Guild Wars 2

Rangers aren’t exactly the most sought after profession for PvE.
I am trying to analyze reasons for this here, taking a look at our skills and traits and how they compare to other classes.
This post is about Group PvE / Dungeons; not PvP / WvWvW

Weapon Skills
Note: I’m talking about untraited Skills here, Traits come later.

Short Bow (1200 Range on all Skills)
1 (Cross Fire): low to moderate damage, high attack speed, single target, short bleed ig it hits the enemy from behind or the side.
Now, if we attack from behind / the side, one stack of bleeding (3sec) gets applied, in order to maximize our effectiveness with this attack, we have to position ourselves correctly and compete with other classes for bleeding slots, since there can be a maximum of 25 bleeding stacks.
There will always be situations where we can not apply the bleed, be it due to positioning problems, full bleedstacks or the fact that we do not want to screw over a class that actually specializes in condition damage via bleeds; leaving us with a fast but weak high range single target attack.

Let’s compare this to the Thief’s Shortbow 1 (Trick Shot). Trick Shot has lower range (900), higher damage, no additional effects. Except that it can hit up to three targets. For more direct damage. Independant of positioning.

I’d say, Trick Shot wins: as soon as there are 2 or more enemies, it is stronger due to it’s bounce, on single targets it is only weaker, if the ranger has ideal conditions (attacking from behind / the side and free bleed stacks). 300 more range cannot outweigh this imho.

2 (Poison Volley): 5 arrows, very low damage, short poison, 9 sec CD, short cast time.
I like to call Poison Volley “that skill I use when I want to lower my damage output”. The direct damage is a complete disaster. Against a single target, 4 arrows would have to hit to get the same damage as Cross Fire. The dot portion is hardly better, 2 seconds of poison. On a 9 sec CD.
But, it can hit multiple enemies! Well, too bad that the damage is so low that it is pretty much impossible to even tag mobs with it. Due to the CD, it would be more efficient to just shot each mob once with Cross Fire, than wasting time on Poison Volley.
Now, what skill does the other Shortbow using class have on their 2?

Cluster Bomb. Higher Damage, pretty good AE. Bleeding instead of poison. BLAST FINISHER. Same Range as our Skills.

Do I even need to say it? Cluster Bomb is so much better than Poison Volley, it’s not even funny.

3 (Quick Shot): Low-Moderate Damage, moves us away from our target, gives 3 sec Swiftness, 9 sec CD.
Well, it’s not a damage ability but an escape move. It does its job, when it works. Like many jump forward / backward skills it sometimes simply doesn’t move the character at all. Annoying, but a problem that is not exclusive to the Ranger class.

Let’s look at the Thief’s 3 (Disabling Shot): Slightly higher damage, 2 sec cripple instead of the swiftness, lower range (900).

I’d say those two skills are pretty even, Quick Shot maybe slightly better because of its higher range.

4 (Crippling Shot): Low Damage, 3 sec cripple, 6 sec bleed, 12 sec CD.
An okay-ish opener. The bleed is twice as long as the one on Cross Fire and not tied to any conditions (being behind the enemy). The cooldown is pretty long considering the low direct damage, alas it can be used when it’s ready without hurting one’s dps (so, unlike Poison Volley).
No comparison to other Shortbow Skills, since there is nothing comparable on Thief; Chocking Gas is an AE Poison Combo Field, serving a vastly different purpose.

All in all, Crippling Shot can be used as an opener, and to apply some bleeding when one cannot flank the enemy. If one is already correctly positioned, there is no much reason to use this skill.

5 (Concussion Shot): Low Damage, 1 sec daze, 1 sec stun when flanking, 25sec CD.
In PvE, this skill tends to be pretty situational. It doesn’t help with damage, the CD is too long to reliably interrupt enemies, stun only works when flanking the enemy. Bosses have Defiant, normal mobs hardly need interrupting; if they do, other classes can do a better job at this.
Again no comparison, for obvious reasons; Infiltrator’s Arrow doesn’t disable, Concussion Shot doesn’t Shadow Step.

