Guild Wars 2

I’m new to the game and I was wondering why everybody is kittening the ranger ? I’m new to the game and i was wodnering if Ishould change my class as fast as possible lol.

What’s wrong with them

Check the stickied ranger bug list for starters, basicly nothing has been adressed since lauch

Get out! Get out while you still can!

If you want to play a ranged class, pick a Warrior or a Mesmer – preferrably the former. Warriors with a Longbow or a Rifle can out damage and out perform a Ranger with any weapon any day of the week with minimal effort!

If you want to play a support class, Warriors do it far better. If you want to do anything well in this game – anything at all – play a Warrior!

DO. NOT. ROLL. THIS. PROFESSION!

I still love my ranger. Took me 15 profession changes (this is my 4th ranger) to finally find a build that I enjoy.

If you pick a ranger, only suggestion I have is to treat your pet as a partner, not a curse. the more you utilize your pet the more success you will have.

and FYI, if you read posts in any of the forums people will either cry the class is broken and unplayable (non of them are) or FTM, which yup its true there are those. But picking up a class because it is currently the flavor of the month will only result in your getting frustrated when it gets nerfed.

I suggest playing all the classes before choosing one. Figure out which class core mechanic and skills/play style you enjoy the most and rock it no matter what come buff or nerfs. If you truly enjoy the playstyle then nothing will get you down.

Get out while you can.
Consider a Ranger as an alt in the distant future. Maybe they’ll be fixed by then.

Depends on what you want to do. Rangers in PvE are still definitely viable and (I think) fun to play. Longbow is still a great support weapon, with good damage (esp. when you get Quickening Zephyr and can really unload on someone with attack #2) and the on-demand AOE debuff. Even impressive knockback with attack #4 (I love using it to knock mobs to their deaths off ledges and other high places – you have to think tactically). Shortbow, while weaker than it was at launch, is still a fun mobility weapon with good DPS (again, in a PvE environmement). Plus only Rangers get pets, which are great to collect and use.

Naturally if you’re mostly here for PvP then yeah, it’s all about fractions of a second and killing someone while you still have 25 health left more often than not, and in that way Ranger DOES seem like the red-headed step-child lately. I think they’ll eventually balance it out, but until then it sounds like you may experience some frustration in PvP zones. The current FOTM are Mesmers and glass-canon Thieves, but who knows if that will last? Typically FOTM’s dont.

I love my ranger but I hate my pets. Coming from guild wars 1 as a pet-less ranger, it left me feeling pretty puzzled as to why we are forced to have one.

It does me no good to have a pet die on me nigh-on instantly in a WvW zerg, or aggro half the map if I don’t have it stowed because it keeps pathing to strange places. Or when it takes a hit because it can’t dodge so I’m brought into combat mode through no fault of my own (although I should have stowed the pet really).

These are all culminating in a pretty sour experience with pets overall. It feels like something that was dragged in from guild wars 1, despite A-net not really thinking about how effectively it would fit into the heavy action-oriented style of the game.

Why dont i like my ranger? well to be honest i freaking love my ranger it’s incredibly fun to play and the combat system is just to my liking.

However, I dislike arena net because they continue to not allow me to bring anything of value to a tPvP team that another profession cant do better. They continue to hide behind false claims (hidden shortbow nerfs) and they ignore us in the major patches. Anyone remember the halloween update for rangers? oh wait there wasnt one.

It’s been said over and over and over again for the past 2 months that rangers are the worst class in tPvP. And from a e-sports balancing perspective they have nothing to solve it, in fact they focus on changing more balanced classes like engineer instead of ranger.

This patch they said they ran out of time to do any major changes to ranger, we only have 2 developers. That’s no excuse why every other class has more substantial changes than ranger whether it be nerfs or buffs. It’s obvious we’re being ignored.

we’re gonna keep the ranger all to ourselves (really play the class, and if you like it, continue to play it)

The real question on the topic should be…“Why does everyone hate their own class?”

