Guild Wars 2

I am going to get a lot of heat for this, but nobody else has the balls to say it.

I run with a core group of skilled players that achieves incredibly fast dungeon runs. When someone doesn’t show, we are one of “those” groups that posts on the LFG tab with “Full zerk only, no Ranger/Necro/Engi!” We have min-maxing down to a science and we know every niche tactic for every instance, so I can tell you this with conviction from an objective standpoint: ranger hate stems from the unspoken idea that rangers are selfish. Allow me to explain.

When you are on a team you are expected to contribute to its success as much as possible, and rangers are not better at any one thing than any other class. If you need more direct damage, why would you bring a ranger when you could bring a thief or warrior? If you need more support, why would you bring a ranger when you could bring an elementalist, mesmer, or guardian? That is the crux of the issue. Rangers can’t maintain 25 stacks of might and vulnerability like mesmers, elementalists, and warriors. They can’t put those stacks to work like the high base damage of warriors and thieves. They can’t maintain stealth on the entire team to enable them to skip large, annoying portions of dungeon paths like thieves can. They can’t reflect projectiles like guardians and mesmers. They can’t provide emergency instant resurrects like guardians and warriors. The large portion of incompetent bearbows doesn’t help the ranger’s image either. A bad ranger harms the team more than a bad warrior or guardian or etc.

It’s on ANet’s shoulders to fix this. I can assure you that nobody wants to hate rangers. It’s just cause and effect. If ANet changes rangers enough to give them a niche in PvE, I can assure you the hate will stop.

I realize that many people don’t care about optimization, they just want to enjoy the game. And that is fine, but don’t expect the large portion of the players that do care to be okay with it. It’s a game and ideally you should be able to play how you want, but since it’s a MMO you also have to play with other people. I’m just explaining the situation. I’m not saying you should stop playing ranger, I’m saying you should stop feeling victimized. Like I said, cause and effect. In this meta of min-maxing, a ranger is a jack of all trades that does not shine in any one area. A ranger is not “efficient.” You could have brought anything, and you brought a ranger.

This only applies to PvE. Rangers are superb in PvP.

People have acknowledged this for months

There’s partial onus on the community to represent the Ranger in a brighter light. People adamant in using ranged options over superior melee options are all stuck up on the tanky pet + ranged design model that -could- work in other MMO’s, but just doesn’t apply in GW2 at all.

A Spotter, Frost Spirit, Zerker Sword Ranger in PvE is amazing. But, how many of those do you see on a regular basis?

No doubt, Rangers could use a hell of a lot of tweaking. You can’t deny, however, that players can choose to be useful or selfish. Most take the latter, and thus poorly represent all Rangers – even those who work hard to get where they are now.

I totally agree with this, i don’t think ‘hate’ should be used since rangers do provide some things which may be useful. For example, spirit of frost, Spotter trait can help boost the damage of the whole team. Also, Search and Rescue is a great way of ressing allies although it still sucks due to the long CD. However, i totally agree Rangers don’t offer much support and damage out of these and this should be addressed by Anet.

You won’t get any heat from anybody for that, and the entire GW2 community has the balls to say that.

That said, if you really are in to min maxing, you’re doing it wrong if you don’t like rangers.

We can also ask the questions the other way around…
why would you bring a ranger when you could bring an elementalist, mesmer, or guardian?
Elem – either build for support or DPS, DPS elem is awfully squishy, support elem has low DPS…
Mesmer… pretty good against one target… in other settings? yeah, not so good.
Gardian… even built for DPS, he’s not hitting that hard. And built for DPS, he’s not helping the team as he is expected to do… so, less DPS for support…

