Guild Wars 2

I’m not here to stir things up. I was a ranger once. As soon as I hit level 80 I, like many of you realized the faults of the class. We’re ridiculed in wvw and hated in dungeons. I stuck with it for much longer than I think any man can could. I kept lying to myself, saying “oh well once I get better gear I’ll be worthy and useful!” “Once Anet buffs us it will all be better!” It never happened. The ranger class is a joke. After 6 months of suffering as a ranger I took a long break from Guild Wars 2. I’ve recently returned and leveled a Guardian to 80, geared him up in exotics and my god, this game has come into its own. I love wvw. I love how useful I am and how much support I provide. This game is truly great if you aren’t a ranger. So for those of you with only one character that is ranger, I urge you to go through the leveling process again as a new class. You will not regret it.

Am doing the same right now, my ranger is going to the shelf…

After trying so many Power Ranger builds i gave up, if i cant be a power ranger i won’t play ranger!

My Power Thief and Power Mesmer and so good and deadly….
All my potencial was being lost in my ranger, i still like him, great for farming in pve but wont get full ascended gear for the ranger, waste of time.

I have been a ranger since launch. I have no intension of giving up this class. Some people want things easy. If so the Ranger isn’t for you.

So many people cant do dungeons without certain classes. They need a Guardian or a Mesmer or Thief. While they can be nice to have they are not needed. They promote unskilled play. Stealth for the people who haven’t learn to dodge. Teleports for those who cant jump.

I have a level 80 of every class. Ranger is the only class that is a real challenge. The difference between a bad ranger and a good Ranger can be measured in eons. The different Between a Good Warrior and a bad Warrior can be measured in days.

For the other classes there isn’t much to figure out just improving your reflexes. 80% of Rangers cant use the 1h sword properly. The 20% percent remaining range between competent and Gods.

Part of the problem with Rangers it that so much is attention to detail. Pet aI baffles a lot for Rangers. While other Ranger know exactly when a pet will or will not do something.

WvW is a problem for a lot of Rangers. While a few(mostly melee rangers) have a lot of success. The Key here is they pick their target rather than having their pet run in to a zerg blob because the they are auto targeting. Take a que from Thieves who pick there target.

When a Ranger kill another player it because that Ranger is better not because the class is better. Those Rangers who are good are truly Good. The best in every other class will tell you if they are honest that this is a lot about their class that is Op and they abuse the hell out of it.

If you play the class because you enjoy it then play the class. If you want to dominate then you can play an easy class and pick on the class that requires more skill. But then you only pick on the weak how do you fair vs others of your class.

It warms my heart when im in an encounter and someone says" kitten I didn’t know Rangers could be that good."

On other classes what you hear is “x class is so broken”.

If you do decide to leave the class you need not announce it. Just quietly slip away. So When and if you return to The Ranger core your not present with the poison you spewed before your grand departure.

Hm… turtles. That is all.

But serious, I rerolled a guardian a while back and use him when rallying with the guild and doing wvw zerging, but aside from that I enjoy roaming on my ranger, doing small skirmishes and exploring on my ranger. PVE in general class regardless should be fairly easy, and I like the fantasy aspect of being a bow wielding ranger so that is why I play ranger. In the competitive aspect (wvw for me) I honestly believe that one day ranger will have its day and my full ascended ranger will be able to pew-pew just like I dreamed XD

@Serraphin Storm.2369 Stealth for the people who haven’t learn to dodge.

Incredibly stupid comment sorry. i use way more skill playing mesmer than i do ranger but i love them both. stealth and teleports dont promote unskilled play just like evades and conditions and armor armor and stats dont.

the comment about warriors is dead on they are to easy to play. It took me about 2 days to feel cozy with ranger with warrior it took about 1 faceroll in pvp.

Rolling people on ranger is super fun though just because they all expect you to be a longbow 111111er.

:/ i kill people in stealth all the time i dont care if my proff has it or not even though my mesmer runs a stealth build. Getting tired of all the hate on it even in pve when stealthed bosses aoe hits you.

that being said ranger is super fun with all their evades.

Rangers have strong builds it just takes time to learn them.

difficulty wise for high end wvw ranger roaming isnt even half as hard as most engi/ ele roaming. i would put it slightly below shatter roaming on mesmer.

Pwent.2639:

Rangers have strong builds it just takes time to learn them.

You can tweak a ranger up to be almost as good as an average thief or a warrior. But this is not the point. The point is, as I already said before, that an (under)average casual player on a ranger with a bow is as good as the same player on a warrior with melee weapons.

idk what other classes are you playing. I gave up my ranger for group playing as the OP did and I mostly use my 80ish warrior and guard for it. And I can confirm what the OP says. Having full zerker on all my lvl 80 chars including the guard and ascended weapons on war and ranger, and even the guard with her hammer seems to kill things faster than the ranger with cat pet. OTOH with gs and drake pet the ranger has almost as nice survivability as the guard. But yet again, almost – and not as strong group utility.
And I’m frequently frustrated by the pet AI.

