Guild Wars 2

Ok, i’ve read a lot on what a Ranger CAN’T do, but not much on the CAN. I’ve only hit 25, but yeah the pet and lack of burst are bad. Then again I hit harder and more steady then my necro which I feel is in a similar boat. But I can still see a lot of people playing high level rangers and have been advised to try it if I want to be a ranged fighter. On the bright side I love having to track down new pets, I love not having instant access to new abilities since it makes me explore more. I loved that about vanilla wow, and miss that from today’s mmos.

So what exactly is the highlights of this class right now? If there is no burst, pet stinks, and damage stinks if my pet dies why would people keep recommending this class? Why do YOU keep playing it?

Because it suits my playstyle, and I like dogs.

Ever play Tecmo Bowl and run w/ Bo Jackson and just tap up and down and run for touchdowns all day long? (shows my age a little) It’s fun at first, but then boring as hell and nobody wants to play against you.

Playing the ranger is NOT like that, and that’s why I play it.

As most would say, the ranger is good at everything, great at nothing in its current state.

Why? For starters, we can’t put down any fields without using pets or utility skills. We have almost no finishers and out of the ones we have many are 20% chance. Our elites are all fairly lackluster with long cooldowns. Pets die often if not micromanaged properly, and even then may still die often. Our arrows are still easily evaded. We lack on demand condition removal. I’m actually bored right now or else I would go on. The point is, we can do it all but not well because we are too versatile. We need more specialization to be truly good at anything. However, a huge part of builds right now is pets. Pick pets that synergize well with your build! Oh, and never, I mean never, pick a bear in PvP.

Point in example, pets can deal significant damage, but long cast times on most skills result in very high miss rates making them fairly insignificant. The best pets right now have aoe control to increase success rate and low cast times to increase damage while still having survivability (canine).

I play because I enjoy playing the underdog and like a profession with a dedicated minion (pet). I almost chose necro but the pets seemed ever more mentally dead and I don’t think I would still be playing if I chose a pet necro as my main.

If you can build your ranger right, you can evade 6-8 or more times before getting hit with both normal dodging, short bow, and utility (4-5 on normal dodging with endurance trait ability in between bows and utilities). Most people who hate Ranger are those who think this game is stat based more than player skill based and forgot a dodge button exists. Pets are just mostly used for their skill and to just add a tad bit more damage to a rangers damage output. Even though I would like to see the Ranger improve a little more (add a fire attack to the freaking short bow instead that Daze skill), Rangers can still be a fun class to play. I think between my maxed Guardian and Engineer, I use my ranger a tad bit more since I put the most effort on equipment for him.

I haven’t been playing as much (more because i have no personal story to do so i’m doing my alts personal story… almost made another ranger…) but the whole theme of being the nature wielding beast master whose proficient with a bow makes me a happy person.

That and i haven’t had half the issues with pets that people talk about… I still don’t get half of the complaints as you’ve probably noticed if you look through my posts, which are fairly blunt (or insulting if you’re afraid of the truth).

Because i play to have fun,and i find shooting people with arrows while going “pew pew” fun……

Gelltor.3015:

Because i play to have fun,and i find shooting people with arrows while going “pew pew” fun……

I hope you have a sling shot shortbow then.

Personal choice and they are fun. Not into the geeky stat fest because that does not equate to fun. Versatile !!!!

At first I thought they’d be boring and repetitive, but they are actually the opposite. Surviving with one of them is enjoyable.

Because of legacy. My GW1 character would flip his kitten if he found out his descendant bearing the same name didn’t also bear the same profession.

That aside, the Ranger has always been the one profession to get nerfed to kitten and back in both GW games, so really at this point I’m just used to dealing with it. I just hope all the other professions choke on my Badges of Honor. 9_9

Same here my main GW1 char was a ranger as is this one in GW2. Always play a ranger class in WOW and Perfect World or any game for that matter.

Axe, bow + pets > pistol, rifle, stealth, elixir + tool packs?

Guess that makes sense to some people.
What ever happened to using the English language ?

achensherd.2735:

Because of legacy. My GW1 character would flip his kitten if he found out his descendant bearing the same name didn’t also bear the same profession.

