Thinking Starting a Ranger
Hi!
Haven’t been around these past two weeks, but I felt like helping xD
My main character is a ranger, and overall I found her to be the best, most fun, occasionally most relaxed character of all. Sometimes people complain a bit too much, sometimes they make a valid point. But in my experience, unless you’re an sPVP junkie, the ranger is quite alright (minus a few bugs).
1) Diversity!
- You could focus on your pet and generally be well off in pve.
- Longsword roots you in place, making it impossible to dodge (but good damage)
- Greatsword is a decent damage-dealer that protects you with evasion/blocking
- Offhand weapons are generally useful (too many to list so easily)
- Shortbows have a variety of condition damage options + ok damage
- My rant about axes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Rangers-Axes/first#post992394
- Longbows ends up being great damage if you specialize in pow/prec/critical%
-> Quite a bit of diversity for me ^_^
- Traps stay for as long as no one steps into them, can be traited & do high cond dmg
- Signets have long cooldowns, so I don’t focus in them. Does really help your pet.
- Spirits are not useful….. Sorry!
- Wilderness survival skills are excellent
- Pet shout skills are halfly ok. Sick ’em is reliably good, but I never use the others
2) WvW/PvE
Rangers are the easiest pve class in the game. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong. Dungeons are a whole other thing unfortunately. You’ll probably be welcome to join any group, but your pet is generally lacking because they die too quickly, even as bears.
WvW is fun for me. Longbows can get 1500 range, which increases if you’re elevated I think. You also get barrage. Offhand axes reflect projectiles, traps are invisible to players, entangle is excellent, and so on. I easily scored the most kills on ranger because of the longbow range.
3) What I like about ranger is..
The style. A wilderness survival expert, with sneaky traps and a bit of a rogue-ish side (traps, skirmishing +10% damage when flanking, dexterity) to its warrior training (axes, swords, greatswords, mid-armor and mid-health for ok survivability) and good ranged options.
Apart from that, the pet makes pve easier and more relaxed. You might occasionally get annoyed with your pet for slowing you down as it fights an enemy you don’t want to fight, but generally it speeds up everything and makes the game much more forgiving/comfortable. There are so many areas to explore, and occasionally you just want to enjoy the scenery rather than fighting your 10000th enemy. That’s when the pet comes in.
I hope this is helpful, and happy holidays to you too darling :)
(edited by WeWantWaffles.2873)
-Is there diversity in Ranger builds? If so can you share a quick summary of one you know or one that you enjoy/made. (no long paragraph needed, just wondering if there are choices)
Ranger is easy to learn all skill can help a lot in combat but at high end effect another class can do better than Ranger.
This class should be more improve skill/bug fix/etc…a lot.
We just start with handicap class and 14dec we just back on our feet.(left feet and where is my right feet?)
this is my old build overall going.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJAVTjAVZ2NWKWo2BilCBt/2DO1/zzUYIGdymmwK
Lazy play 1click end game PvE.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJAVTjAV91BWKWs2BimCK1fmiEho3jWRr2fymmwK
WWW trap type ground control.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAV8fjAVx11VCWs2Bili9EomCN1f2DDhoFdymmwK
WWW Survival.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAV8fjAVZ2NWCWs2BilCBt/2DN1/zzUYIGdymmwK
WWW ninja pet(thx for Xsorus.2507 he start this idea.)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAV3fjAVZ2NWCWs2Bi2DK1/zzKco3jZp+2nyUKxaSA
- Is the Ranger good in WvW/PvE?
Yes all Ranger can do PvE easy because ranger have buddy to help in combat.
WWW you can play any type of war zone frontline midline backline and can play as
Assault, Spam-Dmg-brust ,Spam-condition ,support ,ground control ,Defender or even dual 1 v 1 . It’s up to you what weapon and style you use in WWW.
-What do YOU like about your ranger?
I like long bow/shot bow pet(if more useful will be good.)
“-Is there diversity in Ranger builds? If so can you share a quick summary of one you know or one that you enjoy/made. (no long paragraph needed, just wondering if there are choices)”
There is. You see, the good thing about our class is that no matter what set-up you use, you will always perform sub-par to other classes. It’s truly a brilliant game design!
The build I currently use and enjoy is a traditional ‘bunker’ beastmaster build, with a greatsword and double axes. It’s a really fun playstyle in my opinion.
“- Is the Ranger good in WvW/PvE?”
Good? No. Sortof viable? I suppose.
“-What do YOU like about your ranger?”
Pet companion and the whole natural survivalist feel. Definately not the class utilities or traits, haha. Sad face.
“-Is there diversity in Ranger builds? If so can you share a quick summary of one you know or one that you enjoy/made. (no long paragraph needed, just wondering if there are choices)”
There is. You see, the good thing about our class is that no matter what set-up you use, you will always perform sub-par to other classes. It’s truly a brilliant game design!
The build I currently use and enjoy is a traditional ‘bunker’ beastmaster build, with a greatsword and double axes. It’s a really fun playstyle in my opinion.
“- Is the Ranger good in WvW/PvE?”
Good? No. Sortof viable? I suppose.
“-What do YOU like about your ranger?”
Pet companion and the whole natural survivalist feel. Definately not the class utilities or traits, haha. Sad face.
