Guild Wars 2

Hey all!

So I’ve just recently made a female Norn Ranger. I needed a break from my Guardian.

I’m only level 12, so I’m still pretty new to the class, but so far I am absolutely loving it. I can go up against a large mob, and with my pet keeping the enemies at a distant, I almost never die. They seem pretty awesome to me!

So my question is, why do people complain about them? I’m not saying they shouldn’t, I simply just don’t know. I never played a ranger in GW1, so the whole class is pretty new to me. Besides, it may get worse later on.

Thanks!

i think the ranger class is awesome, no complaints here. other then i think they should do more damage
and i agree about the rarely die part, especially with one or 2 of the Bears.

You’re only level 12. You do not yet have a complete grasp of the class and its mechanics, quirks, shortfalls and bugs. In open world PvE we have very few problems, which is why it’s such a common class for bots. In dungeons, WvW and PvP is where the problems start.

My main issues are long bow fires at 1.25 rather than 0.45 as its tool tip states, try the warriors long bow to feel the difference. Pets in explorable dungeons are rather squishy to AOE leading to mainly Bears, devourers or spiders as pets. In WvW when defending keeps, pets are fairly weak leading to fern wolf and red moa for regen and fury while on walls.

There are a fair few of issues like spirits being poor, shouts being rushed and poorly done. But most can be avoided but pets you cannot avoid and do have some issues resulting in less choice.

Echo.2087:

You’re only level 12. You do not yet have a complete grasp of the class and its mechanics, quirks, shortfalls and bugs. In open world PvE we have very few problems, which is why it’s such a common class for bots. In dungeons, WvW and PvP is where the problems start.

I can understand the difficulties with PvP, although not WvW so much where I’ve found that I really need a good distant attacker. But I’m not going to throw my little ranger in quite yet, haha.

Vonleo.2987:

Uh yeah…just read the threads in this forum to know what is wrong with this class…your lvl 12 for god sake…..

I know I’m only level 12, which is kind of why I was asking. Just so I can be prepared down the road. =P

Hey andrea. Most of the complaints are of the L2P nature, but there are some honest issues with rangers as well. Right now, PvP is more difficult than it should be because pets have a really hard time hitting a moving opponent. Additionally, they aren’t quite smart enough to run when they are getting clobbered, so high damage environments (again PvP, most dungeons) reveal the weakness more than PvE will.

There are some very lackluster utility skills in addition to the pet issues, but that’s more of a build depth issue than anything else. Rangers should be seeing some (hopefully positive) changes with the 11/15 patch, so some of the issues may be addressed.

Other will chime in and say that everything is completely borked, but just keep at it. I, and others, manage to find ways to stay competitive on our rangers, so you can too.

Rangers are good in pre-80-PvE, some ‘ld even call them op.
Sadly they’re also completely worthless in WvW, sPvP and Dungeons.
People with say “No they’re not, you can play them successfully!”
Well thats true – but every class can stomp rookies, especially lvl 1 guys in WvW.
The main problem of the Ranger is:
The numbers on 9 out of 10 skills are simply broken.
(Due to Ranger being op in CB and getting overnerfed on nearly each single skill)
Also countless bugs and bad trait-in-traitline positioning (trap@precision).

An image says more than 1000 words.
Note: The Ranger has a full critical set, the Thief has only 1 rune, but the rest of his equip is exactly equal.

Sdric.8526 – only thing i can tell is that that is just 1 hit from your shortbow. and crit is just a straight %, not a stacking % ( as in your % doesnt increase with each hit )

im in full CoF gear with 80 exotic bezerker long and short and can hit way better then that normally. the shortbow makes up for it in speed where the theif is using a gun, (that has diffrent timers, and ratings compared to a bow as well as totally diffrent skills from what i understand )

Blighton.6425:

Sdric.8526 – only thing i can tell is that that is just 1 hit from your shortbow. and crit is just a straight %, not a stacking % ( as in your % doesnt increase with each hit )

im in full CoF gear with 80 exotic bezerker long and short and can hit way better then that normally. the shortbow makes up for it in speed where the theif is using a gun, (that has diffrent timers, and ratings compared to a bow as well as totally diffrent skills from what i understand )

All of that, plus that thief is almost dead while the ranger is still doing fine. Also, that was the shortbow auto-attack for the ranger and an unload on the thief (judging by the intitative lost). Additionally, you have crazy stacks of bleeding up with the ranger. I’m betting that those may be doing some damage as well.

