Guild Wars 2

Can someone explain the attraction of this? I’m not looking down on you if that’s what you want to play, it’s a semi-free world, after all, but why would you pick a class generally known as a ranged class and then want to play melee?

For myself I play longbow/shortbow. I started out longbow/greatsword, but found that I very rarely used the greatsword, and liked some of the crowd control/condition damage (sorry I hate acronyms on forums I generally have no idea what the refer to) aspects of the shortbow.

I have a guildie that pretty much thinks the same way. Again, you paid yer fitty bucks for the game and you can play it any kitten way you please.

For me personally, it’s all about functionality. Melee ranger weapons (Sword, GS) has its uses. So I use them.

Because I want to play Aragorn and Drizzt as opposed to Legolas?

Ok, I’ll buy that. I played LoTRO and Aragorn’s and Legolas’ classes would have been different, hunter/champion. I had an elf hunter who hit like a freight train.

Ok let’s look at it this way. Anet have decided to give Rangers swords, so why not use them?

Or let’s take a look from the lore’s point of view. Some Rangers in GW1 (including yours truly) were sick of using bows because of their subpar damage, so they chose Warrior, Assassin, and Dervish as their secondary and picked up melee weapons. And over these 250 years, these melee Rangers developed their own distinct styles, which is why you see skills like Maul, Pounce, and Swoop.

Ok the above is pure BS, but yeah…

Because you look like fricken yoda when you attack. Nuff said.

Sarision.6347:

Because I want to play Aragorn and Drizzt as opposed to Legolas?

To be fair, they both use bows. Just not as a primary weapon.

Because I love melee nature-magic based classes. So I go melee ranger. (Kind of my only option).

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Sarision.6347:

Because I want to play Aragorn and Drizzt as opposed to Legolas?

To be fair, they both use bows. Just not as a primary weapon.

Same here, I use bows as a secondary weapon.

I mainly use Melee weapons over ranged for the extra evasion, the combat is more fast paced, and I’m able to get in combat and out if things start to get heated.

I’ve recently rolled a Ranger and loving it. I use the longbow to attack mobs and do as much damage as possible until they get into melee range then swap to sword/dagger and use the evasion attack skills to kill them without taking any damage.

I find Rangers can hold their own in melee if played right. I main as a Guardian and am not too used to the low armour classes but the mitigation/avoiding skills for melee rangers really shine.

Also, S/D or S/A rangers look like Kungkittenclass

All this being said, I still love the fact that in GW2, for all the classes I’ve played so far, Elementalist, Ranger, Warrior, Thief, Engineer, and I just rolled a Mesmer, (waiting on Kodan to be playable so I can roll a Guardian) there is no “one” build in any class that you have to have or be ostracized because you’re gimped.

And fwiw kitten acronyms), I tried, sword/dagger and had some fun with it, I just never used it much.

What I want is longbow/rifle.

Hoyvin.3241:

Can someone explain the attraction of this? I’m not looking down on you if that’s what you want to play, it’s a semi-free world, after all, but why would you pick a class generally known as a ranged class and then want to play melee?

For myself I play longbow/shortbow. I started out longbow/greatsword, but found that I very rarely used the greatsword, and liked some of the crowd control/condition damage (sorry I hate acronyms on forums I generally have no idea what the refer to) aspects of the shortbow.

I have a guildie that pretty much thinks the same way. Again, you paid yer fitty bucks for the game and you can play it any kitten way you please.

Just because Ranger has “Range” in the name doesn’t mean that’s what a ranger is all about.

When you get down to it, the real defining characteristic of rangers in this game is the pet system since a ranger without a pet is just a watered down cross between a warrior and thief. Personally, I really like using a melee build that is BM focused since it synergizes so well. The main attack of the 1h sword directly buffs your pet with might, you’re right in range to give and recieve boons between you and your pet, and a lot of the talents just synergize so well together.

This is a great debate and one that was fun to read. I am faced with the same delima. Mele v Ranged. I do find myself wanting to use my sword more as Aragorn but find myself using my Bow a lot more as Legolas. Two awesome fantasy characters with different 2 fighting styles. So I do find myself going back and forth from time to time.

