Guild Wars 2

I used to main mesmer, but will be switching to ranger as they are ridiculous in spvp and 1v1.

Followed java tanky trap build, but used a warhorn instead and boy is it better. The utility from the warhorn is disgusting (the circle of fire is too small, and you already have a fire trap). Most of my games are in the 200-300 range, and have staying power that is insane.

Build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FF-W;1wEFy-x2gEF-0;9V1D;2TT44;117A28A;4UNH4;2jwmAjwmA2FZ

Btw quickness stomping is OP :x

It’s a matter of perspective really. But yea, quickness stomping is quite nice. And annoying on the receiving end. It seems a lot faster than x2.

The reasons people think/thought Rangers were awful are that:

A. If you spec anything glass-cannon-ish and stray from a zerg, you will usually be roflstomped.

B. They have no basis for comparison as they had never played another class.

I used to think Rangers had it rough and that I was playing a gimped class. So I rolled a Mesmer and a Guardian, both to level 80, and both to full OJ gear.

That said, I am back on my Ranger,
Appreciating it much more now,
And loving every minute of it.

Those that say we are underpowered say that they do play other classes and that that’s why we’re underpowered. Don’t know what their point is because I have several other classes and I still think ranger is fine, a little buggy with a steep learning curve but mostly fine both in tPvP and W3.

Expect this thread to turn into a mass of trolling and qq from the typical posters though.

Because the class has problems, Trap Build though has always been good…It’s been good since beta..It’s not changed since beta either..Just people opted not to use it.

I switched to a Cleric’s Sword/dagger build for PvP and WvW and it’s working wonders. Combined with 30 BM and jaguar/lynx, you can really wreck some face and stay alive doing it.

People thought rangers were bad because an insane number of people originally chose ranger thinking “I want to be an archer, the pet isn’t important, right?”. Just check the forum, all the people asking for perma pet stow that gives a power buff. How ridiculous is that? It’s like say “I like playing ele, but I don’t need to switch attunements. Can’t we get a lock button and get a power buff?”

It’s the class mechanic, and once the people who hated pet classes dropped ranger, I think the forum became a lot more positive, at least, it seems like it now.

Like it or not, pets are our mechanic, utilize them to their full potential and you’ll really see how useful they are. (although if you don’t like it, you might not want to play ranger.)

And yeah, gotta love the quickness stomp, and if you have beastmastery (you probably should), you have access to it every 12-15 seconds. It may be 2s, but it’s long enough to quickstomp players.

Honestly, the only place rangers actually have noticable trouble is some dungeons. And that’s more a problem with our pet. When a boss throws out 10-20 red rings of death, there’s only so much you can do to keep a pet from dying, even a ranged one, since they can’t even dodge. That’s my main gripe.

Jazenn.7526:

It’s a matter of perspective really. But yea, quickness stomping is quite nice. And annoying on the receiving end. It seems a lot faster than x2.

yeah i’ve noticed it seems way faster, it’s because the final downward motion is fast anyway, and usually there is a long build-up to it, so when someone is quick-stomping, the build up looks quite normal if you’re not paying attention but when they start to go into the final part, it’s so fast that you realise they have quickness but it’s too late to react.

Just saying, torch is better. Use offhand training

The tanky sword/x 1v1 builds have always been there. Try playing something that isn’t a trap or vigor/dodge build, and it becomes really obvious. Longbow/greatsword direct damage builds, support builds, pet builds, and spirits builds, are all horrible.

The main problem I am facing now is in order to keep my pet alive / usable, I am forced to invest at least 15 – 20 pts in the BM line. That’s put a big limitation to the Ranger’s build. The same problem exists to the spirit skill as well.

Kasama.8941:

The tanky sword/x 1v1 builds have always been there. Try playing something that isn’t a trap or vigor/dodge build, and it becomes really obvious. Longbow/greatsword direct damage builds, support builds, pet builds, and spirits builds, are all horrible.

True enough but many classes say the same on their forums as well as making the “we are fine at x but useless in y” statements. That doesn’t make our issues any less important but our issues are no more important than other classes who suffer issues.

capuchinseven.8395:

True enough but many classes say the same on their forums as well as making the “we are fine at x but useless in y” statements. That doesn’t make our issues any less important but our issues are no more important than other classes who suffer issues.

