Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying that I truly love the themes of the Ranger class in general. Played a Hunter & Druid in WoW, a Ranger in Aion, a Ranger/Marksman/Bard in Rift, and so on… including a Ranger in the original Guild Wars.

So of course I rolled a Ranger in Guild Wars 2, but to be honest the GW2 Ranger was a huge disappointment. I ended up deleting it a few months after launch and mostly lost interest in the game at that time.

Now the Living Story has brought me back (currently playing a Necromancer main). I understand the Ranger is about to get some love, but it seems like most of the old annoyances & clunky mechanics are still there.

For example, am I right in thinking that:

- Pets still can’t stay on a moving target effectively? (compare to WoW, where a typical pet will “charge” in, move with +30% speed, and attack without rooted animation delays, all without spending the Hunter’s talent points)

- Pets still don’t dodge or resist AoE, and must be kept out of the action or risk dying immediately in a boss fight or WvW zerg? (again compare to WoW, where pets have 90% passive AoE damage reduction for this reason)

- Pet F2 command is still slow to respond?

- Pet command “stay here” is still considered an advanced thing requiring a slot skill?

- Shortbow is still an auto-attack-focused (read: extremely boring) weapon?

- Sword auto-attack still roots the Ranger in place?

I should be an easy sell on the Ranger profession — I mean, there is literally a small hound sleeping on my foot right now, a forest outside my window, and a longbow on the wall behind me — but many of the core mechanics just felt so janky at launch. Has that changed?

Cheers,
Wyrm

true true. i think the developer give up on ranger. they did not do anything even in feature pact. they only add read the wind. and other useless traits.

the dev even says that the ranger pet is a failure. because it follows the NPC AI. which is stupid.

The F2 response is much faster now, the pet will (mostly) stop what ever action they are doing and execute your F1, F2, F3 order. Pet HP was buffed couple months ago, +80% hp while in pve mode. Shout “Guard” traited with “Natural voice” provide perma regen and swiftness to a ranger.

I may not main a ranger, but the longer i played with her, the more i like her, so saying.

Everything you’ve listed is still there, honestly. Except of F2 maybe, they tend to activate a little better, but duh.

Check for updates in another 2 years, I guess.