This game has already a lot of workarounds so I wonder why don’t they add another one – any pet should open with an attack like the gs3, guaranteed to land at the target.

I alt a dps guard in pvp if that means anything.

I’m a person who wants to play one thing to perfection, so alting is very big for me. Esp as 80% of my hours are ranger.

Fext.3614:

Pwent.2639:

Rangers have strong builds it just takes time to learn them.

You can tweak a ranger up to be almost as good as an average thief or a warrior. But this is not the point. The point is, as I already said before, that an (under)average casual player on a ranger with a bow is as good as the same player on a warrior with melee weapons.

idk what other classes are you playing. I gave up my ranger for group playing as the OP did and I mostly use my 80ish warrior and guard for it. And I can confirm what the OP says. Having full zerker on all my lvl 80 chars including the guard and ascended weapons on war and ranger, and even the guard with her hammer seems to kill things faster than the ranger with cat pet. OTOH with gs and drake pet the ranger has almost as nice survivability as the guard. But yet again, almost – and not as strong group utility.
And I’m frequently frustrated by the pet AI.

This game has already a lot of workarounds so I wonder why don’t they add another one – any pet should open with an attack like the gs3, guaranteed to land at the target.

yes ranger bows are underpowered but on any proff other than warrior/guard (under)average casual will be kinda lame. The ranger profession is still viable in pvp and wvw most people just suck at build crafting and rotation and timing optimization. If you want to play a proff that takes less skill yes roll warrior, but honestly learning how to play some of the more challenging classes is super fun not everyone like to play faceroll gameplay (it happens to be really boring).

Not saying that ranger is perfect just saying it can play on par or better at some aspects of the game. In other parts it is sadly underpowered.

you can run cof path 1 with 4w and 1 mes or you can find friends willing to have a little fun instead of the boring 0 challenge 11111 fest.

Edit: by wvw i meant roaming not zerging. i have not found a way to make ranger work in zergs.

BroScientist.9875:

I like choosing the easiest path!

Or do as i do…stick with ranger, learn every aspect of the class and be awesome.

Pwent: try signet build with GS/axe+axe (or LB) 30/20/20/0/0. skills: healing spring, signet of the wild (stability), muddy terrain (cause it’s awesome) and either signet of stone for invul, quickening zephyr for stun break and burst or a trap for even more immobilize/cripple. + entangle as elite. Best at cutting tails, preventing enemies from invading a circle, resilient and good (not great but still) damage.
Works great for zerging.

Longbow Best Weapon <3

love the knockback love the stealth its best.

Fenrir.6183:

BroScientist.9875:

I like choosing the easiest path!

Or do as i do…stick with ranger, learn every aspect of the class and be awesome.

Pwent: try signet build with GS/axe+axe (or LB) 30/20/20/0/0. skills: healing spring, signet of the wild (stability), muddy terrain (cause it’s awesome) and either signet of stone for invul, quickening zephyr for stun break and burst or a trap for even more immobilize/cripple. + entangle as elite. Best at cutting tails, preventing enemies from invading a circle, resilient and good (not great but still) damage.
Works great for zerging.

thanks will try, i dont zerg much when i get in game these days. i have never run axe/axe so will have to see how it feels in a zerg.

I find it pretty fun…the pull (#4) is awesome. The #5 skill, while not doing insane damage, is pretty good for retaliation/projectiles reflect.
I went with axe MH to have some ranged option along with axe offhand ^^

GS is great, evade every 3 hits with autoattack and the block can last up to 4s. The build can also be switched to a LB 1500 range piercing arrows build with just trait swapped, so it’s pretty fun (ofc, if you go PVT stuff, you won’t do insane damage, but still).

3000 hours on my ranger. Your 6 months is a drop in the bucket.

yeh i use sw/a in my interrupt build path of scars is by far my favorite ranger skill followed by sw2 combo

The other classes just aren’t fun to me.

BroScientist.9875:

I’m not here to stir things up. I was a ranger once. As soon as I hit level 80 I, like many of you realized the faults of the class. We’re ridiculed in wvw and hated in dungeons. I stuck with it for much longer than I think any man can could. I kept lying to myself, saying “oh well once I get better gear I’ll be worthy and useful!” “Once Anet buffs us it will all be better!” It never happened. The ranger class is a joke. After 6 months of suffering as a ranger I took a long break from Guild Wars 2. I’ve recently returned and leveled a Guardian to 80, geared him up in exotics and my god, this game has come into its own. I love wvw. I love how useful I am and how much support I provide. This game is truly great if you aren’t a ranger. So for those of you with only one character that is ranger, I urge you to go through the leveling process again as a new class. You will not regret it.

