Guild Wars 2

So is it the intent of the game designers that the Ranger class not be a viable 1v1 class? Melee damage is a joke and you aren’t bursting for any type of damage that is going to kill a player like a thief in three seconds. You have kittened the class with ZERO stealth, you have kittened the ranger class by having 50+ defects in the build. I have yet to talk to anyone that is the LEAST worried about a ranger 1v1 other than a caster. This seems seriously out of whack. The ranger class should be feared and more usable in WVW and SPVP. At this point its almost a joke 1v1. All this while thieves run the map with glass canon builds that literally destroy my class in less than five seconds. Is this the intent by the devs? Please? Can I get an ACTUAL dev to answer this? What is the plan for this class?

What build do you use? I ask cuz we have some quite defective builds and weapons, and our pets not functioning doesn’t help either of course, rangers don’t have their class mechanic in pvp.

Once our pets are fixed, I plan to put like 20 points in beastmastery to offset the weakness of our weapons, maybe that will work. But I guess until then there’s just waiting.

If you’re dying to thieves in 5 seconds you’re doing something wrong. If you’re having trouble in PvP, you’re probably also doing something wrong.

Maybe you can give some ranger tips against thieves instead of saying L2P?

I can 1v1 every profession except good mesmers. Yes, clearly you’re doing it right.

Zsymon.8457:

Maybe you can give some ranger tips against thieves instead of saying L2P?

Dodge rolling and control (Chill, immobilize, cripple) work wonders against them. You have to remember that they don’t run on cooldowns but initiative. Once they blow their skills with initative they’re good as worthless. If you see a thief using something like quickness, dodge roll and stun. The key is to know when to use them. Playing the other classes will show you their weakpoints if you don’t know.

I don’t think 1v1 balance was ever a concern, seeing as how there isn’t a 1v1 game mode.

Here is my build if it helps

30 skirmishing with majors being 1, 2, 6
15 wilderness survival major being 6
25 beast mastery 1, 6 though majors in this tree are kinda crap

i run with shortbow and axe/horn and pets used are dog/wolf

I also have at least 2-3 clothing items with toughness.

I’ve also had issues with balancing a decent damage output with survivability in 1v1. I’m using mostly damage gear with “Protect Me” to transfer damage to my pet for 6s and Signet of Stone to make my pet immune to damage for 6s. The problem is, condition damage attacks go right through these skills so until they fix that it’s still pretty kitteny.

I do agree with you though, I thought rangers were so OP when I found the quickening zephyr skill in the beta. Same with the 10% movement speed signet.

Then I rolled a level 1 thief to faceroll people in sPvP and found out thieves have a 25% movement speed signet and a 4 second quickness skill that instead of having a heal penalty like Quickening Zephyr, it gives another benefit to the thief.

So for the skills that I consider to be the overall best and a must-have for rangers, thieves have skills that do the same thing but at least twice as powerful. And the worst part about that is I ended up not selecting some of these superior thief skills because thieves have skills that are even better than the ones that overshadow ranger’s best skills.

And despite skills, raw damage is off on most weapons. I don’t play shortbow and I don’t want to have to just because it’s the only powerful weapon right now. I will stick with my 1-2k greatsword crits compared to the 4-6k heartseeker, backstab crits. Choosing a playstyle that is OP over what you like it’s my preference, but I would like my playstyle to be a bit more viable.

instead of having a heal penalty like Quickening Zephyr, it gives another benefit to the thief.

TIL that not being able to dodge for several seconds is a benefit.

Just a tip, and really this goes for all classes. Equip stunbreakers, and more importantly, USE THEM!

Just for example, I run Lightning reflexes and the condition removal / stunbreak signet on my ranger. with these tool, along with the evasiveness of shortbow / sword, PW and HS spam thieves, 100B warriors, and other gimmicky classes don’t stand a chance. Not to say that well played ones can’t kill me, but they are not relying on 1 ability for their damage.

As far as mesmers, they are certainly the strongest 1v1 class in the game. I quit playing mine in tPvP and sPvP because it just felt cheesy and cheap. It wasn’t rewarding to spam phantasms and LOS my enemies. It felt alot like pillar-humping in WoW arenas to me.

Now that I think of it, why doesn’t quickening zephyr break stun? I know the thief version does, and I am pretty sure the warrior frenzy does aswell.