I don’t fully agree with that. Other professions can play into more then one type of build, all the Ranger can basically do is various sword/x 1v1 builds. But what makes the Ranger even more different to other professions, is that our damage is split up in two; the pet and ourself. So when the pet dies from AoE, or doesn’t always hit when it’s suppose to, we are at a greater disadvantage then other professions. The sword and traps snares the foe, but once you lose that, you get very unreliable damage.

Quote:
It’s the class mechanic, and once the people who hated pet classes dropped ranger, I think the forum became a lot more positive, at least, it seems like it now.

Nope, they just gave up as it became clear ANet could care less and there are so many issues with the class that have all been raised and discussed to death.

I had a good laugh at the ‘running sword/dagger and cats and loving it in wvw’ too..pets are stupidly easy to avoid being hit by, and by the time you have closed the distance to your opponent to use your melee weapons you should either be at half Hp or less or your target deserves to die from stupidity. Any sort of aoe in between your target and the pet, especially anything that cripples such as glamours, barrage, traps, etc etc and your pet just became so much wasted traits as it hobbles around being useless. Good fun build for 1v1 though against certain classes.

When I do play one of my rangers it tends to be LB/SB with high crit rate and I’ve cut the toughness as I found it made almost no difference to my deaths (mainly culled zerg death, where by the time they appear your dead and so is everyone else, or caught completely out of position). It really depends on the server and time of day that you play as to whether your ranger can be effective.

I’m currently mainly playing mesmer as the glamours are coming in handy and I tend to run towards 2-5 enemies rather than away from them.

Because we really only have 1 build for damage. There’s a plethora of things that need attention. Just to rattle a few off the top of my head:

Slow, clumsy pets with sometimes unresponsive abilities.

Pet attributes not scaling with gear.

Pets getting destroyed in WvW battles leading to an almost default decrease in dps.

Pets being unable to path to targets on walls in WvW leading to default decrease in dps.

Under-performing Signets.

Jumbled traits (example trap skill traits lying in a tree that does not buff condition duration or condition damage).

1h Sword #1 skill bug greatly harms the effectiveness of the kit.

I could go on. That being said I do love my ranger. I leveled a Rifle Warrior to 80 and the lack of mobility led me right back. Another thing Rangers have going to them – the Wilderness Survival trait line which I think is great and a large part of the spec I currently run in WvW.

I don’t think Ranger’s are awful but I do think they need some serious attention. Particularly pet mechanics. Without hyperbole I can honestly say this is the worst implementation of pets I have ever seen in an MMO.

Rangers were bad.
They were incredibly bad, weak and buggy.

However over the last 2 month Rangers received continuous fixing to get them on par with other classes (also Mesmer which used to be ranged DPS kings in sPvP and forced Rangers into unemployed got nerfed pretty hard).

They’re usable in sPvP now, though the F2 nerf was quite a punch.

Pets still are pretty useless in dungeons as a dps tool. You’re forced to use a weaker range pet rather then a more powerful melee one.

rangers still ARE bad in pve and mediocre in wvw (except underwater)
They were never bad in spvp

Thats why we need different balance and skill changes depending on the format, like guardian’s “save yourselves”

We didn’t have trouble finding a good build or playing our class. You may review for example the video “rangers are OP” or the months of player and developer comments, as well as patch notes to see the gradual progression away from a bugged weak class. If you have played ranger since launch, your anger is beginning to subside. If you roll a ranger now, you probably think it’s fine if a bit quirky and could use improvement.

Divinity.8041:

I used to main mesmer, but will be switching to ranger as they are ridiculous in spvp and 1v1.

Followed java tanky trap build, but used a warhorn instead and boy is it better. The utility from the warhorn is disgusting (the circle of fire is too small, and you already have a fire trap). Most of my games are in the 200-300 range, and have staying power that is insane.

