Guild Wars 2

I’m curious what the Ranger’s role is supposed to be in this game? In another forum, ANet came out and said why they didn’t want to change Necromancer’s in a certain way and it was because they envision the class playing a certain, unique role. That had me wondering… what is the Ranger’s unique role in this game?

It’s not ranged condition damage because it’s all single target and limited. Especially when compared to Engineers and Necromancers.

It could be as a pet class, but if that’s their role they’ve failed horribly at it because the pet is more of a hinderance than a benefit and doesn’t really synergize well with the class like you’d expect.

It isn’t single target damage because the class is awful when compared to other classes.

It’s not AE damage for the same reason.

I’m just curious what others feel the Ranger’s role in this game and if you feel it’s actually living up to it?

For me, I feel the ranger was supposed to be the single target damage dealer from ranged. Now granted the damage it can do at 1200 range is probably the highest of all the classes, but it’s all single target, no burst, no utility damage as well. So I’m l left wondering what niche they want this class to full?

Atherakhia.4086:

It could be as a pet class, but if that’s their role they’ve failed horribly at it because the pet is more of a hinderance than a benefit and doesn’t really synergize well with the class like you’d expect.

You summed it up yourself quite nicely.

The benefit of the Ranger, is that you are always two in one. Meaning that you can send the pet to attack one player, while you attack another. The other advantage that the Ranger has, compared to other professions, is a lot of AoE snare skills, that allows for very efficient condition stacking and control. That’s pretty much it.

Kasama.8941:

The benefit of the Ranger, is that you are always two in one. Meaning that you can send the pet to attack one player, while you attack another. The other advantage that the Ranger has, compared to other professions, is a lot of AoE snare skills, that allows for very efficient condition stacking and control. That’s pretty much it.

I don’t want to come off as nitpicky or being overly difficult, so if I offend you I want to appologize in advance.

I don’t really agree that the Ranger is 2 in 1. It’s more 1 divided by 2. Without both, the class is simply half a class. The damage is well below that of any other class. Really the only burst this class is capable of is coming from the pet, but it often misses, is difficult to control, and pales in comparison to the other classes.

As for AE snares, they’re also all trap based. So just like needing to trait to make spirits even marginally useful, you have to trait into traps for them to offer real utility outside of self defense for the ranger.

Now conditions I somewhat agree with. But again, when you consider that the Ranger can’t stack bleeds quickly (directional restriction when no other weapon in the game has this?), you rely on the target to trigger a trap for all the others, and that unlike Engineers and Necromancers who have far more conditions and stack them much quicker, the Ranger is all single target damage.

So if these are the roles we’re supposed to focus on, why are we so awful at it?

Target dummy for the elite classes in WvW. The ranger is designed to fail in anything but a pro’s hands, and even there…it lacks. This game is geared toward having ridiculously op classes downing people with passive abilities like retaliation or three-shotting them when standing there like an idiot getting shot at fails. Someone has to be the broken class that’s easy to down and spike. That’s us.

The guy with a pirate hat and a pet next to him is always easy to identify and kill. Rangers are definitely my easiest kills and rarely kill me unless they are melee.

I always assumed the Ranger role was supposed to be solo roamer, since it has such sketchy group support.

Since there is no difficulty setting in this game.
Ranger is suppose to be hard mode.

Despite the name, I’d say that the Rangers role is that of a beastmaster, rather than a master of ranged combat. So yeah, I think the class name could be viewed as somewhat missleading. Furthermore ArenaNet leans toward a Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none role for their Ranger. We have a bit of everything, but don’t specifically excell at something in particular. Now, you could say that “a bit of everything” is no real concept and I think I would agree. As far as I’m concerned, I’d say that the Ranger doesn’t serve a particular role at the moment, instead of versatility perhaps.

Indeed it seems that the Ranger is without direction. A lone ship in the ocean with no particular heading, only randomly moved along by winds and waves.

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

Since there is no difficulty setting in this game.
Ranger is suppose to be hard mode.

Depends on the build. I wouldn’t say that a BM Bunker is easy to play, but you get a lot of survivability which makes room left for errors. I also wanted to think that ranger is hard mode, but only in builds that aren’t borderline op. And other classes have those as well.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I always assumed the Ranger role was supposed to be solo roamer, since it has such sketchy group support.

That would certainly be the role in a RP/Lore sense yea.