That is the crux of the issue. Rangers can’t maintain 25 stacks of might and vulnerability like mesmers, elementalists, and warriors.
I’d like to see the build of one of those class that can bring and keep alone both might and vulnerability… these are group efforts, and rangers can contribute to these (maul, fire, WH)
They can’t put those stacks to work like the high base damage of warriors and thieves.
don’t look only at the combat log when measuring ranger’s DPS… you might be surprised at how much they and their pet together can achieve…
They can’t maintain stealth on the entire team to enable them to skip large, annoying portions of dungeon paths like thieves can.
so the only point of thieves is skip and damge…
They can’t reflect projectiles like guardians and mesmers.
Ever saw the lupicus ranger’s kill? Ranger have no reflects? Come on!
They can’t provide emergency instant resurrects like guardians and warriors.
The can, and many times through one fight (if they place the spirit right)… (elite spirit: CD:180 sec., up for 60 sec, can revive every 30 sec) compare with war banner : CD 240 seconds, up for 60 seconds, grants boons (fury and might) that a balanced group should get all the time, without it, so useless boons (if the banner is needed, the earlier call about 25 constant might stacks is not so exact) (so banner is usually a one-time revive on 240 cd) Guard: no idea about it’s revive skills, so can tell.
Oh, also, banner takes 2 seconds to cast, so it’s a 2 sec DPS loss, thus the 1.5sec of ranger spirit is more efficient…

So, unless you can show me specific builds that makes it so the war, mesmer, thief, ele, guard, can do all of the above with one build, I have the impression your argument is a poor tentative at dismissing rangers, blindly guessing what we can and cannot do, based on general assumptions.
Properly built rangers can bring lots to the team, in fact, rangers can bring pretty much anything the other class can, and properly build, can bring the same levels as the other properly built classes.

So, I’ll be waiting for your 25 stacks might + 25 stacks vulnerability high damage bannering war, or elem, or mesmer (that also reflects projectiles, eh?)

Oh, btw, your only stated purpose to bring guardian is to reflect projectiles, and rez people, which is not much of a purpose… for the insta-rez people part, I can’t say how well gardian do, since I saw nothing from them that insta-rez… (only saw a teleport to a down ally) for the reflect part, gardian have a slighly higher uptime (10 sec / 40 sec) (rangers: 5.5sec/ 25 sec – with vulnerability and retaliation)
Which makes me think about about those light fields gardians keep putting everywhere… would you really have me believe you love them, when they overwrite the fire field?
Right…

TL;DR
A ranger getting tired of being told I excel at nothing, while noone has yet been able to show me the marvelous “any other classes build” that does everything better at the same time than I…

I agree 95% to this, except the support. No other class can bring spotter, no other class has a frost spirit and no one can upkeep the sword dps. Axe OH is a reflect, it has been used on the 5 ranger Lupi run to 1 shot his projectile phase. Rangers have a conditional fire field available every 12 seconds potentially.

Rangers are not a hopeless class and need to stop being considered one, however ranger is the joint most played class and is catered as an easy class which attracts, unfortunately, bad players. Only a fraction of Rangers visit the forums, and we’re normally the better ones as we care to visit, however as you rightly said a bad warrior > a bad ranger. It comes down to game mechanics really, but a lot of bad drops doesn’t mean the entire ocean is bad. Personally my ideal party is 3 warriors, 1 ranger and 1 mesmer but that’s just me.

TL;DR
Ranger can excel at everything you said it cannot, not all at once clearly, but neither can any other class. It comes down to game mechanics and the player, not the class. But I still agree on a lot of things OP said.

This post is filled with bias and ignorance towards the ranger class.

Rangers are only bad in Record Run environments, and min-max dungeon tours. Outside of those, a well-played meta ranger easily contributes enough to the group to be worth bringing, but the issue is too many people think they’re playing in that type of environment.

If your bringing rez skills then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re not running compositions like 1 warrior, 2 eles 1 thief + 1 other then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re PUG-ing, then you’re also not min maxing and should not expect to find players that are full ascended zerker geared, use 2 food buffs and stacking sigils.

I hate the average bearbow just as much as you do, but well-played rangers are an amazing asset to most teams in the game.