That aside, the Ranger has always been the one profession to get nerfed to kitten and back in both GW games, so really at this point I’m just used to dealing with it. I just hope all the other professions choke on my Badges of Honor. 9_9

Lol the graphic difference….love it. Sadly rangers were better at using bows in gw1, apparently they forgot how to use them in gw2 500 years later.

i just enjoy the ranger playstyle…the great sword looks and play’s nicely, the shortbow is basically a sub-machine gun, the sword makes me feel like i’m a pirate-fencer. i enjoy how it’s played. coming from a main that is primarily a pet class to one that is really weird… i like to leave some enemies and simultaneously attack two targets at the same time while no where near each other, i got into the habit of doing that and playing warrior or elementalist differs into that regard.

it’s fun just abusing the long leash range of pets to keep people in combat mode as they run away.

it’s not as straight forward as warrior (i made a warrior to try it out, warrior’s are just too easy to counter because you know what they’re most likely gonna do, and it works ).

i don’t like playing high-number characters. i alwayse chose DoT-based characters and tanks…ranger can full-fill this, i was thinking of taking up necromancer but i’ve never had a problem with actually fighting necromancers to warrant them as much as a threat.

Ranger suits my playstyle. I’ve had him camped here:

http://i.imgur.com/jCN76.jpg

because of the cake nature of 2-bear tanking. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and brought him out (even though my replacement is only lvl71) because I was tired of not playing him. I dig my guardian for dungeons, my ele for the light Orr farming and my engy for throwing down pressure on keep/tower walls but there’s nothing that feels quite as right as tearing things up with my ranger.

edit: I can’t figure out embedding images in this beast.

We do alright, but if you stay ranged it is harder to get kills because your 1500 form where someone dies and by the time you run up to them, someone else has done the finish work. Seems like that’s changed a bit recently as I’m getting bags if someone else finishes the “kill” while i’m still in the process. However, it is more difficult, but I guess all ranged have this issue.

I’m not a glass cannon build so killing isn’t as easy anyway, but then I don’t PvP but only wvwvw. We do ok… Don’t really excel at much.

Because I have come to enjoy controlling two characters, myself and my pet. That and Tanking like nobodies business with my Tank BM support build of LoLs. Its fun to play all the hated builds of Ranger and excel at it, go BM spirit build away!!!!

Recent “go me” event. Took out an [group] event champion and all 22 members of its zerg army solo. And my pets never died. Eat it winers.

Voltar.8574:

Ranger suits my playstyle. I’ve had him camped here:

http://i.imgur.com/jCN76.jpg

because of the cake nature of 2-bear tanking. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and brought him out (even though my replacement is only lvl71) because I was tired of not playing him. I dig my guardian for dungeons, my ele for the light Orr farming and my engy for throwing down pressure on keep/tower walls but there’s nothing that feels quite as right as tearing things up with my ranger.

edit: I can’t figure out embedding images in this beast.

What is this armor setup?

Roziel.5720:

Ok, i’ve read a lot on what a Ranger CAN’T do, but not much on the CAN. I’ve only hit 25, but yeah the pet and lack of burst are bad. Then again I hit harder and more steady then my necro which I feel is in a similar boat. But I can still see a lot of people playing high level rangers and have been advised to try it if I want to be a ranged fighter. On the bright side I love having to track down new pets, I love not having instant access to new abilities since it makes me explore more. I loved that about vanilla wow, and miss that from today’s mmos.

So what exactly is the highlights of this class right now? If there is no burst, pet stinks, and damage stinks if my pet dies why would people keep recommending this class? Why do YOU keep playing it?

I like the class because I enjoy the high mobility active playstyle along with the complexities present with pet management. The mobility isn’t on the same level as a thief, but the thief class really doesn’t appeal to me.

I also like how much I can adapt to circumstances in PvE with Ranger utility and pet changes.

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Wrong, a warrior is a warrior, and the thief is a thief. Ranger’s are the only class that aren’t ranger’s, they are beast masters. Traditionally, Ranger’s are not suppose to have pets. ANet mixed two classes into one when they did our class and that’s why this class is so broken. Anet created a hybrid class and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.

What rangers can do:
Immunity to cc condititions (not constant immunity)
Survive
Steady damage

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Wrong, a warrior is a warrior, and the thief is a thief. Ranger’s are the only class that aren’t ranger’s, they are beast masters. Traditionally, Ranger’s are not suppose to have pets. ANet mixed two classes into one when they did our class and that’s why this class is so broken. Anet created a hybrid class and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.