Concussion Shot feels mostly useless. High CD, highly situational, easily surpassed by other classes’ skills, terrible damage making it useless in a standard dps rotation.

Short Bow Summary: The “Press 1 and go afk” stereotype fits. Everything other skill pretty much lowers our damage output. Except for the terrible Poison Volley, all the Skills are single target.
If you want to deal damage with a shortbow, play a Thief. If you want utility with a shortbow, play a thief as well, they can use a Poison Combo Field, a Blast Finisher and a Shadow Stepping Skill.

Long Bow (1200 Range on all Skills; 1500 traited (20 pts in Marksman (X, Eagle Eye)))
1 (Long Range Shot): Medium Damage based on range, slow attack speed.
A skill that wants you to stay far away from the enemy. Not the worst idea on a ranged character, though not always possible in narrow places. The main problem with this attack: It is weaker than Cross Fire. At maximum range, when the Short Bow is not flanking, they are about comparable in terms of DPS. Once the Long Bow leaves its desired range and / or the Short Bow starts flanking, things start to look real grim for the Long Range Shot.

Warrior Long Bow 1 (Dual Shot): 900 Range, Medium Damage, 2 Arrows.
Okay… this is difficult.
At a range lower than 500, Dual Shot is better.
At a range of 500-1000, they are about equal.
At a range of over 1000, Long Range Shot does more damage; also Dual Shot can’t reach that far without traits.
Still, Dual Shot is slightly better in my opinion because:
a) no range shenanigans. It always does the same damage, no matter if the enemy is far at the horizon, or already stepping on your toes. Especially in dungeons, where there are narrow, winding paths and Red Circles everywhere, you cannot always stay in your favourite position and range, you’ll more often than not end up closer to the enemy than you want. Dual Shot doesn’t care about that. Long Range Shot doesn’t like it.
b) 2 Arrows. Yes, the individual arrow deals less damage, but: 2 Arrows mean 2 chances to work as a projectile finisher (remember, we’re talking PvE groups here) and it also slightly mitigates the extremely slow attack speed of the Long Bow. A Long Bow attack is slower than an attack with a Hammer (3/4sec to 1/2 sec), slow weapons have problems with critical hits. Every crit makes a huge difference. On a fast weapon, a series of non-crits due to bad luck sucks, but doesn’t hurt the damage output nearly as bad it does on a slow weapon. By splitting the damage onto two separate arrows that can crit independently from each other, Dual Shot could as well have a twice as fast attack speed.

As with shortbows, our longer range cannot offset the drawbacks of our attack in the most cases.

2 (Rapid Fire): Fast(er) attack, high damage, 10 individual attacks, 5sec casttime, 10 sec CD, can move while casting.
At first glance this seems awesome, and indeed it is a vast improvement over our autoattack. Why at first glance? Well, there are two skills that share a rather similar mechanic, let’s have a look at them.
Warrior Rifle 3 (Volley): 5 Shots, 2,5 sec casttime, 10sec CD, can move while casting.
Well, half the amount of projectiles in half the amount of time, with the same CD, that seems balanced, doesn’t it ? It isn’t. Volley’s 5 shots do only slightly less damage than our Rapid Fire’s 10, this leaves the Warrior with 2,5 seconds to apply autoattacks to catch up to us. That’s a bit over 3 attacks. He easily catches up.
But we get 5 more attempts at Projectile Finisher! You said that’s good! Well, we get 1-2 attempts more, since the warrior can autoattack more while we are still Rapid Fireing. On a Longbow, that means the Warrior has MORE Projectiles than we. If he doesn’t switch to a Long Bow to appease our comparisons but instead stays on the Rifle, yes we have up to 2 more attacks in the same time span. The Warrior will apply 6 second bleeds with each of his autoattacks though, this we cannot hope to compensate by getting to use a combofield 2 times more.

The other Attack that is similar in its mechanics is Hundred Blades. I am not going to compare these two attacks. Just remember, they are both on position 2 of the “signature weapon” of the respective class. And we all know which of these attacks is pretty awesome in PvE, and which is pretty meh.