I love the ranged aspect of a ranger as much as anyone, I love bows(shortbow more than longbow). I wanted to try something new, however, and melee is pretty freakin awesome. The capabilities are different from a bow. With a sword, you gain access to an offhand, and dagger is an excellent melee weapon you also gain. The poison from this combo is amazing. The sword does give you good condition damage if you use torch too. Besides that, the sword one of the stronger ranger weapons on autoattack in my opinion. Also I am in love with greatsword, so many uses. I was surprised these weapons have comparable survivability and mobility to bows with the evades, dodges, leaps, and block. They are fun, and they look cool with the nature related skills. Reminds me of old kungkittenmovies with serpent style, bear style, eagle style, etc. Thats why I got armor and weps to make me look like a ninja.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Because you look like fricken yoda when you attack. Nuff said.

And if your character is female, she’ll give you gratuitous panty shots as her skirt flies up. =)

But seriously, I’ve been playing around with the melee skills and they’re a lot of fun. Melee rangers get a ton of evades, a block, interrupts, even a AOE vulnerability and damage skill. There are also leaps which you can use to combo off of traps and healing spring for things like extra healing, fire or frost armor, weakness, as well as combo off of other players’ fields. I just wish we had a blast finisher to combo with.

Hoyvin.3241:

Can someone explain the attraction of this? I’m not looking down on you if that’s what you want to play, it’s a semi-free world, after all, but why would you pick a class generally known as a ranged class and then want to play melee?

For myself I play longbow/shortbow. I started out longbow/greatsword, but found that I very rarely used the greatsword, and liked some of the crowd control/condition damage (sorry I hate acronyms on forums I generally have no idea what the refer to) aspects of the shortbow.

I have a guildie that pretty much thinks the same way. Again, you paid yer fitty bucks for the game and you can play it any kitten way you please.

There are no “ranged” or “melee” classes in this game per design. Every class has equally viable ranged and melee compared to other classes. Ranged in general compared to melee, regardless of the class fails in small scale pvp (1v1, 1v2, etc). Tired of getting ganked by thieves? go Sword/Dagger and kick thief kitten This is the reason more and more rangers are going melee.

Why the either or? I have one range weapon, and one melee weapon. That gives me functionality. Got three characters I play, but it is the range and variation of the ranger that makes it my favorite.

Weapon switching on the fly is amazing, my current fave combo is Shortbow/Sword+torch. Together with two superior runes of the geomancer that applies bleeding on weapon switch you can do crazy annoying things to people.

Also, when playing with my guardian friend, I go melee damage all the way, getting stuck in next to them is awesome. They keep me safe, I do the damage.

I don’t go full melee but I go with a Longbow, which does awful damage, so my general tactic is do as much range damage as I can with my Longbow, and when they get within a 400 range where my damage with Longbow gets god kitten embarrassing I swap out to Sword/Horn and get my melee on. Melee is pretty decent as a Ranger believe it or not. And sadly it’s generally more effective than bows >_<

Longbow is terrible, shortbow is possibly even more boring than the Big Red Pet hunter spec from back in Burning Crusade, and this GS tank/evasion build is easily the most fun I’ve ever had playing a ranger-type class.

Bearzu Smash.5962:

Longbow is terrible, shortbow is possibly even more boring than the Big Red Pet hunter spec from back in Burning Crusade, and this GS tank/evasion build is easily the most fun I’ve ever had playing a ranger-type class.

Yea Ive no doubt its fun, but not my style, cant bring myself to play that build.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do ranged, just don’t expect to fight your way out of being ganked while catching up to your zerg without some melee ability. There is not a single class in this game that can go pure ranged and expect to do well if they are alone vs a melee class.

Adaneshade.2409:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do ranged, just don’t expect to fight your way out of being ganked while catching up to your zerg without some melee ability. There is not a single class in this game that can go pure ranged and expect to do well if they are alone vs a melee class.

Not true, warrior can do it. I do it with rifle all the time. Its not hard since in WvW kill shot hits soo hard and 1 shots 90% of the players.

I just like the Greatsword because it’s probably the closest thing in Gw2 to a true action combat feel (the sword is decent too, but the 1 attacks roots…).