What has not been addressed here is the plain and simple fact that most of the players that find bows and pets fun think of ranger as a character doing damage from range.
Yes, I use sword/warhorn but that’s not my choice, it’s the only way to be effective at all.

If Ranger is ever going to take an equal useful place among the other classes, those bows and pets have to become effective. Both bows and all pets.

When that happens, melee with frost spirit and spotter will still be good, and the so called selfish/bad players will have a way to play effectively without the need to play PvE content in a way that seems selfish.

Oh, please don’t bother giving your interpretation of what a ranger is. It doesn’t matter. We start this game with our own expectations. If the game doesn’t live up to them, we either unhappily move on or lower our expectations. Other’s expectations generally don’t matter.

…and?

It is common knowledge that the Ranger is 5th highest DPS in this game behind Elementalists, Thieves, Mesmers, and Warriors.

It’s also common knowledge that all of the class’ utility can be achieved by a single spec. On top of this, all the utility the class provides really isn’t that spectacular when you consider the loss in DPS you started with by bringing the Ranger in the first place.

That all said, I’m not sure I honestly care. Obviously this thread was marked for the PvE crowd, which I’m not a part of. But even if I were, the PvE in this game is so inferior to the PvE in every other MMO I’ve ever played with the exception of Shadowbane, I’m not sure I should care if the class is 1st, 5th, or 8th.

You’re entitled to think yourself a top-tier PvE’er all you want and invite whomever you wish. Simple fact is there’s no challenging PvE content in this game anyone really cares about and I’d sooner go with 5x Bearbow Rangers and take an extra 5mins to do something that bother grouping with someone who’s trying to use Guild Wars 2 as some benchmark for PvE success.

@OP man you are wrong…so many wrong things with your arguments.
Couple of comments explain why you are wrong, i won’t write them again.
I play alot of pve when i have time, and if you are one of the guys who say no ranger/necro/engi, just warrior 100b, i feel sorry for you

Atherakhia.4086:

It is common knowledge that the Ranger is 5th highest DPS in this game behind Elementalists, Thieves, Mesmers, and Warriors.

Eles and thieves I’ll buy, almost certain we out damage warriors and mesmers.

Do you have a thread reference?

you cant outdamage a warrior xDD a warrior only need to use Axe AA to have more dps than a ranger.

Ranger DPS is quite high, if you look up people like Brazil on youtube he showcases the damage potential on Vet Giants in Cursed Shore and he even says that he was surprised at the DPS and it was more than he thought and more than others made it out to be.

For Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLJg3VarKm4

Kyrus.7218:

This only applies to PvE. Rangers are superb in PvP.

Completely wrong.

Rangers are trash in PvP unless you are Spirit Rangers.

So, when Arenanet acknowledge that no-one wants Rangers in their dungeon runs and add Ranger ONLY soloable dungeon runs with the same rewards, we’ll be hated even more……. oh well, kitten !

/cry

TurtleDragon.3108:

This post is filled with bias and ignorance towards the ranger class.

Rangers are only bad in Record Run environments, and min-max dungeon tours. Outside of those, a well-played meta ranger easily contributes enough to the group to be worth bringing, but the issue is too many people think they’re playing in that type of environment.

If your bringing rez skills then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re not running compositions like 1 warrior, 2 eles 1 thief + 1 other then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re PUG-ing, then you’re also not min maxing and should not expect to find players that are full ascended zerker geared, use 2 food buffs and stacking sigils.

I hate the average bearbow just as much as you do, but well-played rangers are an amazing asset to most teams in the game.

I thought the record cof run contained a frost spirit ranger?

Sube Dai.8496:

TurtleDragon.3108:

This post is filled with bias and ignorance towards the ranger class.

Rangers are only bad in Record Run environments, and min-max dungeon tours. Outside of those, a well-played meta ranger easily contributes enough to the group to be worth bringing, but the issue is too many people think they’re playing in that type of environment.