Water field bot

Seriously though, it feels like they envisioned the ranger to provide damage and soft support through aoe cripples, snares, and fields. Unfortunately in pve it’s not a useful role when compared to zerker melee trains.

Blix.8021:

Water field bot

Seriously though, it feels like they envisioned the ranger to provide damage and soft support through aoe cripples, snares, and fields. Unfortunately in pve it’s not a useful role when compared to zerker melee trains.

But the thing is, you dont need a zerker melee train always. I pug with my ranger most of the stuff and its rare that i have a “bad dungeon”. I do great dps, i survive well, i res mostly everyone (i run full zerker).

I have been part of a full zerker speed run and yes they are fast but ive been in some made up group that has been “almost” just has fast.

Nothing in this game require really that amount of burst and speed perhaps except high level fractal (i guess im not there yet because i find them boring).

For all i do so far, ranger perform well.

The only thing i hate is my pet dying too fast on some bosses where even with micro managing, i cant stop them from being one shotted out of the blue therefore losing dps.

Just think about it, think about every dungeons (except super high fractal), Ranger can do it just as good as any other classes. Do zerker warrior have an advantage? Yes of course really, is 2 min more on my CoF run make me a piece of garbage? If 2 mins is that important to you, you shouldnt play a mmo.

And there’s always the old song:
Ranger is the merger of the two beta classes of the warden and Trapper( I think that’s what he was called?).
Anet combined two classes for which it could not find a role/niche on its own, thereby forgetting that null + null still = nothing.
I think this is very well illustrated by the utility groups of ‘shouts’ and ‘spirits’ which are at best of very limited use. A problem few other classes have. ( I can only speak for mesmer and guardian)
What this means: the ranger emerged from two concepts which Anet has not yet succeed to harmonize, hence leaving it with a lot of contradictions and (yet) useless utilities. ( I think anet did great fixing signets though!)

Atherakhia.4086:

Kasama.8941:

The benefit of the Ranger, is that you are always two in one. Meaning that you can send the pet to attack one player, while you attack another. The other advantage that the Ranger has, compared to other professions, is a lot of AoE snare skills, that allows for very efficient condition stacking and control. That’s pretty much it.

I don’t want to come off as nitpicky or being overly difficult, so if I offend you I want to appologize in advance.

I don’t really agree that the Ranger is 2 in 1. It’s more 1 divided by 2. Without both, the class is simply half a class. The damage is well below that of any other class. Really the only burst this class is capable of is coming from the pet, but it often misses, is difficult to control, and pales in comparison to the other classes.

As for AE snares, they’re also all trap based. So just like needing to trait to make spirits even marginally useful, you have to trait into traps for them to offer real utility outside of self defense for the ranger.

Now conditions I somewhat agree with. But again, when you consider that the Ranger can’t stack bleeds quickly (directional restriction when no other weapon in the game has this?), you rely on the target to trigger a trap for all the others, and that unlike Engineers and Necromancers who have far more conditions and stack them much quicker, the Ranger is all single target damage.

So if these are the roles we’re supposed to focus on, why are we so awful at it?

A forum is meant for debating. It also takes a lot more to offend me =)

Hey, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but that is what the benefit of the Ranger is. It would be a lot better if we had skills like “Search and Rescue” and “Guard” on our pet bar, and all our pets had some form of snare skill, but ArenaNet choose this current design instead, for some reason.

I didn’t mean conditions in general, but snare skills. I’m talking about Barrage, Frost Spirit-Cold Snap, Stone Spirit-Quicksand, Muddy Terrain, Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Entangle, Polar Bear-Icy Roar, Alpine Wolf-Chilling Howl, Wolf-Terrifying Howl, Ice Drake-Frost Breath, White Moa-Icy Screech, Porcine-Brutal Charge, plus a lot more single target snare skills. We are able to stack all the snare conditions.

Just because it’s our roles, it doesn’t mean the design is good.

Atherakhia.4086:

For me, I feel the ranger was supposed to be the single target damage dealer from ranged.

This was exactly what I thought at game launch when I created my ranger. However, we were never great at this this, but passable if traited for power/crit. Almost a year later, and we are worse at this now than ever.

Anet simply does not have a clue about this class. No ranger dev has posted in here in what? Over 8 months now?? It would take a very foolish one to do so now ….

Anet needs to man-up and admit they lost the plot (if there ever was one …) with this class. It needs to be completely re-built from the floor up.