Whoa, put down the coffee, lol. Go back and read the post I replied to again.

I play a melee Ranger now with sword and greatsword. I don’t know about effectiveness, but the gameplay combined with the animations probably makes it the most fun that I have had with any class.

I like something fly arrow and have high survive type.
And I play good with handicap class(ranger have to fix more for good effective)to face off another class.

I like fight with distant not close heavy armor like War(this class is overall crazy weapon pick up.) or zip-zip sneaky pew-pew type like thife and both class can use bow but…
No!
I like my ranger fight forward with buddy and know ourself how to come back alive.

Dahkeus.8243:

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Wrong, a warrior is a warrior, and the thief is a thief. Ranger’s are the only class that aren’t ranger’s, they are beast masters. Traditionally, Ranger’s are not suppose to have pets. ANet mixed two classes into one when they did our class and that’s why this class is so broken. Anet created a hybrid class and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.

Whoa, put down the coffee, lol. Go back and read the post I replied to again.

Sorry, didn’t mean it as a ‘snap at you’ type of attack or anything. I’m just tired of people saying that if you want to play a ranger then create a warrior or a theif. I have a level 80 thief, and I have a warrior as well. Including my level 80 Ranger, neither of the three feel like a ranger to me. The thief feels like a true thief for me. The warrior excels in rifle, not bow, and ranger doesn’t excel in anything. When I play it I feel like a beast master in any other game. I’m there to support my pet, I am my pet’s pet! I really wish they would either rename the class to beast master, because that is what we are currently, or remove the pet mechanic which sucks anyways, especially in WvW, increase our damage to offset the loss of pet damage, and we keep the name of ranger.

And honestly, it’s not even the pet mechanic that doesn’t make the ranger class ‘feel’ ranger..ish. It’s the whole thing. We are suppose to be woodsmen, outdoorsmen, hunter’s. We should be able to track, hide in the shadows and move in stealth when in the woods while hunting prey. I should be able to take terrain as an advantage, not a disadvantage as it is now. I stand on a wall and try to shoot DOWN and I’m told it’s to far away! How the kitten can down be to far to shoot? Then adding salt to injury half of my damage is sitting next to me licking his balls because he doesn’t know how to run down the stairs to attack the people below!

For gods sake Anet, Give me a REAL Ranger class! One that I can be proud to play!

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Wrong, a warrior is a warrior, and the thief is a thief. Ranger’s are the only class that aren’t ranger’s, they are beast masters. Traditionally, Ranger’s are not suppose to have pets. ANet mixed two classes into one when they did our class and that’s why this class is so broken. Anet created a hybrid class and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.

Whoa, put down the coffee, lol. Go back and read the post I replied to again.

Sorry, didn’t mean it as a ‘snap at you’ type of attack or anything. I’m just tired of people saying that if you want to play a ranger then create a warrior or a theif. I have a level 80 thief, and I have a warrior as well. Including my level 80 Ranger, neither of the three feel like a ranger to me. The thief feels like a true thief for me. The warrior excels in rifle, not bow, and ranger doesn’t excel in anything. When I play it I feel like a beast master in any other game. I’m there to support my pet, I am my pet’s pet! I really wish they would either rename the class to beast master, because that is what we are currently, or remove the pet mechanic which sucks anyways, especially in WvW, increase our damage to offset the loss of pet damage, and we keep the name of ranger.

And honestly, it’s not even the pet mechanic that doesn’t make the ranger class ‘feel’ ranger..ish. It’s the whole thing. We are suppose to be woodsmen, outdoorsmen, hunter’s. We should be able to track, hide in the shadows and move in stealth when in the woods while hunting prey. I should be able to take terrain as an advantage, not a disadvantage as it is now. I stand on a wall and try to shoot DOWN and I’m told it’s to far away! How the kitten can down be to far to shoot? Then adding salt to injury half of my damage is sitting next to me licking his balls because he doesn’t know how to run down the stairs to attack the people below!

For gods sake Anet, Give me a REAL Ranger class! One that I can be proud to play!

But…the ranger is, at it’s heart, a pet class. This is one of the major directions that ANet has decided on since the launch of the game. For people that want to shoot arrows without a pet, there are two other classes that cover this, so don’t hold your breath about some petless option.