If your bringing rez skills then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re not running compositions like 1 warrior, 2 eles 1 thief + 1 other then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re PUG-ing, then you’re also not min maxing and should not expect to find players that are full ascended zerker geared, use 2 food buffs and stacking sigils.

I hate the average bearbow just as much as you do, but well-played rangers are an amazing asset to most teams in the game.

I thought the record cof run contained a frost spirit ranger?

It did at one point for idk how long, but it does not right now under the new rule set.

Visit http://gwscr.com/records/current-meta-dungeon-records for more info. The current CoF p1 uses 1 warrior, 2 thieves, 1 ele and 1 mesmer.

Fluffball.8307:

Atherakhia.4086:

It is common knowledge that the Ranger is 5th highest DPS in this game behind Elementalists, Thieves, Mesmers, and Warriors.

Eles and thieves I’ll buy, almost certain we out damage warriors and mesmers.

Do you have a thread reference?

Rangers do not do more damage than warriors, that’s just wishful thinking. A number that people have quoted before without any actual proof is “5% behind warrior.” Mesmers won’t outdps most classes in most scenarios, it’s extremely situational.

Not wishful thinking that rangers out DPS warriors, just something I’ve seen posted a lot with no evidence proving or disproving it. My gut feeling is it’s extremely close either way. Mesmers have terrible DPS.

A couple quick counter arguments:

• Spotter is useless when the team already has near 100% crit rate thanks to zerk gear, perma fury from elementalist, and Discipline Banner.
• Frost Spirit I do like, but to me and others that one skill isn’t enough to justify taking a ranger over something else that brings more to the table.
• Reflects and resurrects are, again, already provided in greater quantities by other classes that themselves fill additional roles on top of those.
• Just for the sake of thoroughness, I should mention that it is numerically impossible for a ranger to approach the damage of a thief or warrior, even with a pet. The base damage is lower.

Don’t think me ignorant, I have a ranger of my own that I have put through the same paces as my other classes. I am simply reporting my findings.

One thing a ranger does better than everyone else, use environmental weapons, if a warrior or any other prof picks up a FGS or another conjured weapon he’s hurting the DPS of the group since a ranger with the same gear and stats would deal MORE damage due to the fact that he also has a pet that’s dealing damage ontop of the fiery great sword damage, and picking up such an item removes the “pet tax” that the ranger is often plagued with for power builds.

Additionally, if a ranger is rezzing instead of another prof it’s not a 100% DPS loss because again, the pet will be on the mob, where if another prof does so 100% of their DPS is lost until the ally is rezed.

Rangers are also very capable at stacking vuln, off hand axe, GS, Longbow, and remorseless all apply vulnerability, and if you run a Sword/Axe Ranger + a thief with a smoke field you can VERY EASILY combo that ranger into stealth regularly in order to achieve perma a large amount of vuln on the target.

Additionally a ranger can achieve perma regen, swiftness, and fury for his group with minimal effort should they so desire and STILL be able to bring both remorseless, spotter, frost spirit and a large amount of AoE Vigor by utilizing their pets and healing spring (everyone will be stacked in Melee range anyway).

I hardly believe that you’re a true min/maxer because if you were you have no idea how to build a team efficiently, you need to build for the good of the team, and as a friend of mine pointed out, having a “selfish” profession doesn’t mean the team suffers when you can buff said profession to become more powerful than another.

Give a ranger 25 vuln on his victim, 25 might on him and his pet (very easy to do with fortifying bond and a night stacking group) and a conjured weapon and he will 100% replace any silly warriors damage.

When the community starts to look at more than JUST the rangers damage and utility (include the pet for kittens sake), and realized that if you truly were to min max you’d actually craft a team that has synergy to achieve the max effect instead of just trying to throw a bunch of self standing builds in a group we might actually some REAL recognition.

