Guild Wars 2

after 100 hours of near non-stop spvp and tpvp on my ranger, it is time to shelve him. currently, only the condition ranger is viable for tpvp. skillful power/precision, evasion, trap and/or melee play pale in comparison and are bottom of the barrel in tpvp.

i do not want to spec for conditions. being a condition machine is boring, and simply not my style. let me break it down:

- GS is completely broken, period. not enough damage, and the ranger simply does not have enough sustain for such close encounters.

- SB: reduced to a decent secondary weapon for axe/torch rangers to keep some bleeds up and for the interrupt. while it previously had some decent burst and condition application, it is currently extremely subpar for this purpose due to the recent nerf. in addition, this weapon is flawed by design. you simply cant flank good players, period.

- pets: too many threads on this, but in short – horrible pathfinding, cant keep up with target, overshoots target on approach, and despite decent utility, they simply get melted in the thick of battle. no amount of skill-based micro can help us…this is what grinds my gears.

- Nature Magic and BM trees: packed with unusable traits. spirits and pets (along with shouts) are not viable in tpvp mostly due to very poor uptime. these trees would be significantly better if spirits and pets had some survivability in organized pvp

- no reliable condition removal: empathic bond – not reliable; SoR – pet is too often dead; healing spring – unreliable; spirit elite – great, i can cleanse every 4 minutes.

as things stand, the ranger is a bland profession that brings nothing interesting to TPvP and WvW (which is a different discussion). things that made the ranger interesting (spirits, melee, evading, skirmishing, and pets) are completely broken or underpowered. we are left with a few gimmicky builds, and using our pets as lifeless voodoo dolls via signets.

obviously no amount of meta evolution will make these problems go away. I hope ANet is listening to the feedback, and some communication would be much appreciated by all rangers out there.

from a personal perspective, ive lost a lot of my drive to play the game because i grew so attached to my ranger since BWE1. this prof is it for me, despite its many flaws, and i dont feel like playing anything else. dont mean to whine too much here, but this is the time for me to take a break from the game. i can only hope you guys address this prof at some point in the near future.

this is terribly astute and accurate, i prefer the melee style of play on my ranger and have toughed it out. i can win in hot join mathces more often than i lose. and i hav ebeen pushing my guild to get into tourneys

i have never once seen someone LF a ranger for a tourney group

i have never once heard a person say you are OP.

i have seen people surprised that i do as well as i do with a melee ranger but in the end, it comes down to what is better for the team.

i could bring a “capt Hammer” spec warrrior and do so much more for my team and with how easy it is to play spend the effort i use with my ranger and invest it in something more worthwhile.

i wont change classes and im going to suffer through as a melee ranger because that is what i enjoy (melee ranger, not suffering)

i hope that melee ranger will one day be fixed and pets will be fixed and then all my effort will enable me to play far better, but how long it takes and what happens with the ranger class will have a huge impact on what i play and when i play it.

more clearly i hope things get fixed soon. and most definitely communication is key, i would love a “STATE OF THE RANGER” post or some such to see what direction the developers are going with this class where they think it should be and where they honestly think it is.

nerva.7940:

obviously no amount of meta evolution will make these problems go away. I hope ANet is listening to the feedback, and some communication would be much appreciated by all rangers out there.

com’on now, almost 700 replies and 70k views on the other thread with official reply from Jon and they don’t do jack___t about it. I won’t hold my breath.

well, i am sort of holding my breath hoping that JP is so swamped working on various fixes across the board that he hasnt had the time to respond. i am also hoping that he has moved ranger fixes higher on his priority list.

Bleh, I just play my Thief/Warrior with a Shortbow/Lonbow respectively and it sucks…I WANT MY RANGER! But at the same time I cannot stand wasting my time on such a sub-mediocre, broken, [insert any other negative connotation here], profession. It just is not fun in any way. Maybe if I knew they were fixing things or had plans to eventually rework some mechanics I’d stick with it if they just told me their plans, just for the sake of sticking with it. But frankly I’ll honestly be surprised if they even fix half of what is wrong with the Ranger. Played GW for too long and watched too many over-the-top Ranger nerfs to believe in their ability to manage whatever it is they seem to call “balance”. They’ve completely lost their original design philosophy already.
./No faith.

We need more joke threads, that’s the most fun thing about the Ranger atm; It’s really fun to make jokes about.

I completely agree with you. It’s funny, because ranger faced almost the same problems pre-nerf and they decided to nerf shortbow anyway.

Thank you for this! Instead of being completely negative this is a very constructive honest clear summary and feedback. I too love the ranger. PvE is super fun and effective and the ranger shines but in pvp it lacks so much. You really can’t do something other than condition builds.

