Guild Wars 2

I am not trolling. Please be kind enough to give useful feedback. I main a guardian. I have a level 62 thief and 80 Mesmer. The Mesmer has lost its appeal and the thief is just too squishy. I love my guardian, but I want variety.

I am interested in ranger, but here are my questions:

1. What role does the ranger fulfill best for tPvP, WvW, fractals?
2. What advantage does the melee ranger have over the thief and Mesmer?
3. Is the ranger less squishy than the thief?
4. Has the community’s perspective of the ranger improved since the feature patch?
5. Has any of the new GM traits allowed for newer effective builds?

To be honest, I am mostly interested in a melee ranger that doesn’t rely on the pet too much that does decent dps and has plenty of condi removals. Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance to all who respond. :-)

Zephyron.7081:

1. What role does the ranger fulfill best for tPvP, WvW, fractals?

tPvP rangers are great to hold home and help mid with either spirit or trapper builds.
fractals I don’t really know, besides spotter and frost spirit I don’t see rangers bringing anything else others couldn’t do better.

Zephyron.7081:

2. What advantage does the melee ranger have over the thief and Mesmer?

WvW, PvP, PvE?
Melee ranger in general is great, if you keep your pet alive (PvP and most PvE is easy) your damage will be really high with even higher mobility with SW #2 and #3 and dagger #4.

Zephyron.7081:

3. Is the ranger less squishy than the thief?

Way less, ranger have mid HP pool, pets helps mitigate the damage, and easy access to regens.

Zephyron.7081:

4. Has the community’s perspective of the ranger improved since the feature patch?

Nope, or at best barely changed.

Zephyron.7081:

5. Has any of the new GM traits allowed for newer effective builds?

Survival of the Fittest is a really good option for some PvP builds.

TBH if you find a thief squishy in melee, a ranger is not going to be an improvement unless you go bm regen (which you said you dont want to do). However, if you can compromise on the pet issue, then a BM ranger can melee with his pet. Its a combination that ive come to appreciate, constant sword cripple with evades and lots of toughness and regen (only way a ranger can melee really) so that the pet can hit reliably while managing its cd’s and yours can be fun and effective.
Unlike a thief or mesmer, rangers have no invis or illusions, so expect to be constantly targeted, even focused by enemy team
New builds are being explored, 2/x/6/6/x looks promising for tpvp with additional cond removal instead of the full spirit build (though still essentially mid support).

ranger is thief with almost no stealth but a half competent sidekick instead

double melee ranger is the ninja of guild wars 2. You have mobility on low cool downs with sword 2 and GS 3. You have evades.. everywhere. Lightning reflexes is now awesome and can escape the mestard blurred frenzy burst. If you go 30 in a trait you can potentially be immune to physical for 12 seconds. If you equip drakes and use water fields properly, you have access to 3 blast finishers and 2 leap finishers on low cool-downs. I’m not saying power ranger is op, (far from it) but if you can’t kill it, run and they’ll never catch you. I’ve trolled and eventually killed mestards this way. If you go tanky, I recommend going beastmaster. The tankier you go, the more attractive BMastery becomes.

In PvP, condi shortbow spirit bunker is considered to be one of the best builds for holding points.

PvE? Open-world, they’re the most overpowered class, just because your pet can take so much aggro and so much damage and you don’t have to worry about really getting hit for much damage at all.

Fractals? Play another character. Seriously, this class is absolutely horrible in this mode and even as a ranger player I switch to other classes because they’re too much of a liability without the capability to stow the pet and overall less damage dealt.

WvW, eh. Frankly, your best WvW build is either going full tank GS healing for frontline support, or a pure berserker build for the backline damage if you can avoid it, seeing as the pet in both cases is pretty much useless. Even then, the thief is usually in a better place for back lines, and is DEFINITELY the better roamer.

Melee ranger can offer a lot of durability and support in the form of AOE soaking via pets, fairly-low cooldown water fields, and a lot of evasion. In terms of larger-scale fights, they’re much better front-liners than thieves and mesmers, however in small groups and roaming parties, the ranger is out-classed by the two above due to ranger’s overall low burst potential, still fairly squishy setups (again outside of regen tank builds), and limited access to fight-changing elements like the capacity to reset a fight via stealth, significant lockdown, etc.

