Guild Wars 2

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Effective_ranger_guide
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A Ranger’s Place

“Sometimes armed with a bow, sometimes with a hammer, sometimes with a staff, another weapon or even their pet, Rangers have a number of useful roles, including setting traps to defend a location, using their multitude of interrupts to keep a caster under pressure, or simply piling on the damage with their high powered bow combined with preparations and Nature Rituals.

Having extraordinary elemental protection in their armor and equipped with a number of stances, many choose to join the melee either with a weapon or with touch-based skills. Ranger animal companions are often brought as another body for blocking. Some rangers forsake damage with a bow and preparations to focus on their pet entirely with pet attacks and calls. These ‘proper beastmasters’ are rare however".

Being a Ranger

“Due to their distance attacks, fairly good armor, and variety of defensive stances, rangers have a relatively high survivability in battle. Meanwhile, they can be focused to shut down a target or to spread their damage out.

A focused build either has high-powered attacks coupled with preparations and enchantments to further increase the damage or interrupts to keep their target helpless. As arrows can be dodged, snares are extremely useful to keep arrows from straying as are skills that decrease arrow flight time.

Snares can be used defensively as well to kite an opponent. This works especially well against warriors who may chase uselessly after you while you pelt them with arrows if they have no way of removing the snare. High-powered rangers often will team up with each other and focus attacks in order to create a damage spike.

On the other hand, a ranger may choose to spread the damage. Barrage or Incendiary Arrows are powerful tools at accomplishing this, and they may be very useful against clumps of mobs in PvE as well as taking out clumps of minions or ritualist’s Binding Rituals. In the Jade Quarry mission, a single Barrage ranger can often take out entire quarries and guard posts if positioned correctly.

Another way to spread the damage is by spamming conditions. Using preparations such as Apply Poison or Melandru’s Arrows or by using a fast recharging attack such as Poison Arrow or Crippling Shot, the ranger can cycle through targets, taking one shot at each before moving onto the next. However, if spamming conditions, beware of monks using skill such as Martyr that can quickly render the technique useless.

Occasionally, a ranger will focus on strengthening his or her pet. Pets can perform just about any task the ranger can do, but in melee form. However, the pet does follow an AI algorithm, and thus timing skills or coordinating targets can be more difficult than if done with the bow equivalent. Also, by placing points into Beast Mastery, the ranger often must sacrifice either its own offense (in the way of Marksmanship) or defense (Expertise stances or Wilderness Survival healing).

The advantages of bringing a pet is that they provide another attacking body for free, they can body block while allowing the ranger to stay at range, they are often ignored in PvP and thus can often catch a caster off guard, and they can be buffed to be extremely durable. At 16 Beast Mastery also, pet attacks can deal damage that can match, even exceed with some pet attacks, the damage of a warrior.

In many zones, trappers are in demand. Traps are unique to the ranger and mostly occupy the Wilderness Survival attribute. Each trap causes some condition and usually some damage to any hapless foe that walks over them. Traps can be stacked, allowing their usually small damage to be compounded and multiple conditions to be inflicted simultaneously.

A well organized group of trappers can even take on many of the most difficult zones in the game simply by setting traps then pulling enemies over them. In PvP, traps are often used to create defensive zones. Since rangers are often on the lower end of a player’s priority, the easily interruptable nature of traps is less of an issue.

Expertise is extremely useful for heavy trap use as are skills to decrease recharge time (such as Serpent’s Quickness) or prevent interruption (such as Mantra of Resolve). See the General trapping guide for more details on being a trapper. Traps may be useful to rangers who aren’t specializing in the category for their conditions, but they shouldn’t be relied on for heavy damage if not stacked with other traps.

Nature Rituals must be used with care. All are global in the sense they affect both friend and foe. Thus, one should only bring and use them when they are certain their team will have the greater advantage of the effects. They are most effective when they augment the strategy your team is using or cover a weakness your team may have. For example, Favorable Winds is great on a team with numerous bow rangers, whereas Fertile Season may act as spike defense for a pressure focused team.

Rituals such as Frozen Soil must be used with great care, as they will often end a PvP match quickly, but not always in favor of the team who placed them. In PvE, know what foes you will be facing, as they often focus on one or two strategies that may occasionally benefit from your spirits. For instance, if you know that the monsters that you are up against are resistant to fire damage, packing a nature ritual such as Winter for your group’s elementalists could tilt the battle in your favor."

A detail that I remembered from the good old days is that rangers had the highest natural elemental defense, stat that doesn’t exist anymore but at least it was something rangers had that no one else had.
Besides traps, rangers had great interrupt skills, and a skilled ranger could shut down the whole enemy team.
I still love my ranger, but GW1 rangers was great.

why do you just copy old Anet statements and mix up 5 – 10 sentences/words of your own???

I dont see the point with this thread, other then “Q_Q this isnt what was promised a year ago”

Rangers in GW1 suffered from rolling nerfs and a gradual reduction in power and performance, so much so, that they eventually had no place in the PVE landscape, and very little place in PVP. Unless the group was doing something ultra-specialized, no one ever said “Wait! Hold up… we can’t leave til we get a Ranger.” Some other class always found a way to do it better.

Rangers in GW2 look to be suffering from the same phenomenon since launch, with minimal improvements over 1 year. I am really disappointed to see that the Ranger’s non-specialization was directly transplanted to GW2.

You’ll see – later this month when the LFG tool rolls out, no group will be sitting around with one slot open, looking for a Ranger.

Whoa! A good post by Burnfall!