Now that I think of it, why doesn’t quickening zephyr break stun? I know the thief version does, and I am pretty sure the warrior frenzy does aswell.

Frenzy does indeed break stun as well. The engineer quickness buff does not, though. Only thing I can imagine is balancing it against how many other stun breakers those classes have, but I haven’t counted them up to be sure so i could easily be wrong there.

I don’t think Anet even cares about the rangers. I’ve seen ever class get skill updates with every patch but there’s either nothing for rangers or 1 thing changed that didn’t even matter to begin with.

I also haven’t read anything about Anet fixing the pets or spirits to better the rangers abilities and to give us more choices besides shortbow and axe/warhorn. I want to look at the ranger and be like “oh I have all these good builds I can use” but instead I’m saying “oh shortbow and axe/warhorn with sharpening stone lightening reflexes and quickening zephyr again” there’s just no other builds that I’ve found that are good.

Classes I’ve Beaten 1v1 As a Ranger:
Warrior
Thief
Elementalist
Guardian
Necromancer
Ranger
Engineer

Classes I’ve Lost to 1v1 as a Ranger:
Mesmer
Thief
Warrior
Engineer

Rangers are fine in 1v1. The only class I fear in straight 1v1 fights are mesmers because they’re so hard to pin down and damage, otherwise I can take anyone as long as I’m on my toes. Sometimes I lose, of course, but I never feel like its because their class is stronger than mine, I always feel like they’re just better than me, or I made some mistake.

Freky.1903:

I don’t think Anet even cares about the rangers.

This seemed awfully familiar, so I just went around to all the profession forums and did a search for “cares about” and “doesn’t care.”

Necromancer: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/It-s-just-not-worth-the-trouble-to-play-Necromancer/first#post218843

ckz.6291:

true , i really wish they buff us or something but i dont see them caring about the complains of necro

Elementalist: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-patch-notes/first#post264092

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I bet that sounds childish but our class has the most bugs, next to necro (which it looks like they actually care about).

Engineer: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/A-reason-Elixer-gun-has-no-auto-attack/first#post219187

Haette.2701:

The only reasons it could be taking so long are 1) there’s some SERIOUS kitten in the game that makes the servers burn down if bundles auto-AA on pickup, or 2) they don’t care.

Thief: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-build-for-tournaments/first#post171491

Fede.9143:

Anyway i think that the assassin role isn’t so highly sought, just because ok, you can 2shot their dd, but you’re also easy to be killed..
That’s why i did this post, just to see how the other sPVP players use it.
But.. how i see, noone cares about.. So sad.

Warrior: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/A-warrior-in-need-of-a-bit-of-faith

Plague.5329:

ANet stated they were “happy” with the Warrior. Ultimately, whether or not the players feel it needs more diversity and/or more interesting skills, it’s ANet who cares about ANet’s opinion.

Guardian: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-with-longbow/page/2

Animatus.6197:

Too bad the devs dont seem to care at all about fixing the range issue on guardians

Mesmer: closest I could find was https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Is-it-just-me-or/first#post209299

Teo.8325:

Mesmers need some love. I don’t care for the limited choice of weapons, I don’t care for the rest of the nerfs since BWEs, but I DO care for EXPLOITS that they’re ruining mostly my PvP gameplay.

So it seems we have a general consensus among the posters on these forums that all 8 professions are broken, and Arenanet doesn’t care about any of them, except possibly mesmers since I couldn’t find a post on their forum where someone explicitly accused Arenanet of callously ignoring their problems.

Can we stop with the persecution complex about class balance? I’ve seen this in literally every single MMORPG I’ve ever played. Players get this bizarre notion into their head that the game developers actively hate them because of the class they play and are trying to make them quit or reroll. Can we just step back and acknowledge that makes absolutely zero sense?

The reason everyone feels like they’re not getting the attention they deserve in a timely fashion is because we’re all narrowly focused on our main character but Arenanet has to be concerned with the entire game, including bugs and problems that we personally have not encountered but that thousands of other players have. There’s no conspiracy here.

@Stice
So where did Anet say they are going to fix rangers up a bit to balance them better or even acknowledge what the ranger community is saying? Oh ya they haven’t. Wether or not you believe it the rangers, as far as I’ve seen and played, are the ones that need the most attention at this point. Pets are better but still need a little more and spirits are completely useless and weapons skills need to be reworked so that shortbow isn’t the only actual good weapon.

