Guild Wars 2

This is a very silly, very subjective question – but I would like some input regardless.

I have 3 characters; a Necromancer, a Ranger and a Warrior. I’ve leveled every profession to 80, but have deleted a lot of them because I didn’t enjoy them and ended up only keeping my Necromancer and my Ranger. I later created a second Warrior because neither the Necromancer or Ranger are ever very welcome in Dungeons (which I will usually do a few of each day for gold.)

Most of what I do is WvW. Scouting, roaming, havoc and of course I zerg from time to time as well! I love my Ranger and my Necromancer evenly and I rotate between them pretty evenly as well… But I’m starting to want to make one of them my “official” main. I want to craft full ascended for one of them, get additional bag slots for one of them (although they both already have one extra, but more inventory space never hurts!) and I’d also like to have a few alternate armor/weapon sets for one of them. Of course I can do all of this for both, but I simply would rather spend more time on one of them than the other, just a preference thing.

I have more fun on my Ranger than my Necromancer, I consider myself at least mildly more skilled with my Ranger because I seem to win more fights and often win fights where I feel like I should have lost. There are of course other times where I lose fights I feel I could have won, possibly with ease, on my Necromancer, but all professions/builds have a hard counter so it doesn’t usually frustrate me too much.

So, with all that taken in to consideration, which do you think I should give all the goods to? I have also posted this thread on the Necromancer forum as I feel I will get varying responses from both parties.

Sounds like you’ve already decided on ranger, since you said you have more fun on it, are better at playing it, and are posting on the ranger forum.

However I think you’re making the right choice for a couple reasons. Rangers are obviously waaaay more mobile than necros. If you like roaming, necro is literally the last class I’d take. Necros are better in zergs, but I use my ranger on the front lines very often and do just fine.

Also, if you use the “frostspotter” build, you can use your ranger in dungeon runs without complaint, while necros are less welcome.

I’m in very much same situation as opener here. And very much on the fence about it too.

While ranger does have quite a few advantages over necro in terms of mobility and not being cc ragdoll, the problem is the pet. And i’m not talking it’s AI or dying (unlike 95% rangers here), but the fact that 30% of rangers damage is said to be the pet. And the pet is gear- independent. So in short fullly gearing up the ranger would give 70% the result as gearing up any other profession. And that’s why i’m on the fence here going back and forth.

If you wanna craft ascended maybe it would be good idea to consider the looks, or what weapons/armor will your alts benefit most from – those for your ranger, or for your necro.

Well, I have been on a bit of a winning streak tonight so, although I shouldn’t go off good luck, I think I will be making my Ranger my official main. It sucks sometimes when my weaknesses are apparent but every profession and every person has them, so I’ll just have to work on making those weaknesses not-so-weak.
I also enjoy the thrill of winning a fight on my Ranger more than my Necromancer because I feel like it requires a considerable amount of effort to achieve the same results. And knowing I can defeat someone who’s using an “OP” build or a profession that a lot of people have trouble with (Mesmer/Thief) is very rewarding.

So, I will certainly still be using my Necromancer but I think it’s high time I start spoiling one of them and it looks like it’s going to be my Ranger ^^.

Also! Yes, pets being a big part of our damage is a pain sometimes but if you practice, and I mean really practice, they can be a huge asset. Of course in large scale fights (ZvZ) they’re going to die regardless of what you do, but keeping them on passive is a good way to prolong their lives.
As for small scale fights though, choose the pet that best suits your build and pay attention to it’s health, it’s position and remember to use their F2’s. I personally run with two spiders and although I don’t have the handy-dandy fear that the wolf provides, I do have a very nasty Weakness + Vulnerability attack from my Cave Spider, which hits surprisingly hard, and a ton of immobs from their auto attacks and the Jungle Spider’s F2. Of course it takes a lot of work to be a serious threat but it’s not impossible. Just tonight I won a 1v3 and not long after that I won a 1v2 against 2 thieves, both of those fights my spiders contributed a lot to because they prevented some of them from running far enough to reset.

It’s mildly of out of your hands if your pet dies in a zerg, but if you stay tightly stacked on the commander, your pet will be shielded from most of the AoE. There was an amusing video on reddit a few weeks ago where a guy on BG fought a ZvZ while completely naked just to prove that point (although with humans, not AI, but same principal.) Also develop a Spidey sense about swapping pets when they are wounded.