Guild Wars 2

I love my ranger. I have over 800 hours with her (Norn female) and still enjoy the game with her. It’s awesome for solo pve. However, the lack of Ranger fixing and the recent on going nerfs made me try out new professions.

I leveled a Warrior to lvl 40. Nice stats, but incredible BORING play style.

Leveled a Thief to lvl 40. Fun play style, nice combos. Will keep it as an alt to level later on. Not strong in groups. I found it more like a lone wolf.

At the moment I’m leveling a Guardian. Really fun and love the diversity in weapons and skills. Awesome group support. But more difficult to stay alive compared to Ranger. But I will definitely go with the Guardian all the way to lvl 80. It has cool group supports that Ranger lacks.

Anet have made 8 different professions. At the moment, Ranger is one of the bottom feeders (stop denying it!) . We must work harder than any other profession just to do a fraction of dps / support / cc that others almost achieve effortlessly.

My point is, make new alts and leave the ranger for a moment. You might find a new profession that you enjoy. I still play my ranger but not in groups.

Also, less people playing the Ranger, Anet might actually notice that and do some tweaking (make decent pet AI, pet AoE immunity, Viable Spirits, Better trait synergies eg. traps should be in WS, buff to weapon dps)

How about we play the class we feel most comfortable with, and you abandon ship only to come crying back when we get buffs. After all, the smart people stay with the class they like most.

When I purchased GW2 I did so b/c it contained a “hunter-style” class I enjoyed playing in mmo’s. I played a hunter in WOW so it was only natural this would be the class I rolled. One would suspect that ex-WOW pally’s rolled up guardians and roques created thieves, etc.. You tend to play the class that suits your playstyle. Why force yourself to roll up a class and then force yourself to play it.
When I began to realize just how broken the ranger pet mechanic was only several months into gw2, then I looked to playing other classes but simply never enjoyed the play style. I went back to my ranger only to become more and more frustrated with the pet in areas of the game such as WVW.
I don’t believe ANET won’t fix the problem, as much as they simply don’t know how to fix it. If they could give rangers a choice of creating a build that does not include the pet it would be a start. And before all of you ANET defenders respond with " but pets define rangers" crap, plz let me remind you the the pets role is to not only to provide dps but also to keep your enemy at bay whle you pewpew them down. Most of the time they can’t even hold aggro or die so fast you are unable to swap them out in time.
In the end people should be allowed to play and enjoy playing the class they PAID for and not be told “sucks to be you” play another class.

RyuDragnier.9476:

How about we play the class we feel most comfortable with, and you abandon ship only to come crying back when we get buffs. After all, the smart people stay with the class they like most.

Please read the post a little more carefully. I didn’t abandon the ranger, I still play it and surely enjoy the play style (as I said in the post).

My point was that you shouldn’t narrow your opportunities. Get out there and try out other professions. I tried warrior and did not like the play style despite everyone emphasis on the huge numbers. So I didn’t stay with the warrior.

Also, you don’t know how much other classes perform compared to ranger if you don’t try them. When you learn how much better other professions do dps/cc/support you get an idea of what ranger is missing. That said, I still solo pve with ranger because I like the arhcer style.

Finally, STOP defending a profession that has serious shortcomings. I love the ranger, but Anet has to make some changes in order to make the profession right.

I’ll defend the profession all I want as it has very few shortcomings thank you very much. At least from the way I play, I don’t feel hindered at all in my play, and have no trouble dishing out as much or more hurt than I take in any game mode I play. I won’t disagree that there’s a few things that could go better for us, but all in all the Ranger is a perfectly fine class to play. If you want me to back this up, I’ll post some vids of gameplay and some pics of my stats on my Ranger.

Do you think dungeons are hard enough such that ranger isn’t viable? Because my fully geared ranger will outperform my other alts for days since I lack time to level and I’m bored of PvE and dungeons. I would say ranger is a great roaming profession, second only to thieves. Ranger is a great role player right now in wvw and pvp. It will be difficult to 1v1 a theif or engineer with ranger but I doubt many professions can go toe to toe with those two. For me, all the work required to level another profession isn’t worth it. I’m not going to craft it up because then I don’t know how to play it, and I’m still too new to spvp to try playing seriously with other professions.

It’s not that big of a deal. Some people like ranger and some don’t. Some people play more casually and will accept flaws, some don’t. Some people like the challenge of playing a profession with this kind of reputation, some don’t. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter because its a game and its meant to be fun. If you’re not having fun with ranger do something else or stop playing. The world still has angular momentum. If that’s your central message, I’m on board with that.

