Guild Wars 2

This isn’t a thread about how OP/UP/Balanced Rangers are currently but rather I’m just confused by the fairly sudden shift in the community’s attitude toward Rangers. I have a few questions about the class that I’d love to get some insight on from people who play the class extensively (I have an 80 Ranger but she’s just an alt).

1. Why is Healing Power such a highly desired stat on Rangers (at least for Condition builds from what I can tell)? I do understand that Rangers, and especially Conditions, are more about DPS than Burst so you and your pet need to be able to stay alive long enough to deal damage. Whats confusing to me is that it doesn’t seem like Rangers heal frequently enough and their ratio’s aren’t anything special..

- 1:1 on Healing Spring + .13:1 on Regeneration
- .12:1 on Troll Unguent
- .25:1 on Signet of the Wild for pet
- .06:1 on Signet of the Wild for you

For example, Guardians heal much more frequently and have similar/better ratio’s yet many people see it as a sub-par stat (regardless of whether it is or not).

2. Why do people think Trap/Condition Rangers are so strong in PvP (sPvP specifically)? I know that Traps were seen as the class’ most viable utility skills, outside of a few Signets and Survival skills, but I didn’t think they could give Rangers burst rivaling that of Shatter Mesmers, BS Thieves, and 100b Warriors (which is what some say).

3. Why is Torch seen as such a strong offhand weapon? I understand that it’s only used by Condition builds, Burning is the strongest damaging Condition in the game, and it gives you a Fire field but I’m just not convinced. It just feels like Warhorn would be more useful because it’s easy for someone with less Condition Damage to overwrite your Burning. Maybe my confusion about this is just because I primarily play a Guardian? I probably undervalue Burning because it’s our only damaging Condition and as a result building Condition Damage is unreliable at best for us.

4. Why are “non-scaling” pets suddenly seen as such a strength of Rangers? Specifically, I guess this means a pet’s stats don’t scale with the Ranger’s stats. Is the problem that you can build full Condition Damage and just take a pet with high Power/Precision to add big crits/burst to your build? Does Master’s Bond relate to this at all or is that still seen as a buggy/bad trait?

I don’t play my Ranger as much as I’d like (I love Guardian too much >.<) so I’m a bit out of the loop but I still want to keep up with all the classes I have. I’ve been noticing Rangers a lot more in sPvP too so I want to really know what I’m up against.

Thanks. :D

Ok, I’ll bite… Who thinks the Ranger class is strong? We seem to have 1 build that is viable in sPvP, and the rest of the time we Rangers argue about the level of uselessness of our class in wvwvw. So, who’s considering us strong?

Ok I will troll…

Paper, rock,scissors.

Hear to stay unless they get rid of all classes and have just one profession, everyone wears same gear and has the same spells, traits amour and weps.

Bored of these posts…

NargofWoV.4267:

Ok, I’ll bite… Who thinks the Ranger class is strong? We seem to have 1 build that is viable in sPvP, and the rest of the time we Rangers argue about the level of uselessness of our class in wvwvw. So, who’s considering us strong?

A lot of sPvP’ers are talking about Trap/Condition Rangers like they’re the new FotM.

EDIT:

Ok I will troll…

Paper, rock,scissors.

Hear to stay unless they get rid of all classes and have just one profession, everyone wears same gear and has the same spells, traits amour and weps.

Bored of these posts…

Like I said in my OP, this has nothing to do with the current state of balance for Rangers. I’m just trying to understand why peoples’ opinions have changed.

Just as a small note, but somebody with lower condition damage than you can’t overwrite your Burning or Poison. Whichever stack has the highest condition damage for those two is moved to the start of the que, ensuring the highest damaging stack is the one that is currently ticking.

The sPvP players found out the trap ranger to be a nice debunker (in NA) because traps are unblockable, provide short fields, and deal decent damage. They just haven’t learned that cc and conditions completely destroy the ranger due to the lack of on demand condition removal. Nobody is really afraid of the ranger, they just know that a trap ranger is a viable option in sPvP for conquest.

