I been playing a ranger since the release, before that ranger was the class I played most in beta’s and still is the class I play more then any other. I have read tons of peoples thoughts on the ranger, Pve, sPvp, and Wvw many with concerns I have and most are valid. That being said number wise I have never felt weaker then any class out there. In 1v1 pvp I fill more powerful in most cases minus the occasional thief and Mesmer that really know how to play. Solo pve I can do far more with ranger then I have ever been able to do with any other class. The two things being where I can use my pet 100%. There in the lies the problem most multiplayer content are not pet friendly and often make the pet almost useless.
Everything seems to come down to that. If we can use our pet fully we are great, on par with every class out there, a monsters in are own right. The down side comes to other than the two things mentioned solo Pve, 1v1, rangers are the underdogs. Take other stuff into count mass pve, dungeons, pvp, and wvw. Basically anything where are pets going to die faster than we can keep them up. In which case they die(Something that is made worse by the raise of cooldown between pet swaps when are pet dies) or we just keep them out of the fight once they get hit once or twice to keep them alive effectively making are core mechanic useless made special hard on us since we are more reliant on it than any other class.
With that number wise I can see (without are pet) why rangers are"weaker" than said other professions. If they raise are strength to balance us with other classes what happens. We stop complaining (j/k the Internet never stops that) and we stand on par with other classes; this could be done in many ways. Then in those few places where we use our pets so effectively we become overpowered. Then the rest of the Guild Wars 2 players complain about rangers.
Sadly the only solution I see to this is one of two.
One make pets invulnerably(no one can attack them, npc and pc) lower dps to almost nothing or nothing making pet choose a choose between skills. Then up are damage to take up the slack of all the damage the pet gave us. Our dps (without the pet) would probably go up but not to match what are pet gave us(that much damage under player control would make rangers op).
Two they remove pet. Then they can balance rangers (with out the worry of that pet which in a lot of places makes the sub par to other professions we are at the moment) up to the other class and just work on are mechanics like the other classes. Then they have to build a new core mechanic for us.
Either case they have to revisit all the pet traits and redo them or remake others to go in there place.
Anyways this sums up what I believe to be are core problem with rangers. Balance is thrown off because they have to take in account are pets stats. The lack of control over a pet that will never have the response time of players avoidance and in general is so easily taken out of the picture to them dieing in 3secs. The problem isn’t new if you look at other mmorpgs with pets it is often on side of a two sided scale there Over Powered or Under and super hard to balance because of it. This being an game that puts a lot on position makes it even more so. I am really interested to see what all the other players out there think and any designers out there.
(edited by Keeperofsouls.9145)