Guild Wars 2

I see an equal amount of “Rangers are terrible” an “Rangers are fine” rants around the various sites I go to, as well as in-game. Most people who say they are terrible reference pets and scaling, while those who say they are fine don’t really have anything to add.
I am very aware pets don’t scale with gear, and Rangers have lower skill coefficients to make up for the fact we always have a pet. But I wanted to get in depth opinions, something I haven’t seen much of. Support your claims if you can with numbers and experience. I am also testing my ranger out and gathering what numbers I can and will give my insight once I have it more compiled.

As a minor note: how do people say they do X damage? I know each skill has a coefficient, and skill damage is directly related to that and power, but how do people make a claim of like, a 6000 Damage Ranger? I don’t even see myself getting that much power.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Challenging-PvE-Content-vs-Ranger-Mechanics/first#post2564017

Here’s something to read to get you started. My post history also has some links to threads about exactly this.
I’m way beyond caring enough to write this all over again. Sorry.

Dalent.9358:

those who say they are fine don’t really have anything to add.

I think this pretty much sums everything up. Now guess who’s right, the ones saying the pet mechanic is kitten or the idiots saying the ranger is perfect and anet did an awesome job designing the class.
As for in-depth explanations…i think the thread Castaliea posted is significant.

i have a ranger alt. prolly dont know them as well as others do but from the small amount i have played, i can say its not perfect (no class is) but its playable. sure its not gonna burst like a warrior, it might not have as much utility of a mesmer, but it has its place. personally yes i can see they might need to improve some things but i wont say its either totally perfect or totally horrid.

I loathe the bickering and moaning that goes on in this forum, so I’ll just say a few things.

1) Our class mechanic hinders us more than anything else. Various reasons I don’t feel like delving into at the moment, but I feel that it should provide more considering how basic it is (static stats, no skill choice, weak actives, long cast times on everything, etc). Experienced rangers can make it work well for them, I’m not saying that the mechanic doesn’t function, I’m just saying it could be better. Give us more control and give us some real functionality out of them (Our drakes tail swipe should perform a blowout just like the npcs. The majority of our pets provide no cc, minimal condition application (both damage and utility), and meager damage due to fairly long aftercast animations as well as a lack of dodge mechanism (which is core to the gameplay of the professions).). We also get poorer power coefficients on our weapons because of the pet, which makes no sense, especially after the damage nerf to pets.

2) Our build diversity is dreadful. Seriously, out of all the professions I’ve played competitively, Ranger has the worst build diversity.

3) Our condition management is beyond poor. We rely almost exclusively on passive condition cleansing, which leaves us incredibly vulnerable to short length condition applications such as chill, many cripples and immobilizes, and plethora of other conditions.

I’m done.

kamedin.4698:

but it has its place

…and what’s that “place”? A pokemon gym?

The funny thing is, both points are correct. The Ranger does have many flaws, such as the pet not hitting consistently, and dying to AoE damage easily. But despite the flaws, you can still play a Ranger very effectively, and even win in 3v1 fights. It’s also still one of the top tier professions in tPvP.

Kasama.8941:

It’s also still one of the top tier professions in tPvP.

More precisely the ranger has one top tier build which relies on autoattack spamming and screen cluttering.
You can win 3v1 with every profession if your opponents are upleveled players in wvw or lvl1 players in spvp. But ye if you meant “bm regen bunker is strong in duels” i’m sure we all agree. Most passive builds in this game are strong 1v1.

As much as I bang on the way I expected to play a ranger class I must say in fairness…

The pet issue is more a ranged issue (zerg aoe aside). The pet issue is a lot more manageable and consistent if you stick with a melee build, with the pet close to you, this way your water field heals both of you well, your in close roots, like Entangle, help you both and your pet isn’t trying to run all over creation hunting for your target. Your pet special abilities can also help both of you as well.

It is just not what I wanted in a ranger, I would have picked a warrior for a melee class, but my ranger does well in close.