Does this work outside of sPvP? Not as well. Why? Direct damage builds can deal significantly more damage outside of sPvP and trap rangers don’t have very strong teamfight potential. They do best in small skirmishes where conditions aren’t too heavy.

It breaks down like this.

There isn’t anything OP about the Ranger. It’s the player that is able to fight very well with the Ranger and knowing what works for it. You’ll find the Ranger getting beat more often than a mesmer, thief or almost every other profession.

Now lets apply the player idea to the mesmer. The mesmer can be good in the hands of an average player, yet can be “god like” in the hands of a great player.

Now apply that same ideology to a thief, and anyone’s grandmother can be dominant with the thief. If I am offending any thief players out there, well I’m not sorry but it is what it is.

Well, I play a ranger and love it, but it certainly isn’t OP. In fact, a ranger doesn’t have quite enough of anything to be really good at much. It can, however, be good enough depending on the situation. Ranger can be a pretty decent support character, although I would venture guardian is better.

Pets are pretty awful unless you focus your build around them. They can be handy though with their special abilities. Sadly just having your target move can be enough to negate many of those abilities. Pets are unimpressive.

Entangle is probably the greatest thing a ranger has in my opinion and based on how I use it. Other traps can be handy, but lack punch to the point that it can make little difference if you hit one or not, depending on condition damage type.

Torch is awesome, the those war-horn birds are so useful. That is a preference more than anything.

So, other than not having quite enough armor, not enough speed without using signets, not quite enough dps (depending on glass cannon or not), a pet system that can be a liability as much as a help and a boat load of useless skills and traits, it’s pretty fun.

It isn’t powerful, but it think it could quite easily be powerful with a few tweaks. As for thieves, they are very powerful, but like any class they have to be used well. When they are, it’s just stupid. I’ve never played mesmer but the same can be said for them too, based on what I’ve seen.

What I forgot to add to my post above is that ranger is something you play because you want to, not because it’s awesome. I’m guessing the same can be said for engineer.

rangers have always been decent in spvp. theyre subpar in wvw and average in pve.

Somoe.3621:

This isn’t a thread about how OP/UP/Balanced Rangers are currently but rather I’m just confused by the fairly sudden shift in the community’s attitude toward Rangers. I have a few questions about the class that I’d love to get some insight on from people who play the class extensively (I have an 80 Ranger but she’s just an alt).

1. Why is Healing Power such a highly desired stat on Rangers (at least for Condition builds from what I can tell)? I do understand that Rangers, and especially Conditions, are more about DPS than Burst so you and your pet need to be able to stay alive long enough to deal damage. Whats confusing to me is that it doesn’t seem like Rangers heal frequently enough and their ratio’s aren’t anything special..

- 1:1 on Healing Spring + .13:1 on Regeneration
- .12:1 on Troll Unguent
- .25:1 on Signet of the Wild for pet
- .06:1 on Signet of the Wild for you

For example, Guardians heal much more frequently and have similar/better ratio’s yet many people see it as a sub-par stat (regardless of whether it is or not).

2. Why do people think Trap/Condition Rangers are so strong in PvP (sPvP specifically)? I know that Traps were seen as the class’ most viable utility skills, outside of a few Signets and Survival skills, but I didn’t think they could give Rangers burst rivaling that of Shatter Mesmers, BS Thieves, and 100b Warriors (which is what some say).

3. Why is Torch seen as such a strong offhand weapon? I understand that it’s only used by Condition builds, Burning is the strongest damaging Condition in the game, and it gives you a Fire field but I’m just not convinced. It just feels like Warhorn would be more useful because it’s easy for someone with less Condition Damage to overwrite your Burning. Maybe my confusion about this is just because I primarily play a Guardian? I probably undervalue Burning because it’s our only damaging Condition and as a result building Condition Damage is unreliable at best for us.

