Guild Wars 2

I mean really, rangers are so underpowered it is not funny. We have lackluster utility skill that only become good if traited (signets, spirits) and we have pets as a class mechanic which are about 30% of our dmg. Rangers have less base dmg on weapons that other classes since our pets are suppose to make up the difference, but they can hardly ever hit anything and the f2 skills sometimes refuse to work when you need it cos of the pet AI.
Want to fear a thief out of his shadow refuge? Well to bad your pet need 5 seconds to get in the mood.

I know there are a million posts about this, but i feel like putting my opinion out here.

Lets start with utility skills:

-Signets or rather their active effect are useless unless traited to effect you, which would be fine if the trait was not a 30 point grandmaster.

-Shouts are mostly useless since they are to do with pets and seeing how they do everything apart from what you need them to do, taking this skill type is somewhat a waste of a slot (search and rescue is ok in some situations, but the rest are just a gamble as you have no idea if when you use say sic ’em the pet will actually manage to land some hits in, esspecaly on a moving target).

-Survival is the only skill type that is overall not bad, i really have nothing negative to say about them.They are good on their own require no traits to be effective but instead are buffed by them.

-Spirits are almost all bad apart from 2 scenarios: frost spirit in dungeons and all of them in one spec for holding a point in t/spvp. In tpvp they are a mess tho, the name of the owner over them clutters the screen and when you decide to use the active skills of spirits the screen is filled whit a lot of particle effects making spirit builds a nightmare to fight against, but for the wrong reason, not because they are super strong but because you cannot see much of anything. And also to be effective you need to trait for them so that is 30 points in nature magic. This means in wvw and s/tpvp you ether go 30 to make them actually useful and sacrifice all you utility slots, or you don’t take any of them. Is anyone else seeing a problem here or is it just me?

-Traps are ok and work fine with no traits but the part where they fails are the traits. The traits that enhance them are in skirmishing, a line nothing to do with conditions and the traps (apart from frost trap) are condition damage skills, so what gives here?

Now the traits:

A huge problem with traits is that there are a lot of traits that require other traits to be of any use (getting flashbacks from the signet talk). The most obvious ones are all of the marksmanship minor traits. So opening strike, alpha training, and precise strike grant you a grand total of 10 stack of vulnerability for 6 sec on 1 target and make 1 of your and your pet’s attacks crit.
Ok here is the problem with that: rangers are not thiefs or warriors, our dps is supposed to be sustained via not 1 or 2 hard hitting attacks, but a lot of small to medium damage attacks (Rapid Fire, Barrage, Hunter’s Call, Path of Scars, Whirling Defense ,ect) so precise strike is a gigantic waste. Since we cannot put out any massive hits within the 6 sec (maul is the only exception), the other 2 minor traits are also wasted.
But this bugges me the most, thees 3 traits don,t do anything for you since after you hit someone (like a wet noodle) the traits are not gona provide you with anything until you go ooc or, again take a trait to make your traits useful at all times (Remorseless, which happens to share a spot with signets of the beast master and in wvw or t/spvp forces you to take a longbow seeing how there is not muck you can kill fast to refresh the other traits, or take a 20 point master trait in wilderness survival that will refresh the 3 minors if you get cc’d….)
There are a lot of traits that are bad unles you take other traits to make them not bad, but not good ether.
And lastly the placement of some traits is questionable:
trap traits in a critical damage line? a trait that makes great sword have shorter cooldowns in a condition damage line?

Some weak spots regarding the ranger:

-No conditon removal, i mean almost none that won’t kill your pet and, and in term some of your dps and utility (when the pet feels like doing stuff).
Also almost all of it is passive and the only trait that offers any actual condition removal is, again a 30 point grandmaster in wilderness survival (Evasive Purity will hardly ever save you since the only dangerous condition it removes is poison and it can do that at the cost of endurance and once every 10 sec).

Strange weapon skills:

-Main hand axe, what is it suppose to do, auto attack is weak and is a power based skill,
skill #2 is applies bleeding and skill #3 applies a chill and gives your pet a buff.
the axe trait gives you 10% more crit dmg with a main hand axe so what we have is a weapon that attacks very slowly and is nether a power weapon nor a conditon damage weapon.