Build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FF-W;1wEFy-x2gEF-0;9V1D;2TT44;117A28A;4UNH4;2jwmAjwmA2FZ

Btw quickness stomping is OP :x

Condition specs have been some of our strongest specs forever, simply beacuse they are the least pet reliant(also we usedto be able to burst bleeds like a boss, 20 or so stacks in a matter of seconds).
Our conditions do the same damage as everyone with the same gear setup while our direct damage attacks do not, with our pet ontop of that our damage can be quite sick in optimal circumstances.

Most people who complain/ed about our damage just didn’t take pets into account and ran around in berserker powerbuilds with a bear and a longbow.
From my prespective it,s go condition damage if you feel you just never have enough control over your pet, or roll with the punches and go beast mastery or gtfo.

Lack of build diversety is a problem ALOT of classes have, but it does bug me that we can’t choose how reliant we wanto be on our pet especially when it’s so frickin wonky.
If we could have the pet/ranger damage ratio we had in the early beta weekends but had a trait in BM that reduced our damage but increased the pets, with an added bonus perhaps, (regen maby? Just tuck it in there with Natural Healing ? I dunno)
i would litteraly kitten concentrated happyness.

I’ve always liked pet classes but always hated beeing overly dependant on something that will always be flawed, tamable pets that are usefull as utilties and contributes a portion of the damage?
Sign me up!
Pets that make up a huge portion of my damage and end up beeing a burden more than an asset?
Boooo!

People didnt understand how to use pets even now we are learning things about this mechanism. Some didnt want to use pet or didnt give them enough attention. Causing the pets to die very quickly and leaving his master feeling underpowered.

Some still mistakenly believe that to use ranger well you have to put a lot of point into BM. Making them feel that there no viable build out there or they are restricted to one build type.

I myself like jagaurs becuase its easier to keep them alive. Between stealth and troll urgent and signet of stone plus swapping. Its enough to keep it alive. I just wished I had another stealth pet. I would take a gaint rat if it could stealth. Once one pet dies its a slippery slope.

There are still some who believe we are weak, but as they either leave the class or learn some of the thing that we can truly do. We as a community become strong as the player base understand its class better.

Dont get me wrong there are still things that need to be fixed. I would want to see hotkeys for guard/passive and stowing.

Some ranger still dont use anything but a bow. That fine but they are the same ones that claim rangers have no dps in dungeons. One tool can not be use for all things.

I would without a dout give up underwater god mode to have the GS restored some where close to its former glory.

Some of the other stuff like aoe reduction would just make pets unstoppable seige kills.
(I can see it now jaguars guarding up and over walls master popping f2 to keep them stealth. Jaguars Critting away. Enemy ele notices the attack and starts firing away. But the aoe reduction or immunity has the ele between a rock and a hard place. Now warriors and guarding try to defend. The jaguar master standing in healing springs passing the regeneration on to thier pet plus thier own heal skills. Ranger pop signet of stone to give their pets that extra protection. The jaguars squad is now dead but so is the enemy trebuchet.) Ok its a bit of fantasy. But Aoe reduction or immunity would just creat bigger problems. (sorry of topic)

Over all alot of us feel we a moving in the right direction. Becuase of the small fixes we have had and the understanding we have gained playing the class to its fullest.

condition damage builds indeed make up for some of the weaknesses we have in our damage scaling to equip, compared to other classes.

The main problem is, in pve condition damage is broken.
Bleeds are hardcapped at 25, which means that is anyone else is using our same condition, we’re losing damage. To not even start with fire and poison. In dungeons very often you have to fight stuff immune to conditions. And in general/roaming pve enemies die so quickly that they’re just wasted, and only do a fraction of their estimated dmg over time.

Its a very solid (and now popular ) choice in pvp thou

Yeah I agree a lot with he other guy who posted people didn’t want to team play with their pet and use only bows too often. I guess I’ve played only ranger too long I don’t know what it’s like to not only win 1v1’s (as in win 1v2’s as well). I don’t know why more people don’t make their own builds for ranger, they’re all pretty viable and a trap ranger is easy to beat if you just avoid the traps. I play a sword/axe axe/dagger with poison sigils on wep swap with canines and I find it pretty effective. idk what I’m talking about anymore.