4. Why are “non-scaling” pets suddenly seen as such a strength of Rangers? Specifically, I guess this means a pet’s stats don’t scale with the Ranger’s stats. Is the problem that you can build full Condition Damage and just take a pet with high Power/Precision to add big crits/burst to your build? Does Master’s Bond relate to this at all or is that still seen as a buggy/bad trait?

I don’t play my Ranger as much as I’d like (I love Guardian too much >.<) so I’m a bit out of the loop but I still want to keep up with all the classes I have. I’ve been noticing Rangers a lot more in sPvP too so I want to really know what I’m up against.

Thanks.

I’ll answer these questions..

1. Healing Power – Basically It’s basically a defensive stat similar to Vitality and Toughness, Since we have a lot of Evades and we can dodge a lot, We don’t get hit a lot..Which means as we’re not being hit, We’re Regenning Health….If we use something like Healing Spring, we’re talking about close to 12k Heal over its full duration… Start Factoring in our other Regen’s the 300 or so we get a tic automatically from Signet of the Wild + Natural Healing and you’ll see how that starts adding up over time. You could run something like rabid/carrion…However you will be much more squishy then with healing power…I’ve actually thrown on my old Carrion sets and tried to play before…It’s bad…very bad…

2. Cause the last thing you want to fight on a Point if you’re a bunker guardian is another Bunker who’s abilities you cannot block (Aegis doesn’t work against them) who you flat out will not come close to killing either because he has almost as much healing as you.

3. Its 4000-6000 Damage Burn if it lasts the full duration (It’s about 6600 in open World with Rare Veggie Pizza), its got a fairly short cooldown… and it comes attached with a another combo field burn. Horn is good for Cleric based Power builds though..

4. The Stats Pets already scale past what current players have, so the fact that they don’t scale isn’t a problem…in most cases, About the only trouble we have is the lack of good Condition Based Pets…However right now you can get some very high Power/Precision Based Pets that will crit very hard, You use them on a Condition/tougness/healing based bunker ranger….This gives you basically a Form of Burst despite not gearing any Power/Precision…..It’s saving you stats basically.

Somoe.3621:

This isn’t a thread about how OP/UP/Balanced Rangers are currently but rather I’m just confused by the fairly sudden shift in the community’s attitude toward Rangers. I have a few questions about the class that I’d love to get some insight on from people who play the class extensively (I have an 80 Ranger but she’s just an alt).

1. Why is Healing Power such a highly desired stat on Rangers (at least for Condition builds from what I can tell)? I do understand that Rangers, and especially Conditions, are more about DPS than Burst so you and your pet need to be able to stay alive long enough to deal damage. Whats confusing to me is that it doesn’t seem like Rangers heal frequently enough and their ratio’s aren’t anything special..

- 1:1 on Healing Spring + .13:1 on Regeneration
- .12:1 on Troll Unguent
- .25:1 on Signet of the Wild for pet
- .06:1 on Signet of the Wild for you

For example, Guardians heal much more frequently and have similar/better ratio’s yet many people see it as a sub-par stat (regardless of whether it is or not).

2. Why do people think Trap/Condition Rangers are so strong in PvP (sPvP specifically)? I know that Traps were seen as the class’ most viable utility skills, outside of a few Signets and Survival skills, but I didn’t think they could give Rangers burst rivaling that of Shatter Mesmers, BS Thieves, and 100b Warriors (which is what some say).

3. Why is Torch seen as such a strong offhand weapon? I understand that it’s only used by Condition builds, Burning is the strongest damaging Condition in the game, and it gives you a Fire field but I’m just not convinced. It just feels like Warhorn would be more useful because it’s easy for someone with less Condition Damage to overwrite your Burning. Maybe my confusion about this is just because I primarily play a Guardian? I probably undervalue Burning because it’s our only damaging Condition and as a result building Condition Damage is unreliable at best for us.