Can we please stop making these vague apples to oranges comparisons? They really don’t show anything other than two disparate scenarios with different numbers on the screen.

You can’t hit way better.
The ranger got (as you can see by the looks) a full CoE set.
Jewelery is complete “of Berzeker”.

A shortbow attack takes 0,520s
An unload 1,5s.

So even with 3 auto attacks thats only 3078 damage in 0,060s more time.
Which still is less than the half of 8342.
WITH A BETTER GEAR ON THE RANGER (+Precision +10%Crit Damage lacking on the Thief)

E/:
You’re comparing current health? What the hell.
I got his ‘cause I was searching for the screenshot button.
While the Boss didn’t attack me on my other character…
Both are equally tanky….
I wonder how you consider that an argument…

E2/:
“Tons of bleeding”
200 damage if you stand in a certain angle.
Well 200 damage which might actually overwrite the bleeding of another character LOWERING HIS damage.

E/:
You’re invited to show me how strong your shortbow crits are.
We’ll multiply it with 1,5/0,52=2,89 (attackspeed) and lower it by 10% (lacking runes on the Thief).

My main complaints are that A) the pet has a very hard time hitting moving targets which puts us about 60% damage (just guessing) of what the Devs intended and B ) Our arrows travel horrendously slow and are very easy to side step at max range of longbow.

Oh, and our shortbow was ninja-nerfed.

Plus our spirits are really bad

Oh plus we get tons of obstruction and out of range when we shouldn’t (granted this applies to more than just rangers).

Sdric.8526:

You can’t hit way better.
The ranger got (as you can see by the looks) a full CoE set.
Jewelery is complete “of Berzeker”.

A shortbow attack takes 0,520s
An unload 1,5s.

So even with 3 auto attacks thats only 3078 damage in 0,060s more time.
Which still is less than the half of 8342.
WITH A BETTER GEAR ON THE RANGER (+Precision +10%Crit Damage lacking on the Thief)

Ranger pets will add some damage on top of that.
But only if the target isn’t moving, or the pet isn’t 2 shotted by the npc or gotten killed to a random aoe…

Are we talking about those pets?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5DiFJAtWQ

Bleeding applied is damage done the stack max notwithstanding, and you’re not at max. Staying alive means that you get to keep doing damage while being dead means you don’t.

Again, looking at one attack vs. another is ridiculous. There are so many other factors that it’s just too simplistic to say “thief hit big, ranger hit small.”

Dude,
you#re acting like I’ld always be low health with a Thief.
Is this really the argument you want to base your position on?
The fight takes about 5 minutes, as I mentioned before max health and armor are basically EQUAL (2 leather users, same build).
Hell, if I took the picture on my Ranger 27 seconds earlier he’ld have the same health.

Looking at DPS and crit -damage is ridiculous?

Well, there is something getting ridiculous hereaund it’s not a valid ingame comparison, but the pure the denial of mathematical profs and blind ignorance.

Well, I don’t mind anybody who’s staying in his imaginary fairytale world and I won#t waste anymore time trying to argue with a person who wipe all profs of the table and decide to yell thesis with 0 facts or numbers supporting them into your face.

The TO wanted to know why people complain about Rangers. I did the math and gave an infight comparison.
Nothing more to do here.

No need to get heated. You are making an incomplete comparison, and you are getting called on it.

You can’t just say that your thief’s unload does more damage than one hit from your ranger’s auto-attack and leave it at that because it is an incomplete comparison. I gave examples of why that is the case.

We can continue to argue situationally, but it doesn’t change the nature of what you are doing – making a bad comparison.

@ Sdric

It is not worth it. I used to point out the Ranger flaws and lack of responds or bug fixes.

For my effort I got a 72hrs B A N. And my posts on ranger flaws get removed. Seriously it is not worth it.

I just hope the Nov 15th patch will fix us.

I will just say that short bow is suposed to be used whith condition damage not power damage.
Longbow i done whith fast shot around 8k damege whith rampage set to this boss so don’t act so idiotcly then u dont know how to use a wepon

@ Sarvas
People use SB for Power builds because even after the SB nerf, over time it does more damage, constantly, in all situations then a LB.