I like the longbow, but it isn’t precise enough for my tastes; the auto-targeting will often just choose the most random targets and clicking on enemies to target them is just dumb (I already know what I want to hit, why can’t I just aim at it like I would in real life??? Seems kind of redundant to have to “target” an enemy twice: “Are you sure you want to target this? Yes I am sure… Are you really sure about that? Yes, just hit the stupid thing already…”). The skills all feel fine, but the longbows targeting just doesn’t feel quite intuitive enough… not to mention, it doesn’t feel like there is any range advantage with it at all… only slightly when you use eagle eye; however, melee can cover that distance easily from a PvP point of view, and PvE wise the enemies are often stupidly fast and run that distance in like a split second anyways….

…and I have never enjoyed the short bows game play…

If they added something like a skill shot where you could charge and aim your attack I might go back to longbow, but for now I much prefer the melee weapons as they feel just so much more intuitive.

As far as the definition of a ranger? It’s definitely not supposed to be a purely “ranged class.”

Ranger can be defined as:

1. Warden or Forest Ranger; an official charged to supervise the care and preservation of forests (and wildlife).
2. One of a body of armed guards that patrol a region
3. Soldier specially trained in guerrilla warfare (surprise raids/attacks in small groups)
4. A person who ranges or roves.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Adaneshade.2409:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do ranged, just don’t expect to fight your way out of being ganked while catching up to your zerg without some melee ability. There is not a single class in this game that can go pure ranged and expect to do well if they are alone vs a melee class.

Not true, warrior can do it. I do it with rifle all the time. Its not hard since in WvW kill shot hits soo hard and 1 shots 90% of the players.

90% of the players are terrible >.< your argument holds no weight. I don’t know anyone who regularly solo roams that would ever die to a rifle warrior.

Adaneshade.2409:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Adaneshade.2409:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do ranged, just don’t expect to fight your way out of being ganked while catching up to your zerg without some melee ability. There is not a single class in this game that can go pure ranged and expect to do well if they are alone vs a melee class.

Not true, warrior can do it. I do it with rifle all the time. Its not hard since in WvW kill shot hits soo hard and 1 shots 90% of the players.

90% of the players are terrible >.< your argument holds no weight. I don’t know anyone who regularly solo roams that would ever die to a rifle warrior.

It is actually very easy to kite a melee class, not just for ranger, but with other classes too, like engi. With all the evades, cripples, and cc we have, if you use ranged it is very possible to kill a melee class. Depends on the skills you use and how much evade you can get. I feel like a trap ranger has an advantage on any melee that they meet in battle, regardless of profession.

The great thing about the 1h you can stay on target even when crippled lots of leaps and jumps. Bonfire is great burning is one of the highest condtions damage effects with all the cripples and the 1h sword and a dogs kd you can keep someone in the field for a good portion of the field duration.

There really isnt a reason that a trapper cant be a meleer as well.

Because people get scared when you burst them with quickness 1H sword and your pet joins in. Plus you look like a psychopath.

The longbow is kittening horrible outside sniping from towers. WHY would I ever bother using one.

99.9% of the time i am in WvW. Solo or with a partner. Currently run SB/GS….and I think I have settled on that combo. Mobility is key for me and I really really like the GS Swoop. I have cooldown traited for sword so it really helps getting around. Also, GS combined with Lightning Reflexes has saved my life countless times. You put so much distance between you and a bad situation that most times you don’t even get chased.

I would prefer to use GS + S/T but far too often I end up chasing. I need the SB to keep the damage going (along with the snare and stun)

Ok, how about this:

As part of your spec, rangers would have to choose their focus: melee or ranged. Say level 10 or whatever. Whichever way you picked, it would provide a small buff to the weapons of choice, and maybe a small nerf to the one you didn’t pick. Say 5% either way. With the option of a balanced build staying the same. No buff no nerf, like it is now.

Just an idea.

I put time in trying all the weapons, except Lbow which was just kitten, and just really love melee Ranger. I run GS/axe&horn. I can sent my pet out to a target, buff us with the axe set, then Swoop into the fight with GS. It’s really fun. I played sword&dagger/horn a little and those were fun but this first set of switches is what I really enjoy. Also, the GS animations effects are really satisfying to me for some reason. I’m not at all tired of seeing the bear spirit on my S2.