4. Why are “non-scaling” pets suddenly seen as such a strength of Rangers? Specifically, I guess this means a pet’s stats don’t scale with the Ranger’s stats. Is the problem that you can build full Condition Damage and just take a pet with high Power/Precision to add big crits/burst to your build? Does Master’s Bond relate to this at all or is that still seen as a buggy/bad trait?

I don’t play my Ranger as much as I’d like (I love Guardian too much >.<) so I’m a bit out of the loop but I still want to keep up with all the classes I have. I’ve been noticing Rangers a lot more in sPvP too so I want to really know what I’m up against.

Thanks.

1. Healing power is nice because you can get 10k heals from TU or easy perma regen from HS. The crapload of finishers in the 15 second water field also helps. Many bunkers rely on HS, and it works.

2. Traps don’t provide burst imo, they are condition utilities…. So idk why anyone thinks that.

3. Like you said, burn damage does a lot, and with it, torch is arguably the strongest ranger weapon (at least offhand for sure). The skills do a lot of damage, point blank. Why is warhorn more useful? It all depends on your build and preference, that goes for any class when coming to weapon choice. Condi rangers use condi weps(torch). A fury ranger would use warhorn.

4. Pets can do a lot of damage. They get their stats through traits/signets. Some rangers use them as a supplement to damage, especially in defensive builds. They may be a problem for the ranger’s opponent lol, but not for the ranger at all. I don’t use masters bond because in my play style it would reset a lot.

Remember those talk about AOE damage? Yep, it was directed at ele AND ranger. Did anyone mention this yet? Devs declared that trap rangers will be nerfef along with D/D ele’s.

“Not over destroy certain builds, like the ranger and the ele.” 59:40
From other parts of the interview, you can see that they’re aiming these nerfs at trap rangers.
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593

It’s sad how Anet balances EVERYTHING around PvP and breaks builds over builds for PvE, like how ele has only 1 viable build.

Yea Master’s Bond if I have it equipped usually means i’m being lazy and don’t want to bother changing it out.

You have Mighty Swap/Comp Healing (Increases Natural Healing about 30 points in combat)

Recycle.5493:

Remember those talk about AOE damage? Yep, it was directed at ele AND ranger. Did anyone mention this yet? Devs declared that trap rangers will be nerfef along with D/D ele’s.

“Not over destroy certain builds, like the ranger and the ele.” 59:40
From other parts of the interview, you can see that they’re aiming these nerfs at trap rangers.
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593

It’s sad how Anet balances EVERYTHING around PvP and breaks builds over builds for PvE, like how ele has only 1 viable build.

I think they’re a bit more hesitant about nerfing trap rangers, mainly because that’s existed since beta, plus the fact they were talking about how they gutted Spirit Rangers and no one plays them anymore..

though I gotta admit, It is pretty hilarious hearing them talk about “Well we don’t want to do what we did to Spirit Rangers cause we gutted them” when like just a few weeks ago they did exactly that to Guardians..They made the exact same mistake..

Rangers arent considered strong unless the player playing ranger is good at it. And still he has to use the one of two viable builds. But as someone else already mentioned, if that same player was playing mesmer he would be a lot stronger with mesmer. I guess many of rangers choose pets just because of their special abilities since pets became even more unreliable with the last patch.

ranger has traps, traps are powerful and that makes them decent in spvp. If ever traps are nerfed or lets say they were never in this game, ranger would be…. That not to say ranger doesn’t need a traits/utilities/weapon skills overhaul tho, because it needs it and needs it badly.

ifelldown.5426:

What I forgot to add to my post above is that ranger is something you play because you want to, not because it’s awesome. I’m guessing the same can be said for engineer.

this was true, but because of recent opinion changes about rangers in the forums, more and more people are jumping on them thinking they will have a win-button, which is why you see more rangers lately as the author noted.

1. HP is strong on rangers because we have a third source of health (beyond heals and regens) that scales with HP – ie signet of the wild. Yes not that much benefit on paper but if you spec high into healing, it doubles the effectiveness of the utility.