Even if ANet wanted to make Rangers able to play without a pet, it would require a really big change that would require a lot of balancing and testing that’s just not realistic for them. Right now, ANet is focused on proving that a game without a monthly fee can produce lots of content, which is why there are still so many bugs prevalent.

Even if ANet had the time and resources to make a change like this, it would be a big balance change and their philosophy since launch has been to only make small minor changes to class balance rather than making big sweeping changes that cause additional balance issues later.

Roziel.5720:

Ok, i’ve read a lot on what a Ranger CAN’T do, but not much on the CAN. I’ve only hit 25, but yeah the pet and lack of burst are bad. Then again I hit harder and more steady then my necro which I feel is in a similar boat. But I can still see a lot of people playing high level rangers and have been advised to try it if I want to be a ranged fighter. On the bright side I love having to track down new pets, I love not having instant access to new abilities since it makes me explore more. I loved that about vanilla wow, and miss that from today’s mmos.

So what exactly is the highlights of this class right now? If there is no burst, pet stinks, and damage stinks if my pet dies why would people keep recommending this class? Why do YOU keep playing it?

im confused on how you are not thrilled with the class pet at level 25. the beast mastery line is broken, giving static bonuses to pet stats rather than percentile bonuses, so at 25, with 10 points in BM your pets gets +100 to ALL of its stats, making it a borderline god able to solo veterans without the help of your puny ranger. this charade continues until level 60, after which item scaling slowly catches up to beastmastery scaling. speaking as somone who has half the classes at 80/exotic and the other half over ~50, the ranger is far an away the strongest low-level class in the game.

The Bad:
—spirits really should be unkillable auras that follow the ranger, with traits to improve their strength. current implementation of zoo of 10 hp ghosts that only follow you if you blow 30 traits is NOT acceptable.
—they have no real escape. escape can be “cheesed” with norn snow leopard, siamoth stealth + greatsword, or popping invulnerabilties and praying, but none of those fly for general pvp.
—ranger is penalized heavily in situations where pets cant contribute (zerg wvw, towers, dungeon mobs that 1 shot pets). there needs to be a change to passive mode where the pet goes passive and gives the ranger a passive bonus rather than a huge damage penalty.

The Good
—Best weapons in the game. I know i’ll get flack for this, but we really dont have any bad weapons except OH axe. all of our weapons are good in their element and there is no weapon that is useless. could they be better? yeah, LB taking huge hits to potential at mid/close range is dumb (like really, point blank on a hundred pound string this arrow has bad velocity?), shortbow is STILL not working with QZ and no answer from the devs on that, GS does less damage than a 1h sword (lol?), but the skills themselves are very fun.

—combo fields, particularly healing spring and flame trap. DEVS: why does harpoongun5 not give a smoke field, but trident(earth attunement)5 does?

—archtype: honestly, who doesn’t love the scout/archer archtype? this alone will make gamers swoon. this is probably the reason its so critical that bows stay viable, because for many people, it takes a bow to make a ranger.

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Uhhhh no. Warrior lobs fireballs shot from his bow into an area, and occasionally shoots arrows 2-3 at a time, but has low kitten range, thief has goofy kitten arrow animations, teleports around with his arrows and shoots bombs and poison bombs… what part of that is an archer aside from having a bow. Thats like having a swordsman throw his sword every attack like a spear and instead of using real swordsmanship he just throws it and shoots spells out of it. I want a real archer/sniper feel, no class has that. Ranger could had it not been for the pets and the longbow skills, fix those and problem solved.

Dahkeus.8243:

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Akisame.9508:

Dahkeus.8243:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I wouldnt mind the class if I wasnt forced to have a pet. Id be happy if they just make a petless archer class. But they wont.

That class already exists. It’s called a Warrior or Thief.

Wrong, a warrior is a warrior, and the thief is a thief. Ranger’s are the only class that aren’t ranger’s, they are beast masters. Traditionally, Ranger’s are not suppose to have pets. ANet mixed two classes into one when they did our class and that’s why this class is so broken. Anet created a hybrid class and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.

Whoa, put down the coffee, lol. Go back and read the post I replied to again.