I agree with the whole “if you don’t like ranger make alts” approach, I went through that phase and realized I actually didn’t like anything -other- than ranger, and that they aren’t that bad off…

I personally feel rangers are in a strong spot, in sPvP they’re just amazing (by sPvP I’m talking tournies), Dungeons you -can- do great in, but you need to learn to micro your pet which could be hard for people used to WoW where micromanagement just didn’t happen. WvW is kinda weird, but I have no issue getting my pet(s) into the fray to harass before getting them back out… But it’s tricky, and requires some pet swaps or swiftness etc. but as many people said, you can’t melee in WvW an survive very long regardless of the build.

I find the aesthetic of the Ranger a lot more appealing then the other professions, and for that reason alone, I will keep coming back to the Ranger. The Ranger is not that bad, it’s just that it centers around a profession ability that relies a lot on AI, and that the majority of traits are bad.

Also; the Thief can be very strong in groups, with the right build. You can share your venoms with allies, revive allies in stealth while regenerating their health, give fury, might, vigor and swiftness to allies when you steal, and set up poison and smoke combo fields.

Since this is a very good thread that hasn’t been hit with all of the people that have different ideas about what the shortcomings are for the ranger (I say different to be respectful, I honestly do not agree with most of what people think the issues are).

So, after playing multiple other professions, and speaking mainly from a pvp environment (which is what the game is primarily balanced around for those that aren’t aware, there is a quote buried somewhere on these forums that states that from a dev, and I’m not hunting for it), rangers only have 2 real major shortcomings that are not pet mechanic related(pets are mechanic related and hard to fix due to time constraints and balance constraints):
1)not enough viable utilities to be competitive with the ones that are currently considered “meta”
2)not enough viable traits to rival the effectiveness of traits chosen in builds currently considered “meta”, either due to the effect of the trait or that the trait is referencing a subpar utility

That really is the only issue, and I have had the same issue on every other class in the game. I don’t get frustrated with the game like a lot of the people in the community do because they think “the devs are wrong.” I get frustrated because it is an acknowledged issue that isn’t being addressed quickly enough based on when the devs openly acknowledge issues. There has to be a compromise between the communities frustration and the devs “small tweak” philosophy at some point, as it seems the frustration from the community is reaching a climax.

Back on point, the OP is absolutely right to encourage people to play more professions, because a lot of the balance posts IN EVERY PROFESSION FORUM consist of people claiming their class is underpowered based solely on their lack of performance versus how they perceive other people to be performing. Upon playing other classes, people begin to realize that every class has certain weapon/utility/trait options that outshine the rest of their choices.

As the saying goes, Home Is Where The Heart is, which was Ranger. It was not that i wasn’t given a Choice, It was the Fact I was Maliciously Kicked out from my Home

awe extender.1908:

RyuDragnier.9476:

How about we play the class we feel most comfortable with, and you abandon ship only to come crying back when we get buffs. After all, the smart people stay with the class they like most.

Please read the post a little more carefully. I didn’t abandon the ranger, I still play it and surely enjoy the play style (as I said in the post).

My point was that you shouldn’t narrow your opportunities. Get out there and try out other professions. I tried warrior and did not like the play style despite everyone emphasis on the huge numbers. So I didn’t stay with the warrior.

Also, you don’t know how much other classes perform compared to ranger if you don’t try them. When you learn how much better other professions do dps/cc/support you get an idea of what ranger is missing. That said, I still solo pve with ranger because I like the arhcer style.

Finally, STOP defending a profession that has serious shortcomings. I love the ranger, but Anet has to make some changes in order to make the profession right.

I apologize about misreading the original post. It sounded like one of the usual “everybody should quit ranger and reroll something else” QQ posts a certain poster likes letting out often. stares at said poster

I do agree that playing other classes can really help you understand their inner workings and can also help you understand how rangers fit as a cog in the machine. By the way, I don’t defend some of the serious problems with the ranger, such as Pet AI, traitlines that seem to have mix and matched traits, weapons in need of some damage buffing such as the LB and GS, etc.

