Guild Wars 2

Ah! I see now.
I could done a better job of being more clear.

I’m not really trying to say ‘L2P’.
That is to say, I was hoping to offer some advice without necessarily trying to blame all people’s current woes on it. I’m actually pretty critical of certain elements of ranger in other threads, so I kind of just assumed that would carry over here, and it would go without saying what I was talking about wasn’t some kind of miracle solution and that I agree people have some legitimate reasons to woe. (Generally I’m pretty moderate about this stuff; I believe firmly Ranger’s conceptually sound and a small selection of builds are solid, but I’m not about to downplay the seriousness of the obvious menagerie of bugs and hiccups either.) So, hopefully with that background, my post seems less like an accusation and more just general normal advice?

/sigh.
I’m sorry I likened your discontent to childish behavior. I’m just getting kind of irritated with the negativity around lately. I think I hit my ‘urine-soaked cheerios’ limit like a week ago, and I’m a handful of ‘overly-dramatic doomsday hysteria’ posts away from telling somebody off.

It made me a bit defensive to make a stab at normalcy and say something I thought was normal banal helpful stuff just to sudden get involved in the topic I didn’t think I was actually contributing to. It was a completely reasonable take on your part, though, and you were just trying to continue the conversation I didn’t mean to start. I’m sorry I reacted so rudely.

First time sorry for my english.

And guys, i dont know how u play our rangers, but my ranger is great. I have problem only with 2 characters: mesmer and thief (who dosnt)

U said no dm: my dm with rapid fire – 8+k …. normal hit max range: 2k+
survivel: 2,6k armor … have signet of stone (6 sec immortality), have signet of renewal (all condi down) … zephyr (great burst dm with rapid fire)

i dont play sPvP, i play only WvW

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Dear Players who have issues with Ranger.
Stop relying on your pet. That’s a start.

Pets can help you take agro. you can set traps and tell your pet to come to you, luring enemies to your traps. That’s just 1 example. But seriously there are tons of other strategies that I can come up with, including yourself, if you just read the skills your weapons give you, including your utilities.

I’ll give you 1 example with LongBow and ShortBow with Utility skills combo:
You can start off with LongBow Skill5 to cripple/damage enemy. Then when enemy gets closer, you can Knowckback enemy by using Skill4. Then you can take enemy’s Defense down with Skill3, Giving you the opening to use Skill2 for Lots of damage.
If your pet has agro, You can do this and help your pet take less damage while dealing damage yourself.

Now you can Weapon Swap to ShortBow and use Skill1 for Auto-attks to do damage quicker. If enemy is attking pet, use Skill5 to daze it for a short time. But if enemy is chasing you, Use skill4 to Cripple Enemy and Dodge as your moving. If you run out of stamina and u still have agro, use Skill3 to dodge again, which will also give you Swiftness for quicker movement speed to evade attks with movement. If your pet dies, use F4 to swap your pet.

If enemy is still chasing you after you summoned New pet, Set a Spike Trap and Flaming trap to Damage/Cripple enemy, then swap to LongBow and Knowck enemy back, Take down it’s defense, Deal tons of damage with skill2 and stay on ur toes.

You can use a Utility skill “Forgot name” that helps you get Endurance quicker to dodge faster and it will also roll your backwards. Pretty neat.

This is just 1 example. 1 Strategy. 1 Set.

Sorry if I didnt Name any skills… I cant remember the Skill names by heart. But Only remember the icons and skill#s.. lol

This post is getting too long… Sorry about that!

Or you can roll warrior and oneshot the mob with hundred blades…..

The is nothing wrong with the class as a whole. I do well in spvp as well as orr and lost shores. Ranger have a lot of buggy stuff but nothing that can be over come.

Doe it make sense that warriors do more damge with a bow than a ranger actually yes. warrior a big burly types so they are stronger. Pulling back harder on the bow string translating into more damge.

I have always felt ranger are more skilled and are smarter than the average class (maybe not as smart as an ele but more so than a thief or guardian and we all know alot of warrior are just rocks).

Ranger are the jack of all trades. People cry about pet not working they work just not the way you think they should. If someone is running from my pet then 9 times out of ten they are not doing thier job. Pet cant hit a moving target use a ranger pet or the spider with its range para venom.

Learn thy craft.

My pet’s can chill, bleed, paralize, bleed, poison, give boons, heal, res and cause confusion.

My pet can sacrafice itself and lead mobs away as it attack a distant monster. So I can do what i need to: mine orichalcum, res the fallen or just bypass mobs.

Some classes do better bleed damge and bleed is capped at 25 so you dont what to push thier bleed off. So use fire the warhorn is great and stacks in duration.

Yes I know its a pain to use the short bow and the warhorn so dont.

we have other weopan like the axe and sword.

Yes the sword one skill roots u with auto attack. So dont be mindless and use auto attack take more control of your character.

The ranger can overcome anything there isnt a class that I have to second guess myself if I meet them in pvp.

I have lost my share of battle but simple put there isnt a class that consistantly beats me.

The best advice I can give is put away whatever notion you think a ranger is.
Look at all the things a ranger can do.

Dont just look at the rare damge numbers becuase opponents are not training dummies they are not going to just stand there(unless you cc them) and let you wail on them.

I mean I have been hit for 17k plus damage(thieves mainly) and still was able kill my opponent.

Are there things that could be better that could be said of any other class.
Are there issue yes but again every class has issues. Some of what you people complain about are not exclusive to the rangers.