Sorry, didn’t mean it as a ‘snap at you’ type of attack or anything. I’m just tired of people saying that if you want to play a ranger then create a warrior or a theif. I have a level 80 thief, and I have a warrior as well. Including my level 80 Ranger, neither of the three feel like a ranger to me. The thief feels like a true thief for me. The warrior excels in rifle, not bow, and ranger doesn’t excel in anything. When I play it I feel like a beast master in any other game. I’m there to support my pet, I am my pet’s pet! I really wish they would either rename the class to beast master, because that is what we are currently, or remove the pet mechanic which sucks anyways, especially in WvW, increase our damage to offset the loss of pet damage, and we keep the name of ranger.

And honestly, it’s not even the pet mechanic that doesn’t make the ranger class ‘feel’ ranger..ish. It’s the whole thing. We are suppose to be woodsmen, outdoorsmen, hunter’s. We should be able to track, hide in the shadows and move in stealth when in the woods while hunting prey. I should be able to take terrain as an advantage, not a disadvantage as it is now. I stand on a wall and try to shoot DOWN and I’m told it’s to far away! How the kitten can down be to far to shoot? Then adding salt to injury half of my damage is sitting next to me licking his balls because he doesn’t know how to run down the stairs to attack the people below!

For gods sake Anet, Give me a REAL Ranger class! One that I can be proud to play!

But…the ranger is, at it’s heart, a pet class. This is one of the major directions that ANet has decided on since the launch of the game. For people that want to shoot arrows without a pet, there are two other classes that cover this, so don’t hold your breath about some petless option.

Even if ANet wanted to make Rangers able to play without a pet, it would require a really big change that would require a lot of balancing and testing that’s just not realistic for them. Right now, ANet is focused on proving that a game without a monthly fee can produce lots of content, which is why there are still so many bugs prevalent.

Even if ANet had the time and resources to make a change like this, it would be a big balance change and their philosophy since launch has been to only make small minor changes to class balance rather than making big sweeping changes that cause additional balance issues later.

A stupid direction, they should do what wow did and give the OPTION to be pet based or weapon based. Atm you are almost 80% pet based with the weapons just being extra damage for your pet.

Raven.9603:

post

Actually I never knew of the bug. I was planning to put 10 in beast just for the +stat per kill, but that was not a high priority. I’m going to respec for that bonus now. So thanks for making my low levels a little easier. (Not that i’ve had to much trouble, but this is the 6th class trying to get past 60 and its getting a little old)

I agree actually with your good/bad points. Though what is this short bow QZ bug?

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

A stupid direction, they should do what wow did and give the OPTION to be pet based or weapon based. Atm you are almost 80% pet based with the weapons just being extra damage for your pet.

I also agree, but point out that vanilla wow was very much similar to what we have right now. With added bonus of having to keep the pet happy and fed, and buy arrows/bullets.

Though i’m not sure how the profession mechanic could be changed, I like my eagle that does decent damage and adds the best dps condition bleed. That and it’s a tough little raptor. Maybe an inactive passive kinda like what Raven suggested as if it were down?

Indoles.1467:

The point is, we can do it all but not well because we are too versatile.

It’s the same way with engineers. And you know the most messed up part? Elementalists are the “king’s of versatility”. And they can specialize more easily (effectively) than a ranger or engineer while maintaining that versatility.

Roziel.5720:

Raven.9603:

post

Actually I never knew of the bug. I was planning to put 10 in beast just for the +stat per kill, but that was not a high priority. I’m going to respec for that bonus now. So thanks for making my low levels a little easier. (Not that i’ve had to much trouble, but this is the 6th class trying to get past 60 and its getting a little old)

I agree actually with your good/bad points. Though what is this short bow QZ bug?

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

A stupid direction, they should do what wow did and give the OPTION to be pet based or weapon based. Atm you are almost 80% pet based with the weapons just being extra damage for your pet.

I also agree, but point out that vanilla wow was very much similar to what we have right now. With added bonus of having to keep the pet happy and fed, and buy arrows/bullets.

Though i’m not sure how the profession mechanic could be changed, I like my eagle that does decent damage and adds the best dps condition bleed. That and it’s a tough little raptor. Maybe an inactive passive kinda like what Raven suggested as if it were down?