It’s funny, tbh. I have 3 80 lvl rangers, been playing since the game started and I’ll tell you this: because it has so many bugs, it is presumably one of the most difficult classes to play, next to a thief.

I’m playing tPvP mostly, though. A ranger’s been always in the meta.

Best regards

How hard is it to understand that it’s not the class which is at fault, it’s the players of said class.

Barbernator.5319:

How hard is it to understand that it’s not the class which is at fault, it’s the players of said class.

How hard is it to understand that Rangers are only effective in sPvP and roaming? You’re simply delusional if you think Rangers are on par with other classes when it comes to PvE and most aspects of WvW.

Ranger is easily the most awkward and disjointed profession in the game and it has the worst designed/implemented “defining” mechanic. ANet really dropped the ball on this one; I miss how effective Rangers were in GW1 and the fact that pets were not mandatory.

I rerolled a thief, and I hated it. I rerolled a guardian, and I hated it even more. I now have a mesmer who I admit I like, but mainly because its so easy to survive in full zerker and kitten about its silly

I love my ranger though <3

Faux Sheaux.6179:

3000 hours on my ranger. Your 6 months is a drop in the bucket.

i love your RRR build

Fact is rangers bring absolutely bring very LITTLE to the table in wvw.

Outside of roaming or solo play, rangers are pretty much useless in a wvw. Thats a complete fact, dont even try to argue it. They have one freaking AOE skill that can be used in a zerg and thats arrow barrage. Rest are basically single target, small dps skills thanks to pets taking away a good junk of our damage.

Rangers are fine in sPvP, if you are coordinated enough to know when to dodge, rotations, proper builds (although condi is pretty much the only viable build atm.)

PvE. any class can role, so its pointless to argue the uses of ranger in a PvE. everything is already easy there, it doesn’t matter.
However, rangers still suck in PvE (only use is spotter + frost spirit, maybe healing spring).
Every class can do what ranger does in PvE except better. (outside of spotter/frost spirit).

Honestly believe its the pet mechanics taking away too much of the rangers potential.
The DPS is just laughable thanks to anet deciding to give the middle finger to the pets. They need to adjust the DPS ratio for ranger:pet (should be more like 80:20)

Unfortunetly we can’t just delete pets or perma-stow given the fact an entire trait line is based on them…

I love the idea of pets I really do, it’s just laughable how utterly useless our class mechanic is compared to others. not only that but it HURTS the ranger more than it helps.

I mean for god sakes, there are skills/traits that HELP KILL OUR FREAKIN PET (condi swaps). What kind of thought process was that anet?

Pwent.2639:

you can run cof path 1 with 4w and 1 mes or you can find friends willing to have a little fun instead of the boring 0 challenge 11111 fest.

You do realize the fastest CoF run has a ranger, right? If you are talking about pve a (non-kitten ) ranger actually brings some of the best group buffs in the form of spotter and frost spirit and respectable dps. Warriors do not do as much damage as everyone thinks they do. A well played ele will destroy a warrior in dps, no contest.

Warriors are popular because they are easy, both to gear and to play and they bring banners. Trust me I have an 80 warrior and absolutely hate playing it because it is so boring. Would rather play ele/ranger any day.

Also your comment about 11111 in pve is somewhat silly as well since most professions rely on strong auto attack chains for damage in power builds, rangers included (sword).

BroScientist.9875:

I’m not here to stir things up.

Step 1) Post stirring up topic line to thread
Step 2) Claim not here to stir things up
Step 3) ???
Step 4) Profit

lulz

Anyway, I’ve already rolled six other classes but my Ranger is still the most fun to play followed by a d/d+SB thief, then gs/s+f mes, then … well … that’s it.

if devs got their kitten together, theyd buff power rangers to perhaps allow them to play like a mesmer or gs/rifle warrior. MORE ESCAPES. LB/GS damage is decent right now, but the problem is lack of escapes / target drops. Hunter’s Shot is often unreliable…why not just make it unblockable? it can already be dodged.

also, how about giving the LB a much needed cripple?

condi rangers are already viable in small mans, how about giving power rangers some survivability buffs? im not even gonna mention UTILITY (which we have very little / none), for now id be content if i just had the tools to give me a fighting chance while i dps.

It’s still a bit hard for me to sPvP on Ranger against guardians and mesmers, and i’d sometimes (around 50%) loose 1vs1. However, I always take the scoreboards in a match and get most Top Player scores.

It’s not at all hard to Ranger through all aspects of WvW. It’s easy and fun to pug Fractals and Dungeons, and I don’t ever have to use spirits or precision buff to prove my worth.

