Guild Wars 2

Okay,I just got my ranger to 80,ready to gear him up and go WvW. Already at lvl 1 I was excited for WvW and planned that this was something I wanted my GW 2 endgame to be. !HOWEVER!
When I look through the ranger forum I can’t manage myself to overlook all these posts about the ranger being kitten at that,is kitten at everything,and that nobody wants a kitten ranger in Dungeon groups.

From the info I’ve gathered over these posts I can list these points:
-The ranger suck at Dungeons;
-Dungeon groups doesn’t want a ranger because he can’t contribute with enough DPS as these self proclaimed kings of PVE yell at us. ( You know what class I’m thinking of)
-The ranger suck at WvW;
-They suck at range,they suck at melee.
-The ranger is awesome in sPvp.
-’Nuff said.

So this is very interesting. I’ve heard stories about full groups with rangers clearing Fractal lvls and dungeons, and I can list a few youtube videos with WvW Ranger solo roaming, where they certainly do not kitten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XZyfEuzhufY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KkrbytFq_7c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-3Mdo9L2TI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCBjuXKbqQM
Plus this build I found on this forum O.o This looks insane
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/The-GS-burst-Ranger-and-You/first#post2367439
What is the problem here? Is it that the people who are complaining actually can’t play their class/understand other classes? Or are the ranger kitten at everything and all the above videos is just pure luck?

On a last note: I KNOW that these wvw vids go back 2-5 months but hey,face it, the ranger players have ALWAYS complained at the rangers >_<

its the players not knowing how to play the ranger.
I bet most of the rangers that Q_Q heavily, try to play ranger as a GS/LB warrior… and that should explain everything.

Prysin.8542:

its the players not knowing how to play the ranger.
I bet most of the rangers that Q_Q heavily, try to play ranger as a GS/LB warrior… and that should explain everything.

I’ve been playing a GS/LB ranger since beta and I love it. I don’t know what there is to complain about. The problem is that the people don’t know how to play and also MMO players as a breed don’t understand that you don’t have to be optimal to be capable.

I’m great in Fracals and Dungeons. I may not do peak damage, and I have absolutely no group support, but I hold my own and I am hard to kill, which is often enough to get the group through things when needed. I don’t WvW often, I don’t enjoy it in general, but when I did I didn’t have any major problems that I could attribute to anything more than that I’m not very good at PvP. In a zerg I’m in a zerg. I die if I do stupid things, like let the enemy pull me from the group. If I play smart I don’t die and I get enough kills to be proud. If I’m on my own I usually get stomped because I’m bad at PvP. If they’re bad then I have a chance because I’m still hard to kill.

Prysin.8542:

its the players not knowing how to play the ranger.
I bet most of the rangers that Q_Q heavily, try to play ranger as a GS/LB warrior… and that should explain everything.

no its not the players who dont know there class well.
i main the ranger since release in tpvp and im also not happy with this class atm.
(i more think the rangers who are rly happy with the class are the rangers who dont play there class well or have bring there ranger to the limit / hard to master situations)

at first 2 videos,
he show only his burst when the 2 sigils are activate, for sure its huge nice burst,
but after use this burst you have a huge cooldown for next nice burst.
this build also have rly low dmg without sigil activate and rly low survive.
each other glass cannon build can do more times huge bursts and have more survive then this ranger…
the problem on this build in tpvp is, you become first target and with longbow/shortbow and longsoword you have not much skills to safe your self on teamfights and doing dmg at same time
(mesmer, ele, thief and also dps guardian can do this much more better and this just because they have so much better attack skill combos)

the 3. video is a pretty standart beastmaster build, which is also not much used in tpvp anymore.
this build is rly strong on 1vs1, only necro and engin can become a huge problem.
well necro eats beastmaster in 10 seconds with the rigth fear combo atm.
but yeah, its a 1vs1 build with not good teamfight skills (help team mate who is in target, make a decap, do a immobilize or what ever)
well, but its the only real working build atm in my mind.
but sad, only good for ninja back cap or hold homepoint.
win 1vs1 or decap a point in fight takes to much time.

so ranger is truly not amazing in pvp, dungeons or wvw.
sry about the next words,
but when i go a bit wvw its so easy to kill peoples there.
(when i dont meet the next zerg…)
i think in wvw is much more low skilled pvp then in the mists.
there its easy to say ranger is ok when you 1vs1 peoples (rangers only real strenght atm)
or run with berzerker builds in zergs.