Oh and a lot of the other professions, necros and eles mainly, just have bugs with their skills that need to be fixed. They’re pretty balanced for the most part.

tbh, if you have 5 seconds on a thief you should definitely kill him..
that time is enough to kill even two thiefs i think
dodge, bubblesignet or “protect me” as he goes in hide or steals so you avoid the backstab, and simply press zephyrs.. the autoattack alone usually melts them in my experience..

As for other classes, i think rangers do well; they’re not any worse then the others in 1v1 imo.. zephyrs can give you some kitten burst with your autoattack, and remember to stick your pet at them aswell as the pet gets quickenss to.. and dont forget to use your pet abilities, there’s some really nice ones out there..

with quickness, my lynx does almost equal dmg as me so dont neglect your pet..
you also got other defensive stuff like condition cleanse with brownbear or fear with the wolf.. i think theres nothing wrong with ranger 1v1..

as for 2v1, or 2v2, people should use their AXE.. seeing people complaining about other weapons for ranger is sad.. yes the swords are kinda lame, but the axe/warhorn combination is really really strong.. and while fighting 2 players, then axe/warhorn gives you higher damage then the shorbow, due to the fact you’re actually hitting your target twice.. and if you go overkill with zephyrs you litterarly kill your target in a few seconds with axe if its not tank’ish..

i dont see the big fuzz, ranger is strong <3

can anyone link this one master build of all builds btw??
ive never heard of this; im playing around alot, trying out lots of different builds and combinations and im still doing rather good in pvp..

and to say pets are entirely useless is really not true.. if used correctly melee pets will hit, for instace the lynx, or if you dont manage you can use a ranged one like the devourers.. and you also got awesome boon-pets like the red moa (fury) or jungle stalker (might) to buff yourself and the grp, which you can have on follow and dont need to hit anything at all to be useful..

Thief: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-build-for-tournaments/first#post171491

My other character is a thief. He’s quite happy with arenanet not caring about them, because if they listened to the thief forum every single skill would be nerfed to uselessness. Stab is OP.

Azi, all you have to do to avoid a pet from hitting you, is keep moving.. which is something even newbies do when they first start pvp’ing.

1) This is because pets stop dead in their tracks before they attack.
2) And on top of that they don’t home in on their target, they just run to last known location and update that every few moments, they don’t move in curves.
3) The third problem is the lack of reaction on F2, on top of the long animation and non-homing in of F2 abilities, meaning your F2 will -always- miss, often even mobs.

Solutions to ranger problems:
- Make pets home in when they move, make them attack while moving.

- Make pet F2 skills react instantly, canceling other abilities by putting them on a short cooldown, and make the animation short enough for the F2 ability to always hit unless actively dodge-rolled, interrupted, evaded or blocked.

- Make pets have a 75% aoe resistance, so they don’t die in 1 second during combat, since they have such low health. Include cleaving melee attacks in this resistence, unless the pet is targeted directly.

- Give shortbow a more fun to use #2 ability, it’s very boring, change #3 into a crippling
kick and rollback, similar to lightning reflexes, instead of this weird, often buggy jump.

- Remove the rooting effect on sword auto attack, remove the cripple effect on the chain if really necessary for balance.. no dodging and no moving makes sword useless.

- Increase greatsword auto attack damage to 80% warrior-level, make #2 very slow but very heavy hitting, kinda like the guardian hammer last #1 chain attack. To avoid QZ greatsword attacks, a simple dodge is enough to reduce damage to like 30%, so the ranger would have to root first, just like the warrior with hundred blades.

- Spirits need to be unkillable, they are ethereal beings after all, and hardly much of a threat, the boons they give should just be automatic pulse to everyone near, no % chance to apply, to put them on equal terms as banners, which even then will still be far superior.

- I’m sure better players than me can add more suggestions to make it easy for anet.

- Finally, the longbow #1 needs to be unaffected by range, arrows simple don’t do more damage at targets further away, it makes no sense. Make the #1 more damaging, I would say +80%, and make rapid fire about 60% of hundreds blades, but in a shorter duration so it can be more easily dodged, give it a telegraphed, increased charge up, so players can see it coming, it will be doing a ton of damage after all. Longbow will be doing a lot more direct damage than shortbow, but shortbow rules at condition damage, longbow cannot apply damaging conditions. Shortbow will still be viable at power builds, but longbows will simply be better at it, the way it makes sense. Longbow now requires timing, without timing you don’t do much damage, with timing you will do a ton of heavy damage: more skill based, more tactical based.