-Sword chain skill: this is arguable but it kills you more often that not, and while some swear by the sword chain on it’s ability to disengage i find my self mostly not using it since it is very clunky to manage.
But i think no one can argue that, in a game about keeping mobile and being evasive, a skill (the main damage skill of a weapon, which you use more than the other skills, or at least are suppose to) that locks you in a animation for a long time (since it is the skill you spam, you know it being your auto attack and all) might have some issues.

There are more things wrong with the ranger, but after previewing this thing i think no one will actually read up to this point let alone read what ever else i write, so in conclusion rangers…need buffs actual buffs. Just cos we have 1 build (spirit) that works in one part of the game (tpvp which is what like 20% of the total game?) and it works only because you and your opponent are forced to stand on a 2×2 square dose not mean rangers are supposed to be next to worthless in the remaining 80% of the game (wvw especally; when was the last time you alone as a ranger managed to beat a warrior, or a thief, or a well anything that is not another ranger?).
I remember someone saying that all of the classes are suppose to be equal in what they can do, well ranger sucks at everything apart from bunkering in tpvp with 1 spec, and nothing more.

I think my arrows will go farther than my foot, but not much, with a shortbow.
I agree that Ranger is in a sad state. I don’t remember it being this messed up at the start but if “balancing” means I can throw a dagger much father than I can shoot an arrow, I’d prefer the imbalance and be glad to wait till someone, anyone, says I’m overpowered. Oh wait, even if I could shoot farther, It’s still ranged=nerfed damage.

I’ve been trying to make the sword my Main weapon and shortbow more of a backup weapon but the sword takes a lot of practice to make it effective. A mild increase in damage is helpful, if you can stay alive through the root and not leap finish into a mob once you kill your opponent. I have a couple of other professions and they don’t seem to have any weapons that actually require skill to just use normally. Maybe it’s just me, but this forum seems to says otherwise.

Oh, I did read all of your post and I expect anyone else concerned with Ranger issues did also. It was well written and portrays the state of Ranger well.

befor the dec 10 update anet wrote a post. they know what is the wrong but too much time to fix it. they know about the pets, traits, weapons but they have more important things. nobody works on rangers or will in the close or mid far future.
reroll and enjoy a better profession.

I do agree that many of the rangers traits needs some work.. well a lot of work. Saying they hit like a wet noodle.. lol, can’t be further from the truth.

From my experience, you have to build them completely in 1 direction, not mix and match their traits or their equipment. People make the giant mistake of mixing their equipment.. berserker’s, soldiers, rabid.. and whatever else they can think of.. in one word, don’t.

I’ve played pretty much every build you can think of, but if your Pve’ing and WvW’ing, the most effective build is full berserker. Not berserker mixed with other gear, just plain full berserker. Trait 30 in Marksman and 30 in Skirmishing, and 10 wherever you feel will keep you alive the best. When compared to a hard hitting class like a warrior, a ranger in full berserker compared to a warrior in full berserker, the Ranger hits about 25% harder on average and has a higher burst. They hit considerably harder than necros, and you can easily out dps one and kill a full condition necro off quickly standing in their well. Most people don’t understand this because they don’t go full damage. The trick is, learn to stay alive; do that, and your golden. Now imagine if our pets actually did what they were meant to do..

Put it this way, were given a longbow that can be traited for 1500 range, at that range, you are quite far from your target. It should be very easy to stay alive and spot enemies coming. Were now given a means of stealth, and our mobility is not bad (if your carrying a GS). You can even easily kill a completely fully bunker Guardian before they even make to you to take the 1st swipe. I’ve had rapid fire connect for up to 17K on a full bunker build (not counting might stacks or the pet attacking).

Aside from this, what i described above is also their weakness. Aside from that build, a full bunker/roamer build seems to be the only other effective build. 2 builds for the class, whereas other classes have multiple effective builds, and are more forgiving if you mix and match gear and traits.

Good post DS, I agree with pretty much all of it.