I had the same thing happen to me but much earlier, and not related to the quickness nerf. Ranger is my first character, and the only reason I play it nowadays is for guild missions since that character has the most map completion… I do open world and instanced PvE.
Mesmer replaces Ranger for instanced PvE: About a month after Fractals was released, I ran through it with guildies once with a Ranger, and another time with a Mesmer. The difference was amazing in what options I had with the Mesmer – swapping around my slot skills gives me options in dungeons that aren’t available to a Ranger even if I re-traited.
Guardian replaces Ranger for open PvE: It happened again for general PvE, when I slaughtered mobs with a GS guardian with a lot less thought (to the point engaging 4-5 trash mobs was boring unless they had blocking or knockdown).

That said, the OP’s idea to try out the other professions holds no matter what. Even if you’re a speed clear Warrior or similarly rated build in the current meta, rolling an alt is great just to see what others do. It’s a little less important than in GW1 where Warriors were wondering why their Monk buddy couldn’t heal them when they ate a boss attack while using their Frenzy or Healing signet, but it’s still useful for grouping or facing others in PvP.

NibriAyid.3680:

I had the same thing happen to me but much earlier, and not related to the quickness nerf. Ranger is my first character, and the only reason I play it nowadays is for guild missions since that character has the most map completion… I do open world and instanced PvE.
Mesmer replaces Ranger for instanced PvE: About a month after Fractals was released, I ran through it with guildies once with a Ranger, and another time with a Mesmer. The difference was amazing in what options I had with the Mesmer – swapping around my slot skills gives me options in dungeons that aren’t available to a Ranger even if I re-traited.
Guardian replaces Ranger for open PvE: It happened again for general PvE, when I slaughtered mobs with a GS guardian with a lot less thought (to the point engaging 4-5 trash mobs was boring unless they had blocking or knockdown).

That said, the OP’s idea to try out the other professions holds no matter what. Even if you’re a speed clear Warrior or similarly rated build in the current meta, rolling an alt is great just to see what others do. It’s a little less important than in GW1 where Warriors were wondering why their Monk buddy couldn’t heal them when they ate a boss attack while using their Frenzy or Healing signet, but it’s still useful for grouping or facing others in PvP.

It’s pretty much a consensus that ranger is the best open world profession so if you’re going to make the case that guardian is better somehow besides that argument. I am not afraid of anything in pve with ranger but leveling guardian and mesmer has been terribly painful. Are you crafting to 80 or playing to 80?

^ Good question. I’ve tried all the professioned but by level 10 I just get so horribly bored of running around doing hearts and events I’ve done a dozen times before I just ragequit and go back to my lovely 80 ranger where all the grinding is done.

Never thought of crafting….

Protip for leveling the guardian…Greatsword is your friend, and put the starting trait points in their traitlines that increases toughness and vitality (at least until you reach level 60, where you can reset them and not worry about the effects too much in PvE). Also, Hold the Line, Contemplation of Purity (or Retreat) and Save Yourselves! is a good setup for the skill slots. They’ll keep you buffed, and Contemplation of Purity will get rid of any conditions you’re suffering from. And don’t be afraid to use Scepter/Torch for some VERY good range killing.

RyuDragnier.9476:

How about we play the class we feel most comfortable with, and you abandon ship only to come crying back when we get buffs. After all, the smart people stay with the class they like most.

lol its not like he deleted his ranger. Hes just playing other classes while people like you cling on desperately to rangers till they gt buffed. And when they do get buffed, he simply comes back to play his level 80 ranger.(Does he need to cry? Don’t think so.) Not too hard for someone as smart as you to figure out, I suppose.

Chopps.5047:

It’s pretty much a consensus that ranger is the best open world profession so if you’re going to make the case that guardian is better somehow besides that argument. I am not afraid of anything in pve with ranger but leveling guardian and mesmer has been terribly painful. Are you crafting to 80 or playing to 80?

I mainly played the Mesmer and Guardian. Both of those characters have 2 maxed crafting professions. It’s been a while (pre Cursed Shore on the Mesmer), but I believe I crafted to skip levels ~3-8 on both characters because I hate the slow weapon skill unlocks at low levels.

I’m saying that I’ve found stuff that I like more than my Ranger. I haven’t crunched the numbers or anything to say how much weaker the Ranger is, if at all. It’s just that I haven’t found a “niche” for my ranger that I can fit into, but I’m definitely searching. For instance, I’m trying Power/Vitality/Toughness + survivability out to see if I can put together a fun “face-tanking” build.

(Sorry if my use of the sub-headings was a little odd, as I write that way by habit.)