Whatever class forum you go to, there are topics saying how bad and unplayable the class is. It’s probably because whines usually get the class buffed…tho it’s not the case with GW2 as you can see.

Now, truth is Ranger has plenty of nearly useless skills/traits…probably more than other classes but all of them are nearly on the same boat except warrior/guardian.

Sleepy.2647:

The real question on the topic should be…“Why does everyone hate their own class?”

Because we recognize what could be done based on what we’ve experienced and we know it can be better.

I like how the Ranger feels in combat; its what ultimately made me want to roll one over a Thief. I just know how it falls short in many aspects.

For example, I love the Sword! I want to use it all the time! I love its abilities, its attacks, its ability to equip an offhand. I love the Sword so much I can almost ignore its lack of damage; but, what I can’t ignore is the self-rooting. I will get myself killed if I chose to use this as a primary weapon.

Often times, despite the clear and present dangers, I’ll equip my sword and rush into a pack of mobs during a dungeon crawl. I want to taste it! I want to feel the joy of leaping around and slashing my target up close… but, alas, ultimately my life is imperiled because I’m unable to move freely. I always find myself conceding and returning to range.

We love our Rangers, that’s why we’re here begging for improvements. We know what the profession is capable of and we want to see it become the class we know it can be.

Everyone jumping on here and trying to defend saying there’s nothing wrong with ranger really haven’t been playing their class right…I have put in over 856 hours into my ranger, I have acquired The Lover for my ranger(going for legendary), i have completed the map on my ranger, I bum rushed lvl 80 in the first week on my ranger, and i havent played another class since release….this class is broken, stop trying to defend it. I can’t run to a warrior or anything class after putting so much time and effort into this legendary so i’m stuck suffering through playing on the ranger…but for people who haven’t put time in on it, just reroll another character its no point, they dont listen to their community at all.

Build variety doesn’t exist, or at least not significantly enough. It’s all bows all the time and the skills don’t feel really useful at all. Not enough utility. The utility skills are largely unuseful, and spirits still also aren’t worth using.

Ranger are underpowered in various aspects of the game. But they are, to me, still incredibly fun to play. And that’s what the game boils down to, I think. Sure yea, Warriors do a ton of damage. But they’re just so boring! I’ll take my ranger over my warrior any day.

Don’t let the negativity on this sub-forum discourage you from trying out a ranger. Try it out! There are certainly many aspects of rangers that are bugged, broken, not working, etc…But it hasn’t dampened my love for my ranger at all.

They need to offer a Class change option to the market. I’ll pay $50

Ursan.7846:

Ranger are underpowered in various aspects of the game. But they are, to me, still incredibly fun to play. And that’s what the game boils down to, I think. Sure yea, Warriors do a ton of damage. But they’re just so boring! I’ll take my ranger over my warrior any day.

Don’t let the negativity on this sub-forum discourage you from trying out a ranger. Try it out! There are certainly many aspects of rangers that are bugged, broken, not working, etc…But it hasn’t dampened my love for my ranger at all.

Only the die hard fans of the ranger will stick with theirs, i for 1 will stick with mine but if people aren’t in love with the ranger from the get go they will not enjoy this class coming into it….

Casey.9687:

Ursan.7846:

Ranger are underpowered in various aspects of the game. But they are, to me, still incredibly fun to play. And that’s what the game boils down to, I think. Sure yea, Warriors do a ton of damage. But they’re just so boring! I’ll take my ranger over my warrior any day.

Don’t let the negativity on this sub-forum discourage you from trying out a ranger. Try it out! There are certainly many aspects of rangers that are bugged, broken, not working, etc…But it hasn’t dampened my love for my ranger at all.

Only the die hard fans of the ranger will stick with theirs, i for 1 will stick with mine but if people aren’t in love with the ranger from the get go they will not enjoy this class coming into it….