2. In short rangers are seen as good because they have a niche in the current pvp meta – i.e. using traps to take out bunkers who are geared towards mitigating direct damage.

3. traps do have burn, but torch + trap can keep burn on a target almost 100%

4. Yeah the idea is you can go bunker and have pet damage, because pet stats are independent from you’re own. This is somewhat true, but you need around 25 points in BM for pets to be good, so 45 trait points can be invested in survivavability, but it’s not much different from investing those extra 25 in skirmishing for crit or condition dmg hybird bunker.

As for master’s bond, it’s awful as you pretty much need pet swapping and it resets. Personally i think that if they made it so masters bond doesn’t reset on pet swap and you could see how many stacks your pet has, that would be a great skill for 30 points in BM.

Metashift.

Rangers are a counter to bunkers. Both ele and guardian and apparantly just now people figured out how to use the ranger.

Resouled.5614:

Metashift.

Rangers are a counter to bunkers. Both ele and guardian and apparantly just now people figured out how to use the ranger.

My thoughts exactly, although the biggest thing rangers really have going for them is access to long lasting poison.
Shortbow 2, if all 5 hit, 10s of poison. Dagger 4, 10s of poison, and with trap potency Viper’s Nest pulses 6s of poison 3 times.
Bunker build sustainability comes a lot from the constant healing their builds can provide.

That being said, traps have been used since launch, and the main shift in ranger usage probably comes from a “challenge accepted” mentality from people who haven’t played rangers and seen complaints on the forums, coupled with the popularity that occurs when tpvp teams that seen success (look at Java’s team) decide to use a particular build.
Besides the shortbow attack speed getting slower, rangers haven’t really changed at all since launch.
Actually, I would go as far as to say that trap builds are rangers “one-trick pony” type build. It is easy to spec for and is one dimensional in the mentality it requires to use it: throw traps and win. Not to say that the build itself brings a one dimensional tactic, as the build can be used offensively and defensively and can be built in multiple ways so that there are even healing based trap builds.

Personally I enjoy the influx of people to the ranger community, even if it means more complaining on the forums. Feedback is how you develop and evolve your product, so to the ranger players that shutdown people who you consider to “QQ” or complain, it really isn’t your place. Just because you have success with something doesn’t mean that it can’t be given more options to be more successful in ways that you don’t choose to play it, and the game is going to evolve based on the positive AND negative feedback, so that the game retains players and encourages them to enjoy their time playing it as well as play it in a versatile manner.
Sorry about the mini-rant, just had to get that out of my system because threads like this always spawn somebody responding with a negative view and then somebody inevitably trying to tell them to “L2P” or some such nonsense when all they were doing was giving their honest opinion about how they would enjoy the game better. Really, nobody has the right to tell somebody else that that person is wrong and that they are playing the wrong way, and that a different way is the right way to play.

We will never develop versatility as a community that way.

So long as we only have 1 good build we’re still bad. Nothing will change that except build diversity.

More people have gotten better with thier ranger. People have watch videos of other ranger doing well. We are begining to understand what works and what doesnt. We are not trying to be other class we are learning to play each of the roles the way we do it.

There isnt just one viable build. More ranger are learning how to melee and not just use the short bow. As a whole the community has grown and it shows.

Those of us that have learned to use our pets well, Learn to melee with both the Gs and 1h Sword. Those of us that have adapted as is the true nature of the ranger. Feel and has shown we are not weak or useless. We know the strength of the ranger.

Those of us who have not done these things still feel weak as every. There isnt only one way to do something but there is a wrong way. Trying to solve any problem or entering a battle and believing there is no way you can end it favorably is most certainly the wrong way to start any endevor.

So yes there are alot of us who believe rangers are strong and by the same token still those that believe rangers are weak.

What you believe as a ranger has alot to do with the way other classess percieve you.
Why becuase when a fight is close that belief in yourself and your class can be the deciding factor in the battle and even if you lose. Your oppent knows it was a hard fight.

Changing his view about your class.