Others mentioned that the Ranger is more about the pet dynamic and this is also true. If you stick to distance, you use your pet to hold aggro or anchor the mob, etc, but in melee it’s like you’re total bros laying down damage and combos. Swooping through combo fields is exciting, as well as being close enough to share boons like someone mentioned earlier. Part of up close part that’s enjoyable to me is how you can risk actual “danger” more often. At range, you have more control and disengaging is easy, but you can end up in a pile of mobs doing melee which for me is more exciting. GS and other skills give me enough evasion so I don’t worry so much about my lower armor as an “Adventurer.”

Most recently, I’ve spec’d some Spirit traits and now my GS lays down 5%dmg (10% for 50% of attacks) and applies burning just as often which is really nice. It’s like having a whole party when running solo, with a pet and two spirits.

Hoyvin.3241:

Can someone explain the attraction of this? I’m not looking down on you if that’s what you want to play, it’s a semi-free world, after all, but why would you pick a class generally known as a ranged class and then want to play melee?

For myself I play longbow/shortbow. I started out longbow/greatsword, but found that I very rarely used the greatsword, and liked some of the crowd control/condition damage (sorry I hate acronyms on forums I generally have no idea what the refer to) aspects of the shortbow.

I have a guildie that pretty much thinks the same way. Again, you paid yer fitty bucks for the game and you can play it any kitten way you please.

Because the melee weapons, particularly the great sword, out performs the bows. Unfortunately.

From a strictly spvp point of view, full melee can be a potent bunker in the right hands, allowing for a passive evade on auto attack, a plethora of defensive options (sword/dagger evades, block with knockback on GS and a stun). On top of that, you can leap twice through your healing spring, which is going to be around an additional 4k heal.

You might not kill fast (or at all), but you sure can stall with the best of them. Evading knockbacks and contesting for days being a complete and total distraction, or holding points until the rest of the team.

Also, spirit watch orb running.

“Ranger” does not refer to someone who uses “Ranged” weapons it refers to someone Who Ranges, meaning Travels far and wide, the ranger is a combination of hunter/woodsman

i play a mixed trapper ranger + pure melee sometimes when i’m fooling around on spvp or for dueling guardians. it’s fun and the ranger melee weapons just feel nice. i’m not an anchor i’m constantly darting around. there isn’t some insta-teleport melee skill which makes the experience visceral and i tend to hit more with my pet in melee.

you can stun lock + knock down + evade almost all the time to mitigate damage. and works well with the skirmish skills and pet swapping builds. it’s not as frantic as playing ele, and it’s less straight forward than warrior and guardian. the amount of inbuilt defensive (evade + block) utilites on the weapon. and it makes it easier to use your trapper combo fields.

I dont know why people are writing essays.

This question the OP asks can be answered VERY VERY simply:

Melee weapons are the rangers STRONGEST WEAPONS. That is the most simple answer there is. That means that rangers who use melee weapons usually use ZERKER gear.

Also, the sword is also one of the best, if not the best, evasive weapons in the game. Usually players who use shortbow/longbow are noobs because that is not how you play a ranger. you pick one or the other. LB = straight DPS. SB = conditions. You can only have gear for one or the other

Aragorn was a Ranger.

/thread <—-?

Because it reminds me a lot of the beastlord back when I was playing EQ, wich was my main and favorite character
And I don’t care about Aragorn or Legolas ;D

Ranger is generally “known” to be a ranged class. On other games it’s maybe true, but on GW2 it’s wrong. Ranger, in GW2, is a pet class.

Greatsword just don’t fits the image I have of a ranger, which is a hunter, beast tamer. Sword – yes, axe – yes, torch – yes, dagger – yes, greatsword – no. But like people said, melee ranger gets appealing when it starts working, as opposed to running after people for a good minute waiting for them to die of bleeding when using a bow. At least with a melee ranger you have something to do while you wait for your opponent to drop dead or make a run for it.

When originally finding out about Guildwars 2 I wasn’t certain which profession I wanted to play (however, I knew immediately that I was Sylvari).

I played an Assassin in Guildwars 1 and I found it great fun, I’d enjoyed all the different builds I could try and while critical strikes wasn’t exactly my favourite profession trait, it did open up a lot of unique things that only the assassin could take advantage of. I had played the ranger first in Guildwars 1, but it felt… Empty, my ranger would just sit back and shoot people and I didn’t really have to analyse anything, I didn’t have to pick my targets, I didn’t have to wait for the correct timing. I could multiclass and maybe try bunny thumper, dagger expertise, trapper, touch ranger, etc… But the fact that Rangers always seemed to be the bow user drove me away.