There is way too much expectation given to the pet by ArenaNet. It’s clearly visible in the large amount of traits (even outside the beastmastery tree) and utility skills (signets and shouts) that only affect the pet.

The bottom line is that the pet simply does not deliver on its promise and it’s been a year since release and we’ve not gotten any closer to seeing it realised. In some situations the pet can really shine, but that’s only really in 1v1. There are a multitude of situations where it’s simply impossible for the pet to deliver on its promise. Literally impossible.

The ranger also gets less power scaling because the pet does real nice damage IF it hits. The problem is that there are many situations where it cannot hit.

The ranger is also stuck in combat mode if the pet is in combat mode. It may seem fair, but it’s just that extra bit of annoyance our class mechanic gives us.

So, the Ranger has less choice and is handicapped because he is forced to have a pet that often cannot deliver. The Ranger only shines in situations where the pet CAN deliver.

No amount of tweaking is going to fix it either. It’s a large combination of issues which aren’t even being looked at.

So, it’s time to give 100% power scaling back to the Ranger and handicap the pet instead. Let the pet get the damage reduction, not the Ranger.

The pet shouldn’t be more than a class mechanic and it shouldn’t be able to handicap or annoy the player in any way. We’ll be in a good position when we don’t have to care if the pet dies. Not all class mechanics work in all possible situations anyway.

Other than pets, we completely lack any unique ability that benefits any kind of teamplay. We only have healing spring, but that’s only a waterfield and it’s getting nerfed if those leaked patch notes are true.

Fjandi.2516:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also still one of the top tier professions in tPvP.

More precisely the ranger has one top tier build which relies on autoattack spamming and screen cluttering.
You can win 3v1 with every profession if your opponents are upleveled players in wvw or lvl1 players in spvp. But ye if you meant “bm regen bunker is strong in duels” i’m sure we all agree. Most passive builds in this game are strong 1v1.

I’m not sure what your point is here. Whether or not you think the builds are boring to play, is besides the point. The point is that they are viable builds, which means the Ranger is not a terrible profession. I’ve won 3v1 in WvW using my power build as well, against level 80 players.

The idea is fantastic. An evasive melee and/or ranged nature fighter with an animal companion at your side. I love the fact that we’re not limited to bows. Our pets can pull aggro and attack when you’re disabled.

In practice however, it’s clunky. Even in open world PvE with Agility Training traited my pets will miss on attacks. F2 skills rarely hit for drakes and spiders and devourers. And they’re unresponsive. Pets don’t have enough flavor or control to make them truly amazing.

I honestly have no complaints about the actual ranger character, but the pets (the bread n’ butter of the profession) are a mess. If you can get past this fact, and just view them the same way you view your dumb dog at home that doesn’t listen to you either when you tell it to fetch the paper or stop crapping in the kitchen, then you’ll be fine.

Kasama.8941:

Fjandi.2516:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also still one of the top tier professions in tPvP.

More precisely the ranger has one top tier build which relies on autoattack spamming and screen cluttering.
You can win 3v1 with every profession if your opponents are upleveled players in wvw or lvl1 players in spvp. But ye if you meant “bm regen bunker is strong in duels” i’m sure we all agree. Most passive builds in this game are strong 1v1.

I’m not sure what your point is here. Whether or not you think the builds are boring to play, is besides the point. The point is that they are viable builds, which means the Ranger is not a terrible profession. I’ve won 3v1 in WvW using my power build as well, against level 80 players.

we’re still comparing different settings here, wvw, pvp, pve, dungeons, these are all different playstyles and what is viable or not differs enormous. It’s very nice that you can do 3vs1 in wvw, but it doesn’t change the fact that THE pvp build (spirits) is incredible boring…+ isn’t viable in wvw.

Back to topic, again we have to differ pve, wvw, pvp for sure. But the truth isn’t “we’re totally awesome” either “we suck monkey balls everywhere”. There are some major flaws which are lying in our way, pet AI sucks badly and some aspects of the game aren’t fair for our pets at all. Our damage coefficients aren’t so good, but we do have many ways to buff our damage, so that’s pretty ok too meanwhile.

