Guild Wars 2

Here and there I keep seeing people alluding to not wanting rangers in higher level fractals, such as in gw2lfg.com requests for (NO RANGERS). I would just like to simply know why this is, purely out of curiosity.

Some reasons that I have considered:
Bleed cap – I have seen other requests in gw2lfg not wanting extra bleeds since they already had a bleed heavy group. This is understandable, but then this probably isn’t the reason since rangers then wouldn’t be specifically targetted.

Jade Maw – I’m only on level 17 difficulty in the fractals since I’ve just been doing the dailies for rings, and pets can be a little annoying on the Jade Maw since things go a little slower when the maw targets the pet and there is no way to permanently store your pet (Comes straight out again if you take damage/get into combat).

Bad players – One reason I have heard is that the ranger class tends to attract players that aren’t that good. But surely such players would have a hard time getting to the higher level fractals anyway, right?

So please, if you know the answer then let me know. I’m not kittening about people that don’t want rangers – I am simply curious as to what the reason is

There are a few fractals where rangers are worse than anything else. Not very strong AOE combined with dying easily, this is mainly a problem in the grawl and cliffside fractals, in cliffside there is not enough space for a ranger to be effective and on the grawl map on the legendary shaman rangers are pretty weak, I know I saw the video where ppl are doing lvl56 with 2 rangers, but that’s only possible because of their 2 guardians, root is while useful doesn’t make up for the fact that rangers have a really hard time surviving vs. the elemental adds and the dmg output to them is really low, almost regardless of the spec.

When you see “No rangers” that means (mostly) there is already 1-2 in the team that’s on lfg. (and believe me no sane ranger wants to play with a second or a third ranger)

Jade Maw is a non issue.

Bad players- this is true, despite what you think there are a large number of bad players doing 30-41 fractals and when a ranger is bad it really shows, also out of 3 rangers maybe 1 is good and even that good ranger is not better, than 1 average guardian. A large percentage of good ppl already realized that ranger is not getting any srs love from the devs and rerolled to guardians, warriors.

I play a ranger in fractal pugs, but I too semi re-rolled to a warrior now. Ranger is a lot of fun, when the pet doesn’t kittuen up anything and there is a good group composition. (large number of warguardians xD in pugs) My warrior is on lvl30 fractals now and I can tell you it’s a LOT easier and more relaxing to play it. Sure once you are past lvl40 and you are doing it with organized groups anything can and will work with enough care …

Thanks for clarifying.
I have no idea why I didn’t immediately assume the (No Rangers) meant there were already lots of rangers in the group.
For the legendary grawl (at least in my levels of fractals) I find my ranger to be quite useful, since I get rid of its bubble quite quickly with rapid fire + quickness, then I swap to double axes for reflect + damage on the elementals. But if there are still elementals up after that, I agree that I find it hard going to kill the stragglers, so I can understand why it may be more difficult at a higher level.

as it is now, rangers are a must 40+. they can outrange harpies, the shortbow and pet are one of the fastest bubble breakers on shaman, toughness builds are common and with healing spring they not only survive but give health to allies, (fire seal on cliffside), the pet res ability for 40+ or boss battles etc etc…

if ppl don’t want rangers for fractals, they never played one, or had bad experiences with noob rangers in the past and think its the class, which only makes them a noob also.

you should be glad they post that, its a red flag for a bad group.

azmodeus.3409:

as it is now, rangers are a must 40+. they can outrange harpies, the shortbow and pet are one of the fastest bubble breakers on shaman, toughness builds are common and with healing spring they not only survive but give health to allies, (fire seal on cliffside), the pet res ability for 40+ or boss battles etc etc…

if ppl don’t want rangers for fractals, they never played one, or had bad experiences with noob rangers in the past and think its the class, which only makes them a noob also.

you should be glad they post that, its a red flag for a bad group.

Rangers are useful on 40+, because when the pet rez is not bugged, you can avoid paying for revive orbs. They outrange harpies yes, but you don’t NEED them for that, bubble breaking is good, but teams rarely struggle with taking down the bubble. You are right about the toughness healing spring build, it does work, but it’s a LOT less fun to play than the normal crit dmg builds and without a tightly organized group it’s very unreliable and I personally think a healing spec ele is vastly superior for that slot, so usually it all comes down to avoiding the need to buy revive orbs :-), which is a good enough reason to take a ranger.

Rangers are very viable in fractals. I’m not sure why anyone would think they are bad survivors? Their vigor and evasion/dodging uptime, alone, makes them amazing survivors. Add on top of that, the pets ability to revive you (Lick Wounds) and revive others (“Search and Rescue”), the pets ability to tank for a short while (but enough to make a difference if you have to revive an ally), Healing Spring which is one of the best healing skills in the game (AoE; condition removal, healing, and regeneration, all in one skill), Spirit of Nature that can revive multiple allies (or just yourself if you time it right), and the 70 precision to allies trait (Spotter), which is also worth counting.

If you run “Search and Rescue” with Quickening Zephyr, you can also revive faster then any other profession. Just run up to a downed ally, use “Search and Rescue”, start reviving yourself, and then hit Quickening Zephyr. This combo will revive a defeated ally twice as fast as any other profession can, which makes a huge difference.

Rangers are also amazing against condition damage, as they have a ton of regeneration skills and traits. Just try and run with Signet of the Wild, Healing Spring, and Oakheart Salve (trait), next time you are playing against the grawl shaman in fractals. Even just these three skills together, makes a huge difference. And that’s not even counting Signet of Renewal, the traits Rejuvenation and Nature’s Bounty in the Nature Magic trait line, or pet skills like the Fern Hounds regeneration skill.

First, ranger players aren’t any worse than players of other professions, it just seems that way because bad players will stand out more with things like pet choices and weapon choice. While ranger can be built for condition damage, it has poor applications and durations resulting in weaker damage overall when compared to other professions.

Second, as ranger that does fractals, I say no rangers as well. Why? One ranger is enough. You never need two rangers when that slot could be a mesmer (which is practically required), guardian, necro, ele, etc. The only profession I dislike more in my dungeons are thieves because of their stubbornness of wanting to go only melee against the bosses resulting in constant downs and deaths (thankfully, most thieves bring a shortbow now). Do I think I am better than most other rangers? Most definitely. I am built to handle almost any situation I come across with pet choices that synergize with my build. Before you rage, how many times have you looked at a fellow ranger in a party and said, “Really, you bring a juvenile _ and are using a _ against this boss?!” What I am saying is, rangers are unreliable and being unreliable by nature raises question about how effective you may be. Why bother with a possibly useless teammate when you an grab other professions that do everything the ranger can do, but better.