Maybe explain, never played vanilla wow so idk how rangers were but I can guess that aimed shot hasnt changed, that is a sniper like attack that I loved and now they even have another one called power shot or something, I could live with the pet if my longbow made me feel like a archer who is sniping, and not just someone trying to get off as many arrows as possible in the shortest amount of time. I loved cammo+aimed shot on my wow hunter, felt unique and dangerous, Id like something like that for rangers.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Maybe explain, never played vanilla wow so idk how rangers were but I can guess that aimed shot hasnt changed, that is a sniper like attack that I loved and now they even have another one called power shot or something, I could live with the pet if my longbow made me feel like a archer who is sniping, and not just someone trying to get off as many arrows as possible in the shortest amount of time. I loved cammo+aimed shot on my wow hunter, felt unique and dangerous, Id like something like that for rangers.

Well from what I remember you had to tame pets (you also had to survive taming them which sometimes required a healer friend) but also had to feed them to keep them happy. Less happy means less damage, but happy gave you a 150% pet damage increase. I think (didn’t really play a hunter at that time) there was a pokemon trainer aspect where you could train abilities from different pets to your current pet. But yeah in the end pet damage made up a large portion of the hunter’s damage. Not to mention it was one of the more costly classes to train and use since you had to consistently worry about ammo, even one of your bag slots was just for ammo and fire speed.

Apparently now you have the option after a certain point that it doesn’t hurt you to not have a pet out, which if dps wasn’t so overpopulated would make me want to try out the hunter again after all these years. Almost, but that would require going back to wow…. Then again I start yawning after a while playing mmos and so far haven’t with my ranger.

I get what they were trying to do with the longbow as a long distance attack…but with no conditions other then vulnerability it falls a little short. Now if the #1,#4, or #5 did bleeding it would help out a lot. But I don’t see as much use for the longbow outside of tower defense.

Roziel.5720:

I agree actually with your good/bad points. Though what is this short bow QZ bug?

The QZ bug is that QZ is supposed to double the speed of attack. when ranger shortbows got slowed down a tad, QZ increased the speed of attack but doesn’t actually double it like it does with other weapons.

Zonzai.2341:

It’s the same way with engineers. And you know the most messed up part? Elementalists are the “king’s of versatility”. And they can specialize more easily (effectively) than a ranger or engineer while maintaining that versatility.

i would disagree with this. elementalists, perhaps more than any other profession in this game, are literally locked into a specific spec to be effective. d/d and s/d (do people still use scepter?) are almost entirely running some variation of 0/0/10/30/10, forced to go cantrips to survive, forced to go water for condition removal, forced to go 10 arcane for realistic swap speed and buffs on swap. staff eles are in a similar spot, forced to go 0/0/10/10/20 (doesnt need cantrips, but probably still has them, and now needs blasting staff). in either case, thats 40-50 traits they have no say over if they want to be viable. granted, that does make them pretty kitten viable, it certainly doesnt make them versatile.

ontop of this, you have terrible base class discrepancies (10k base health, 300-400 less base armor than heavies) that force either defensive gearing or speccing just so ranged fireball throwers can reach the same level of health/armor that others get for free.

Roziel.5720:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Maybe explain, never played vanilla wow so idk how rangers were but I can guess that aimed shot hasnt changed, that is a sniper like attack that I loved and now they even have another one called power shot or something, I could live with the pet if my longbow made me feel like a archer who is sniping, and not just someone trying to get off as many arrows as possible in the shortest amount of time. I loved cammo+aimed shot on my wow hunter, felt unique and dangerous, Id like something like that for rangers.

Well from what I remember you had to tame pets (you also had to survive taming them which sometimes required a healer friend) but also had to feed them to keep them happy. Less happy means less damage, but happy gave you a 150% pet damage increase. I think (didn’t really play a hunter at that time) there was a pokemon trainer aspect where you could train abilities from different pets to your current pet. But yeah in the end pet damage made up a large portion of the hunter’s damage. Not to mention it was one of the more costly classes to train and use since you had to consistently worry about ammo, even one of your bag slots was just for ammo and fire speed.

Apparently now you have the option after a certain point that it doesn’t hurt you to not have a pet out, which if dps wasn’t so overpopulated would make me want to try out the hunter again after all these years. Almost, but that would require going back to wow…. Then again I start yawning after a while playing mmos and so far haven’t with my ranger.

I get what they were trying to do with the longbow as a long distance attack…but with no conditions other then vulnerability it falls a little short. Now if the #1,#4, or #5 did bleeding it would help out a lot. But I don’t see as much use for the longbow outside of tower defense.