3 (Hunter’s Arrow): 10 Stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds, 15 sec CD, low damage.
Shot an arrow that doesn’t do much damage (really, a Point Blank Long Range Shot does more) but applies 10 stacks of vulnerability. This is a pretty decent opener. The damage is low, too low, and either the CD is too long or the vulnerability duration too short, still one of our better skills, and actually helpful for your party.
Other classes are better at providing vulnerability (Warriors, Necros, Grenadier Engies), but hey, we can bring something to the table as well.
This skill could be compared to Warrior Rifle 4 (Brutal Shot); it would win in terms of vulnerability stacks, lose in terms of damage and duration. At least it has no casting time, so I guess it’s the winner of this comparison.
It also gives your pet a whooping 10 seconds Swiftness…

4 (Point Blank Shot): Knockback, Medium Damage, 15sec CD, 600 Range.
One of the best single target knockdowns in the game. It is also ranged and does okay-ish damage.
The only problem is, you will most likely never use it in a dungeon / party situation. When an enemy is within range of this skill, your Longbow autoattacks are already dealing pretty bad damage, so you would be a) moving away from the mob before he even got that close b) change to another weapon.
Now, of course, there are situations where it is helpful, though overall it’s not that great. Too situational.
No comparison here.

5 (Barrage): 2,75 sec casttime, 30sec CD, big AE Range with moderate damage, up to 12 sec cripple.
Now, Barrage has a very long CD. It is also the only worthwhile ranged AE Attack we have. The damage is not stellar, but acceptable. The crippling is nice to have, though not as great in PvE as it is in PvP / WvW.
Now, let’s compare this to the LB Warriors AE Attacks. Yes, attacks, he has multiple.
Burst (Combustive Shot), same Range and AE size. Way faster casttime (0,75 sec), way faster CD (10 sec), but requires Adrenaline to use.
The Damage is lower than Barrage’s. The Dot it applies is strong, resulting in higher damage. It also is a fire combo field.
The other AE Skill is Arcing Arrow (3). Same casttime and CD as Combustive Shot, lower range (900). The damage per attack is worse than that of Barrage, but one can use 3 Arcing Arrows in the time one could use 1 Barrage; resulting in higher DPS for the Arcing Arrow. Oh, and it is a BLAST FINISHER.

We dully note: Bows have Blast Finishers with short CDs and can provide combo fields; as long as they’re not used by a Ranger.

Long Bow Summary: Well, it is already inferior to our own Short Bow. It is also weaker than the Warrior’s ranged options. Especially the Warrior LB has some nice tricks (10sec CD 8 sec Duration Fire Field, 10 sec Blast Finisher), something a Ranger simply cannot do with his weapon skills.

I am tired, might comment on the other weapons et cetera tomorrow.
Just one last thing I think needs to be addressed.
Pets.

“Pets are an integral part of Rangers…” is something we hear a lot.

- Pets are made of paper. They cannot dodge, their AI is disastrous, in many fights they die without the Ranger even having a chance to prevent it.
- There are situations when the pets just stands around doing nothing. For example the Dragon World Bosses. Melee pets simply refuse to attack them. Same goes for the Eternal Flame in CoF 2 and various other “Objects”
- Some fights are made harder by having a pet, thus taking a Ranger with you hinders the entire group. Examples? Oh of course!
Krait Fractal: If the pet gets near the Jelly Fish and he decides to eat it. The pet won’t struggle, allowing the Jelly to regen lots of HP whilst being almost invulnerable. Just what we needed, making an already long, boring and tedious fight even longer and more boring. Pets are useless at best, harmful at worst.
Jade Maw: Maw shooting his laser at pets… Maw shooting his laser at dead pets
WHAT
I don’t even know what to say, having a class with minions / pets / clones at Maw is suffering. And while a Necro or Mesmer can simply not summon his minions to prevent these problems, the ranger is forced to make this fight harder for his party. I am speechless.
Arah Lupus: Grubs. Again, Melee pets are about as helpful as Randall. As in, they’re not helpful and only make things harder.