I agree that LB that better skills to use, but the positional requirement decreases the damage alot. Especially in situations / game play that makes it hard to stay at long range constantly, aka WvW, Dungeons and PvP.

Ranger is not bad, it is just sub par to other classes. A big reason is our Pets. They die very fast, their F2 sucks, they do not dodge aggro or mobs. Pet are quite bad at hitting moving target, in fact they miss alot. And lastly they aggro mobs like crazy (if not used properly).

Our weapons overall, do less damage compared to other classes. Our pets are to take up to slack, but they do not, and tend to die often to AOE. Also due to bugs, our arrow miss alot, get obstructed alot or get invulnerable alot. Also our shots are not heat seeking, and flight time slower then guns. This leads to the funny bug, in which a person striving left and right can dodge alot of our attacks even at close range. Good players know this, so in 1v1s, you see alot of movement and kiting against rangers.

Also our utility skills are quite bad, and overall our skills tend not to support class diversity. They are like 3 good ranger builds, that sooner or later most will use.

They are mainly the power build. Trap build. Condition build.

So while Rangers are still fun to play and viable for PvE or any where. They just do not do as well, other then in open world PvE where they do. So they are good to level, but endgame, you start to see that flaws.

Yes short bow is supposed to be condition damage and longbow is supposed to be straight up damage. Too bad it’s not.

I just did a bit of testing with steady weapons. I tested longbow against shortbow and i found out that shortbow outdamages longbow every time.

Barrage fired about as fast as the shortbow auto attack and did less damage per attack (20 damage per attack for barrage, 21 damage per shortbow autoattack not counting the bleed)
Even looking at the tooltip it confirms that shortbow does more damage with the normal autoattack, and that’s before you factor in the bleed.

When the main burst of the longbow can’t outdamage a shortbow autoattack, that’s a problem.

lookitsandrea.8531:

Hey all!

So I’ve just recently made a female Norn Ranger. I needed a break from my Guardian.

I’m only level 12, so I’m still pretty new to the class, but so far I am absolutely loving it. I can go up against a large mob, and with my pet keeping the enemies at a distant, I almost never die. They seem pretty awesome to me!

So my question is, why do people complain about them? I’m not saying they shouldn’t, I simply just don’t know. I never played a ranger in GW1, so the whole class is pretty new to me. Besides, it may get worse later on.

Thanks!

Have fun with your Ranger! The Ranger forums are flooded with whiners. It’s a sad fact of life. There are a few people on the forums that actively try to help and still enjoy their Rangers, but we usually get shouted down by the angry folks.

The Ranger profession is very strong in PvE and fun to boot. You shouldn’t have any problems while leveling up. Once you get the hang of it and learn which utilities and traits are actually good (and working), you’ll be pretty beastly in PvP and W3 too.

As to why people complain… Well, most of the complaining started after shortbow got adjusted and ruined the entire profession. Apparently all of our abilities and traits are tied to the animation speed of shortbow, so it totally nerfed the entire class when that one change happened.

In all seriousness though, there are few issues with the profession, including a good portion of our utilities being underwhelming (maybe even most of them), several of our traits being very crummy or just not working at all, and pet AI problems.

The problems that people are having keeping pets alive in W3 and PvP are unrelated to the profession. Pets could use some AoE mitigation, but most of the problems with pets dying in dungeons and W3 are directly related to player ability.

Yeah … You guys are denying the obvious. Ranger’s damage is garbage. Even with considering pet. From whatever side you do not compare, no matter what the facts are taken into calculation, ranger UNABLE to compete with most classes. Especially with the thief. If you do not agree – you just do not know the capabilities of other. And curve pet and half of useless utility skills only adds fuel to the fire…

Playing ranger in solo – is just pleasure. However, when it comes to competitive parts – ranger losing in everything. Seriously, if I’ll pick a group in dungeon, I’ll take ranger ONLY if no one else will be. Ranger can give NOTHING to the group. No support no damage. Class for grinding and boting.

The topic say why ppl complain about ranger, i love the archer archetype but the more i play my ranger the more i feel those issue:

1) very poor sustained dps at lvl 80 glass cannon, no burst.(if u tell me rapid fire qz is a burst ill roll a thief and instantgib you….)

2) several trait don fit at all, 30% pet speed on precision? O Rly?

