Guild Wars 2

As far as I can understand it, a group cleanse is a pretty kitten useful skill to have (though, in my opinion, not the best of the ranger pet actives by far) Why is there so much hate towards “bearbow” rangers?

Because mmo players need to look down on something to feel good about themselves, and mob rule requires that everyone hits on the same target.

In regards to the group efficiency issues of the bearbow style, that F2 cleanse is all the bear provides, sadly, and if a 5-man party has no other options than a bear to group cleanse, then i wish them good luck. Other classes have better options clearing more conditions more often. And for that you sacrifice everything else that pets can provide you: DPS, cc, buffs… Bears are abysmal, and that makes me sad since i love these furry creatures. Then the (long) bow requires range, or your DPS drops a lot (auto-attack). That range means that you’re not with the rest of your group and are not getting the party boons (so you’re squishier and deal less damage), and not sharing yours (which makes you less of a group contributor).

So in general solo or open pve, it’s fine, though imho you’re much better off with a drake if going for a tanky pet (they come with a blast finisher for a start). In content like dungeons, it’s a very poor contribution compared to pretty much all other options.

rapthorne.7345:

As far as I can understand it, a group cleanse is a pretty kitten useful skill to have (though, in my opinion, not the best of the ranger pet actives by far) Why is there so much hate towards “bearbow” rangers?

Because entering a dungeon with a Bear pet as default means trouble.
It means that the player has not even the basic knowledge about the PvE meta, and not even what people try to achieve in PvE environment (clear it as fast as possible).

If you prefer 2 condi cleanse (that wouldn’t change the outcome of you living or not) to 5 AoE might that boosts your group DPS by roughly 6% and boost your personal by 20% – than I’d get sick of the idea that the guy is supposed to be called the same class as I am.

Make no mistake, Sir. Bears are useful.
But expression “BearBow” targets selfish players who do not care about anyone but themselves. Players that do not bring anything to the party, usually run 2-3 signets (and sometimes a Quickening Zephyr), and suck at damage since they always get stuck at 1500 range ignoring party buffs and going AFK spamming 1…. Occasionally 2.

Do you really believe that a player that picked a Bear as a default pet … ever uses his “Shake it off!” ? I haven’t seen one to use it at a right time. Always used for selfish cases.

When I know that we will need a condi cleanse – I keep the bear as a secondary pet, and when the cleanse is needed – I swap to it – cleanse the party, and swap back again as fast as possible. Most of the groups don’t even notice I used a bear. But I used it. I did not try to find excuse for my selfish issues in order to keep him as a default pet.
EDIT: I usually swap an ability to Signet of the Renewal at those heavy Condi bombed fights to cleanse my whole party via my bear. And of course – that pet is sentenced to death – so I swap him back afterwards.

In WvW, Brown Bear is a pretty common choice as a secondary support pet, while people will run something else as their primary. It’s what I do (Cave Spider as primary, since it can stack 4 different condis (poison, immob, weakness, vuln) and Brown Bear only when either the spider dies or I need additional condi cleanse from shake it off).

Generally I see more people running canines for their knockdowns/immob/fears but occasionally drakes as well for pure tankiness.

It is the general inferiority of range due to the nature of boon stacking (if you’re too far away you don’t give or receive that many boons) and melee weapons being capable of higher dps in pve. Most poor players already output low dps by standing there and just hitting whatever comes off cooldown (espeically the notorious knockback arrow of point blank shot ruining dps bursts even more) and wearing low dps gear, but then this is compounded by taking selfish utilities that don’t increase self/group dps, and finally culminating in taking the bear as a low dps pet. Condis aren’t really that big of an issue in pve. Bear is also one of the default pets, making it seem the player never got any other, and they often will never swap too. Indeed, you can prove that you aren’t one of these by either swapping pets or displaying a sword.

In open world pve content, the enemies will attack the bear and rarely the ranger. Thus the ranger never learns how to play and once met with higher end pve content, they become very ill equipped to deal with the challenges.

In WvW zergs, a bear can be used to clear conditions (finally useful), and also possesses the durability to survive being trained, and makes a nice shield for yourself via “protect me”. However, rangers are generally not very popular in zergs since sadly their support tends to be outclassed by eles and guardians that clear condis by sneezing. Of course, this stigma also prevents people from ever conceiving of scenarios where rangers can be useful, causing this annoying loop where they assume rangers are bad just because they are rangers, and thus are never really taught to improve either. Thus, it remains one of the classes where the grand majority will never play it to a fraction of its potential— all classes are like that, but the stereotype is for rangers is the worst due to this stigma. In a zerg, one is more likely to play a warrior or guardian to use by slamming random keys while someone doing the same on a ranger is much less likely able to achieve the same level of usefulness.

Of course, nobody realizes you can’t just kitten through immobolize with just stability/water blast spam, but I’ll just let that remain a secret.