Guild Wars 2

I swapped to a Guardian last December while waiting for Anet to fix the Ranger.

Can I come home now?

Short….

No.

Guardian is also my main, but I’ve been playing my neglected ranger a lot more lately. Rangers became extremely powerful a few patches ago for pvp. They are also solid WvW roamers and can be a huge asset to dungeon groups if built properly. A lot of attention has come to the traited frost spirit, which adds 7% group damage. The 1h sword has always been tough to manage but people are starting to learn it better and see that it is very solid dps. Off-hand axe has also seen some great changes that make it a very powerful option. Longbow changes are overall nice in my opinion. Don’t listen to what everyone says. Ranger is fine; it’s just that so many who play ranger get trapped in the bad habit of “sit behind my tanky pet and shoot my bow with a random assortment of traits.”

OP

Our pets need alot of work/improvements, our weaponss, our traits, our spirits etc..

Pretty much its worth a try with the Ranger classs

Ranger class state are ok; about 77% rating.

Just Hoping for more Improvements soon and I Encourage Arena net to stop comparing our class to the warrior class.

I think90% rating. Theyre fun in all aspects. Great in spvp/roaming. Good, but not great, in zergs. Dungeon is great when pets alive.

Only fixes id do:
Make pets take 50% Aoe dmg, to helpin dungeons/zerg, but lower hp by 10% or something.
And make GS #2 a blast finisher.

LOL, if you think ranger is good enough to dump your guardian I feel sorry for you. It will be a long time considering the pace of updates before ranger is in as good a place as the guardian.

Zenith.7301:

LOL, if you think ranger is good enough to dump your guardian I feel sorry for you. It will be a long time considering the pace of updates before ranger is in as good a place as the guardian.

PvP rangers are as good, if not better than, a guardian, in PvE however… well lets just say it’s become blatantly clear if you’re dropping anything for a ranger you’re a Masochist.

Guardian:

Backbone of WvW teamfights.
Mandatory bunker in spvp.
Prime utility/damage class in PvE.

I would only say if you like roaming that the ranger is better than the guardian because oh god guardian has no snares and so chasing is a losing battle. Everything can just kite you and disengage from you.

But at least you get swirling blue lights and fires! I loved bugging out my blue fire breath while running around.

Right the Ranger is 50% ok in my book. If we could perma-stow the pet, we’d be 90% great. I love the mechanics of all the weapons, traps, and whatnot., I just hate that ****ing pet. I want to play a Ranger, not a Beast Master. And yes, we all play Beast Master builds, it’s just a matter of the level. I have nothing in BM trait line so lowest level is where I am at.

Zenith.7301:

Guardian:

Backbone of WvW teamfights.
Mandatory bunker in spvp.
Prime utility/damage class in PvE.

I would only say if you like roaming that the ranger is better than the guardian because oh god guardian has no snares and so chasing is a losing battle. Everything can just kite you and disengage from you.

But at least you get swirling blue lights and fires! I loved bugging out my blue fire breath while running around.

Rangers can bunker really well in PvP, especially seeing as how it’s point warfare so your enemy can’t really move too much (making the pet actually useful) if they want to contest your point. Either way i’d say engi bunkers are the best, those kittens can outcap a kittening guardian if they wanted to, did i ever mention i’m freaking ecstatic that the engi bunker builds lost favor with the community for no reason? God those things were impossible to move…

I hate engineers that supply crate is the devil.

Zenith.7301:

I hate engineers that supply crate is the devil.

lol Rampage is worse… god save you if that thing is activated, “What? You didn’t want to lose this 1v1? Well sucks to be you!!”

If I was going to tier classes specifically from a pvp standpoint:

S-God
A-Good place
B-Approaching Good
C-Needs work
+-Approaching next tier
=-sitting strong in current tier
-close to dropping, borderline

S
-Guardian (if every team comp uses one, then something about it must make it so necessary)
-Necromancer (insane damage output, fair amount of sustain as well)

A
+Thief (evade spam with big damage, easiest class to play with highest reward)
=Engineer (lots of different options, can fill a few different niche rolls, can have a high damage output or high survival ability)
-Elementalist (They can just about do it all, but are really forced into one spec, and don’t have the health pool even then to sustain in the current meta)
-Ranger (current specs could place into god tier, but overall, very poor access to condition removal in a condition heavy meta which really ends up being the killer, and no active way to deal with them)

B
+Warrior (lots of good options, still doesn’t have the condition removal to move to the next tier)
=Mesmer (strong damage output, but dies when looked at in a condition meta. attacks have been learned, damage setup is obvious, and shatter builds can’t keep the clones up long enough to shatter due to cleave)

In general though, that tiering translates well in a general sense to open world and to wvw. Rangers are really middle of the pack at most things, with a few specialized builds (pvp and dungeons particularly) that have the potential to put them above the rest.