3)if a player strafe quickly our arrow miss, add this to the obstructed bug and GG trowing your mouse out of the window.

4)pet…gonna catch them all…not saying anything about them, they don’t deserve any word.

5)melee weapon is indeed an unique and awesome addition to a ranged class…..i don’t believe that War and a thief will perform better than you at melee(don’t tell anybody but some time at range too)
But let’s go and specify:

Sword, i like them a lot, but the auto-attack root us in place.

Greatsword i cant stand the number 5 skill….50% extra damage for our pet. i don’t want to rely on a companion, when my companion refuse to attack moving target and force me to use an immobilize to do his job.

6)ranged weapon..so much diversity, we have 2 ranged weapon (the unlimited axe i am not counting it…cant stand that) 1 fit the condition damage build and the other is about pure damage…but wait, my sb out-damage my longbow with a power build…
don’t tell that to the devs or they will nerf the shortbow…..

oh wait they did already

7) traps, conditions they are good i must say, but necromancer can teach us a thing or too about condition damage and aoe debuff.

8)Spirits. I don’t know why but i never, ever wanted one of them in my limited utility slot, except for when i am on a keep sniping ppl and i don’t need any survival skill other than QZ

Saying that, this is honestly why i complain about rangers.
we are not incredible bad because, thanks to god, there is still people who don’t know how to play;
And if you can synergy good with the class, no matter all of those issue you can still kick some puppies back to home.

Said that, i have faith in Anet, they did a great job, this game is a masterpiece of artwork and i am really in love with it, pretty young too, wow is still unbalanced after about 2 millions of patch, and i know that devs are working hard to don’t fail like them

first of all you have a bigger chance people strolling around these forums have something to ‘complain’ about.
I think there’s a majority of people just playing the game, enjoying it, and don’t bother posting at these forums, rangers included.
But if people have critics to something, including a profession as the ranger, they’ll prolly want to complain or, hopefully, provide some constructive feedback and do that here.

That said…

Spirits need work, as do pets.
That’s it. And other professions prolly also have things that need some work..

I love the ranger profession, has been my main since release GW1, and prolly will be for a very very long time.

We have nothing to offer in dungeons? That’s just wrong. Several times I’ve been in dungeons where the only reason there wasn’t a wipe and reset was: ME. I’m not even a hardcore player, yet many times I’m the last one standing, running around all crazy trying to survive solo against the boss until everyone else can run back from the waypoint, and I’m almost always successful at it.

Plus, there are times when 2-3 of the group are dead/downed, while me and the other 1-2 alive members finish off the boss. Maybe I don’t have super high DPS, but that’s not the end-all be-all of the game. Sometimes it’s invaluable to be able to do steady, consistent damage over time while staying alive more often than a lot of other professions. Remember, most other professions also love the glass canon style of build. In dungeons, often times they’re laying on their face watching me as I’m still standing and attacking.

One of these days I’d really love it for the fanbois to put up or shut up when they regurgitates the same old lame “learn2play” response. You have the magical play style that lets you utilize your pet in dungeons and pvp effectively? Put up a video describing the method. I’m sure we’d all love to know how it’s done since you are so adamant that it’s possible. Unless, of course, your full of it and your secret to success is standing around paying more attention to yo-yo’ing your pet with F3 in and out of AoE clusterkittens than actually contributing to the group in any meaningful way.

Yet another thread full of people saying Rangers are fine when the devs have already come out and said no they are not.

There are two problems with Rangers,

First they were the first class to have good PvP builds emerge in the betas and for some reason Anets response to that was to overnerf every one. The main ones being GS actually being able to do damage and spirits. Then when the game came out people started finding the best builds of the other classes and they are better then what the Ranger ever had.

Second for some reason Anet thought it was a good idea to shift over all the Rangers damage to a AI sidekick in a game that is meant to eventually become an esport. The pet can’t hit moving targets, making it usless in PvP and WvWvW and can’t evade/dodge/kite so can easily be killed by AoE making it useless in Dungeons and WvWvW. Thus we can’t really use any of our damage. This even becomes a problem in open world PvE because Risen won’t attack your pet but instead come for you and unless you are the absolutely tankiest you can get your Ranger you are going to have to kite them and thus the pet can’t hit them.