Might post more tomorrow; that is unless this post gets deleted due to being nonconstructive or w/e.

I agree, and this is why I shelved ranger to play rifle warrior. It just seems like anet cannot make a decent archer class, rift did it amazingly well, and I can only hope anet sees that and decides to change it up a bit. An example, rifts archers had combo points, at the end of 5 combo points he could dish out a finisher, it didnt have to be 5 but that was the best for damage. His finishers included rapid fire-Fires 5 arrows simultanously, no cast time, huge damage, 10-15 sec cd. The next was Dead-Eye shot, longer cast harder hitting attack, sounds cool as hell, no cd. I cant remember the other but it was a mobility one, did low damage but made you run 30% faster for like 30 seconds. While I dont want anet to copy them, I do wish they would take some ideas and make ranger fun and interesting to play atleast as a longbow ranger. Sick of pets too, but since we are stuck with them Id like them to lower their damage and buff ours, make pets useful for utility only.

Im a longbow fan, sadly I agree that in terms of general usefulness its not viable atm. As you said warriors rifle not only has a rapid fire in half the shots and cast time but also has a ondemand huge burst skill, a cripple, a non positional required bleed, a hunters shot but with less vulnerability, and a point blank aoe Knockback. And warriors longbow actually does more damage if traited for power. I tried a longbow warrior just for giggles and was critting for 8-9k with #3 skill, thats a full barrage duration in 1 single hit, and its a blast finisher, not to mention the warriors longbow has a root, a blind, great projectile finishers, and a painfully delicious aoe combo field which burns like a mofo.

I love anet as a company but I cant stand by them for this atm, hopefully they make longbow worthy of my time before another game comes out with a real archer class in it. Even tho people will complain that I dont want pets, I dont like being tied to them, being forced to play with them. GW1 rangers were far superior because they could be a sniper, a beast master, a hybrid, a support ranger with spirits, they could do it all, and they were highly coveted for their condi damage/interupts. I want to play a powerhouse archer, so when that comes out Ill be back to it. Hopefully its soon.

The thing is, all of your complaints about weapon skills in comparison to thief/warrior are moot because part of ranger’s damage is supposed to come from the pet. Not that the current pet AI is perfect or anything, but this is the reason ranger comes off as weak.

Pet classes are often either too powerful, or too weak, depending on how they did the pet AI. What GW2 ranger needs is improved AI, received aoe damage reduction, and/or control, or else a ‘consume’ and gain part of the pet’s attributes if you choose not to use it.

If you are simply looking for a class that does good damage at ranged, you may want to look elsewhere, warrior and engineer fulfill that role as well. But if you’re looking for something other than that, that’s what the ranger should be (but isn’t quite there yet).

Tsubaki.2508:

The thing is, all of your complaints about weapon skills in comparison to thief/warrior are moot because part of ranger’s damage is supposed to come from the pet. Not that the current pet AI is perfect or anything, but this is the reason ranger comes off as weak.

Pet classes are often either too powerful, or too weak, depending on how they did the pet AI. What GW2 ranger needs is improved AI, received aoe damage reduction, and/or control, or else a ‘consume’ and gain part of the pet’s attributes if you choose not to use it.

If you are simply looking for a class that does good damage at ranged, you may want to look elsewhere, warrior and engineer fulfill that role as well. But if you’re looking for something other than that, that’s what the ranger should be (but isn’t quite there yet).

You misunderstand. I get and hate that ranger is a pet class, the problem is we are boring, our weapons are weak, which in itself wouldnt be so bad if pets made up for it, but the problem is, unless you trait for pet regen and prot, your pet pretty much dies in seconds. People will try and claim that their pet doesnt die if you pay attention but this is a lie, sure they can pull the pet out of the fight before it dies, but then they lose 40-50% damage while they wait for pet to run back, then possibly die to the same aoe that the other pet almost died from, then you gotta wait 20 secs and it becomes a game of switching pets out and waiting for them to almost die. Wouldnt be a problem if pets were like a WoWs hunters pet and all utility with little to no damage unless you build for it.

