.

awge.3852:

Bambula.3649:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what’s the general consensus here? Rangers aren’t useless just not useful?

I’ve got 3 maxed out rangers and I can tell you this: when you have a choice of your dream team, either for high level fractals, dungeons, wvw roaming, spvp, ranger will always be behind the other classes. Not because it is “bad”, but because there are other classes that are “more useful” in a team.

Best regards

this is not true, for a normal pve max dmg group you need a ranger, in tpvp ranger are very strong too and dont say that ranger are bad or weak in roaming ><

I support this, however it all depends on the ranger. I always find myself being the last man standing, not entirely depending on my build. The way I use the ranger mechanics allow me to be a kittenet to my group, which is what every ranger should bring to their party. I have also tagged with rangers who simply didn’t do enough to be up to par with the rest of the group, so you need to know who your ranger is, especially if you plan on having a ‘dream team’ type of party.

It’s very rare for me to NOT be the last man standing on my ranger and my ele in PvE, so many fights I’ve had to finish by myself because everyone else died xD. Even when I run zerker on ranger (granted it’s rare) it takes a while for me to finally go down, they’re just really really good at survival.