A few reasons:

• Ranger signets only affect the pet when activated, unless you have the grandmaster marksman trait. Again, active signets are of no benefit to the ranger. No other profession has to go 30 deep into a specific trait line to get basic access to their utility skills.

• Spirits. Terrible. Long reuse time, and they have the health of a mesmer clone and the mobility of an engineer turret. You can give them a little more life and make them mobile if you spec deep into nature trait line. But no one does. Because their buffs have a hidden cooldown of I believe 3 seconds. That means when someone procs the sun spirits burning buff, no one else can proc it again for 3 seconds. So only one person is really getting any benefit out of the spirit at a time, when you probably think everyone around you gets the buff. Nope.

• Shouts. Mostly bad. Guard gives the pet 10 seconds of protection and stealth and it’s on a short cooldown, so it’s better than what you might think by reading the tooltip. Sick ‘em? Does this actually do anything? I don’t notice any difference with or without it. Search and rescue, too long a cooldown and no control over who or what the pets revives. Maybe it revives your buddy, or maybe it revives some worthless npc guard. Protect me is nice if you use a bear pet, because the bear will usually survive and the loss of damage from the bear not attacking isn’t as noticable as it is from say a cat. Otherwise, most pets tend to die very quickly if you use protect me, which may or may not save your life, but it will leave your dps crippled.

• Traits. Every class has bad traits and broken traits. But I think only the ranger has randomly assigned traits. There’s condition damage traits in the critical damage line, dps traits in the healing line, pet traits everywhere, bloating up every line. It’s really quite the mess. And it makes it’s unnecessarily difficult to come up with working builds.

Each profession has something to cater to various playstyles. For me, I enjoy PvE, and do not play PvP or WvW at all. Even though I enjoy the PvE aspect of GW2, I haven’t really gotten into dungeons yet. With that playstyle in view, I’ve really enjoyed playing the Ranger. It’s been great fun both ranged and melee, and when the ranger and pet work together with the pet holding a mob’s attention, this can be a strong profession. With my Ranger if I see a champ and vet together and I’m solo, I engage. With my other toons, I try to make sure I have someone else with me. That being said, I can see where the pet stopping to attack all the time would make PvP and WvW frustrating.

@orion templar

That pet thing is more frustrating than you realize. Anet considered that a ranger would have pets. They balanced it so ranger pet + damage pet would match other classes. The pet is supposed to account for about 45% of your damage.

The way it turned out is that only 3 pet types are really useful.
spiders and devoureres (ranged attacks), and bears (high HP and toughness).
These 3 pet types are the lowest damage ones, so if you want to do high damage you’re out of luck because the high damage pets die way too quickly and you will do sub-par damage compared to other classes.

I really want to use a bird in PVP, but i can’t. Not only do they die really fast, but they have the longest pause before attacking out of all the pets, so they almost never hit.

@Division
Agreed – I admit being a pure PvE player doesn’t give me the full picture. But for the slice of the game I like to play, Ranger has been fun. I totally know what you mean about the bird. I hate calling him to attack and he flies around for awhile before heading toward the target. I just want to say “wake me up when you get there…” I usually run with felines or canines for the most part.

Instead of copying what other people do, maybe you should try experimenting until you find a play style that’s fun and interesting to you. I’ve already shared a few of the builds that work for me and given details on how I play those builds.

I’m not going to spend my time making a video to teach you how to play the class too. If you can’t make a build/play style work, try something else. If you enjoy the class, experiment until you find something that works for you. If you don’t enjoy the profession, go make something else.

Seems like a no brainer…

Ranger is my main, been 80 for a long time and I’m rank 32 in SPvP.

Ranger excels in no area. They are one of the worst SPVP professions, (the absolute worst in TPVP). They are not good in WvW, not good in dungeons and decent at solo pve.

On top of not being very effective they have no unique moves like – portals, teleports, aoe stuns, strong aoe boons (read as warrior/guardian shouts), or aoe heals (not regen).

There is nothing a ranger can do that can not be replicated or done better by another profession. Rangers are NOT BAD for these reasons, but they are NOT FUN because of them. They generally feel unrewarding and boring compared to other professions. They have no role and don’t fit the meta in SPvP which is why they are the least played in TPvP.

I’m happy for anyone that enjoys playing as a ranger because I don’t. However posting about how your level 12 character had no problems killing a veteran boar in Queensdale doesn’t mean anything.