A key difference between thief and ranger is that you can spec for maximum damage as thief and still have great survivability due to the stealth and movement skills. As a ranger you have to stack toughness or you will die (lots).

I play mainly thief and ranger, and do well with both. I play a backstab build with my thief and enjoy coming across most rangers. Most do not know how to play and are easy fodder. You need to endure the initial damage (5 seconds as stated and you need toughness), you need to dodge roll as soon as you can, stun him, and kite while healing yourself, use signet of stone if you have to, and wait until he is out of initiative. Be sure to time your rolls and your endurance to miss his big hits, i.e. heartseeker. If you can endure his initial assault the kitten will usually beat cheeks to get out of there because he knows he cannot beat you then.

One thing to remember as a ranger, play with your mouse zoomed all the way out (I assume everyone does this anyway??) and keep an eye out for thieves, constantly look around when you are playing. Poison or bleed them as early as you can and if you see one go to stealth and you are anywhere near him, do not stand still, keep moving, always keep moving, do not ever just stand still and shoot. Sick your pet on them as soon as you can. Most are glass cannon builds and will go down quickly if you get the jump on them. Just do not let them get the jump on you.

I play a dmg/survival build of :

30 (III VIII XI)
0
30 (III IX XII)
5
5
I use divinity runes or ranger, sometimes changing frequently, that gives me about 1950 toughness and 16k life with 40% crit some excellent survival skills from the survival tree.
Axe and warhorn with SB on swap
I use zephyr, signet of stone, (lightning reflexes, sharpening stone, or signet of the hunt, depending on what professions are in the game) and rampage as one. Works great vs all characters IMO.

Good luck, and really the best way is just to play, play, play, you will get better and you will start to woop some kitten with your character once you get to know the ins and outs of the game.

if F2 is the first ability a pet uses once its swapped in, it got good reaction time..
and with 5points in beastmastery, getting zephyrs speed, its really not that hard getting those F2 abilities to hit, atleast not the charging ones like lynx.. and there will always be times while kiting, the opponent stops to either change direction or use targetted ability or whatever, and its the timing of petswap with zephyrs and the F2 at this moment which makes them hit most of the time imo..

lately tho, ive been running mostly with boonpet and brownbear on follow just for buffing and surviveability, cause most pets die superfast if you send them in anyways.. so on this part i really agree with you, pets should get alot of aoe-resistance, so they dont randomly die in 1 second, but if targetted they should melt..

1v1 ranger joke? Nope.

You just need greatsword + axe and horn.
0/0/30/30/10 traits, all for survival and 2nd hand dmg.
Zephyr, Signet of Restoration and Lightning Reflexes.
The key to win ur enemy is DODGING and ur PET
Get Vit / Tougness and power armour / runes.
Sigils = chill / Health steal.
Use Jaguar and wolf and u pretty much can beat every class.
Dodge to gain protection and block / charge+ dmg with ur 2 hander, axe + horn for buffing ur pet and yourself + chilling ur enemy.
Dont use ur burst FIRST, wait few seconds , then blow them up.
If u simply cant burst ur enemy down, just tank him and take him slowly down, ur pet will do the most damage.
Swap ur pets to gain quickness and might for ur pet.
Heal yourself when have to.

I dont know what u mean by saying that ranger sucks in 1v1, u should know that almost every class is bad when focused only for dmg.
Build tanky dps, aka bruiser.

As a Ranger you shouldn’t be in a spot to where you’re losing to a thief 1v1 anyway, imo. We are best suited as roamers in tPvP and every member of the top teams I’ve talked too (AC, Team Paradigm, etc.) have all reinforced that IF they ran a Ranger, they would be a roamer. What this means is, we aren’t point defenders. We don’t sit on a node and wait for a fight, we go pick a fight.

Thieves are also Roamers. What this means is, that unless you just casually run into each other on your way to a point for cap/support, you shouldn’t be 1v1ing anyone in the first place. To push this further, Thieves are suited for assaulting points that are flipped or providing support. So in most scenarios, that Thief you are so concerned about should already be in a fight with someone else by the time you get there OR should be coming into a fight where you have teammates around you.