A ranger can be less squishy than a thief. It depends on how you build either one, and what weapons you’re using. Ranger has inherently more base HP, however their limited access to stealth, heals, mitigation outside of GS, and gap openers/teleports makes them easier targets to kill when focused. In terms of raw numbers, yes, they are more durable, and are more difficult to one-shot kill; however, they lack a lot of reset potential and targeting avoidance that thieves have, allowing thieves to usually perform better when in good hands regardless of how squishy they build (Not to be confused with D/P permablind/permastealth because those builds are totally skill-less cheese and I wish for smoke fields and stealth-stacking to be nerfed hard, and this is coming from a power thief main with 2k+ hours invested in dagger mainhand).

Yes and no. Traits like RtW have made the longbow a functioning weapon, which many people are happier for (although the trait shouldn’t have been made and longbow skills should have just had their projectile speeds increased). That said, the ranger still has some serious problems when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of performance in PvE/WvW issues due to their pet dependencies forcing so much damage loss.

While I praise good melee ranger roamers because mastering the sword is quite the feat, often times I find that simply good players on thieves have a much better upper-bound for both damage throughput and overall success.

As mentioned, yes to a degree, mostly due to the fact longbow can now at least work as a weapon to an extent. These new traits really haven’t changed much else, though.

law.9410:

double melee ranger is the ninja of guild wars 2. You have mobility on low cool downs with sword 2 and GS 3. You have evades.. everywhere. Lightning reflexes is now awesome and can escape the mestard blurred frenzy burst. If you go 30 in a trait you can potentially be immune to physical for 12 seconds. If you equip drakes and use water fields properly, you have access to 3 blast finishers and 2 leap finishers on low cool-downs. I’m not saying power ranger is op, (far from it) but if you can’t kill it, run and they’ll never catch you. I’ve trolled and eventually killed mestards this way. If you go tanky, I recommend going beastmaster. The tankier you go, the more attractive BMastery becomes.

Seriously? Why can’t people put their build links here to be able to compare with what we have?

Please, please, not just you, but everyone, if you have a viable WvW power build with some condi clearing, please share.

I do condi – well, but not one thief is dead and mesmers and necros walk all over me WITH condi clearing. I am confused by what Anet calls “Balance”.

Not Berzerker, I don’t want to be perpetually running back when I do get focused.

i had no ideas rangers could rez the dead… lol the skepticism is strong in this one ^

here, this is the same build every other cheese longbow/greatsword ranger is running in wvw:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0ya/Kesw1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VEEp9Fr0gE-TFzDwAF3foxhAImKBFuAAAV+Bw8HLdBHeAAtU3ZyRAIhSwAHIARBMQA-w

u can swap out the signet of renewal for signet of the hunt if u want a little more mobility.

shadowpass.4236:

i had no ideas rangers could rez the dead… lol the skepticism is strong in this one ^

here, this is the same build every other cheese longbow/greatsword ranger is running in wvw:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0ya/Kesw1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VEEp9Fr0gE-TFzDwAF3foxhAImKBFuAAAV+Bw8HLdBHeAAtU3ZyRAIhSwAHIARBMQA-w

u can swap out the signet of renewal for signet of the hunt if u want a little more mobility.

The sigils for the greatsword can’t be there at the same time.

Now I highly doubt the build you posted.

what? oh, you must’ve been away for awhile… LOL.

again, I feel the skepticism emanating from your post, xD

anet changed it, u can use 2 on-swap sigil/on-crit sigils, etc. etc. as long as they aren’t the same (like superior rune of air and major rune of air on one weapon won’t work, but a superior rune of fire and superior rune of air will)

Ranger is way harder than thieves. We dont have the tool other class have. So if you plan doing wvw, thieves are easier to play than ranger. If you plan to roam ill definitly recommend you thief since it can get away really easily

If you want a class that is hard to learn and require time and experience, ranger is really good investement time/recognition. Its not that rare that i get some compliment from my enemies.

atheria.2837:

law.9410:

double melee ranger is the ninja of guild wars 2. You have mobility on low cool downs with sword 2 and GS 3. You have evades.. everywhere. Lightning reflexes is now awesome and can escape the mestard blurred frenzy burst. If you go 30 in a trait you can potentially be immune to physical for 12 seconds. If you equip drakes and use water fields properly, you have access to 3 blast finishers and 2 leap finishers on low cool-downs. I’m not saying power ranger is op, (far from it) but if you can’t kill it, run and they’ll never catch you. I’ve trolled and eventually killed mestards this way. If you go tanky, I recommend going beastmaster. The tankier you go, the more attractive BMastery becomes.