I see lots of negativity on the Ranger boards, and at least on the WvW front it was justified a while ago … but imho now it is no longer justified.
On my Guardian i used to trounce rangers easily, now they can fight me to a draw. They must be bunker specced because i just cant seem to damge them, but they cant kill me either.
On my Ele, i used to always be on the lookout for Thieves. But once i learned the Ele D/D class effectively i now actively seek them out to kill them. I have died 5 times in the last week in WvW and guess what…. four times it was to rangers. They would burst me down to 30% and then their pet would catch me when i ran to heal up. Not sure of the spec with these guys but they use Longbow and hit like a freaking truck.
On my thief i play P/D or P/P with SB. Its more of a wear you down build, it works awesome against other thieves and heavy armor wearers. But again Ele, Necros and well played Rangers can beat me. But thats balance. I don’t play the D/D build on my thief, i like a challenge and D/D just aint challenging if u have the right gear and spec.
The common theme i have noticed over the last week is that since release i could count on one hand the amount of Rangers that have killed any of my Toons in zerg vs zerg…. 1vs1 i can’t remember a single instance tbh.
But in the last week i have been killed 1v1 by Rangers on my Thief and my Ele.
I even rolled a ranger yesterday just so i could get a sense of their skills etc so i can figure out a counter.
Nice anecdote, but as a level 80 ranger I can assure you that while we received some much needed fixes last patch, we are still nowhere near the level of viability of other classes. We’re closer, but still far from being proper. Most of our utilities (including our only credit-to-team utilities) still suck and/or are buggy, pet AI is still horribad, pet barely if ever resses us now when we’re in downed state, and our traits… gods, don’t even get me started on THAT trainwreck.
Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.
Rangers definitely are not as bad as all the complainers say but Agadar was right in saying certain mechanics do need to be tweaked. Pets now hit much more consistently but their AI suck and AoE is the bane of their existence. As a level 80 ranger I can tell you that my damage is not as bad as everyone complains about in fact as a crit ranger I think I do quite a bit more damage than some of the other people I am playing with. My survivability (if you dont go glass cannon) is actually quite nice because we have moderate toughness and vitality. Our pets contrary to popular belief do in fact help towards are DPS especially birds. The F2 skill might be buggy at times but I found for canines F2 skill works amazingly. Krytan Drakehounds hit for quite a bit of damage. Overall the Ranger is much better after this dec.14 patch and is a great class to play.
If you play ranger, pay attention to your pet. It is our class mechanic and neglecting it will punish you. That is how the class is designed. The pets are extremely powerful when properly cared for, Godly when traited.
That being said I run a bunker support build 0/0/30/10/30 dual wolves, healing spring stone spirit, sun spirit, signet of wild, and elite spirit. Great Sword axe/horn.
There are also a lot of justified complaints about spirits, most of them can be minimilized with good placement of the spirit and never working towards spirits walking trait. If you use the spirits drop them down and then quickly vacate away to keep them from being AoEd. The passive buff range is huge.
Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.
Play to level 10, love it and then realize @ 80 that you have been mistaken. Roll another class until ANET decides to release that “significant changes” update that all Rangers have been waiting for. Believe me, if ANY class can claim the “broken” tag, it is the Ranger.
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Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.
Play to level 10, love it and then realize @ 80 that you have been mistaken. Roll another class until ANET decides to release that “significant changes” update that all Rangers have been waiting for. Believe me, if ANY class can claim the “broken” tag, it is the Ranger.
Yes the ranger has issues but don’t act like its the most broken class ever and is impossible to play. Dec. 14 patch helped A LOT and there is more to come. Yes the pet AI sucks yes the longbow needs a work over yes our arrows still get obstructed at kitten angles and our spirits suck. BUT they fixed pet AI to a certain extent. Arrows move 30% faster. Our signets got an improvement but need better actives and lower cd. Our utilities are pretty kitten good except the spirits. (Muddy terrain, QZ, Traps) I don’t know what other characters you play but Necro needs tweaks same as the ranger but its still viable. Only class that really isn’t in need of tweaks is the Guardian and Warrior. So instead of over generalizing the problems and making ranger out to be the worst piece of garbage ever actually open your eyes to what the ranger is.
What are you defending the ranger class for? It sucks compared to the other classes, plain and simple. Denying that is only unhealthy for you.
Even if it sucks compared to other classes, I still enjoyed it way more than others. But I don’t think it’s such a terrible class anyway. needs fixes like every other one.
Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.
Play to level 10, love it and then realize @ 80 that you have been mistaken. Roll another class until ANET decides to release that “significant changes” update that all Rangers have been waiting for. Believe me, if ANY class can claim the “broken” tag, it is the Ranger.
You do not realize how bad Necromancers and Engineers have it, do you? You really should play some other classes before you say stuff like this.
Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.
Play to level 10, love it and then realize @ 80 that you have been mistaken. Roll another class until ANET decides to release that “significant changes” update that all Rangers have been waiting for. Believe me, if ANY class can claim the “broken” tag, it is the Ranger.
You do not realize how bad Necromancers and Engineers have it, do you? You really should play some other classes before you say stuff like this.
Necromancers and engineers have it way better than rangers.
Honestly, why don’t we all just admit that the Engineer, Necromancer, and Ranger are all fighting for a DISTANT last place, shake hands, and move on. This is the ranger forum, of course we have it ‘worse’.