Agreed with everything he says. I am a thief at heart, but love rangers in MMOs too, have always played and loved them, yet this ranger profession is just bland and boring. I hate condition builds.

Sco.9615:

Bleh, I just play my Thief/Warrior with a Shortbow/Lonbow respectively and it sucks…I WANT MY RANGER! But at the same time I cannot stand wasting my time on such a sub-mediocre, broken, [insert any other negative connotation here], profession. It just is not fun in any way. Maybe if I knew they were fixing things or had plans to eventually rework some mechanics I’d stick with it if they just told me their plans, just for the sake of sticking with it. But frankly I’ll honestly be surprised if they even fix half of what is wrong with the Ranger. Played GW for too long and watched too many over-the-top Ranger nerfs to believe in their ability to manage whatever it is they seem to call “balance”. They’ve completely lost their original design philosophy already.
./No faith.

We need more joke threads, that’s the most fun thing about the Ranger atm; It’s really fun to make jokes about.

Im with you, I dont want some beefy armored second rate archer or a nice looking archer who shoots slow moving bombs or little black sperms at his enemy, I want my ranger, I want his kittenery with a longbow, and my faithful non broken pet jaguar who stealth melts enemies like a boss. I want people to be like * SOMEONE GET THAT EFFING SNIPER * when I find great positioning and let lose, not * haha is that a longbow ranger shooting us? Can someone please swat the fly *

Admitedly in gw1 rangers were the least touched class, but in gw1 they also were pretty solid, and if someone wasnt good with them it was more or less their fault. Problem was people pigeon holed rangers into interupting when they could damage just as well as any class. Roles are reveresed in gw2 tho, ranger is the only class in this game aside from maybe necro that I cant go glass cannon with because instead of a cannon you get a water gun, ok thats probably a bit dramatic, maybe a glock, but still no cannon. I feel forced to play signets atm because thats the only decent * by ranger standards* raw damage setup there is, I want my traps, I want to place them like a pro and snipe people while they are rooted in my traps.

Ive made several threads hoping to catch attention, and who knows maybe they get some ideas, and hopefully in a timely fashion. I love gw2 and everything about it except this class atm, but with swtor going free to play I might get my sniper fix from that while I wait for anet to make longbow rangers good again.

LOLLOLOL at the water gun joke thats a good one. Completely agree that we should be snipers with bows and in melee it should be fun too because we are versatile and I see some good skills that fits the ranger concept in melee too. Our niche needs to be there. Right now though seems condition rangers can do well still. Seen someone 1 v 3 with a ranger

I agree with everything said, especially the GS horrible :/

I found what the OP is saying to be true after over a 100 games of sPvP and many hours in WvW. Currently, I decided (because I got really bored with condition damage) to rock a greatsword+axe/warhorn for pure glass cannon. While fun, it isn’t on par with anything other classes can do, but at least I can have some fun. If my spider can land the stuns it actually proves fairly effective in solo PvP, but usually it depends on how well geared my opposition is and how smart they are.

oh ^ i want to talk to u xD I’m running pure melee right now and it’s doing quite well. I love GS and sword/torch and it is making me more survivable than i am with bows… my QZ gs auto attack does 14k damage in 4-5 seconds, one second slower than 100b. I’m wondering how to use my melee stuff effectively enough for pvp situations. Like i’m thinking of daze, entangle, protect me and stone signet for 6 seconds, qz burst, and sword torch, conditions, pet swap for more quickness… don’t know how long i can last meleeing another class though

just went back to my mesmer and guardian, and i gotta say im loving the game again. i feel like all of my abilities are actually useful to myself and the team

BM traits are pretty crap, Esp the pet specific ones….

The Ones in Skirmishing Line are way better then most of the ones in BM.

Look at the pet specific ones.

Cat/Dev/Shark/lizard one – Bleed, that lasts like no time, and is a very minor damage increase.
Stability training – Useless
Bird one – Pretty Bad, esp if you use Masters Bond

The only good talents in the line

Masters Bond
Natural Healing
Mighty Swap
and Maybe Commanding Voice

The rest are ok at best, intimidation training is bout the only pet specific one that’s good.

After playing a ranger from time to time in GW1 and enjoying it I decided to make a ranger for the first beta weekend event for this game.

I had some fun at the time but this list adequately sums up why I can’t enjoy this profession once I know how this game is best played.

Well I think a patch is tomorrow so lets keep fingers crossed on them fixing atleast some kitten on the ranger.

^Sincerely hope so….

The class is so bad just now even my in-game mails have started becoming “obstructed”