It’s multiple things
- stupid pet AI taking up 40% of our dps untraited, and if traited, still can’t hit very much, they’re also useless in duengons, zergs in WvW, and can’t attack off walls they’re also unresponsive.

-Backwards, broken traits. Master’s bond literally goes against the whole switching mechanic, evasive purity doesn’t work, opening strike is used ONCE, then forgotten about.

-Weapons are broken, the great shortbow nerfs, longbow punishes you for a mob being close in a game where mobility is key and is not very good, they need to rework the bow. 1h Sword roots you in place for 2/3 of the auto-attack chain, axe 5 roots you in place.

-Spirits are broken, require 2 traits to be useful. Why take a spirit ranger over a rifle or longbow warrior, when they can bring banners that can’t die, provide better buffs, and in a pinch can be picked up by anyone. Lightening reflexes doesn’t cure imob. Traps require 2 traits to be useful,.

And the most important thing, Rangers don’t really bring anything to the table that isn’t done better and easier than everyone else. Warrior banners and shouts, rangers have the worst res in the game, guardians bring better regen, mesmers bring more meat shields and more buffs, necros bring better pets, engis bring…everything. Ele’s have better dam and group utility. Only thing rangers bring is the best water field in the game, and we don’t even get a blast finisher to use it in.

Only thing rangers bring is the best water field in the game, and we don’t even get a blast finisher to use it in.[/quote]

We have our reef drakes blast finisher x)

But yeah,when you put it like that,I’ll go and find myself a nice comfy corner to sit down in and Q_Q Might as well delete the toon if it is so kitten.

I rarely lose 1v1’s with my sb/gs ranger in wvw. Its possible to beat duos too. I hear the QQ but when I play ranger I dont feel the gimpness.

Can’t really decide one thing or the other with so many different opinions O.o But as convinced as I am I’m literally minutes away from deleting my ranger and go easy mode warrior >_< Can’t stand this anymore x)

Well, I will give it to you straight.
I have a ranger, necro, ele, engineer, and a thief 80 fully geared

I always come back to my ranger.

Often, I feel many people need to learn how To play their classes. Because honestly If you are better at your class than the other you are going to win no matter what.

People are whining and complaining because their BM Bunker instant win isn’t that great anymore. I have tried it in fight clubs it’s not much to write home about. I had way better luck on power builds tbh. I usually win on a power build unless I mess up like miss a mail etc. or forget a dodge.

That being said.
We seem to be gettIng nerfs instead of needed buffs.
Without our pet our damage is laughable which is not how it should be I wish they would finally hear us and give us the option of more dmg without a pet or more damage when the pet is down.

When I crafted my build which you seemed to like “gs burst ranger” I made it with the pet in mind because like it or not our class is burdened with it.

The end result?
12k+ mauls and pet crits up to 7k on the opening strikes alone.

However that burst is still fairly subpar since it is on cool down for Atleast 30 seconds after some huge burst. I tried to incorporate some survivability, but with ranger it seems one needs to pick huge damage or no damage which is a problem.

My advice keep your ranger but work on levelling a guardian or something .

I wouldn’t recommend necro now because as usual people who kittening suck at the game QQ once more to get something that is mediocre at best nerfed…. Again..

Rangers are an awesome class to play: I have killed many 1v1 and 1v2 in WvW, flipped suply camps by myself, killed so many dolyaks in a day that the server started to escort them, outlasted a guardian in a dungeon fight (I got a lot better at dodge, damage control and awareness of the surrounding than him), kept my party alive (jump in, rez, jump out), consistently keep aggro on bosses (they just fell in love with me and my pet) and solo champions just for fun. I have seen people in heavy armor run after a burst of my LB when they saw me flying to them with my GS (some of them didn’t, some of them died as the song goes). All in all, I had and still have fun with it (plus the Norn dancing has its charm).