I get anet wanted to build around the idea that pet+player do about 70/30-50/50 damage share and go from there. Problem is, pets are kinda crap, squishy as hell, cant path, kitten AI, oh and lets not forget that instead of 70/30 its more like 50/30, because our weapons are weak, which means to get the damage everyone else gets we have to use a cat or bird pet. Now you can win some fights with other pets but that isnt my point, and as I said, I quit caring about pets, I just want them to spruce up ranger, make longbow like the scout, and the ideas I posted above, and make signet of the hunt have the same effect and stealth us for 3 secs while giving us 10 secs of swiftness, but honestly, until they make longbow viable and actually feel like a sniper weapon I wont even touch ranger, ever. If push comes to shove Ill just play a different game but atm Im trying to stay loyal to anet and trust that they will do what needs to be done.

I’d rather see the scout tools moved to the Thief. I’ve wanted a Thief Rifle since Beta with those exact tools.

All of the problems you insist on are pet power and AI :P of which I don’t deny is an existing problem, and has been somewhat improved, but certainly not all the way where it needs to be yet.

As for making a ranger a sniper, that is your personal opinion, and it clearly isn’t what the designers intended or we would see such power moves with the longbow (and they have stated otherwise). If the game isn’t suited to your tastes, play something else.

Tsubaki.2508:

All of the problems you insist on are pet power and AI :P of which I don’t deny is an existing problem, and has been somewhat improved, but certainly not all the way where it needs to be yet.

As for making a ranger a sniper, that is your personal opinion, and it clearly isn’t what the designers intended or we would see such power moves with the longbow (and they have stated otherwise). If the game isn’t suited to your tastes, play something else.

I plan on it, and that was what I was saying, if they dont change it to the way I like Ill just move on. Not saying any1 else has to like my opinion or my way of play but if its not fun for me I wont play it. Just sucks, had my heart set on a archer/sniper, I wouldnt mind thief getting sniper skills tho.

Keep in mind my Ranger is level 37 and I have no max level character and have not done any dungeons on any of them. But I am not noob to the MMO world or the ranger/archer/hunter archtype.

My question: In the section where you discuss pets, aren’t there ranged pets you can use for the bosses mentioned that destroy melee pets? Also, don’t you have direct control over what your pet attacks or does not attack?

Again, I’m a noob to GW2 and a bigger noob to the ranger class.

I specifically have to disagree about Ranger Shortbow #1/2 vs Thief Shortbow #1/2. Especially Crossfire vs Trickshot.

Ranger Shortbow 1 has a firing rate of (from what I observe) 58 shots in 30s. Or about 1.9 shots/sec. Thief’s shortbow 1 has a rate of about 31 shots in 30s. Or about 1.03 shots/sec.

Ranger’s shortbow 1 does 134 dmg. Thief’s shortbow 1 does 185 dmg.

Which comes out to a dps of about 259 dmg/sec for Crossfire, 191 dmg/sec for Trickshot. This is in suboptimal situation, with no bleed for Crossfire and only one target for Trickshot.

If you add the bleed stacks that Crossfire is capable of stacking (7 stacks), it doubles Shortbow’s DPS (source: my shortbow vs longbow tests.) If Trickshot sees 2 targets, then it will do double the damage. So even in optimal vs optimal situations, Crossfire wins handily.

So which optimal situation happens more frequently? It depends on what you do a lot. I dungeon a lot, so I am in a lot of situations where I’m just wailing away at a single boss. Also, multiple targets isn’t a condition you can control, while position you can. Lack of ranged single-target dps is the biggest reason why I stop playing my thief.

As for Clusterbomb, that thing is just so unwieldly as hell to use it. The flight time is so, so long. Yes, it does tremendous damage. Yes it’s a blast finisher. But any moving target will easily dodge unless you lead it. And for single-target DPS, if you poison volley at close range and make all 5 hit, you do a good bunch of damage.