Example, Today finishing up my daily, I was killing Skelk’s in a level 15 zone, well actually letting them hit me for the Dodge portion. Finally, complete I begin to finish off the two skelks on me. My pet helps me with the first Skelk, then turn and runs 1/2 way off to clip range to attack a Skelk nest, even though I switched to the second Skelk standing in front of me and even though I had never attacked or targeted that nest.

This sort of thing happens in wvwvw as well. Someone hits the pet with some ancillary damage and it is off on its own tangent, regardless of what I have targetted. My choice is either to use the F2, F1 hope it responds and hasn’t traveled to far, or swap it out.

Yes, I tend to sit out at long range, as much as possible. No I do not play a Melee Ranger and no I’m not going to gtfo. When the pet accounts for so much of our damage, this sort of AI really makes certain segments of our class, at times, feel underwhelming.

Edit: Funny thing is, I know that the Dev’s know this, and feel that this is proper, because if it was fixed, making ranged too deadly in WvWvW, it would upset the balance between Melee and Ranged. They just won’t come here and explain..

“Were bad” ??

You mean having a single viable build a.k.a trapper suddenly made the the ranger OP ??

Unresponsive pets, laughable damage when pet is dead (which is 90% of the times), zero control over your pet (lol at being called beastmaster) weapons that even if you removed them from ranger class i don’t think anyone would miss them (a.k.a Longbow, Greatsword, Dagger) and some might not even notice them being removed since they are rarely used and the list goes on and on.

Is true that ranger now is better than it was before due to some fixes, but it still needs work to be a reliable class.

Sdric.8526:

Rangers were bad.
They were incredibly bad, weak and buggy.

However over the last 2 month Rangers received continuous fixing to get them on par with other classes

Yup, that’s pretty much all there is to it.

Reading the SPvP forums right now is hilarious..

Main problems with rangers is not that they are inherently weak by design; there are some issues with pet pathing/aggro AI, lack of viable traits within certain lines, and a number of bad utilities. Aside from that the only gripe I have is a few of their weapons being lackluster (GS, LB)

ski.4927:

The reasons people think/thought Rangers were awful are that:

A. If you spec anything glass-cannon-ish and stray from a zerg, you will usually be roflstomped.

B. They have no basis for comparison as they had never played another class.

I used to think Rangers had it rough and that I was playing a gimped class. So I rolled a Mesmer and a Guardian, both to level 80, and both to full OJ gear.

That said, I am back on my Ranger,
Appreciating it much more now,
And loving every minute of it.

nice post, except you leveled a mesmer and a guardian and think Ranger is that much better? I like Ranger as well but I think that Guardian at the least has better viability than the Ranger.

angan.6572:

“Were bad” ??

You mean having a single viable build a.k.a trapper suddenly made the the ranger OP ??

Unresponsive pets, laughable damage when pet is dead (which is 90% of the times), zero control over your pet (lol at being called beastmaster) weapons that even if you removed them from ranger class i don’t think anyone would miss them (a.k.a Longbow, Greatsword, Dagger) and some might not even notice them being removed since they are rarely used and the list goes on and on.

Is true that ranger now is better than it was before due to some fixes, but it still needs work to be a reliable class.

+1

People need to take the blinders off if they believe Ranger is OP. And hopefully Anet doesn’t believe this either

There’s a lot of QQ in the sPVP forum about rangers being OP. I hope the devs don’t listen to it.

I personally find ranger to be awesome in general PvE, WvW, and sPvP. The only thing I gripe about with my ranger is dungeons. Pet’s constant death can be a hindrance in those large group fights, and I’ve grown tired of playing the job in any dungeon. :I

I enjoy the ranger in PVE, WvW, and sPVP as well. I had to invest deeply in the BM line to keep the pet alive longer.

Also, I have f2 and f3 bound to two key on my mouse, which makes it easier to control during boss fights. However, dodge giving protection is what really helps … for me at least.

Pets would usually miss their attacks. Drakes were almost unusable as the enemy would have moved before they even started drawing breath and then fire in the wrong direction completely missing the target and getting thier F2 on CD

People could dodge your arrows by strafing.

In WvW, I use mostly jaguar for sneak attacks or birds. Birds seem to hit moving targets better. I rarely use drakes. sPVP, I use cats and they seem to hit targets. I use a trap to slow them as well … also use rune of the grove which has the occasional root.