Guildwars 2 opened my eyes to something new. The game was far more active, even using a ranger shortbow was entertaining. But the thief, the natural evolution of my old profession, playing them felt… Forced, at least at the gamescom demo. While they were fun to use, their attacks didn’t have any oomph so it was more about being dodgy and less stabby stabby. However…

RANGER GREATSWORD! CRUSH people with your MIGHTY SWINGS! LEAP insane distances to SMASH them with a BIRD! BLOCK their feeble attacks and respond with a KICK TO THE FACE! HILT BASH! (attack of opportunity)

The Greatsword seemed like a dream weapon and when I used it in game, the abilities all felt great, even without 50 of the 60 frames per second that my brother and the Gamescom computers has playing this game. Sure it turns out the counter kick was a lie and that skill alone had me sold on playing a ranger, but eh.

SWORD! It’s like a small greatsword that lets you ACTUALLY KICK PEOPLE IN THE FACE!

Oh yeah. And I suppose Rumble, Buzz, Blast, Quill, Mystie, Whysp, Shisuha, Relicanth, Ursa Arcadius, Arma, Skurrdurr and Joltik all wouldn’t be there for me if I wasn’t a ranger.

Ranged weapon? Oh yeah I need a ranged weapon if I ever can’t take something on in melee… Axe bounces, has a shotgun and causes weakness with almost 100% uptime. Sold!

Because our ranged damage is quite terrible. Longbow is extremely underwhelming and has too many handicaps. The fact that your pet is unable to jump down ledges, go around corners, or hit moving targets, means longbow doesn’t get to add in pet damage half the time or more. That leaves you with a weapon that has a self damage nerf on anything less than 1000 units away. Why in the hell would I want to use that weapon?

Because when I switch to Great Sword and fight inside my healing spring using my Drake and the #3 as blast finishers, I can tank like crazy (Wearing almost all Knights Gear.) I use SB probably 80% of the time, but the Great Sword has helped me win a few battles that I would have surely lost without the evasion and tanking ability that GS give me. Many times I have held off mobs while team mates pulled back to heal, it’s surprising how well a GS Ranger can tank.

Ranger is not “ranged class” anymore than any other class is defined as melee or ranged- this is a stupid holdover cultivated by games with simplistic gamist class systems like WoW.

Something that a lot of people don’t get – most of the time, melee/range isn’t a binary. All classes are functional at melee, some are functional at range. The tradeoff is usually weaker defense.

In other words, the designation of Rangers as “masters archers” does not imply that they can’t or shouldn’t fight in melee. In reality, Rangers are generally a mobile skirmishing jack-of-all-trades class that tend to be better at archery than other classes. That’s all it means.

Longbow does need to be fixed, however.

I play melee because the sword cripples the enemy and lets my cat eat dinner. Chuck gets a voracious appetite and enemies like to run from him.

Well i use shortbow/gs combo i use gs to handle mobs an shortbow for single target the last ability of longbow is horrible imo. i dont use the axe cause it immobilizes me while using the final ability

I focus primarily on PvE, and GS plus DPS pet equals murder. Plus, you get the nice splash damage from the GS which is nice in group events and/or clusters of mobs. GS5 also snynergizes well with a DPS pet because of the buff to the pet’s next attack. I’ve seen my pet hit like a truck using that buff. Lastly, I hate kiting, but like having a pet, so…melee for me.

The only things I don’t like about our melee options is that the 1H sword animation, while cool looking, locks you in place. The other thing is that I would love to go 1H sword and dagger, but the two poison skills seem redundant.

I just love the variety. The evasiveness, the chance of getting some distance with sword after a kill and it does that double dash thing.

Lucky Charmz.5089:

Because I love melee nature-magic based classes. So I go melee ranger. (Kind of my only option).

I keep dreamin myself of a druid/shaman kind of class in GW2. I always played those type of classes.
The only thing i really miss in this beautiful Mmorpg

seneca.1476:

The only things I don’t like about our melee options is that the 1H sword animation, while cool looking, locks you in place. The other thing is that I would love to go 1H sword and dagger, but the two poison skills seem redundant.

Agreed. You would think they could make dodge rolls and/or movement cancel those skills. Then you could have some control without punishing your keyboard.