It’s funny how people can’t even see how DPS works without a program telling them so…

Durzlla.6295:

One thing a ranger does better than everyone else, use environmental weapons, if a warrior or any other prof picks up a FGS or another conjured weapon he’s hurting the DPS of the group since a ranger with the same gear and stats would deal MORE damage due to the fact that he also has a pet that’s dealing damage ontop of the fiery great sword damage, and picking up such an item removes the “pet tax” that the ranger is often plagued with for power builds.

I feel the need to mention that this is false, as thieves and engineers both have a trait that increases bundle damage by 10%.

Also the big issue with pets is that they are an enormous liability since they screw with the stacking agro control and get everyone killed.

Durzlla.6295:

and if you run a Sword/Axe Ranger + a thief with a smoke field you can VERY EASILY combo that ranger into stealth regularly in order to achieve perma

Thieves do that by themselves.

Durzlla.6295:

Additionally a ranger can achieve perma regen, swiftness, and fury for his group

You will already have those with a guardian and elementalist.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Rangers do not do more damage than warriors, that’s just wishful thinking. A number that people have quoted before without any actual proof is “5% behind warrior.” Mesmers won’t outdps most classes in most scenarios, it’s extremely situational.

In short fights without a mesmer (no timewarp), Signettrait and conjoured weapons (not only FGS, LH, FB are enough) u can definitly do it.
Usually they have nice support. Spotter/Spirit for party dps makes them better then a second warrior (always i think).
In Fractals they have alot of helpful utility.

CoF p1 is bad example, u are usually not using 2 thiefs…and a mesmer ist often not needed. And this parth has got only 2 bosses, and TW is rdy there.

After the feature patch we will see more rangers in speedruns (probably).

Kyrus.7218:

Also the big issue with pets is that they are an enormous liability since they screw with the stacking agro control and get everyone killed.

Ranger pets do not get aggro unless their master is in combat, so it usually doesn’t ruin the stacking points. There are a few exceptions to this.

Example: If you’re doing the corner stack for the golems in SE P1. Do not pull as a Ranger, but if you let someone else pull it’ll be fine since they wont stop to target the pet.

Turrets in Arah seem to like Ranger pets even if they’re not in combat and the ranger is stealthed…

Norjena.5172:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Rangers do not do more damage than warriors, that’s just wishful thinking. A number that people have quoted before without any actual proof is “5% behind warrior.” Mesmers won’t outdps most classes in most scenarios, it’s extremely situational.

In short fights without a mesmer (no timewarp), Signettrait and conjoured weapons (not only FGS, LH, FB are enough) u can definitly do it.
Usually they have nice support. Spotter/Spirit for party dps makes them better then a second warrior (always i think).
In Fractals they have alot of helpful utility.

CoF p1 is bad example, u are usually not using 2 thiefs…and a mesmer ist often not needed. And this parth has got only 2 bosses, and TW is rdy there.

After the feature patch we will see more rangers in speedruns (probably).

As much as I like doing 3.3k ticks on FGS, I am not really happy about needing conjure weapons (or traited signets) to do competitive DPS. Also, thieves can use conjures well past 8s incase the fight needs 2 fiery rushes instead of 1.

Kyrus.7218:

Durzlla.6295:

One thing a ranger does better than everyone else, use environmental weapons, if a warrior or any other prof picks up a FGS or another conjured weapon he’s hurting the DPS of the group since a ranger with the same gear and stats would deal MORE damage due to the fact that he also has a pet that’s dealing damage ontop of the fiery great sword damage, and picking up such an item removes the “pet tax” that the ranger is often plagued with for power builds.

I feel the need to mention that this is false, as thieves and engineers both have a trait that increases bundle damage by 10%.

Also the big issue with pets is that they are an enormous liability since they screw with the stacking agro control and get everyone killed.

Durzlla.6295:

and if you run a Sword/Axe Ranger + a thief with a smoke field you can VERY EASILY combo that ranger into stealth regularly in order to achieve perma

Thieves do that by themselves.