All joking aside, yes, I loved the ranger in GW1 and what we have in GW2 today is but a pale shadow of a wonderful class. Traps are worse. Spirits are worse. Pets are worse. Our ranged damage is kitten by design due to it being ‘safer’, despite it not really being any safer due to the prevalence of gap-closers. Our overall damage is kitten by design due to having a pet.

We’re a jack-of-all-trades. Unlike in GW1, though, we’re a master of none. I still main a ranger, though. And I won’t stop maining my ranger until I leave the game, which I don’t intend to anytime soon.

Prysin.8542:

I dont see the point with this thread, other then “Q_Q this isnt what was promised a year ago”

It is pointing out the shortcomings of the class when it is obvious that they know how to make an effective ranger.

ClaraFee.2579:

Rangers in GW1 suffered from rolling nerfs and a gradual reduction in power and performance, so much so, that they eventually had no place in the PVE landscape, and very little place in PVP. Unless the group was doing something ultra-specialized, no one ever said “Wait! Hold up… we can’t leave til we get a Ranger.” Some other class always found a way to do it better.

Yes, there were rolling nerfs. But those didn’t hit the ranger harder than any other class. And again, like in GW2, those nerfs were due to PvP balance. Then they split the skills and rangers were happy.

Rangers had a strong place in the PvE landscape. They were the original Drok’s runner, and can still run it, though not as easily as dervishes or assassins. They are one of the strongest spirit spammer builds. Good group spike damage with splinter/barrage builds. Great single-target pressure with burning arrow builds. Beastmaster builds are strong as well, being nearly impossible to kill coupled with a pet that is tankier than a W/Mo. And touch ranger remained viable as a build in PvE.

Oh, don’t forget that we’re one of the best solo farming classes.

No, we weren’t outclassed in GW1. No, we weren’t asked/waited for, but who aside from monks/rits or specialty builds were?

You know how you can tell ANet couldn’t care less about this class? Look at the ascended shortbow and longbow. You don’t even hold them properly.

The Ranger class is a very good class we have issue but the fact remains it’s great. The class could have gone the way of the Rainbow phoenix or the Monk (In trust the monk has evolved into the Guardian).

The Ranger suffer from being to dang good. The pet ai sucks but if it were any better it would be OP. The smallest bump in anything in the rangers class make them OP. Rangers are gods underwater. Spirits are too good so they must die.

So you say we have the worst class mechanism I think ELEs do. Element attunement and conjured weapons.

Some of you created a ranger thinking; If I can kill someone before they even get in melee ranger it would be so cool. Then you play the game and realize that range damage is not on par with melee.

The other classes rely heavily on their class mechanism. Without their mechanic they are boring and mostly ineffective.

A thief who can’t or doesn’t stealth is most likely toast. Eles who don’t attune are garbage. Mesmer without clones die so fast. No portal and I think they would die out in WvW.

With as bad as the ranger class is: it’s the second most created class. What does that mean. It mean as soon Rangers have a build that is remotely Op everybody and their brother dust their ranger off and it seems like rangers are everywhere.

Do we have problems yes but what you guys fail to see is why.

IMO Rangers are the most enjoyable class to play. A lot of people come back to this class for that reason. Other play certain classed because they want to faceroll. Others like to be needed.

We are on the verge of the Rise of the Ranger. We have fought with handicaps and have adapted. We are arguably one of the best 1v1 classes even with our handicaps.

The Ranger Core like the USMC does more with less. The Ranger Core member kitten even now. That is why it is so hard to balance the Ranger. Because without all the handicaps the Rangers have; we would be the dominate class.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The other classes rely heavily on their class mechanism. Without their mechanic they are boring and mostly ineffective.

I would argue that the same is true, if not MORE true, for Rangers. I can’t point to the math but I can say from experience that a Ranger with no pet is significantly less effective across the board.

But back to the purpose of this post, about “A Ranger’s Place,” what does the GW2 Ranger bring to the table that other professions don’t? The GW1 Ranger could spread conditions, interrupt, tank elemental damage, and use Expertise to reduce energy costs of many skills. So what does the GW2 Ranger do that makes it desirable and irreplaceable? Don’t say “Pets!!1” – no group is going to pass on a Guardian in favor of a Ranger’s pet.

Yah who would take a part of a class over the whole class. Honestly I’m tired of Guardians. The heavy reliance on this class is really bad. everyone is running around with glass cannon builds and complain when the content is a little bit hard for that build.

I don’t need a Guardians regen or retaliation. I’m tired of them pushing stuff while im barraging or using whirling defense. I would most likely never take a Guardian over a ranger. Every class can block or has immunity we all can heal. Ok so he does it for the group that’s “special”. I can tie my own shoe’s I don’t need someone to do it for me.

In most cases 3 of any class is to much, with the exception of rangers. (not including wvw). What can we do we can adapt and fill in.

Am i the only one more upset at the lack of a Staff or Hammer and our utilities being bull kitten until 30pts are dumped into them than anything else about the prof?

We can always wish things were better. Staff I could maybe see on a ranger as in the whole druid aspect/warden of the forest.

Hammer doesn’t really fit the class. In GW1 we had dual professions so that where the whole thumper ranger came from. As a class that suppose to Roam a hammer is kind of heavy. (I miss games that made weapon weight affect movement speed).

Grand Master traits should be rewarding. If traits where everything we what at master level then what would the new grand master traits be.

Gw = Ranger
Gw2 = Person with cheap knockoff tricks.

Dont remember who said it, but rangers have “forgotten” Everything they knew since gw1.

Ane’t should have kept the Warden title, there is no ranger here.

It sounds as if theres only 1 thing to do…make ranger class op and nerf the others to the ground