Seriously? Why can’t people put their build links here to be able to compare with what we have?

Please, please, not just you, but everyone, if you have a viable WvW power build with some condi clearing, please share.

I do condi – well, but not one thief is dead and mesmers and necros walk all over me WITH condi clearing. I am confused by what Anet calls “Balance”.

Not Berzerker, I don’t want to be perpetually running back when I do get focused.

I myself and many others have done this. We have posted functional, user friendly and reliable builds over and over again. However the giant nay-sayer section on these forums, a group of individuals who are unable to progress as a ranger due to limited understanding of the game itself and it’s design philosophy, constantly keeps bashing our builds. Those who make videos are usually praised for a few minutes then bashed by a torrent of haters.

There is no point in sharing builds as long as orcs, urdriel, sol, atherakia, lost prophet and the other sceptics keep saying they suck just because….

Zephyron.7081:

I am not trolling. Please be kind enough to give useful feedback. I main a guardian. I have a level 62 thief and 80 Mesmer. The Mesmer has lost its appeal and the thief is just too squishy. I love my guardian, but I want variety.

I am interested in ranger, but here are my questions:

1. What role does the ranger fulfill best for tPvP, WvW, fractals?
2. What advantage does the melee ranger have over the thief and Mesmer?
3. Is the ranger less squishy than the thief?
4. Has the community’s perspective of the ranger improved since the feature patch?
5. Has any of the new GM traits allowed for newer effective builds?

To be honest, I am mostly interested in a melee ranger that doesn’t rely on the pet too much that does decent dps and has plenty of condi removals. Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance to all who respond. :-)

1. tPvP: Rangers are quite solid in all aspects of PvP, however it takes quite some practice to define your own here. Typically rangers can be built for point holding at home or far, or as support-roamers between home-mid or mid-far. Most of these builds are ideally condition damage based such as trapper, bunker survival, or spirits, it all depends on you and your preferred approach.

WvW: there are a few roles rangers can contribute to here. #1 most popular among players is ranged support, which works quite well in large zerg battles as you can pick + choose kills and not lose to DPS via piercing arrows, you can sit next to kill shot warriors, mark a target and initiate killing spree. Roaming is essentially where rangers are best suited, due to their wide range of abilities, but do expect it to be as challenging or even more challenging than PvP. Needless to say, in WvW you better know what you’re doing as a ranger.

Fractals: as a ranger I have not found them to be much of a problem. The best application rangers have is that they are typically the last person to go down. You can build like a bunker via healing shouts + spirit support and be a great boon for your group, while dealing strong damage via conditions. Remember the key is to know your fractals and play them well.

2. Melee is a bad way to approach thieves or mesmers, the best way to fight thieves and mesmers as a ranger is to build for mid range domination. The advantage is called survival + constant pressure via the combination two sources of damage (you and your pet). Needless to say, in order to be feared as a ranger by thieves and mesmers, your skill must be high, the combat mechanic of dodging, condition clearing, pet pressure, condition pressure, consistent regeneration and the rotation of all these elements is complex to say the least, but viable.

3. It all depends on the build, but I don’t think anything can get squishier than a full glass thief. Rangers however can be traited to be the toughest mid-armor profession in game. I can go 1 on 1 against guardians and warriors in terms of toughness, however our skills serve a different purpose so do not expect to feel immortal either, you will die if you’re careless… unlike a thief who will die regardless of how tough they build themselves as long as they do not use stealth mechanics.

4. I think it has, but not entirely, more so that it has changed. Rangers are widely more accepted but they are still regarded below all other professions. You will quite occasionally find people who do not want to know about rangers and those are the ones who have not adapted to the changes or do not trust them. I personally like to demonstrate ranger progress via my ranger actions rather than words, and I recommend you do the same.

5. Very much so, I can’t go into detail here since it would take up a lot of time to write about them, message me in game and we can go over them in pvp.

I highly recommend that you try out all the possibilities in pvp before settling into your current ‘idea’ of what you want your ranger to be. Rangers still have the highest skill cap in terms of mastering the profession, to some people it comes naturally but to most it does not. If you’re still thinking on that melee ranger look into builds involving ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and go from there.