Edit: My view point is from both playing a zerker at times and facing a zerker Ranger when on my Warrior. The range and damage of the LB can be overwhelming if you aren’t ready for it.

foste.3098:

Now the traits:

A huge problem with traits is that there are a lot of traits that require other traits to be of any use (getting flashbacks from the signet talk). The most obvious ones are all of the marksmanship minor traits. So opening strike, alpha training, and precise strike grant you a grand total of 10 stack of vulnerability for 6 sec on 1 target and make 1 of your and your pet’s attacks crit.
Ok here is the problem with that: rangers are not thiefs or warriors, our dps is supposed to be sustained via not 1 or 2 hard hitting attacks, but a lot of small to medium damage attacks (Rapid Fire, Barrage, Hunter’s Call, Path of Scars, Whirling Defense ,ect) so precise strike is a gigantic waste. Since we cannot put out any massive hits within the 6 sec (maul is the only exception), the other 2 minor traits are also wasted.
But this bugges me the most, thees 3 traits don,t do anything for you since after you hit someone (like a wet noodle) the traits are not gona provide you with anything until you go ooc or, again take a trait to make your traits useful at all times (Remorseless, which happens to share a spot with signets of the beast master and in wvw or t/spvp forces you to take a longbow seeing how there is not muck you can kill fast to refresh the other traits, or take a 20 point master trait in wilderness survival that will refresh the 3 minors if you get cc’d….)
There are a lot of traits that are bad unles you take other traits to make them not bad, but not good ether.
And lastly the placement of some traits is questionable:
trap traits in a critical damage line? a trait that makes great sword have shorter cooldowns in a condition damage line?

Some weak spots regarding the ranger:

-No conditon removal, i mean almost none that won’t kill your pet and, and in term some of your dps and utility (when the pet feels like doing stuff).
Also almost all of it is passive and the only trait that offers any actual condition removal is, again a 30 point grandmaster in wilderness survival (Evasive Purity will hardly ever save you since the only dangerous condition it removes is poison and it can do that at the cost of endurance and once every 10 sec).

Strange weapon skills:

-Main hand axe, what is it suppose to do, auto attack is weak and is a power based skill,
skill #2 is applies bleeding and skill #3 applies a chill and gives your pet a buff.
the axe trait gives you 10% more crit dmg with a main hand axe so what we have is a weapon that attacks very slowly and is nether a power weapon nor a conditon damage weapon.

-Sword chain skill: this is arguable but it kills you more often that not, and while some swear by the sword chain on it’s ability to disengage i find my self mostly not using it since it is very clunky to manage.
But i think no one can argue that, in a game about keeping mobile and being evasive, a skill (the main damage skill of a weapon, which you use more than the other skills, or at least are suppose to) that locks you in a animation for a long time (since it is the skill you spam, you know it being your auto attack and all) might have some issues.

There are more things wrong with the ranger, but after previewing this thing i think no one will actually read up to this point let alone read what ever else i write, so in conclusion rangers…need buffs actual buffs. Just cos we have 1 build (spirit) that works in one part of the game (tpvp which is what like 20% of the total game?) and it works only because you and your opponent are forced to stand on a 2×2 square dose not mean rangers are supposed to be next to worthless in the remaining 80% of the game (wvw especally; when was the last time you alone as a ranger managed to beat a warrior, or a thief, or a well anything that is not another ranger?).
I remember someone saying that all of the classes are suppose to be equal in what they can do, well ranger sucks at everything apart from bunkering in tpvp with 1 spec, and nothing more.

+1
ANet should read this

I feel like nobody is ever looking at those ideas, threads about wrong things… Why to even post anything? Wasted time

This class feels so incomplete, so lackluster and made without any reasonable f***ing idea that I cannot believe. We have a RNG class, Master of #1 skill, because nothing else is worth using, without mechanic, since it died or stuck/can’t hit a dummy with utilities that work best if they’re just passive.
Why even bother?

Class needs a major overhaul, almost complete revmap from scratch and better idea. Pets being way more like utility than any damage unless you trait to BM, 90% less passive stuff, power scaling, skills not breaking, allowing to fakecast, any working weapons with more skills than one…

Unless some wonder happen, Rangers are plain, f***ing, trash