But you can’t say that the class is “Ok”. As I mentioned in another thread, we need to get skilled to overcome our limitations, instead of getting skilled to have an edge.

A perfect example of the kind of thins that happens to a Ranger happened in our last dungeon run. A guildy had a brand new Guardian spec’ed for support, but I had to choose between remain close to him to receive the buffs or flank the boss to get enough DPS from my SB to be useful in the fight. LB in dungeons are a joke.

Currently I’m leveling a Warrior because we want to speed run some dungeons and fractals. it is just not possible to speed run with the Ranger.

But I would love to have an all-ranger party in dungeons and WvW. I just can think the havoc we could create

insaneseagull.7063:

Can’t really decide one thing or the other with so many different opinions O.o But as convinced as I am I’m literally minutes away from deleting my ranger and go easy mode warrior >_< Can’t stand this anymore x)

lol are you serious ? I am assuming this is for dungeons ?

Tsohg.1798:

It’s multiple things
- stupid pet AI taking up 40% of our dps untraited, and if traited, still can’t hit very much, they’re also useless in duengons, zergs in WvW, and can’t attack off walls they’re also unresponsive.

-Backwards, broken traits. Master’s bond literally goes against the whole switching mechanic, evasive purity doesn’t work, opening strike is used ONCE, then forgotten about.

-Weapons are broken, the great shortbow nerfs, longbow punishes you for a mob being close in a game where mobility is key and is not very good, they need to rework the bow. 1h Sword roots you in place for 2/3 of the auto-attack chain, axe 5 roots you in place.

-Spirits are broken, require 2 traits to be useful. Why take a spirit ranger over a rifle or longbow warrior, when they can bring banners that can’t die, provide better buffs, and in a pinch can be picked up by anyone. Lightening reflexes doesn’t cure imob. Traps require 2 traits to be useful,.

And the most important thing, Rangers don’t really bring anything to the table that isn’t done better and easier than everyone else. Warrior banners and shouts, rangers have the worst res in the game, guardians bring better regen, mesmers bring more meat shields and more buffs, necros bring better pets, engis bring…everything. Ele’s have better dam and group utility. Only thing rangers bring is the best water field in the game, and we don’t even get a blast finisher to use it in.

This pretty much sums it up. It’s nice that some people keep on defending the ranger class by saying how they are good in 1v1 and roaming, but that’s pretty much the only thing rangers are somewhat good at. In the bigger WvW fights rangers are pretty much useless. The pet is always dead because of the aoe, if the pet is alive it won’t hit anything because it can’t hit moving targets and the utilities the ranger has aren’t of much use in big team-fights and are all outclassed by other professions.

There is not one situation where people ask for a ranger in their group. On the contrary, people would rather not have a ranger in their group because that spot could be filled by a more useful class. Look at GvG’s for instance, I don’t think there are many (if any) guilds who have a ranger in their GvG group. The Aetherblade dungeon is also a perfect example of why rangers aren’t popular in dungeon groups. In both the laser and the cannon fight your pet will be dead 95% of the time, taking away more than 1/4 of your DPS. DPS which is needed to finish the dungeon in a certain time limit to get an achievement.

So yeah, rangers are decent in sPvP and other small fights, but broken and outclassed in all other aspects. This is not a l2p issue, this is purely a broken profession issue.

Yeah, that Gs burst build sure was funny for 5-6 sec ,but after that it’s 30 seconds of picking up flowers and gazing at the wide open blue sky. >_<
I’ll listen to your advice and let him be…and possibly try to come up with something contributive to the ranger profession build wise. Though it seems dark now.

Rangers are water assassins.

Farzo.8410:

Rangers are water assassins.

yes, this :P
kings of underwater world

Theglados.7243:

This pretty much sums it up. It’s nice that some people keep on defending the ranger class by saying how they are good in 1v1 and roaming, but that’s pretty much the only thing rangers are somewhat good at. In the bigger WvW fights rangers are pretty much useless.