Now, that being said, I don’t think we should need teammates to win fights against them. In fact, I’ve beaten my fair share of Thieves in 1v1’s anyway—especially with my new build. Someone already said this before but you have to remember that Thieves run on initiative—make them blow their ini by either dodging/kiting or going invul and they’ve effectively taken themselves out of the fight. The trick is knowing when to dodge, when to go invul and how to kite—all factors that lead to beating any Thief.

The only Thieves that ever give me real trouble are the ones that catch me right after I’ve finished a fight with someone else (meaning everything is on CD, and even then I’ve beaten some of those) or the ones that stealth A LOT. Stealth, imo, is the only thing that pretty much EVERYONE has to suffer through so in that regard I’m fine with it; it does suck however when you can’t even attack back.

I’ve beaten every class 1v1 with my Ranger and I have to say that Thieves are NOT the hardest to beat for us. Bunker/Retaliation Guardians are giving everyone (eeeeeeeveryone) hell right now and well played Mesmers (like Xee from TP) will destroy almost anyone that isn’t another Mesmer in 1v1. Those are what you should be worried about. Both of them will take at least 2 people to beat 98% of the time, and that’s fact.

I should add that if you’re talking 8v8, it’s a zerg fest and shouldn’t be hard to find another body to assault points with in one match or another; that right there makes fighting any profession easier than it would have been otherwise. Don’t expect to go into an 8v8 and suddenly become Rambo.

Zsymon.8457:

Maybe you can give some ranger tips against thieves instead of saying L2P?

OK. Here’s the best tip ever. Roll an Elementalist. Play that for a few days and learn how to see enemy tells, dodge, use terrain for advantage, when to CC and stun break and when to run away. If you can do all that and stay alive fairly well (good luck), then go back to your Ranger with a short bow for a few matches. You will come back to these forums and delete your QQ.

Seriously, Ranger and shortbow is so easy I would make it my main. There’s just not enough challenge in it. If you play defensively, evade when needed, trap when needed, etc, the Ranger shortbow autoattack will win just about every time against just about any class.

I really hate to say this, but you’re doing it wrong. Ranger is one of the better 1v1 classes in the game. Mesmers should be the only class that gives you consistent trouble 1v1. Thieves can be difficult as well if they have all their cooldowns up, but are still beatable if you know what you’re doing.

Before assuming that the class is broken and demanding an explanation from the devs, why don’t you tell us what build you’re using, and explain specifically what classes are giving you problems so we can provide you some feedback that will help you?

Jhu.3965:

Classes I’ve Beaten 1v1 As a Ranger:
Warrior
Thief
Elementalist
Guardian
Necromancer
Ranger
Engineer

Classes I’ve Lost to 1v1 as a Ranger:
Mesmer
Thief
Warrior
Engineer

Rangers are fine in 1v1. The only class I fear in straight 1v1 fights are mesmers because they’re so hard to pin down and damage, otherwise I can take anyone as long as I’m on my toes. Sometimes I lose, of course, but I never feel like its because their class is stronger than mine, I always feel like they’re just better than me, or I made some mistake.

I have beaten, and have been beaten by, ever prof in 1v1 in tourney pvp on a regular basis (sometimes it’s the same person too, and sometimes it comes down to who had a half second faster reflex and ended up winning! because of it!)

Rangers are fine 1v1, the only thing i truly fear 1v1 is an ele (you know, one played by a good player? You have a better chance of going outside and finding a unicorn then to find a good ele though) or a good/descent mesmer, the ONLY reason i fear mesmers is because i have 30 points into my pet and their clones always get my pet to fight their clone/phantasams, i don’t need a target to shoot them in the face though, however my pet… different story!

@OP It really is a L2P issue, i doubt your builds bad or anything, idk the majors off the top of my head though, but in the beast mastery tree if you’re using 2 canines i’d highly suggest to go with intimidation training, that thing has saved my balls more times then i can count!!

Stice.5204:

Freky.1903:

I don’t think Anet even cares about the rangers.

This seemed awfully familiar, so I just went around to all the profession forums and did a search for “cares about” and “doesn’t care.”