I actually enjoyed my time as a ranger until I reached around level 50 or so. It was at that point that, as the game became more challenging and I noticed more things, I understood how bad the pet AI really is. Your pet will not attack while the target is moving, which is fine assuming that the enemy is attacking your pet, but enemies also stop attacking your pet after you reach a certain, seemingly arbitrary point in the game. Also, my pet commonly aggros extra enemies because the pathing keeps it relatively far away from the player and it also walks in weird patterns.

nldixon.8514:

Instead of copying what other people do, maybe you should try experimenting until you find a play style that’s fun and interesting to you. I’ve already shared a few of the builds that work for me and given details on how I play those builds.

I’m not going to spend my time making a video to teach you how to play the class too. If you can’t make a build/play style work, try something else. If you enjoy the class, experiment until you find something that works for you. If you don’t enjoy the profession, go make something else.

Seems like a no brainer…

It’s not a no brainer. People here all enjoy the class and want to play the styles that they find fun and interesting, but because most of the styles are sub-par compared to other classes they’re pidgeonholed into a condition damage SB build.

Division.9618:

nldixon.8514:

Instead of copying what other people do, maybe you should try experimenting until you find a play style that’s fun and interesting to you. I’ve already shared a few of the builds that work for me and given details on how I play those builds.

I’m not going to spend my time making a video to teach you how to play the class too. If you can’t make a build/play style work, try something else. If you enjoy the class, experiment until you find something that works for you. If you don’t enjoy the profession, go make something else.

Seems like a no brainer…

It’s not a no brainer. People here all enjoy the class and want to play the styles that they find fun and interesting, but because most of the styles are sub-par compared to other classes they’re pidgeonholed into a condition damage SB build.

Going along with this, rangers can be interesting to play. The main issue, however, is that they are outclassed in whatever they are doing, regardless of what they are doing. The ranger doesn’t excel at anything and is generally worse than another class at doing pretty much anything.

You’re not pidgeonholed. There are plenty of effective builds. Just because you don’t like the play style of the effective builds doesn’t mean that Rangers stink.

There are lots of people having success with the Ranger profession.

Nldixon, I’m an avid WvW’er and I couldn’t disagree more with your assessment of our class.

We are bad.

People need to accept that. I bring nothing to the table that any other class doesn’t. My ability to control enemies through CC or kiting is entirely situational and is easy to avoid, my damage output is markedly lower than other classes, and my “unique mechanic” is barely a factor in most fights.

This is not a matter of “Learn to play your class.” This is attempting to hammer a nail with the tip of a screwdriver; it’s simply not as effective as other choices.

I accept that the Ranger is fantastic for PvE, but I honestly couldn’t care less about that aspect of the game. I’m a PvP’er and the fact that my main is at such an obvious disadvantage in that department is depressing.

nldixon.8514:

You’re not pidgeonholed. There are plenty of effective builds. Just because you don’t like the play style of the effective builds doesn’t mean that Rangers stink.

There are lots of people having success with the Ranger profession.

When i see high rank tPVP match where a greatsword ranger with a bird owns everyone, then i’ll belive you. Right now ranger is the lowest tier class in tPVP. There is nothing we can do that can’t be done 5x better by another class. Our burst is pathetic compared to thieves, warriors, and mesmers. Our condition damage isn’t anywhere near as useful as necromancers who can apply all kinds of conditions and destroy bunkers. Our bunker isn’t anywhere near as good as engineers, eles, and guardians. Our support build is broken because spirits are horrible.

Even the devs admit Rangers need a fix. They already announced that they’re doing that next patch.

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

Yes, they’re not the best 1v1 solo face wrecking class, but you throw a well-played ranger into a group of 5 people running around in WvW, I guarantee you that’s where they’ll shine with their range.

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage, they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles move after being shot. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage. they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles fire. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

As I said, in a 1v1 situation, this is usually the case. When you have a group of people that all work together and have builds to cover the weaknesses of the others, things play out much, much differently.
I’ve yet to ever run into anyone that can dodge everything I throw at them when they have someone else in their face hitting them.

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage. they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles fire. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

As I said, in a 1v1 situation, this is usually the case. When you have a group of people that all work together and have builds to cover the weaknesses of the others, things play out much, much differently.

The same could be said for every other class. The difference is that those other classes have fewer weaknesses to cover, and they can provide everything the ranger does, but they can do it much better overall.