To take a side, we are pretty ok at the moment, everyone who says that our dps is kitten has no clue (see videos on youtube from brazil for example), group support is ok too (spotter, frost spirit, healing spring), so finally…the whining is over the top, we do have enough reasons to complain (so do have other professions), but it ain’t that bad.
I’m a 90% wvw player, just for the record. We’re still one of the top 1vs1 professions there (yea, tell me “wvw isn’t about 1vs1”, I don’t give a kitten).

Let me apologize for the length of this post in advance. I kind of rambled on longer than I thought as a result of me typing this up when I was ‘watching’ a mandatory training video at work. I’m just going to list off my pet peeves with the class. Some are general to the class as a whole while others are specific to the way I want the class to play. The first I think most will agree with. The rest are a bit biased.

Pet: The pet simply doesn’t work properly. It doesn’t scale with gear and its damage is fixed. This makes it overpowered in areas like s/tPvP where stat allocation is much lower than PvE/WvW. It also rewards bunker builds over dps builds. The pet doesn’t work at all in PvE content because the whole game is designed around avoidance and not tanking. On top of this, the F2 functionality is very unresponsive and poorly implemented. Even if skills went off when requested, most would still miss because of the long build-up times.

Burst: The class doesn’t have much burst potential. While one could argue that Maul and path of scars provide high burst, this is pretty much it. And since the class doesn’t have a trait/ability to reduce the cooldown on weapon swap, utilizing these weapons is difficult because they aren’t viable weapons offensively outside of the burst skills themselves. Without the ability to apply burst damage, it’s difficult for the class to provide enough pressure on targets to win the day. This then forces the class into a more condition oriented playstyle.

AE: Like burst, AE is also quite limited for this class. The few true AE skills available are also not very effective. Barrage does low damage, causes enormous issues with retaliation, and the snaring component isn’t that valuable given you’re rooting yourself for several seconds to cast the spell. Traps have their own, very obvious, limitations as well.

30pt Syndrome: Like the Elementalist, the Ranger is forced into 30pt traits to be even remotely viable. This has an enormous impact on build diversity. Worse still is how a large number of our skills are of questionable value without a full 30 pts invested into a specific tree. Traps, Spirits and Signets shouldn’t require a 30pt investment before they’re on our bars.

RANGEr: This is my own pet peeve. I play the Ranger archetype because I want to play a Ranged class. The Ranger is easily the least effective ranged class in the game. It has poor damage, the kiting abilities are less than the abilities of other class to stick to us, the ranged coefficients are quite poor, the weapon skills are awful for damage and mostly there for utility. I’m glad this class has a realistic melee option as WoW wasn’t fun with the Hunter all the time because the melee skills were mostly supportive in nature. But this game doesn’t really have a ranged option for this class that works.

Utility and Group Worth: This has been my primary complaint for a very long time. There is next to nothing this class provides that is legitimately unique. There are a few things it can do well, but most of these things are done outright better or more efficiently with other classes. The easiest way to tell how valuable a class is, is by playing WvW or doing GvG premades. When was the last time you heard a commander ask for a Ranger to do anything or for a Ranger to provide something? The only thing anyone ever hears is ‘water’ and unless you’re meleeing down a door, an Ele provides a much more valuable and versatile water field. In GvG this class offers absolutely nothing and is a liability. In dungeons it’s much the same. The only place this class shines is in sPvP, and most of that is a result of needing to spend most of your time fighting on a point or getting people off them. Surprisingly, traps and spirits actually function when you know where and when people will be 100% of the time.

Lack of Depth: You see it all the time when you visit the PvP forums… this class is passive. The vast majority of our weapons are reactive in nature. They don’t open up elaborate combos to apply pressure to the target, they don’t have high burst to finish people off, etc etc. The vast majority of our weapon skills are fire-and-forget, use any time skills or reserved for utility purposes. This makes the class very boring to play because all we have left is to spam auto attack while we run around in circles all day.