Gorath.5076:

And there’s always the old song:
Ranger is the merger of the two beta classes of the warden and Trapper( I think that’s what he was called?).
Anet combined two classes for which it could not find a role/niche on its own, thereby forgetting that null + null still = nothing.

It was warden and beastmaster; yet there were originally 12 concepts for professions and that was whittled down to 7: everything we have now minus engineer. The engineer was added at the last minute to round out eight professions. The ranger is unique by definition: ANET gives all the professions unique roles.

darkchicken.8692:

Blix.8021:

Water field bot

Seriously though, it feels like they envisioned the ranger to provide damage and soft support through aoe cripples, snares, and fields. Unfortunately in pve it’s not a useful role when compared to zerker melee trains.

But the thing is, you dont need a zerker melee train always. I pug with my ranger most of the stuff and its rare that i have a “bad dungeon”. I do great dps, i survive well, i res mostly everyone (i run full zerker).

I have been part of a full zerker speed run and yes they are fast but ive been in some made up group that has been “almost” just has fast.

Nothing in this game require really that amount of burst and speed perhaps except high level fractal (i guess im not there yet because i find them boring).

For all i do so far, ranger perform well.

The only thing i hate is my pet dying too fast on some bosses where even with micro managing, i cant stop them from being one shotted out of the blue therefore losing dps.

Just think about it, think about every dungeons (except super high fractal), Ranger can do it just as good as any other classes. Do zerker warrior have an advantage? Yes of course really, is 2 min more on my CoF run make me a piece of garbage? If 2 mins is that important to you, you shouldnt play a mmo.

Ranger speeds up CoF path 1 runs; current record as far as I know is 5:27 s with two thieves, one ranger, one warrior, and one mesmer.

It could be, that they intended it to be a single target ranged damage dealer. But since there are soooooooooooooo many gap closers available to every class, it doesn’t work very well.

Also, there isn’t enough ranged burst to down a bunker, or kill another glass cannon before they down you.

II agree there is too much gap closers

I think if we have a trait that allows us to back pedal faster, it would help with the range concept

we could also have a trait that allows us to Knockback foes when they attack us in melee (on a 60 second cooldown)

idevourwater.3149:

II agree there is too much gap closers

I think if we have a trait that allows us to back pedal faster, it would help with the range concept

we could also have a trait that allows us to Knockback foes when they attack us in melee (on a 60 second cooldown)

There’s nothing wrong with ranged weapons, of course, but it’s not a “range” concept but Ranger concept, ala classic RPGs, which may or not specialize in ranged combat. There are archer Rangers as well as sword masters (even ANet’s official description, which is often cited to promote the idea of the bow Ranger, includes the comment “…yet surgical with the sword”.) In short, as mentioned many times before by many other contributors, Ranger in GW2 is more the traditional type than just an archer archetype as seen in other games (it is also not a “Hunter” per se… looks just like the old Ranger to me, minus a few RPG traditional skills.)

This is just a side comment-I have nothing to add regarding gap closers, etc. I do believe the Ranger has an unique feel and playstyle vs any other Profession, as well he/she should.

Cuchullain.3104:

Target dummy for the elite classes in WvW. The ranger is designed to fail in anything but a pro’s hands, and even there…it lacks. This game is geared toward having ridiculously op classes downing people with passive abilities like retaliation or three-shotting them when standing there like an idiot getting shot at fails. Someone has to be the broken class that’s easy to down and spike. That’s us.

The guy with a pirate hat and a pet next to him is always easy to identify and kill. Rangers are definitely my easiest kills and rarely kill me unless they are melee.

This. There’s been countless times in WvW where I was in a party, PUG, or zerg, and despite the majority of time being an upscale with a group of other upscales, they target ME. So I now have a grudge against all enemy thieves I encounter in WvW and stocked up on stealth disruptor traps because you picked on me so many times :’(

In all seriousness though, think of rangers as the only profession that has their damage handicapped by a profession mechanic. As others have stated, condition damage is negligible because other professions do it better, we have lower DPS, and our support is mediocre (I have never seen a healing build fail so much on a profession). If anything, we’re long-ranged burst/DPS. I know for a fact that LB warriors don’t even come close to the long-ranged DPS of a ranger, but I haven’t played enough mesmer or ele to say that long-range DPS is our role.

Liking the discussion here, it’s good that people recognize this massive (hopefully unintended) flaw in the profession.

Playing Alone … and not against other players either, only mobs.