Necromancer: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/It-s-just-not-worth-the-trouble-to-play-Necromancer/first#post218843

ckz.6291:

true , i really wish they buff us or something but i dont see them caring about the complains of necro

Elementalist: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-patch-notes/first#post264092

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I bet that sounds childish but our class has the most bugs, next to necro (which it looks like they actually care about).

Engineer: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/A-reason-Elixer-gun-has-no-auto-attack/first#post219187

Haette.2701:

The only reasons it could be taking so long are 1) there’s some SERIOUS kitten in the game that makes the servers burn down if bundles auto-AA on pickup, or 2) they don’t care.

Thief: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-build-for-tournaments/first#post171491

Fede.9143:

Anyway i think that the assassin role isn’t so highly sought, just because ok, you can 2shot their dd, but you’re also easy to be killed..
That’s why i did this post, just to see how the other sPVP players use it.
But.. how i see, noone cares about.. So sad.

Warrior: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/A-warrior-in-need-of-a-bit-of-faith

Plague.5329:

ANet stated they were “happy” with the Warrior. Ultimately, whether or not the players feel it needs more diversity and/or more interesting skills, it’s ANet who cares about ANet’s opinion.

Guardian: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-with-longbow/page/2

Animatus.6197:

Too bad the devs dont seem to care at all about fixing the range issue on guardians

Mesmer: closest I could find was https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Is-it-just-me-or/first#post209299

Teo.8325:

Mesmers need some love. I don’t care for the limited choice of weapons, I don’t care for the rest of the nerfs since BWEs, but I DO care for EXPLOITS that they’re ruining mostly my PvP gameplay.

So it seems we have a general consensus among the posters on these forums that all 8 professions are broken, and Arenanet doesn’t care about any of them, except possibly mesmers since I couldn’t find a post on their forum where someone explicitly accused Arenanet of callously ignoring their problems.

Can we stop with the persecution complex about class balance? I’ve seen this in literally every single MMORPG I’ve ever played. Players get this bizarre notion into their head that the game developers actively hate them because of the class they play and are trying to make them quit or reroll. Can we just step back and acknowledge that makes absolutely zero sense?

The reason everyone feels like they’re not getting the attention they deserve in a timely fashion is because we’re all narrowly focused on our main character but Arenanet has to be concerned with the entire game, including bugs and problems that we personally have not encountered but that thousands of other players have. There’s no conspiracy here.

I think this sums it up. Literally since EQ I’ve seen all the same arguments. People feel personally offended because the class they enjoy most isn’t the end all be all. Interestingly enough, it’s not about what a few people want. As it turns out now, I personally and apparently most other people, except obviously those complaining here on the forums are in love with the game, the game play, the mechanics, and so forth. Well, the only thing that annoys me wildly is the skill point challenges getting screwed up. They’ve been working hard on that.

What does bother me is a few people crying and whining about changing this and that, and the threat that it imposes on gameplay should the devs actually listen. Thank goodness they’re slow to make those kind of changes. Usually. There are some good ideas, but generally, it’s about “I want to kill everything and if I can’t my class is broken.” “You can please some of the people all the time. You can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” – Good Ol Abe L.

OP Rangers are great classes in PvP. The thing is you cannot spec as a glass cannon with Ranger. You do need some Toughness which most good builds go down Wilderness Survival anyway. Also it is key to dodge and kite when fighting melee. The Shortbow is one of the best weapons in the game for kiting melee.

The thing with 1v1 is classes are not balanced for it. This game has such a diversity in weapons and builds for each class that balancing 1v1 would be practically impossible. So who you beat 1v1 comes down to your build & skills vs theirs. You may fight a class and have a good build for countering his or you may not.

mouse.1689:

I really hate to say this, but you’re doing it wrong. Ranger is one of the better 1v1 classes in the game. Mesmers should be the only class that gives you consistent trouble 1v1. Thieves can be difficult as well if they have all their cooldowns up, but are still beatable if you know what you’re doing.

Before assuming that the class is broken and demanding an explanation from the devs, why don’t you tell us what build you’re using, and explain specifically what classes are giving you problems so we can provide you some feedback that will help you?