Unfocused Traits: Many of our trait lines are a mess. This makes it very difficult to build a balanced class. Take longbow for example… to function properly you need to use several longbow specific traits in the marks line and these traits have no real value to any off-set weapon you choose. You then look at skirmishing that if you don’t run traps you kinda don’t know what to put points into. But if you do run traps, you don’t have enough points to spare. And worse still is traps are just skills…

Now these are my issues with the class. Some are legitimate class-wide issues while others are more me trying to play a way ANet may not necessarily want me to play (though I’d wager most people chose this class to be a RANGEr first and foremost). You must also remember that while this forum is very negative overall, the people who use the forums are the vocal minority of players and the primary reason to post on a forum is to complain about how something didn’t work the way you wanted it to work. Yes it’s aggrivating dealing with the ANet and Ranger appologists that want to pretend they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and any defficiency a player has with the class is a direct result of their lack of skill. But things are never going to get better without honest discussion about the issues players have. So thanks for making this thread. And sometimes even the appologists have valuable things to add to a discussion because they may do something in a way you never thought of and open your eyes to something you may find useful.

I can average 2000 DPS solo but it’s only by completely abandoning the way that Ranger was designed (and is still being designed) to be played by Anet. Some players have video of themselves averaging 4000-5000 DPS on Ranger in Dungeons and beating Speed clear records. However this is almost entirely due to support from pure Offensive buff classes capping 25 might and throwing in “Conjures”/WB’s that for some odd reason had a higher base damage for Ranger. IOW: basically legal exploiting.

The people you see here who are typically cow-towed to in this forum as ranger experts, actually get laughed at by these other power-builders b/c they lose arguments to them frequently whenever these DPS forum-PvP events take place. The most well known one hasn’t posted in this thread yet but I’m sure he will. When he does, take his opinions with a grain of salt b/c they’re miles away from where Ranger actually stands in the end-game world.

devs have no VISION for the ranger profession. this is the problem, even though theyre doing everything “right”. what is the ranger supposed to be?

- superior ranged damage/sniper/hit and run – nope. see GS mesmer, rifle/GS war
- evasive melee fighter – nope. u have a couple of evades true but ranger melee builds are too easily shut down and they dont do enough damage
- support – nope. ranger doesnt give valuable boons to the group (prot, stab, might) and cant heal the group. guard and ele do this more often than not while dishing out great damage
- attrition – yes maybe in duels. condi regen bunker is a fantastic dueling spec, but becomes fairly ineffective when facing more than 2 good players. not enough stun breakers, no target drops, no escapes, too few effective condi wipes.

the ranger is basically a HYBRID, but the devs arent fixing the prof with this in mind. hybrid can basically do a little bit of everything, but currently ranger is kitten by pet’s lack of utlity, a number of highly ineffective utilities, and overall low dps due to being chained down to pet mechanic.

also right now the utility rangers have not many of them are useful unless you are willing to spend 20 or 30 trait points, compared to other classes this is horrible. most classes utility CD plays a significant role on their performance whether they are traited or not. engineer is actually in the same boat as ranger, most of the utilities the 2 classes have are not great stand alone utilities with only 1 or 2 exceptions depending on your spec (power or cond)

So, what I’m getting from a mass grab from what I’ve read here, is that in PvE, Rangers are “okay.” And that’s it. They are outperformed in every aspect of the game, especially ones they should perform in. And much of this has to do with the Pet, and the multitude of abilities and traits that interact with said pet. In PvP, rangers are a little more acceptable, but mostly due the fact the pet isn’t as great of a liability. Rangers CAN be good, and can do very well considering, but when you compare their functionality with that of every class, they fall into the middle ground in almost everything, and excel in nothing.

ilr.9675:

I can average 2000 DPS solo but it’s only by completely abandoning the way that Ranger was designed (and is still being designed) to be played by Anet. Some players have video of themselves averaging 4000-5000 DPS on Ranger in Dungeons and beating Speed clear recor.

