Guild Wars 2

Elorna.5329:

Kubrick.5740:

RANGEr

Another of these threads…

Nothing to see here, move along folks.

Alice and Aveneo have it nailed in their posts.

Aveneo.2068:

No need as the definition is already there, as quoted by ANet:

“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”

- https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

I’ve played Ranger main (open world, dungeon PVE and WvW) since beta. I personally like using a bow as one of my primary weapons. While I understand people are finding their comfort zones in melee rangers, and I don’t mind playing mine melee situationally, I chose a Ranger because I wanted to play an “unparallelled archer”. My bow does not have to be the best Ranger weapon—it just should be solidly viable. I’m with the OP in that I’m miserable on my Ranger right now, and I can’t find a build I like because…I didn’t choose an archer so I could play a sword wielding melee class. And while I can still play with a bow, the quality of viable builds/gameplay is seriously not there right now.

And I know a lot of people are loving the perma-swift, but I personally liked RaO for the stability, and it was a pretty integral part of my play style. It was useful on jumping puzzles, escaping combat in WvW, and in sticky situations with too many slap-happy mobs. And now not only do I not have the stability to escape combat when necessary, when I get caught and locked into it, Healing Springs is buggered up. And being able to use RaO more often really doesn’t help make up for the lack of duration. If I’m trying to use it to get out of combat, in 60 seconds I’m dead.
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Personally, my Ranger build is weaker than it was prepatch so I have a lot of the same feels the OP does. It does take more time to kill the same stuff than it did before playing exactly as I did before. Now, on the other hand, things die faster with my guard, warrior, ele, and thief using nearly the same builds. Given that the Thief d/d is as close as I can get to Ranger s/d, I’ve decided to main a Thief instead. I’ll wait for the Ranger to not suck again, but I’m not holding any hope. Done with that too. I loved playing a Ranger but done with it now.

And healing spring… that’s just a sack of suck right now.

This is exactly the experience I’ve been having, and I’m half hoping the Guard bow will be my new ranger. Otherwise, I’m going to be alt-hopping until I settle on a new main. This makes me very sad, I dread Tuesday updates for the next bad nerf, and I don’t enjoy my time in the game. If it’s not fun…why play?

Alice.5360:

For a game that champions “play as you want”, Anet sure is supporting the ‘stack or gtfo’ meta.
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It’s not about not wanting to play meta… it’s about literally about not having choice.

Werd.

Aveneo.2068:

No need as the definition is already there, as quoted by ANet:

“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”

- https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

They can equip either or both of the bows in the game, so there you go. If they went by the flavor text alone the game would never get anywhere as Ranger would bring up the archer quote, followed by warrior stating that bows are weapons and they are the masters of weapons.

I think a lot of the issue with ranger comes from it being a ‘cutting room floor’ profession they had numerous professions that did not make the cut including a warden and archery. So ranger got stuck with the salvagable parts of them with a beastmaster focus which they did not do nearly enough work on (so much so that it feel years later like a rush job that no one want any part of). And so by the time they get to creating a ‘Ranger’ many of the aspect from the previous game had already been handed out and Ranger is stuck with this kind of woodland Warrior-Thief with a animal companion that must never step on Warrior or Thief’s toes.

Tragic Positive.9356:

~PvE has been buffed. Significantly.
~PvP is broken. A-net themselves confirmed this.
~Traps are fine. Even some of the top Ranger players are using traps for their kit. Not a 17 trap Ranger, but they still fit.
~Spirits are underwhelming. This I can agree on.

~Signets are Fine. Signet of Stone is used for almost every spec.
SoR is the best AoE condi clear in the game (that kills the pet on spot, though, but the team support is amazing – it’s also a stun breaker)
SoW is the best PvE ability and SoH is often used in WvW.

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From my perspective, you are just a player who cannot play a certain playstyle anymore and feels sad about it.
And it doesn’t matter for you that we got like 4 absolutely amazing builds now. Because I don’t know… You can’t throw traps anymore.

I was aware that people are going to feel this way, but with all due respect – it’s nothing but a human syndrome that refuses to adapt.
Rangers in PvE still pull out higher numbers than a Guardian or Warrior. If icebows get nerfed we might as well get our way into meta.
For PvP… Who knows. No one does. Not even A-net themselves.
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As for the advice, Eura (Ranger from competitive scene) shared his build. You might try to go with that one.

Signet of Stone great? Its on a freaking 80 second cooldown. Endure pain although 4 seconds, you can trait it, have more immunity uptime in the long run, a stun breaker, there is also a trait for this so you have a choice to even slot it.

Shout? Shouts suck kitten . Search and Rescue can be good, but on an 85 second cd?
Guard? 15 seconds yea, only useful for the regen and swiftness spam. Protect Me? Pets melt instantly anyway how bout redirecting all damage to them? The shouts do not provide anything worthy for a team comp.

Spirits are not even underwhelming, that’s an understatement. They completely suck.

Traps? Oh yes, we can’t throw them anymore, Cripple on traps? Yes please? Cripple on a Knockdown trap? Cripple on a Chill trap? Oh yea the trait does not even affect Defensive traps. Competes With Sharpened Edges.

Running all traps will lack you a condi cleanse, a stun breaker.

Building a ranger for a team comp is very limiting.

Condi Cleanse trait on 1 line competing with each other.
Pets even when traited melt instantly because eveyones damage got buffed now. Useless pet = Useless Class Mechanic
Still Can’t Control Pet.
Allies Aid ? How many times can you use this in an actual fight?

So What can we build for? Of Course:

Condi Survival
Power Ranger
Or other Variants of the two.

The choices are so limiting for the rangers, I think some of the traits we have are kitten ideas that needed to make it through the deadline.