Clusterbomb has its uses. It’s a spammable AoE that does a good chunk of damage. Personally, I’ll take it over Volley/Barrage any day for WvW. But Crossfire…man Crossfire is so good, and I think you severely underestimate it.

Are you forgetting that trickshot bounces so its also aoe? It hits like 5 people, and even if its cast time is shorter its damage is greater which makes it atleast equal on single targets, cluster bomb isnt bad at all, its hard to see in the air if you are busy with a group fight but you definitely feel it when it blows up.

I’ve heard a lot of love for the winter scout in festival land. Honestly, I wouldn’t be opposed if they simply made it into another archer focused class, the 9th available. That way archers can play without the pet and Rangers who love there pet can frolic in the fields like they already do.

As it was mentioned, it is kind of unfair to compair weapons of this class to another class without placing consideration for pet. It is amazing when traited into and still okay otherwise. the ranger class was designed to utilize this mechanic we have 4 control buttons to do it. The damage paired with ranger damage puts it spot on with other professions. Most rangers I watch around the world fail to use 3 of the 4 control buttons and suffer because of it when their pet goes down. Some fail to use all 4. It takes a lot of finesse to play ranger to its full potential.

Pet complaints (just read before posting), for the love of pete we have a huge arsinal of pets at our disposal. Take the right pet for the instance. Ranged pets where melee won’t work or will refuse to work. Swap to Moas or Brown bear on passive for buffs and what not. Long Battles it doesn’t matter if you aren’t pew pewing like a boss. those that pew pew like a boss go sploot like ice cream on mid july high noon.

Jelly on Krait fractal… seriously, just swap the kitten pet. Again, use all the bloody kitten controls. The flipping pet is not a fire and forget missile. It IS a bloody party of the ranger, an integral part of the ranger, a member of a two man team.

Did DaisyRogers just say learn to play a ranger. Yep I believe she/he did. And I kind of agree. Also when comparing damge you must account for pet damage. Its been said that pets account for 40% percent of the ranger overall damage.

Yes Pet AI is lack luster but you can atleast add 20% pets are not really that useless. I also want to add Rangers have more than two weopans. Longbow and Short Bow are not our only choices.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Are you forgetting that trickshot bounces so its also aoe? It hits like 5 people, and even if its cast time is shorter its damage is greater which makes it atleast equal on single targets, cluster bomb isnt bad at all, its hard to see in the air if you are busy with a group fight but you definitely feel it when it blows up.

1. Trickshot hits a maximum of 3 targets.
2. On single target, Crossfire’s rate of fire makes it do about 36% more damage than Trick shot (Numbers in my previous post)

Tsubaki.2508:

The thing is, all of your complaints about weapon skills in comparison to thief/warrior are moot because part of ranger’s damage is supposed to come from the pet. Not that the current pet AI is perfect or anything, but this is the reason ranger comes off as weak.

Pet classes are often either too powerful, or too weak, depending on how they did the pet AI. What GW2 ranger needs is improved AI, received aoe damage reduction, and/or control, or else a ‘consume’ and gain part of the pet’s attributes if you choose not to use it.

If you are simply looking for a class that does good damage at ranged, you may want to look elsewhere, warrior and engineer fulfill that role as well. But if you’re looking for something other than that, that’s what the ranger should be (but isn’t quite there yet).

But i don’t want to eat my pet wolf :-(

Expansive.3716:

But i don’t want to eat my pet wolf :-(

But jellyfish tastes so good. ‘Commune’ is probably a better word for vegetarians.

I think that pets are decent. Of couse you have to learn how to command them and find the pet you like. I for one let my wolf do all of my work and watch it take out 2-3 enemies while I get a cup of coffee. I do, however, totally agree with Poison Volley, if I hit with all 5, I do like 1500 dmg with poison.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Did DaisyRogers just say learn to play a ranger. Yep I believe she/he did. And I kind of agree. Also when comparing damge you must account for pet damage. Its been said that pets account for 40% percent of the ranger overall damage.

Yes Pet AI is lack luster but you can atleast add 20% pets are not really that useless. I also want to add Rangers have more than two weopans. Longbow and Short Bow are not our only choices.