Thank you for pointing out that I am a die hard fan. Because yes, I do love my ranger. And yes, it confuses me at how it apparently bothers you slightly.

deepwinter.9015:

We love our Rangers, that’s why we’re here begging for improvements. We know what the profession is capable of and we want to see it become the class we know it can be.

There are realistic improvements being asked, but then, most of what people wants is not realistic at all.
I think the patch is quite lame because they didn’t fix anything at all from what they told to be fixing with this patch, but the changes they made are an improvement…jokes aside ranger damage underwater was beyond bad but only a few rangers complained about it.
Probably the worst change we got this patch was buffing spirits proc to 35-50% but yet they have 10 seconds reuse so it’s a “fake” upgrade.

Most of what people want is…damage, buff damage on longbow, buff damage on shortbow, buff damage on pretty much everything. I think the most important issues with ranger is not our damage.

Wahrheit.1839:

Build variety doesn’t exist, or at least not significantly enough. It’s all bows all the time and the skills don’t feel really useful at all. Not enough utility. The utility skills are largely unuseful, and spirits still also aren’t worth using.

I use GS / Sword+Horn… I must be doing it wrong…

I’ll agree with you on utilities, but they are working on them. They made good progress on the Spirits and more changes are still being tested to make sure it doesn’t have to be rolled back.

The problem with the ranger is that, as it currently stands, the gameplay is so one-dimensional. Pets are utterly useless in anything other than solo pve, most of our utility skills are boring and our weapon skills are boring.

I don’t have any experience with melee, but with our ranged weapons:
- 3/5 skills on the shortbow are highly situational (a short stun, a cripple and an evasion skill that grants a short haste).
- 3/5 skills on the longbow are highly situational (a knockback, a vulnerability debuff and an aoe on a long timer).
So if you run with these weapons you really have to enjoy auto-attack spamming as this is what you will spend most of your time doing.

MH Axe is far more interesting but its range is pretty short, and its auto-attack hits multiple targets so you inevitably end up fighting against 5 mobs (kittening golden moas!).

I recently re-rolled an elementalist. These guys have so many skills. Now I never get bored in combat – I am too busy dancing between my attunements playing off combo fields and the various aoe skills with buffs and debuffs. Way more fun.

Like the above guy, the ranger is just utterly boring and not fun at all.
After playing any other class, it gets much more funner.

I went mostly with the elementalist, even with the nerf to many aspects of their play, it is a catful times better in terms of well.. everything.

Now, I put many hours on my ranger and I consider myself one of the best rangers, when it comes to WvWvW. However, they’re just… crappy.

I don’t really care about sPvP since there’s no real customization to my likings, so I have no comment on that. However, any class I play would decimate a ranger in sPvP.

Because the only real viable option is a melee build…

I wish Shortbow + Axe/Horn was powerful… or even Longbow + Sword/Horn

Longbow is boring as hell and quite lackluster, it needs to be revamped quite badly..

tldr: class is boring, underpowered and very lackluster.. which is sad because it can be fixed so easily.

buff both bows
buff and fix pets
relook at the traits, only a few need fixing
utility spells are fine for the most part, maybe tweak 2-3 that I can think of.

I played all the Beta’s and decided to main a ranger. I leveled it up to 80 (the 1st mmo I’ve played to hit max lvl mind you) It is fun, but I am lossing a good deal of interest in my ranger as there really aren’t a ton of build/trait options that seem to work well/ are effective or fun. Supposedly the class is being worked on (all classes should and most likely are being worked on as far as balence is concerned at all times) but so far the changes to the class seem a bit underwelming. I’ll hold my breath and be patient for some time as hopefully there will be more changes, not just to the numbers mind you.
PvP you can do ok, but it is tricky. I rolled a thief on a whim and in the 1st 5 games I found it easier to do well then with a class I was very experienced at. I usually can learn and be proficient with any class in an mmo and so I’m pretty confident the ranger needs a good look. It would be cool to have pro gw2 players to comment on balence.