This really isn’t true. There is a big difference, which is so often lost on theory crafters, between “not optimal” and “useless.” The ranger is underpowered, not unplayable.

The ranger is not optimal for most situations. However, the balancing of the game is not that bad and the difference in performance is much smaller than many players make it out to be. A well-played ranger will outperform a poorly-played anything else.

If you are determined to min/max your performance, as many MMO players are, then the ranger is probably not the best class for you, but there is no need to get all hyperbolic and declare that the class is “useless” just because it doesn’t set the min/maxing bar in most game modes.

Note: I feel that the ranger is underpowered and would like to see it buffed. I just don’t want to compound the problem of being underpowered by having the playerbase believe things are worse than they really are and end up shunning rangers even more because of it.

Stice.5204:

Theglados.7243:

This pretty much sums it up. It’s nice that some people keep on defending the ranger class by saying how they are good in 1v1 and roaming, but that’s pretty much the only thing rangers are somewhat good at. In the bigger WvW fights rangers are pretty much useless.

This really isn’t true. There is a big difference, which is so often lost on theory crafters, between “not optimal” and “useless.” The ranger is underpowered, not unplayable.

The ranger is not optimal for most situations. However, the balancing of the game is not that bad and the difference in performance is much smaller than many players make it out to be. A well-played ranger will outperform a poorly-played anything else.

If you are determined to min/max your performance, as many MMO players are, then the ranger is probably not the best class for you, but there is no need to get all hyperbolic and declare that the class is “useless” just because it doesn’t set the min/maxing bar in most game modes.

Note: I feel that the ranger is underpowered and would like to see it buffed. I just don’t want to compound the problem of being underpowered by having the playerbase believe things are worse than they really are and end up shunning rangers even more because of it.

Well said.

As mentioned in another post. These games by there very design promote min/maxers for the hard core players. There will always be the top 3 classes that are demanded in any GvG play. Which 3 classes those are can change with every patch. Rangers aren’t one of those classes. Just like Necros weren’t…before the patch. Now they are demanded and everyone is doing their best to power level one. That is just the nature of these games.

You can tell 5 good players to play any class that you choose for them. Hell, make them play 5 Rangers. I can guarantee they will reek havoc on the map and kill far far more than they die.

As soon as people realize there can only be one class that is the best, the sooner they will relax and just play the game. If we said that Mesmers were the best class in WvW …and then necroes were boosted and were the new #1. That doesn’t mean that Mesmers are kitten just because players have moved on to the new perceived fotm overpowered class.

Forzani.2584:

— snip —

As soon as people realize there can only be one class that is the best, the sooner they will relax and just play the game. If we said that Mesmers were the best class in WvW …and then necroes were boosted and were the new #1. That doesn’t mean that Mesmers are kitten just because players have moved on to the new perceived fotm overpowered class.

I agree with you wholeheartedly … until I got to this.

Yes, there can be only one class that is the ‘best’. But there is also the ‘worst’. And we are it. Just because you realize you aren’t the best doesn’t make being the worst any easier.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Forzani.2584:

— snip —

As soon as people realize there can only be one class that is the best, the sooner they will relax and just play the game. If we said that Mesmers were the best class in WvW …and then necroes were boosted and were the new #1. That doesn’t mean that Mesmers are kitten just because players have moved on to the new perceived fotm overpowered class.

I agree with you wholeheartedly … until I got to this.

Yes, there can be only one class that is the ‘best’. But there is also the ‘worst’. And we are it. Just because you realize you aren’t the best doesn’t make being the worst any easier.

As Ricky Bobby says…If you ain’t first, you’re last !

After playing EQ/EQ2/DaoC/LOTR/Vanguard/GW2 etc etc. It is always the 2-4 favored classes that are needed…and wanted in “power” groups. Whether that is GvG in pvp or dungeons. Every other class is in the same boat. Sure you can rank them from 5-15 in terms of strength but see above quote from RB

Stice.5204:

Theglados.7243:

This pretty much sums it up. It’s nice that some people keep on defending the ranger class by saying how they are good in 1v1 and roaming, but that’s pretty much the only thing rangers are somewhat good at. In the bigger WvW fights rangers are pretty much useless.