I have most other classes topped and the only other one that is as fun to play in all environments is the Engie (which is harder in some solo content, though).

I can’t understand your complaints, really. If you want to be mainstream and follow some ‘meta’, ‘OP class’ or whatever theories, why come to the Ranger forums to bash the profession? WoW used to be just the same like that when I played it years back, but my hunter was always top dps in a raid and huge pain to counter on BGs. But that’s WoW, GW2 isn’t as half as competitive, everything is designed for enjoyment, not frustration. It’s a lot easier to find synergies on any class and play it to its full extent in all environments.

Sounds like you didn’t master the class and got dominated by some other profession way to often. This abhorring loser-whiner attitude is why there’ll soon only be 2-3 classes seen played, as stupidity only breeds more stupidity.

As for changing the class, I wouldn’t see the need for ‘upping’ it, but some diversity in weapons and/or pet control (i.e. more pet abilities and synergies with weapon and slot skills) would be welcome.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

I have been a ranger since launch. I have no intension of giving up this class. Some people want things easy. If so the Ranger isn’t for you.

So many people cant do dungeons without certain classes. They need a Guardian or a Mesmer or Thief. While they can be nice to have they are not needed. They promote unskilled play. Stealth for the people who haven’t learn to dodge. Teleports for those who cant jump.

I have a level 80 of every class. Ranger is the only class that is a real challenge. The difference between a bad ranger and a good Ranger can be measured in eons. The different Between a Good Warrior and a bad Warrior can be measured in days.

For the other classes there isn’t much to figure out just improving your reflexes. 80% of Rangers cant use the 1h sword properly. The 20% percent remaining range between competent and Gods.

Part of the problem with Rangers it that so much is attention to detail. Pet aI baffles a lot for Rangers. While other Ranger know exactly when a pet will or will not do something.

WvW is a problem for a lot of Rangers. While a few(mostly melee rangers) have a lot of success. The Key here is they pick their target rather than having their pet run in to a zerg blob because the they are auto targeting. Take a que from Thieves who pick there target.

When a Ranger kill another player it because that Ranger is better not because the class is better. Those Rangers who are good are truly Good. The best in every other class will tell you if they are honest that this is a lot about their class that is Op and they abuse the hell out of it.

If you play the class because you enjoy it then play the class. If you want to dominate then you can play an easy class and pick on the class that requires more skill. But then you only pick on the weak how do you fair vs others of your class.

It warms my heart when im in an encounter and someone says" kitten I didn’t know Rangers could be that good."

On other classes what you hear is “x class is so broken”.

If you do decide to leave the class you need not announce it. Just quietly slip away. So When and if you return to The Ranger core your not present with the poison you spewed before your grand departure.

Exactly this. If youre thinking of leaving Ranger or convinced your self that the class is kitten, there is no need for you to announce your departure in the community, simply just leave. Theres no need to be toxic in the forums, everytime I visit the forum the same topic is what I see and is being shoved to my face every time and these are:

-pet AI (ANet already admitted that pet AI is connected with mobs algorithm)
-No viable builds (I am power build and 2 condition build and 1 regen build in my ranger)
- Long bow suck………… This to me is the funniest

The only claim that is true for me is the lack of condition cleanse in Ranger. Despite that, like the user above me have said, the difference between a good ranger and a bad ranger are aeons in measure.

I am also convince that out of all of the ranger players in game, only 20% or less are actually good and could play.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

If you do decide to leave the class you need not announce it. Just quietly slip away.

This. No one cares. You tried Ranger, you didn’t like. Super. Some people don’t feel the way you do. Some people do, good for them.

I’ve got one of every class and I’ll put it right out there, I have no idea what anyone is talking about when they say Rangers need more skill. Ranger is the easiest class in the world to breeze through everything in. It’s absurd. I have to actually put effort into killing things and not dying with other classes. Admittedly not a huge amount with some of them, a ridiculous amount with others, but my main Ranger? None at all. I would also put it roughly middle ground for killing speed. It takes longer than some, but it’s quicker than others.

What matters is that it’s fun to play and works for what I want to do. Out of eleven characters it’s the one I keep coming back to.

lol kal..play pve sword zerker and tell me again it´s the easiest class

it´s rly hard to play the ranger well in pve or on the same effectiv lvl like other classes

Bambula.3649:

lol kal..play pve sword zerker and tell me again it´s the easiest class

it´s rly hard to play the ranger well in pve or on the same effectiv lvl like other classes

Yes, of course you CAN make it hard for yourself, but that’s your choice. I also don’t care if I’m as “effective” as other classes or players. All that matters to me is that I’m consistently able to get the job done with minimal downtime, and that if I start a fight I can finish it.

The funny thing is the only other class I enjoy as much (if not more) than ranger, is ele, and they’re kinda in a worse position due to their kittenty traits…