Guild Wars 2

So I have leveled up to 80 on my Ranger and was working on my full exotic set when the Shortbow Nerf went into effect.

My build is a little bit Glass Cannony with mostly Power/Precision and Procs on Crit, so the nerf hit me particularly hard.

I play mostly PvE and enjoyed the Ranger as a nice relaxing class and I don’t particularly feel like changing my weapons and playstyle because of the nerf. (apart from the fact that I had just dropped the bulk of my savings on an Exotic SB right before the nerf)

I think a better option would be to switch classes. I have been leveling up an Ele and although I’m not too fond of the ranged weapon set, the Ele dual dagger build is a lot of fun. I can kill things 3-5 times faster than the Ranger (at the cost of a lot more button mashing and risk of death.) It is a class/build I can play for a while then it becomes too stressful.

I’m sure that many of you Rangers are also trying or are playing other classes more because of the nerf. I’m wondering what advice you would give as a fun alternative class to Ranger? I mainly play PvE and a bit of WvW so I’m not interested in sPvP benefits. I’m also not much of a condition build player as I prefer high DD rather than stacking dots and waiting for the mob to die.

This is a serious request, so please don’t try to convince me to continue to play my Ranger by changing builds etc.

( I plan to keep my Ranger mostly in storage until I see what happens to the fixes , if any.)

I’d say try a Warrior or a Thief but I have a feeling they will be hit with a nerfbat soon what with all the people complaining about it. Guardians are supports mainly but I have seen a few be pushers and front-liners with their GS. Mesmers are probably a good way to go since their clones are difficult to distinguish from the real thing in WvW and their mesmer portals are just amazing for infiltrating one of those side keeps in the BL but for the first few levels in PvE I’ve found it a little tough unless with a group. I’m sticking with my Ranger but taking this chance to level up my alts before they’re hit with the nerfbat.

I’d suggest warrior or thief also, leaning towards warrior because it’s more versatile. Thief is like ele, lots of work for mostly single target damage. Gets tough to play at higher levels with the multiple mobs we deal with in pve.

Also, I’d throw in the engineer just for kicks. Once you get that you’re supposed to play the utilities, not the weapons so much, it can be a lot of fun with grenades for aoe and mines for close up mobs.

Try a couple and see which play style grabs you.

The most important thing is to be careful about Anet rules:
It was also encouraging just spamming 1 which isn’t the most fun gameplay.

SO ANY CLASS WHICH USE 1 TO DEAL MOST DAMAGE WILL BE NERFED SOON.

Thanks for the responses Phoenix and Prev.

Funny thing was my very first char was a Warrior in headstart, but i got bored of it and deleted it. Maybe I should have stuck with it a bit longer. But as you said it might get hit with a Nerf soon. Thief does sound interesting but that one definitely looks like it might get the biggest nerf of all. Problem seems to be the sPvP crowd QQ affecting PvE. I wonder if there really are that many sPvP players or is it that they QQ the loudest.

I have a Mesmer and it is doing ok (20s atm). Since they recently hit it with a nerf they might not hit it again. Problem is that the clones are weak (do their job distracting multiple mob though) It feels rather slow in PvE at killing. I can see the Mesmer potential in WvW though.

I also have an Engineer. Maybe, I’l level it up a bit, at least at the lower levels it does seem to have a similar feel to the SB Ranger when using a fast firing weapon.

Choices, choices.

Since you are focusing on PvE and WvWvW then either Warrior or Engineer. Engineer has completely OP AoE so you can farm very well and it should be pretty easy to get all geared up again.

To those saying Mesmer, just a heads up. While Mesmers are great at WvWvW, ok in dungeons (well anything is a step up from Rangers in dungeons), they are the worst class for leveling and other general PvE and horrible at farming in the Orr DE Zerg. And because the last lot of Mesmer nerfs showed Anet care more about PvP then PvE I would expect a string of Mesmers nerfs over the next few patches (they already confirmed they are changing Portal somehow).