I’m not expert by any means and not claiming to be one. I’m just going by my own experience.

The only drake worth using in World vs World is the Swamp Drake.

River Drake (the lightning one) will miss his attack 9/10 usually

Swamp Drake though, the Poison attack actually hits fairly decent (bout 500-600 x5 + the poison), has 900 Range, and he can fire it behind himself.

So he’s not a bad choice if you like Drakes.

My opinion, people think rangers are bad because rangers are not rangers. They are a melee class with a broken pet. LB and SB are, again my opinion, the 2 worst options / weapons for a ranger.

If you want a ranger or archer make a warrior with a bow. I highly suggest everyone does this anyway to check it out. Just spend 5 minutes in sPvP with a warrior and a bow. It will make you cry if you wanted to play an archer type character and mistakenly picked the ranger.

nekos.2584:

My opinion, people think rangers are bad because rangers are not rangers. They are a melee class with a broken pet. LB and SB are, again my opinion, the 2 worst options / weapons for a ranger.

If you want a ranger or archer make a warrior with a bow. I highly suggest everyone does this anyway to check it out. Just spend 5 minutes in sPvP with a warrior and a bow. It will make you cry if you wanted to play an archer type character and mistakenly picked the ranger.

Figured this out month’s ago..

If you want to do the glass cannon pew pew setup..

Warrior is better at it.

cuz they were scrubs who came from world of ezmodecraft and played a huntard there. They expected jesus to fly out of the sky and kill an entire zone with his lazer eye nukes and hand over the XP and gold to the “huntard of gw2”

Thats why.

Xsorus.2507:

nekos.2584:

My opinion, people think rangers are bad because rangers are not rangers. They are a melee class with a broken pet. LB and SB are, again my opinion, the 2 worst options / weapons for a ranger.

If you want a ranger or archer make a warrior with a bow. I highly suggest everyone does this anyway to check it out. Just spend 5 minutes in sPvP with a warrior and a bow. It will make you cry if you wanted to play an archer type character and mistakenly picked the ranger.

Figured this out month’s ago..

If you want to do the glass cannon pew pew setup..

Warrior is better at it.

You don’t even have to go glass cannon. You can go with a bunker type build and most likely out DPS a ranger with a bow… Rifle build is way more fun though and rifle / bow is more of what most people would think of as a “ranger”.

Methal.9045:

cuz they were scrubs who came from world of ezmodecraft and played a huntard there. They expected jesus to fly out of the sky and kill an entire zone with his lazer eye nukes and hand over the XP and gold to the “huntard of gw2”

Thats why.

Or they have been playing MMO’s since most likely before you were born and " rangers " were almost always ranged DPS classes that used a bow in these types of games.

I always found EQ’s Rangers to be better as melee then bow ;o)

Ranger type classes though it depended.

Duel Wield Rangers for a long time in DAOC were amazing (eventually bow took over after they nerfed Duel Wield’s cutting of block chance)

Warhammer Online’s Ranger type classes (Squig/Shadow Warrior) could be Melee Based, I know Assault SW’s weren’t bad for a while, but eventually got to be kind of Blah compared to the bow users. Squig Armor was always fun.

Rift’s Ranger Soul though was bow/pet based.

Trying to think what other games had Rangers in them…

LOTRO’s hunter was pure dps with no pet. It was squishy but a good representation of the woodsmen/archer type role.

LotRO: Hunter class is ranged with some melee (iirc) but the pet class actually is Loremaster doing about 30% of his total damage from meleeing. Probably thats why i got no problem with playing my ranger in melee :-)

[Also Sniper/Gunslinger in SWTOR was almost completely ranged apart from a knife stab. (I know its stretching the term ranger a bit)]

nekos.2584:

Methal.9045:

cuz they were scrubs who came from world of ezmodecraft and played a huntard there. They expected jesus to fly out of the sky and kill an entire zone with his lazer eye nukes and hand over the XP and gold to the “huntard of gw2”

Thats why.

Or they have been playing MMO’s since most likely before you were born and " rangers " were almost always ranged DPS classes that used a bow in these types of games.