Can you tell me how you’re coming to these conclusive numbers? I’m not saying I disagree, but obviously my methods and knowledge are limited/wrong.

it revolves around 100% crit damage, high crit, stacking and sharing might with your pet, and using sword 1 on autopilot. the damage is comparable to all other zerker profs. but i dont like playing my ranger that way.

I’m not saying how are you achieving these numbers, I’m curious is what method you are using to get these numbers. There’s no in-game DPS meter as far as I can tell.

Also, can someone help me find a source that says rangers have lower base damage to accommodate the pet? Friend of mine mains a ranger, and refuses to believe that’s the case. She’s convinces Rangers are a gift to the game.

Dalent.9358:

I’m not saying how are you achieving these numbers, I’m curious is what method you are using to get these numbers. There’s no in-game DPS meter as far as I can tell.

Also, can someone help me find a source that says rangers have lower base damage to accommodate the pet? Friend of mine mains a ranger, and refuses to believe that’s the case. She’s convinces Rangers are a gift to the game.

Just go to the wiki, for example here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Greatsword
Have a look at the damage and the coefficients of the different professions, this should help for a first glance. Additionally it should be said that we have easy access to extra damage which isn’t considered here.

I think you’re getting a poorer impression of this thread than it is, but I may be wrong.

e: oh, regarding dps, that’s indeed a good question, cos there really isn’t a 100% viable method in this game…only killing a mob and measuring the time, I think that’s the best we can do, but still it isn’t very accurate.

Overall the ranger is alright, but the pet “mechanic” is just pathetic. At first I though it would be fun because the longbow and great/sword skills are just a ton more fun and fluid than the warrior and it seemed like it might be fun to have a sort of sidekick running alongside you to help spread out damage/control/etc.

However, pets in a ton of the content that is considered meaningful are just a straight up liability most of the time. I can tend to get in an f2 on my wolves here and there, but they usually tend to die the second afterward, take an unlucky hit and die even before they can get a hit in, or I just try to keep them by my side and stay at a range in order to not become too annoyed with them following me around dead 90% of the battle (still doesn’t work all the time since they sit so freaking far away from you, or just end up triggering something that downs you or an ally, etc.).

My suggestion for a quick fix that could work:
1. Combine “Attack My Target, Return to Me, Guard,” and “Avoid Combat” into a single toggle-able f1 skill.

• This skill would toggle between an attack state and a passive state.

Now that we have a free button to utilize (f3):
2. Add a new skill that has the pet go into a dodge mode for 8 seconds

• This would NOT be 8 seconds of invulnerability, but 8 seconds where the pet will instantly cancel any current actions in order to use a dodge (i.e. a wolf is attacking an enemy and you pop this dodge skill: the wolf continues to attack, the enemy drops an aoe field, but instead of taking the hit the wolf does a small leap to evade each time it would take a hit during that 8 second period).
• This new f3 ability would have a 30 second cool down unless traited (maybe under one of the current traits; speed training, shout master, commanding voice?)
• Pet still attacks and acts like normal while this skill is activated, but will instantly cancel anything they are doing to use a dodge where they would have taken damage.
• The pet dodge during this period could have an internal cool down of like 2-3 seconds between dodges (this would make it more like an actual player dodge than a block/invulnerability); they could increase this to like a 4 second internal cool down for pvp.

After reading all of your comments and posts I come to the conclusion that the ranger profession is a good one but it has the potential to be an even better one.

I started as a ranger and it is my main. I love the fact that I play ranged with my LB and switch to melle with SB or GS or Axe/Axe or Axe/WH (I currently play with LB and Axe/WH).

My thoughs pretty much go with the rest of the comments I have read. PEts can be usefull in the short run (I switch between a sylvari hound to give a minor regen and the wolve when I am downed) but they are definately reliable. They die too easy and can only be useful when they are sent into the enemy(wheter on WvW or Dungeons) straight away. I wish the AI of the pet would be better to make it more enduring.