This really isn’t true. There is a big difference, which is so often lost on theory crafters, between “not optimal” and “useless.” The ranger is underpowered, not unplayable.

I didn’t mean to say that the ranger was unplayable. I meant that in comparison to other professions there is no reason or use for guilds/zergs/groups to take a ranger with them. They are useless in the sense that they don’t bring anything actual useful to the bigger fights that other classes can’t do better. Coupled with the fact that a broken and mostly dead pet is a big hit on things like the ranger’s dps, makes them (relatively) useless.

Sure, really skilled players can still be a huge asset to the team, but that’s more despite them being a ranger than it is because of them being a ranger.

I don’t think Ranger is all doom and gloom as some poeple like to herrald. If you play good you can contribute, likewise any other profession played badly doesn’t contribute
That is not to say we don’t have some glaring issues, and ANet seems to like handing us the short stick. Having played Ranger, Elementalist, Thief and Mesmer; Ranger is still the profession I feel most comfortable in.

crap,forever alone in wvw -_-’

It’s come to a point where people no longer want rangers in their groups. They know it’s suboptimal, and the difficulty of the duengons, people don’t want to go in with less. I know a lot of rangers are getting turned away from groups.

Let me give you an example of a bug I found, The pig pets skill forage, gave me an egg, which restored 3 initiative…on my ranger. I logged out, and logged into my dual pistol Spvp thief, since that seems to be what Anet wants me to play.

Ranger’s aren’t bad at roaming in World vs World, we’re one of the most dangerous classes out there that you can run into.

We’re not exactly amazing in Zergs, i mean we can basically hit people a few times before they die…..Or leech as I like to call it, But its still doable.

Dungeons, Again…every class in the game can do Dungeons fairly easily, Its just how fast you want to be able to do them.

SPvP they’re not bad, but not amazing as they were.

Rangers at this point are just pretty much Average at a lot of things.

Not super great, but not Super Bad

That doesn’t mean we’re finished, and don’t need work.

We have a boatload of broken and useless talents, a completely horsekitten Pet system that just need a rework completely (though at this point I think Anet would break the Pet system if they tried to rework it judging by past work), and two Weapons that need a rework (Offhand Axe and Longbow with shortbow now slipping into that area thanks to the range nerf)

There are only 2 real or effective ways to play the Ranger in WvW, either spec in full zerker for glass cannon, or spec for traps. You kill far faster as glass, but as you imagine are squishy. If you spec for traps, you can make yourself more tanky, but battles will take exponentially longer. Any other build will only hurt you and your group/team. Bunker BM/healing is mainly for sPvP. You can do that in WvW if you intend to roam solo or in small groups, but you really won’t be that effective, as the zergs will just run over you.

It really depends on how you want to play.

Bunker Solo is effective if you play like a Havoc group taking camps and such, Just gotta know when to run

But yea, Zergs will get you every now and again..

Rangers really aren’t deficient in general WvW play.

Taking camps, killing yaks and relaying scouting information are all extremely valuable things to do in WvW, and rangers are good at them.

We’re also fine at zerg-surfing. Sure, we don’t contribute much other than carrying supply, operating siege and tagging targets for loot when a fight happens, but half the other classes are in that boat. Maybe if you’re in a super-militant guild that insists on running nothing but well necros, staff elementalists and hammer tanks you’ve got a problem, but even most hardcore WvW guilds aren’t that extreme.

TL;DR: Rangers are not doomed nor useless, but there is no situation in the game where a group would say “I prefer to have a Ranger instead of an X”, pet mechanic is very broken, some traits are useless or completely misplaced (more pet damage in the marksmanship line?) and some weapons needs an urgent revision (people use LB 4 because LB damage is laughable at medium-to-short range). AND they are nerfed on each and every patch.

Don’t mess with a Ranger underwater, though.