ANet’s description of the Ranger, which you can find at:

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

reads as: “Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

We had very good reason to expect rangers to do well with bows over any other weapons. Please stop saying otherwise.

nekos.2584:

My opinion, people think rangers are bad because rangers are not rangers. They are a melee class with a broken pet. LB and SB are, again my opinion, the 2 worst options / weapons for a ranger.

If you want a ranger or archer make a warrior with a bow. I highly suggest everyone does this anyway to check it out. Just spend 5 minutes in sPvP with a warrior and a bow. It will make you cry if you wanted to play an archer type character and mistakenly picked the ranger.

Ironically, I feel that the SB and LB are two of the better weapons of the class. Axes and daggers are meh, GS I feel leaves you too vulnerable, and the Warhorn isn’t that useful outside of the buff. Only weapons I feel outplay the SB and LB are the Sword and Torch (which are just amazing together).

angan.6572:

“Were bad” ??

You mean having a single viable build a.k.a trapper suddenly made the the ranger OP ??

Unresponsive pets, laughable damage when pet is dead (which is 90% of the times), zero control over your pet (lol at being called beastmaster) weapons that even if you removed them from ranger class i don’t think anyone would miss them (a.k.a Longbow, Greatsword, Dagger) and some might not even notice them being removed since they are rarely used and the list goes on and on.

Is true that ranger now is better than it was before due to some fixes, but it still needs work to be a reliable class.

Really, just stop with this please. Pet is dead 90% of the time? Trait your pet or switch it, it’s really not that hard. Zero control? Give me a break. And dagger bad? Dagger is a great offhand.

I was so happy to see most of this negativity gone from our forum, but stuff like this just brings everyone down and starts arguments.

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

Really, just stop with this please. Pet is dead 90% of the time? Trait your pet or switch it, it’s really not that hard. Zero control? Give me a break. And dagger bad? Dagger is a great offhand.

I was so happy to see most of this negativity gone from our forum, but stuff like this just brings everyone down and starts arguments.

I’m sorry have you ever played a ranger or are you just trolling ?

Trait and switch ? I used to run a 0/10/30/0/30 build and the pet still gets killed in like 2 seconds everywhere. Dungeons ? 1 AOE and pet is down. WvW ? One AOE in the zerg and the pet is down. Only time the pet stays alive is when you find a 1vs1 duel which doesn’t happen often to me at least… And most of the times you don’t even have the time to react to switch fast enough before the pet gets one shotted.

And look your dps output when the pet is dead. Is simply laughable.

Dagger great offhand ?? Give me one viable and reasonable explanation to why anyone would run a dagger over a torch or warhorn as offhand weapon.

Not gonna lie though. I hope the trap build gets nerfed and see some buffs to range weapons and pet fixes. Because is ridiculous and idiotic to be a “ranger” and be forced to go melee in order to achieve decent damage while the Warrior class who supposingly is stronger in mellee form makes way more damage and utility with bows.

Like i said, i’m not denying that the ranger is better than it was before due to some fixes, but not let get blindfolded and jump on the bandwagon “OMG ranger is so strong, ranger so perfect” . Ranger has ONLY 1 viable build a.k.a trapper. Anything else just makes you a moving frag.

Pendleton.6385:

LOTRO’s hunter was pure dps with no pet. It was squishy but a good representation of the woodsmen/archer type role.

Heh, loved the movie Legolas like eye stab with arrow then shoot attack in LOTRO.

Aegis.9724:

rangers still ARE bad in pve and mediocre in wvw (except underwater)
They were never bad in spvp

Thats why we need different balance and skill changes depending on the format, like guardian’s “save yourselves”

Don’t know where you playing but my ranger in PvE is kitten…

angan.6572:

Like i said, i’m not denying that the ranger is better than it was before due to some fixes, but not let get blindfolded and jump on the bandwagon “OMG ranger is so strong, ranger so perfect” . Ranger has ONLY 1 viable build a.k.a trapper. Anything else just makes you a moving frag.

What’s interesting is that the person who came up with the trapper build for sPvP – Java, I believe – admitted in the State of the Game video that it’s not even that great of a build; he just wanted to play a ranger and that’s the best he could come up with.