My traits especiallized in Power and Accuracy to get the piercing arrows and the signets also affecting me. My utility skills revolve around signet of stone (invulnerability when active), quickening zepthyr or singet of the renewal and signet of beastmastery. Downside of this if break stunners are really low and I tend to rely mostly on myself than on my pet. That’s pretty much how I roll.

As people have mentioned other classes have some interesting “combo” type skills that allow you to chain various weapon skills together to apply great burst. I think the key to opening this up with the ranger is to have combos that are pet-weapon related. Some of the weapon skills shoot for this like hilt bash giving next pet attack +50% damage, but it is really limited and not really flashy or exciting.

I know some of you would hate that idea because pets are so unreliable. Indeed, one of the frustrating and challenging things about playing ranger is that many of your skills are tied to a pet that is unresponsive compared to if the player was executing the skill by themselves.

Overall, however, in spvp at least, rangers seem to be doing ok. They have about 4 pretty solid builds which is good.

Recently I see a lot of people saying how brainless it is to play ranger, but really the lack of obvious combos and heavy reliance on a pet makes it quite challenging. You really have to work to maximize the value of your pet, but all other people see you doing is auto attack and evade.

Please note that english isn’t my mother tongue (so pls be patient with mistakes :P), but since the german forum isn’t as intresting as the english one, i rather post here

Firstly, i play this game for fun and not for competition. I’m not one of these guys who wants to achieve the highest damage numbers, nor being unkillable. I’m not a theory crafter who sits hours infront of statistics to get most of my build. I just play and that’s what most people should do…

Most of the community thinks, that dps is everything and refuses to accept player who don’t follow the warrior/mesmer berserker speedrun meta (referring to pve since it’s what i mostly play). Reading posts like “Don’t think that you’re going to get invited into a speedrun as a kittenin ranger.” Well, i play a ranger for fun and not for pure stats. I have fun with it and won’t become one of those 08/15 berserker greatsword/rifle warriors. Sure i won’t kill stuff as fast as they do, but that isn’t my goal at all.

I play a ranger, cause not everyone can do it. To manage a “useless pet” and dealing “incredibly low damage” i see myself still more usefull than most berserker Warriors are. I know my class in and out, have over 5 armor sets and a huge amount of diffrent bows, swords, axes, etc. I rather deal consistent damage without dieing, than being a berserker who needs to be revived 10 times during a bossfight cause he can’t dodge properly.

Sure, the ranger needs a lot of improvements such as not being forced to use the pet (when taking damage), being able to manage all pet skills and improving pet AI, … (the list is long)

But (and that is why i post this), i play my ranger and i have fun with it. That’s why i play this game, cause it’s meant to make fun. For those, who want to be most efficient, feel free to play whatever you want, but don’t critizies me, for playing what i like.
For guys new to the ranger, don’t hold back to play a class, only because people say it is bad. Try it, learn it and then make your own decision

Bammbelbi, I think all of us do play simply to have fun. Okay, some of us number crunchers have fun doing that too. But I digress. I love running fractals and dungeons, and so optimizing my PvE build (the process of which is also fun) enables me to enjoy the content I want, with the build I want. I just have really been unable to do that with my Ranger. That’s where my concerns personally come in.

Gotta be honest: I really really like the Ranger. BUT! As much as I like the Ranger, I loathe the pet. It’s why I have retired my Ranger in favor of my guardian. I loathe pets because the 1000 or so hours I put in on my Ranger I spent much of it wishing I didn’t have the pet at all. Love the weapons skills and nimble fighting style of the Ranger. Fun. Love it. I loathe the pet as much as I do the Devs that keep the pets in a terrible place because they refuse to admit they cannot program a proper AI. If they’d get over themselves and give me a perma-stow option…. I’d be In a type of Heaven that Shakespeare would be at a loss of words to describe.