Want Dots or AoE? Get a Necro or Elementalist

Want single target damage? Get a Warrior, Mesmer, or Theif

Want support? Get a Gaurdian or an Elementalist

Want ranged damage? Get a Warrior or Thief

There’s just not a role that the Ranger excels in that isn’t outdone by another class.

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage. they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles fire. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

As I said, in a 1v1 situation, this is usually the case. When you have a group of people that all work together and have builds to cover the weaknesses of the others, things play out much, much differently.

The same could be said for every other class. The difference is that those other classes have fewer weaknesses to cover, and they can provide everything the ranger does, but they can do it much better overall.

Want Dots or AoE? Get a Necro or Elementalist

Want single target damage? Get a Warrior, Mesmer, or Theif

Want support? Get a Gaurdian or an Elementalist

Want ranged damage? Get a Warrior or Thief

There’s just not a role that the Ranger excels in that isn’t outdone by another class.

I’ll respect your opinion, but as I stated before, I’ve yet to run into a situation with my ranger where I felt that I was kittened. Quite the opposite, actually.
With a couple of bugfixes and minor tweaks, I’d be perfectly happy with how the class is as a whole.

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage. they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles fire. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

As I said, in a 1v1 situation, this is usually the case. When you have a group of people that all work together and have builds to cover the weaknesses of the others, things play out much, much differently.

The same could be said for every other class. The difference is that those other classes have fewer weaknesses to cover, and they can provide everything the ranger does, but they can do it much better overall.

Want Dots or AoE? Get a Necro or Elementalist

Want single target damage? Get a Warrior, Mesmer, or Theif

Want support? Get a Gaurdian or an Elementalist

Want ranged damage? Get a Warrior or Thief

There’s just not a role that the Ranger excels in that isn’t outdone by another class.

I’ll respect your opinion, but as I stated before, I’ve yet to run into a situation with my ranger where I felt that I was kittened. Quite the opposite, actually.
With a couple of bugfixes and minor tweaks, I’d be perfectly happy with how the class is as a whole.

I’m honestly glad that we can be civilized about this Expired; too often I’ve seen this discussion spiral into a clusterkitten of “You just need to learn your class”→ “No, you need to do X”→ “No, you need to…” etc.

That being said, I have to ask if you’ve played other professions. I was content with my Ranger, despite what I though were glaring flaws in the design of the profession, until I played another class. It’s like the severity of the situation really hit home when I saw just how bad the Ranger was in relation to the other professions. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing my Ranger, but it’s a buzz-kill knowing that I’m limited by the professions to such an extent.

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

JMOR.3708:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Sure, ranger is slightly underwhelming, but with the build and combos that I’ve devised for myself, there is no one that I’ve run into in WvW that I haven’t been able to wipe the floor with.
You can easily get a full barrage and 90% of a rapid fire off while under quickening zephyr, sharpening stone applies a bleed to anyone that the barrage hits, and the effects of zephyr make barrage rain down twice as fast. You can effectively hit harder than an arrow cart, and put out enough damage to kill anyone before your burst is over. From 1500 range.

There’s several problems with this.

First of all, all of this damage is extremely easy to avoid. If your opponent dodge rolls the barrage. they’ll avoid the rest of the damage completely because of how slowly the projectiles fire. Even if the barrage catches them, a single dodge roll will take them out of the AoE and cause most of the rapid fire to miss. It’s just not reliable.

Secondly, your 1500 unit range means nothing in almost every engagement. Very rarely will you be able to dictate the range at which a fight takes place, at least in my experience, as every class that wants to get near you has the tools at their disposal to do so. Whether this be shadowstepping or heartseeker spamming for the thief, or just a generic gap closer, it’s insanely easy to close distance in this game.

As I said, in a 1v1 situation, this is usually the case. When you have a group of people that all work together and have builds to cover the weaknesses of the others, things play out much, much differently.

The same could be said for every other class. The difference is that those other classes have fewer weaknesses to cover, and they can provide everything the ranger does, but they can do it much better overall.

Want Dots or AoE? Get a Necro or Elementalist

Want single target damage? Get a Warrior, Mesmer, or Theif

Want support? Get a Gaurdian or an Elementalist

Want ranged damage? Get a Warrior or Thief

There’s just not a role that the Ranger excels in that isn’t outdone by another class.