But bows are the only option alot of us prefere. I made a ranger to play a archer, if I wanted to use a 1h sword Id play a thief, or guardian or warrior for a GS. Sadly I do wish they would make scout a new class, that would be amazing. They wont, but it cant hurt to wish.

I used to think pets were sucky. But then I started getting used to pressing F1 and F3 constantly. Also keeping my pet on passive so it doesn’t attack stupidly. I find that my pets live quite a lot longer when I’m actually focusing on it as much as my ranger, and my damage is pretty good, too. I started to realize how stupid it was to just keep your pet constantly attacking and having it die. Eventually, instead of my pet feeling like a dumb gimmick, it’s starting to feel more like playing 2 characters at once!
The 2 reasons I see people complaining about pets are
1. They die too fast
2. If you have it run, you’re losing 50% of your damage.
I hate to sound like a jerk… But all I can say to that is, you’re playing the class wrong.
Of course, that’s not to say there are no issues with rangers, because there most certainly are! I just don’t see pets as one of the bigger issues. I hope I’m not hurting people’s feelings by what I said. I come in peace!

I agree with this post. Most of the rangers damage is pretty weak comparing to the other classes. Pets are our companions (I have a ranger, and is the only character I use), but these pets die so quick even the spiders who shoot from far die in a blink of an eye, plus they are slow and enemies can actually dodge their fire so its pointless. Anet has already noticed and are working on this class, but even if the rangers are pathetic right now I wont switch, because I sincerely do love rangers.

Geunyoung.2973:

I used to think pets were sucky. But then I started getting used to pressing F1 and F3 constantly. Also keeping my pet on passive so it doesn’t attack stupidly. I find that my pets live quite a lot longer when I’m actually focusing on it as much as my ranger, and my damage is pretty good, too. I started to realize how stupid it was to just keep your pet constantly attacking and having it die. Eventually, instead of my pet feeling like a dumb gimmick, it’s starting to feel more like playing 2 characters at once!
The 2 reasons I see people complaining about pets are
1. They die too fast
2. If you have it run, you’re losing 50% of your damage.
I hate to sound like a jerk… But all I can say to that is, you’re playing the class wrong.
Of course, that’s not to say there are no issues with rangers, because there most certainly are! I just don’t see pets as one of the bigger issues. I hope I’m not hurting people’s feelings by what I said. I come in peace!

took me six different rangers to figure this one out. It is now by far my favorite class, I love playing two characters at once. Only other class I find remotely interesting now is elementalist. All the other classes just seem vanilla and bland with how lack luster their class gimmicks are.

been playing this class since pre nerf of sb, and though i have try many builds from glass cannons to gs builds. Yes it might be the underdog among the classes and it does shine (bright enough) if you can handle your character well enough. for instance i am now in power-vit-tough gear (less the random ascended gear stuff to survive fracts) and i started having fun with spirits which people think its paper. but believe me, just kite correctly, it proves to be a rather useful boon to both u and ur party. stop thinking that the spirit should last as long as it should, if it does its a plus if not, then treat it as a skill on cd thats all. at least it still last 10s for u to proc, something similiar to sic them. one thing that i hate is the long casting time for spirits, if in water we can cast at .5 sec, why must we take so long to cast on land?

i played full BM before and tried almost every combination possible. from full attack, full tank pets, hybrid play, utility play, support pets, combo field pets etc and its very fun. really. but it does feel lackluster in terms of traits for pets that pple usually go for that few pets (including me). And since you need to keep ur pets alive at all cost, there are just some utilities u need to have to keep rather than it being optional. if thats the case, its not really utility anymore. Thats one more reason why i played spirits because they can really help complement both u and ur pet to a certain extent.

i am not complimenting the class much as i believe it needs reworking especially when pets do really become a burden for parties. ie CoE alpha golem or as the OP said eternal flame in CoF

on separate note….u know those pets that get summon (ie inquest golems, rock dogs, drakehounds?) their ai path is terrible. sometimes it just stand there and do nothing or it just jerk jerk jerk.