Durzlla.6295:

Additionally a ranger can achieve perma regen, swiftness, and fury for his group

You will already have those with a guardian and elementalist.

1) a ranger pet does more than 10% damage even without traits and might, nice try though.

2) thieves don’t apply much vuln by themselves unless they plan on spamming body shot, which although is doable trashes their DPS, the point of the ranger stealthing is to proc remorseless, which is 5 more vuln, not that it’s needed though since a raven/Moa + ranger with off hand axe can throw up 25 vuln easy.

3) just because another prof brings it doesn’t mean that it’s bad, and either way guardians and eles both have horrible group fury uptime (unless the ele is running 30 in fire at which point it can be good)

There is some truth to what OP has stated and lets not take it personally because the class is pretty bad/weak not the majority of us that play the ranger.
But… ive been in plenty of groups running dungeons and fractals and have had the great pleasure of constanty having to ress the fail glass thief or the uber glass warrior so often it was like running the dungeon -1 player.
Hes proud he plays an easymode class that takes alot less skill, rangers should be proud that they can play a more difficult class on the same lvl as him for the most part even though the class is gimp/weak/semi broken.

If you are good on a Ranger you’d be great on a Guardian, and if you’re good on the Ranger then you’ll be amazing on a Warrior. That is if the given is true that has been spouted here that Rangers are that much harder to play (read: higher skill level required). An amazing warrior will be worth more than a good Ranger. Sure, they may not be as fun to you but you’ll be worth more to your group.

Besides, a lot of you seem to be glazing over the OP when he said he is one of the min-maxing crowd. Not sure why y’all are getting so bu1t hurt over this. It’s his opinion. It just so happens that many others share the opinion. He and they are no more right in their opinions then you are in yours.

Get over it and move on.

thefantasticg.3984:

If you are good on a Ranger you’d be great on a Guardian, and if you’re good on the Ranger then you’ll be amazing on a Warrior.

Never could be good on something that I don’t enjoy playing.

Well, that’s you intentionally keeping yourself from being great or amazing, nothing more.

I think you’re oversimplifying. There’s enough difference mechanically between classes to require different mental skillsets.

Like, I find the internal time-tracking challenges of Engineer and Elementalist really difficult, but multitasking aspects of Ranger are easy peasy lemon squeezy. Yeah, if I was a champ at keeping track of family skill cooldowns in my head on Ranger, I might be super boss at Engineer. But, I can’t, so I’m not.

Common misconception that if you can play one class at the highest level, you can play all classes at the highest level.

That’s like saying if you can swarm like Rocky Marciano, you can also counter strike like Muhammed Ali. You have to work with what you’re good at.

For a lot of people, mesmers are easy mode in 1v1. I struggle to kill ambient wildlife with mine, yet I get how pets and ranger evasiveness works.

I guess I am the exception and not the rule then. Go me.

I don’t have any problems jumping from one class to the other. I don’t play Necro, but I do all the rest of the classes.

Kyrus.7218:

A couple quick counter arguments:

• Spotter is useless when the team already has near 100% crit rate thanks to zerk gear, perma fury from elementalist, and Discipline Banner.

Except that this isn’t true, most classes will have (87-91%) crit chance with fury and discipline banner.
Warrior: 60% (Signet of Fury + no assassins pieces) + 28% = 88%. Spotter and food still wont take it to 100%
Guardian: 51% + 28% = 79%.
etc. I believe thief can go over 100% easily, but I’m no expert on thieves.

It’s also mathematically Superior DPS to stack your crit to 100%, which is what most guides recommend.

Rangers are still low priority picks, and in a min-max scenario, you would take only 1 warrior and the rest of the group composition would be elementalist and thieves. Swap 1 out for a guardian or mesmer if portals speed up the run or you need their utility. Lately, some compositions even been dropping the 1 warrior. Obviously you can’t run compositions like this everywhere, but the most common set up is 1 warrior, 2 eles + 2 other.