I’ll respect your opinion, but as I stated before, I’ve yet to run into a situation with my ranger where I felt that I was kittened. Quite the opposite, actually.
With a couple of bugfixes and minor tweaks, I’d be perfectly happy with how the class is as a whole.

I’m honestly glad that we can be civilized about this Expired; too often I’ve seen this discussion spiral into a clusterkitten of “You just need to learn your class”-> “No, you need to do X”-> “No, you need to…” etc.

That being said, I have to ask if you’ve played other professions. I was content with my Ranger, despite what I though were glaring flaws in the design of the profession, until I played another class. It’s like the severity of the situation really hit home when I saw just how bad the Ranger was in relation to the other professions. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing my Ranger, but it’s a buzz-kill knowing that I’m limited by the professions to such an extent.

I’ve actually played every class quite a bit, and Ranger is always the one I break out for when I want to WvW.
In theory, yes my attacks are easy to avoid. That’s prevented by holding off for a few seconds in an engagement to allow the other group to tunnel vision in on one of my friends that’s purposely there causing a distraction to allow me to get hits in before people can react to my presence. Generally by the time that they realize “Oh, its the ranger that’s doing all of the damage”, they have to look around for where I am since I use my maximum range to my advantage, as well as try and avoid any subsequent shots I take.
The tunnel vision effect is further amplified by frequent target changes, causing people to either burn their dodges or sit and take my hits.

Generally, I run with a shout warrior, a thief, a support guardian and the fifth is whoever wants to take the last spot. I drop a burst on someone from range, the thief gets in quickly and finishes them off while the warrior sits and harasses everyone. It works extremely well, and allows for very little reaction time for the other team.

The advantage of having a Ranger over a second thief is in that if they wish to deal with me, they have to completely disengage from the others fighting with them to hunt me down, taking one or more person out of the fight to deal with a single person.

In response to the title. Because Rangers are Underpowered.

Sdric.8526:

Rangers are good in pre-80-PvE, some ‘ld even call them op.
Sadly they’re also completely worthless in WvW, sPvP and Dungeons.
People with say “No they’re not, you can play them successfully!”
Well thats true – but every class can stomp rookies, especially lvl 1 guys in WvW.
The main problem of the Ranger is:
The numbers on 9 out of 10 skills are simply broken.
(Due to Ranger being op in CB and getting overnerfed on nearly each single skill)
Also countless bugs and bad trait-in-traitline positioning (trap@precision).

An image says more than 1000 words.
Note: The Ranger has a full critical set, the Thief has only 1 rune, but the rest of his equip is exactly equal.

Pets in sPvP have great damage, if you trait for it… I was being hit on average of 1k – 5k by pets tonight. Check it out.

Otaur.9268:

Sdric.8526:

Rangers are good in pre-80-PvE, some ‘ld even call them op.
Sadly they’re also completely worthless in WvW, sPvP and Dungeons.
People with say “No they’re not, you can play them successfully!”
Well thats true – but every class can stomp rookies, especially lvl 1 guys in WvW.
The main problem of the Ranger is:
The numbers on 9 out of 10 skills are simply broken.
(Due to Ranger being op in CB and getting overnerfed on nearly each single skill)
Also countless bugs and bad trait-in-traitline positioning (trap@precision).

An image says more than 1000 words.
Note: The Ranger has a full critical set, the Thief has only 1 rune, but the rest of his equip is exactly equal.

Pets in sPvP have great damage, if you trait for it… I was being hit on average of 1k – 5k by pets tonight. Check it out.

Which means you’re standing still. Nobody stands still in PvP…

I never truly understood how bad the ranger traits were until tonight.

I wanted to make a power/precision sword/dagger character.
Lets see.. what traits should i take
marksmanship? No. Most skills are about signets, which are pretty bad.
skirmishing? No. Most skills are about traps, which are condition damage.
Surivial? sure. Survival skills are useful. 30 points. so many good skills in here. Why can’t i have them all?
nature magic? No. most traits are about spirits, which are bad. like kittens.
beast mastery? Pets are unreliable. I want to seperate myself as much as possible.

Seriously? Condition damage in the critical tree? Most good skills stuffed in one trait tree? Did hunters collectively kick all other classes’ puppies in closed beta?