It doesnt need condis honestly, just a reliable source of damage output. Rapid fire has a 10 sec cd, 100b has a 6 sec cd, maybe if they made rapid fire have a shorter cd, or just made hunters shot a damage ability like we want it would make it much better too use. Idc about their ideas and designs on how ranger is supposed to be, while having a companion that does half ur damage is a cool idea, in pvp its a flawed one and not very viable. Hell even in wow during almost all the expansion seasons hunters had to be survival or MM, BM wasnt a superbly viable build, and same with locks who focused mostly on their pets. I just want the option to not need my pet to preform like everyone else, thats all.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

It doesnt need condis honestly, just a reliable source of damage output. Rapid fire has a 10 sec cd, 100b has a 6 sec cd, maybe if they made rapid fire have a shorter cd, or just made hunters shot a damage ability like we want it would make it much better too use.

Dont think we want to start comparing range damage with melee.

Raven.9603:

Zonzai.2341:

It’s the same way with engineers. And you know the most messed up part? Elementalists are the “king’s of versatility”. And they can specialize more easily (effectively) than a ranger or engineer while maintaining that versatility.

i would disagree with this. elementalists, perhaps more than any other profession in this game, are literally locked into a specific spec to be effective. d/d and s/d (do people still use scepter?) are almost entirely running some variation of 0/0/10/30/10, forced to go cantrips to survive, forced to go water for condition removal, forced to go 10 arcane for realistic swap speed and buffs on swap. staff eles are in a similar spot, forced to go 0/0/10/10/20 (doesnt need cantrips, but probably still has them, and now needs blasting staff). in either case, thats 40-50 traits they have no say over if they want to be viable. granted, that does make them pretty kitten viable, it certainly doesnt make them versatile.

I don’t think we’re quite talking about the same thing. I’ll use two posts that put it better than I do.

ThiBash.5634:

They’re both versatile, but where the engineer picks something before the fight starts, the elementalist basically makes their choice during the fight.

Reveaux.5720:

Basically, engineers can mimic any class to a certain extent, whereas elementalists can play as damage, support or control but in their own way.

An engineer isn’t inferior to elementalist in every way, they have more HP for example but then they suffer from weird aggro bugs, low base damage, random skills, self-stuns, useless turrets (that require specialization to almost not suck) and a lot of specs and abilities that don’t have much synergy. Yes viable elementalist traits need to be improved, but viable engineers cannot be made simply by improving traits. I wish that’s all the troubles they had.

I know everybody thinks people just whine about whatever profession they play, and to a large extent, the GW2 forum whine is not justified. But right now, for engineers a lot of it is.

dunno why i keep playing this class and this game tbh. people that keep saying ranger are good must explain me why if pets are supposed to be like 40-50% of our dps:
( talking about pve)
1) pet stats doesnt scale so every upgrade like ascendand items only for ranger class is a 60 % upgrade.
2) boons prioritize players and have a maximum of 5 people that are affected so every boon is only for ranger class 60% effective.
3) pet have agony res stats that cant be improved, if i’m bad at micromanaging my pet i’m ok that him should die but i would like to see a ranger video that is able to keep is pet alive on cliffside 30+ or 40+
4) pet cant dodge and sometimes calling them back isnt enough cause if you move after sending them in melee on callback they run back to their master old position before coming back to you and you cant predict if on callback they will get on your left or right side, they are simply rng and have bad pathing.
5) can someone explain me what i have to compensate the inferior damage to the other 2 ranged class (warrior, thief)
6) we have nearly no combo finisher
7) obstructed
8) shortbow or gtfo

maybe i should you start paying again 13 euros/month :S and this is sad cause i love the lore and in general the game

(sorry for my bad english)

Indoles.1467:

As most would say, the ranger is good at everything, great at nothing in its current state.

Why? For starters, we can’t put down any fields without using pets or utility skills.

Did you forget Bonfire?

I run faster than my Mesmer :B

I’m a relative newbie ranger. Only level 25 and have done no PVP or WVW yet but here is how I play.

Set Pet to avoid conflict. Use shortbow or long bow and engage enemy at range once they catch you make pet attack, throw down Troll Unguent, change to great sword or other melee set up and proceed to destroy. I also have traps as Utilities so use them.

Mobs are no problems for the most part.Pet stays alive 95% of the time and the traps are good with the 20% quicker recharge.

Is working for me thus far.

Would be nice to add armor or some kind of weapons to pets..
And add runes or sigils who would make them more efficient