I believe that if your composition isn’t 1 warrior 2 eles 2 other then a ranger is fine since you’re not min maxing anyways. If your composition is something random like 1 necro, 1 guardian 1 mesmer 1 thief, bring your warrior instead because 1 warrior > 1 ranger. 1 guardian/mesmer > 1 ranger if you need reflects. Basically, to fit in a ranger into a composition, you need to satisfy the 1 warrior + utility (Stealth, reflects, portal) requirements in your composition. Once you have those, A ranger is fine, and argueably you don’t “need” some of those things i mentioned.

The main reason to bring a ranger is the high vulnerability stack uptime plus frost spirit.

scerevisiae.1972:

The main reason to bring a ranger is the high vulnerability stack uptime plus frost spirit.

+ spotter + high fury uptime

Gooz Nooz.2960:

Also, Search and Rescue is a great way of ressing allies although it still sucks due to the long CD.

And when it chooses to actually work instead of spazzing about for a bit and then forgetting it is supposed to be ressing someone.

Aaaaah I remember when Search and Rescues was the best Rez skill in the game…. Now it’s probably the worst…

Durzlla.6295:

Aaaaah I remember when Search and Rescues was the best Rez skill in the game…. Now it’s probably the worst…

I consider when they nerfed S&R down to the way “it was intended to work” the start of the down hill of the Ranger for me.

Self absorbed
Self important
Egotist
Arrogant
Short sighted
Know it all
Close minded

Just some things that came to mind when reading the first post.

Fluffball.8307:

Common misconception that if you can play one class at the highest level, you can play all classes at the highest level.

That’s like saying if you can swarm like Rocky Marciano, you can also counter strike like Muhammed Ali. You have to work with what you’re good at.

For a lot of people, mesmers are easy mode in 1v1. I struggle to kill ambient wildlife with mine, yet I get how pets and ranger evasiveness works.

That made me laugh

No point blaming the players when ANet knows the profession is in a mess and drag their heels fixing it. Too busy making warriors more uber, playing warriors and giggling like 12 year-olds. Why should a ranger play a warrior play-style just because it’s the most efficient ranger build, if you are going to do that then why not play a warrior and be better still?

thefantasticg.3984:

Durzlla.6295:

Aaaaah I remember when Search and Rescues was the best Rez skill in the game…. Now it’s probably the worst…

I consider when they nerfed S&R down to the way “it was intended to work” the start of the down hill of the Ranger for me.

I absolutely agree, I used to run S&R quite frequently on my bar, it was a solid Rez that was the SLOWEST (by far) of the other rezzes and essentially sacced our pet (chunk of damage and utility) for a guaranteed Rez (time may vary), but then it got hit to not only not Rez defeated people, but to Rez slower, and they made the CD absolutely ridiculous in PvP.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

There’s partial onus on the community to represent the Ranger in a brighter light. People adamant in using ranged options over superior melee options are all stuck up on the tanky pet + ranged design model that -could- work in other MMO’s, but just doesn’t apply in GW2 at all.

A Spotter, Frost Spirit, Zerker Sword Ranger in PvE is amazing. But, how many of those do you see on a regular basis?

No doubt, Rangers could use a hell of a lot of tweaking. You can’t deny, however, that players can choose to be useful or selfish. Most take the latter, and thus poorly represent all Rangers – even those who work hard to get where they are now.

I agree here. I think its the way people play them. Whenever i group i play as a surpport class. True i think a lot of people got the wrong idea about how rangers in this game would play. It is different which can be challengeing but thats fun to me. Just my thoughts on it.

I’m sorry, all I read here was “I wish I’d rolled a ranger and now exclude them from my group out of jealousy at not being able to level one and play it effectively.”

I mean seriously. I run 30/30/10/0/0 and can Dps as well as providing vulnerability and condi dmg. Support? My little healing circle is just fine. Want buffs? Get a guard or banner warrior that will just slow you down.

You’re not speed running, lmfao, you’re gimping your face to spite your nose.