Yeah I hate to say too it but it is a L2P issue and the above poster hit it spot on. Outside of a mesmer I haven’t lost a 1v1 fight in a very long time. The trick to being a strong ranger is to not go glass cannon. I bet you will find that most of the posters here that are saying we are fine are NOT playing glass cannon builds and have some form of defense (protect me, signet of stone, lots of toughness/vitality, condition removal, etc.). As I’ve tweaked my build and raised my personal skill cap I have even started doing very well in 1v2 and 1v3. I also play a thief and while stealth is nice, rangers have a disgusting amount of evasion.

kharza.3974

Yeah I hate to say too it but it is a L2P issue and the above poster hit it spot on. Outside of a mesmer I haven’t lost a 1v1 fight in a very long time. The trick to being a strong ranger is to not go glass cannon. I bet you will find that most of the posters here that are saying we are fine are NOT playing glass cannon builds and have some form of defense (protect me, signet of stone, lots of toughness/vitality, condition removal, etc.). As I’ve tweaked my build and raised my personal skill cap I have even started doing very well in 1v2 and 1v3. I also play a thief and while stealth is nice, rangers have a disgusting amount of evasion.

This is all true. Glass cannon rangers are pretty awful. I run with a Knight’s Amulet and Berserker’s Jewel. I run with 20 points in Wilderness Survival. I dedicate 3 traits and 2 utilities to defensive abilities. I use pets with cc.

This class isn’t about spamming Sharpening Stone+Quickening Zephyr+Crossfire. If you play it that way you’ll get rolled. Dedicate a good portion of your build to defensive abilities, know how and when to use your slows, dodges, and cc, and you’ll do very well in 1v1 situations.

One thing I noticed is that slight changes in your build can have a MAJOR effect on how well you do in pvp. It would be worth picking up a good build from the net (condition/toughness is probably the best) and going from there. You can adapt the build as you gain experience.

This is how it works..

For those who played SWTOR they’ll get this..

Glass Cannon Rangers = Pyro Powertech’s

Glass Cannon Thiefs = Anni Marauders..

Both can kill people extremely fast.. and I mean extremely fast…However the Pyro’s form of Escape was basically Kill the target before it kills you, You had basically no escape from the fight once it was started..

Marauders Did… Multiple Escapes….Multiple “Oh kitten” buttons designed to save them when they screwed up…

what are you talking about, bad at 1v1?
Traited Signet of Stone + Protect Me.

It’s like making your opponent fight you twice.

And yes, to echo what others are saying.. Mesmers will be your bane. They’re entirely annoying. So don’t fight them. I’ve never had a mesmer be able to catch me.

“I should not be able to die! Buff rangers!” /thread.

^

I’ve beaten in 1v1(Please note, I suck. I generally play the ‘lone defender’ of a resource area or the Trebuchet controller in Kyhlo. If I have to play offensive, I’m so-so at it because I don’t have twenty plans in case someone jumps me.)

-Thief
-Warrior
-Guardian (I am going to strangle you with your own frilly self-heals!)
-Other ranger
-Mesmer(It’s like playing where’s waldo, except YOU DIE.)
-Elementalist
-Necromancer, but not often due to chance alone. I don’t have many necromancers step up to the plate and try to fight me. Every time I fight one, I have to stop and admire their Lich form. You could grind meat on those abs…
-Engineer (You done incurred my wrath)

This isn’t about ego, it’s to point out to the OP that if I can do it, and as I said before I’m terrible, so can he. It just requires a bit of finesse and knowledge of what you’re doing, who you’re fighting and the weapons your foe is using.

Mesmers give me a lot of problems. A well played Guardian usually lasts until someone else comes or we both get bored and leave.

Everything else is fair game 1v1. I’m rocking a very defensive build ( GS/Longbow ), I never really get into glass cannon type builds in any game.

Rangers are really not that bad in 1v1’s. Only one I find a bit harder are mesmers.

andybmcc.8751:

Mesmers give me a lot of problems. A well played Guardian usually lasts until someone else comes or we both get bored and leave.

Everything else is fair game 1v1. I’m rocking a very defensive build ( GS/Longbow ), I never really get into glass cannon type builds in any game.

That’s almost ALWAYS the case for Guardians… Usually the former, someone will show up and bail his kitten out before i can FINALLY kill them… however if no one shows up it usually ends up in the death of the guardian…

As i said for mesmers, just give up on just focusing on them and just butcher their clones, your pet will attack them automatically and then you can attack a seperate one and they’ll be left naked and alone in seconds leaving them ripe for the picking (they only have so many CDs to give em clones and make sure phantasams go down first)

Yeah, I’ll try to mark the real one, put my pet on him, and then proceed to pick of phantasms. I generally ignore clones unless I can get them in a barrage.