Mesmer AND warrior have A LOT of good condi removal, the problem is those specs aren’t played by the masses because they aren’t “OMGz DMGZ!!”

Keep in mind warriors are probably solid in A because they are balanced around having poor condi removal, IE they’re not meant to have as good of condi removal as anyone else.

I wouldn’t waste your time with this class.

sPvP they rely on a very specific spec and a condition heavy meta to even stand a chance. If anything is changed the ranger will plummet.

WvW they’re about 7th of 8 possible classes right now.

In PvE they’re about middle tier. Much better off than Necros and Engineers.

Leveling is a cake walk. Only outdone by Warriors and Guardians probably.

I have a suggestion. Log on to your ranger and play some PvE, WvW, PvP, whatever you like and decide for yourself. You will get responses on rangers being the worst to the best and everything in between. It is good to seek the counsel of others but in the end, only you can really decide for yourself.

From what I read, in spvp, rangers have their moments…. In wvwvw, roaming or in small group encounters we hold our own, in keep work LB is fine but underwhelming, in Zerg v Zerg matches, LB is underwhelming but can help the zerg, any other weapon in Z v Z your dead, but with the LB at least you stay a live for a bit. Edit: Unless your group gets the jump, then sword/torch axe/horn or LS do fine.

Edit: It is a funny thing, I still like the play STYLE of the ranger in concept, it just is meh when it comes to doing a lot of dmg if you plan to not be a glass pea shooter. We are more of a great assister than anything else. Drop that 5 vulnerabilities on the guy your guild has targeted… Finish off guys lying on the ground, that sort of thing.

Here’s the short:

PvP: Yes.

PvE: Elite grouped: meh, only if you go full on cheese mode with sword.

Other: no.

Durzlla.6295:

Mesmer AND warrior have A LOT of good condi removal, the problem is those specs aren’t played by the masses because they aren’t “OMGz DMGZ!!”

Keep in mind warriors are probably solid in A because they are balanced around having poor condi removal, IE they’re not meant to have as good of condi removal as anyone else.

I mean, for Mesmers torch isn’t the most viable weapon in the world (one source of condi removal) and doesn’t remove enough conditions per cooldown skill, and signets are the same way, with worse cooldowns. As far as (this was censored -.-) Shattered Conditions go, unless something has changed, it only removes 1 condition regardless of how many clones get shattered. Null Field and Mantra of Resolve are probably the best removal per cooldown for skills, but you wouldn’t take both at once and sacrifice a more useful damage escape.

So arguably Null Field is a mesmers Empathic Bond (only viable condition removal), but that is largely because of condition based the meta is, and because of how spammable condis are, Null Field just doesn’t last long enough or recharge quick enough to be a game changing skill for the mesmer.

As far as warriors go, I feel like you have to sacrifice a bit too much utility to reliably deal with the output of conditions the meta offers up. That utility for warriors at this point could be more useful for sticking to targets, but because other options are needed, it pigeonholes warriors (again, this is all opinion) into very specific weaponsets and trait setups, particularly, forcing every build into Cleansing Ire, and a lot of builds to have to go with longbow for pin down (or build a CC heavy build).

Every class is of course forced into something, but my opinion is that the current options mesmers and warriors have access to provide too little sustain for the mesmer, and too little mobility for the warrior, compared to the outputs they are capable of achieving. How obvious and telegraphed their skills are is another huge factor to where I placed them too, because really you can see what they are going to do a mile away, and classes I ranked higher either don’t have such obviously telegraphed attacks, or don’t have to rely on a rotation to be successful (rotations lead to scripted encounters making damage easier to avoid for practiced players).

However, the entire point was just to highlight (regardless of tiering) that rangers are pretty middle of the pack. They are capable of performing adequately at most things in the game, which is tremendously useful, and people who don’t think that either prefer to heavily specialize or have bought into the perceived power creep philosophy, that even if they can one shot something, if another class can one shot it with a higher number, than whatever they are playing isn’t viable.

Yeryemya.2630:

I swapped to a Guardian last December while waiting for Anet to fix the Ranger.

Can I come home now?

Look at it Anet, look at it.

A heart breaking post, dont WvW unless you know the in and outs of ranger play or else your fodder for everything else.

Sword 1 still needs work.

PvP is mixed since the condition meta – Pve not sure – pets need work.

Stay where you are unless your looking for hard mode practice (back breaking effort) with ranger and pigeon hole builds…good luck.