(AKA: get summoned by a bear)

Reisinger.4203:

Cuchullain.3104:

Target dummy for the elite classes in WvW. The ranger is designed to fail in anything but a pro’s hands, and even there…it lacks. This game is geared toward having ridiculously op classes downing people with passive abilities like retaliation or three-shotting them when standing there like an idiot getting shot at fails. Someone has to be the broken class that’s easy to down and spike. That’s us.

The guy with a pirate hat and a pet next to him is always easy to identify and kill. Rangers are definitely my easiest kills and rarely kill me unless they are melee.

This. There’s been countless times in WvW where I was in a party, PUG, or zerg, and despite the majority of time being an upscale with a group of other upscales, they target ME. So I now have a grudge against all enemy thieves I encounter in WvW and stocked up on stealth disruptor traps because you picked on me so many times :’(

In all seriousness though, think of rangers as the only profession that has their damage handicapped by a profession mechanic. As others have stated, condition damage is negligible because other professions do it better, we have lower DPS, and our support is mediocre (I have never seen a healing build fail so much on a profession). If anything, we’re long-ranged burst/DPS. I know for a fact that LB warriors don’t even come close to the long-ranged DPS of a ranger, but I haven’t played enough mesmer or ele to say that long-range DPS is our role.

Liking the discussion here, it’s good that people recognize this massive (hopefully unintended) flaw in the profession.

Have you tried a shout build since the last couple of patches? Cause for a healing bunker build its amazing, i can hold a camp in WvW against 5 guys with it and kill the occasional one or two. 500 passive heals on a perma up time and the leaps available to a ranger using the water fields can make u almost unkillable when used right(with the exception of the full zerker thief ~75% i can get away)…so healing build with ranger is totally viable
P.S. im also first targeted and now when they do my buddy’s have time to kill them while they blow there cds on me and it doesn’t bring me below 50%

With that build, I’ve found the deciding factor in whether I can reliably beat the zerk thief is whether or not I have torch equipped.

We provide little bags for everyone one else to enjoy. We are the masters of laying down our lives for the hosts to feed upon, to fight the good fight and loose, cause well someone has to and it might as well be the weak class that can’t kill anyone.

Actually, I’m rather enjoying the new “condition” build I’m using (but that’s a bit of an aside).

Chopps.5047:

With that build, I’ve found the deciding factor in whether I can reliably beat the zerk thief is whether or not I have torch equipped.

Yes! This is a great suggestion and in fact, should be included into some sort of counter-thief tutorial for rangers new to WvW.

In regards to the healing bunker build, I think you are overrating the healing abilities. I’ve tried a shout build (mostly for swiftness) with some healing power (had a mix of everything) and found the healing to be negligible, at least in contrast to a profession like warrior. I run a shout-healing build on that, and with rare-quality healing power armor, I heal a lot more than I do on my ranger.

That’s not saying it’s not a viable build, but in my opinion, if you’re trying to primarily heal with a ranger, you’re best off setting yourself up for a spirit build and running warhorn 5 with healing spring than actually focusing on healing power for your gear.

Reisinger.4203:

Chopps.5047:

With that build, I’ve found the deciding factor in whether I can reliably beat the zerk thief is whether or not I have torch equipped.

Yes! This is a great suggestion and in fact, should be included into some sort of counter-thief tutorial for rangers new to WvW.

In regards to the healing bunker build, I think you are overrating the healing abilities. I’ve tried a shout build (mostly for swiftness) with some healing power (had a mix of everything) and found the healing to be negligible, at least in contrast to a profession like warrior. I run a shout-healing build on that, and with rare-quality healing power armor, I heal a lot more than I do on my ranger.

That’s not saying it’s not a viable build, but in my opinion, if you’re trying to primarily heal with a ranger, you’re best off setting yourself up for a spirit build and running warhorn 5 with healing spring than actually focusing on healing power for your gear.

And with a blast finisher on warhorn and retaliaion on offhand axe, it’s a tougher choice these days but the torch still wins in a 1v1 vs a thief.

Now if we could only equip a whip I would move to TC and role play Indiana Jones.

don’t forget that leaping through healing fields do the same amount of heal as a blast finisher and u can get 2 leaps inside the 1 healing spring

survival in extremal situations

denimdan.8642:

don’t forget that leaping through healing fields do the same amount of heal as a blast finisher and u can get 2 leaps inside the 1 healing spring

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