In sPvP I can kill just about anyone on a One on One pretty easily. The method though is not staying at melee, so I’m not sure how a melee ranger would fair, but between conditions, traps, kitting, my pets powers, I can burn people down. Healing spring with SB procing for regen is a great way to keep up health, and we have a ton of fields and effects. I typically run axe/torch in my off set from SB, giving me another snare, and fire damage sources ontop of a great fire field (which I try to ‘fight in’ during its duration to eat up my targets health).

For runes i go undead, which make me pretty tanky. Traits go for condition and crit and those come with some rather nifty tanky effects like sending conditions to my pet and going into stealth, etc.

Wow OP…just…wow.

Go play an Elementalist for a week in sPVP, then go back to your Ranger and see what playing with training wheels feel like.

Zsymon>>> Saying how a longbow doing extra damage at range makes no sense, just screams the type of caliber, educated, insightful, historian of a guy you are. (longbow, welsh, yeoman, medieval british, go brush up on your history boy)

And your 2 second glance at a class and concluding to a complete biased opinion and in your mind fix is quite frankly laughable.

My main is a Ranger, I love him to bits, does he need some tweaking like EVERY other class in this game yes. Does he need any of those changes you just mentioned, hell no. Seriously please take a step back and see GW2 in the light that it actually is in.

Aesseus, I assume you use the shortbow/axe build?

Try using longbow as your main.. the word of hundreds of longbow users complaining about how weak the weapon really is, has your insultive rant beat. You should also contemplate on what kind of a person it makes you if you go on the net to insult people you disagree with, I was just offering some thoughts.

I completely disaggree with “So 1v1 Ranger is a joke”!

If a ranger uses his your brain (instead of instant panicking) and combo his way trough the skills 1vs1 is very easy and almost a as easy as putting a knife trough butter.

With full Exo Berserker’s gear (guilds back with exo gem), Superior rune of Rage and Superior sigil of Force on both weapons:

My traits: 30-30-5-0-5
in marksman —> I / VI / X
Skirmishing --> II / IV / X

WvW
1) Rampage as one & proc petskill f2 ( in my case passive Red moa buff)
2) Hunters Shot (point blank shot if the enemy is already close to you)
3) Quickening zephyr
4) Rapid Fire
5) Weapon swap and poisson volley
6) Quickshot
7) finish with crossfire and petswap (for quickness provided by 5 points BM)
8) No hits taken and enemy downed

At point 5) you’ll already done 15K of dmg (maybe 17 when flanked) and can easely finish with shortbow without putting alot of effort into it.

sPvP
I use entangle as elite skill and lightning reflexes as utility both for the survivability.
I like to stay in background to cripple with longbow and burst with rapid fire/Zephyr combo also use Shortbow when all of the above are done.

PVE
use bears for aggroing mobs if u dont want to take hits, personally i keep using red moa bird and jungle stalker for the buffs.
In dungeons u can give the “purple bosses” 11K rapid fires on max range when flanked.
With some might stacks, Red moa fury buff and frost spirit u can get up to 13K.
(spirits are not that bad for a lonbowranger who stays out of aoe range)

Proof
This is me in the above spec when just dinged lvl 80 (not even full exotic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrxk_vTz9yM&hd=1

Only downthing is —> since full dmg specced you will have to stay in the background because ure pretty much a glass canon. When a enemy becomes closer you WILL have to kite your way around him with the shortbow, luckely we have a cripple, stun and jumpback skill on this weapon.

Just my 2 copper,
Yvilthi

They need to up the greatsword damage and turn the longbow into a viable weapon, its damage output is incredibly low.

The greatsword is just great for keeping mobile as it doesnt lock you in place like the sword but again… damage…. seriously damage.

from another post

Alright, this is gonna be long, but bear with me. I’ve tested out both the LB and SB at lvl 80 full exotic gear and weapons, traits stacked 30/30/10/0/0. Now before I state myself further, if you already can’t tell, this ……

read full story here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/What-s-the-point-with-using-a-Longbow/page/2#post306222

Hope the whining about longbow is over very soon., they out dps a short bow by a small bit