Guild Wars 2

This comic illustrates how Rangers used to be, before the spirits had their traits combined and they became viable again.

Rangers are OP? Not really. People don’t like the fact that Rangers aren’t a free kill anymore. Nothing was buffed with the spirits besides the storm spirit’s activated ability. We could apply practically permanent burning and poison before, had condition removal traits before, had enormous amounts of evades before, and had protection buffs before too.

You want to kill a spirit Ranger? TAKE OUT THE kitten SPIRITS. The build revolves entirely on spirits and without them we are, obviously, much weaker. AoE them down, they aren’t actually that durable.

Or use immobilization and stuns. Based on the build, the Ranger will either have 1 or 0 stunbreaks, most commonly the latter.

I suppose I’m just venting. I’m becoming greatly annoyed by all the people claiming that I’m Fotm or OP because I use spirits.

Aurum.8793:

I suppose I’m just venting. I’m becoming greatly annoyed by all the people claiming that I’m Fotm or OP because I use spirits.

The types of people that complain about these types of builds are so common in the BuildWars cough GuildWars series it is not even funny.

Remember this one?

Dear A-net. Please nerf rock. Paper is fine. ~Sincerely scissors

But yeah, the build has such obvious counters that you should just go ahead and tell anyone complaining about it “L2P”.

Well, spirit rangers are fotm, so you can’t say you aren’t fotm if you’re playing it, but I agree that they arent OP.

Another thing I agree with, is that they are one of the very few viable ranger builds out there.

I’ve started using it myself in PvE escorts intended as “Group Events”.
It feels like there’s some kind of hidden stat at work that isn’t reflected by the Skill descriptions. I can’t really describe it. At the same time I absolutely hate how much slower and less adaptable I feel compared to the Nature’s Voice setup (where I use Guard to have the pet cover my Flank).

I agree tho’, most rangers totally still are free kills. Not just in WvW but even to a lot of Mobs in PVE from all the downed people I’m still constantly seeing while wading through the Zergs.

What makes spirit rangers op (the same way it makes minion necro op) is the minion shield. You can basically dps freely from behind of your summons without taking any ranged dps since everything will get soaked by your minions as they stay in your way.

If you play spvp you will notice every single decent ranged will position himself behind the minions vs ranged dps classes to block the incoming dmg with pets. This is ridiculous, either summoned minions should be projectiles penetrable by default or it should be possible to rally on minions. As it is right now it is totally OP since 2 spirit rangers and 1 minion necro can shield entire party with minions forcing enemies to fight melee because ofc focusing minions is the worst thing you can do.