If they never fixed any of the things that are wrong with the ranger would I stop playing one.

Hell no.

Once you have discovered your own weaknesses and learn to overcome them and then intern learned to exploit the weakness in you enemy. Its very hard to look back much less start over.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Doe it make sense that warriors do more damge with a bow than a ranger actually yes. warrior a big burly types so they are stronger. Pulling back harder on the bow string translating into more damge.
.

Yes and being able to shoot fireballs out of your kitten, create illusionary warriors that move through walls to mow down foes, raise the dead to do your bidding, or be a 3-foot tall Asura that hits as hard as a giant savage Charr also makes sense…..

Vox – no worries.

Serraphin – not going to quote your whole post, but just some points:

Someone running from your pet is not doing their job? Unlike pets, most players can attack/cast while on the move. And I rarely see this. Mostly because if a pet is in melee range and the enemy is already fighting someone else, hits on the pet are basically “free” since nearly every melee attack hits multiple targets.

Pets are good for gathering and other non combat tasks? Hardly, you know how I gather with my thief in a dangerous area – shadow refuge and maybe a shadowstep is its really dangerous. Other classes can do similar distractions.

And furthermore, pets are actually terrible at getting random aggro and slowing you down. To the extent I have to keep mine constantly stowed.

Turn autoattack off on sword? Why is it ranger is the only class that has to do this? I can’t believe how many people are trying to pass this off as a feature and not a bug.

And as I’ve said before, sure, you can find the optimal combination of skills we currently have. But those optimal skill use patterns don’t necessarily match up to other classes – and I’m not taking raw damage alone. Every skill ranger has that there is a parallel in thieves, thieves get better. And about damage, well, ultimately, the lowering of the health bar is the objective in any combat… when there’s a damage gap, that can’t be ignored.

Elviiira.2987:

First time sorry for my english.

And guys, i dont know how u play our rangers, but my ranger is great. I have problem only with 2 characters: mesmer and thief (who dosnt)

U said no dm: my dm with rapid fire – 8+k …. normal hit max range: 2k+
survivel: 2,6k armor … have signet of stone (6 sec immortality), have signet of renewal (all condi down) … zephyr (great burst dm with rapid fire)

i dont play sPvP, i play only WvW

You’re hitting that stuff on 80- glass cannons probably post a video if i’m wong because i’ve never seen my rapid fire hit more than 5k

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Sorry, Ranger is epic and awesome and in PvE very Over Powered and amazing.
Anyone who says “Its bad” dont know how to play the class. Because (A) they either are not good at it or (B) never played it.

Are you even level80?
Have you even touched a dungeon?
Have you even touched sPvP?

Joiry.2504:

Vox – no worries.

Turn autoattack off on sword? Why is it ranger is the only class that has to do this? I can’t believe how many people are trying to pass this off as a feature and not a bug.

You dont have to turn auto attack off. However you can get more use out of the weopan with it off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNuv4T8J1I

Having more control isnt a bad thing just cuz other class dont have to take auto attack off is not a reason for you not too.

It basiclly come down to the player. Some people like things easy and will by pass an obsticles. Like skipping the Lt in AC. Some people dont mind if they have to try and try again to overcome a problem. Those that do become problems solver and in this case players. Overcoming the sword issue will lead you to playing better.

Its little things like this that promt people to say learn to play better. I wont go that far. However If you are up for a challenge and a ready to step up you game in even the smallest why play the ranger. If you want it easy play something else.

The main point is that rangers are not bad. We are not other classes we do things in different ways.

OP, in addition to all that has been said, I think if you level a warrior, guardian or ele to level 6 or so you will immediately notice the huge difference in power. To be honest I was surprised myself when I did this.

With warrior you’ll see that hundred blades just decimates mobs, the axe twirl is amazing, and the ranged options are top notch.

With guardian the damage is a little lower than warrior, but the greatsword has wonderful combos you can pull off, and you can still kite really well with scepter, not to mention hammer is awesome (the damage is also way higher than ranger).

Ele in fire attunement just rips through mobs, their aoe is far more powerful than any single target ranger skill. They have amazing interesting skills, and even for 1 skill point you get things like “signet of storm” and “arcane blast” which just do huge damage, not to mention the combo fields and finishers you can pull off. If you run with a warrior you’ll also notice amazing synergy that you just don’t get with a ranger, and you will really noice your contribution to the group.

Other than raw power, all these classes share something that the ranger lacks- a feeling of really contributing to a group and flashy exciting skills and gameplay.

In closing I would say that considered in a vacuum ranger is not bad at all, but once you compare it to the other classes in the game you’ll notice that it is mediocre on many levels.

Yasha.5963:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Dear Players who have issues with Ranger.
Stop relying on your pet. That’s a start.

Pets can help you take agro. you can set traps and tell your pet to come to you, luring enemies to your traps. That’s just 1 example. But seriously there are tons of other strategies that I can come up with, including yourself, if you just read the skills your weapons give you, including your utilities.

I’ll give you 1 example with LongBow and ShortBow with Utility skills combo:
You can start off with LongBow Skill5 to cripple/damage enemy. Then when enemy gets closer, you can Knowckback enemy by using Skill4. Then you can take enemy’s Defense down with Skill3, Giving you the opening to use Skill2 for Lots of damage.
If your pet has agro, You can do this and help your pet take less damage while dealing damage yourself.

Now you can Weapon Swap to ShortBow and use Skill1 for Auto-attks to do damage quicker. If enemy is attking pet, use Skill5 to daze it for a short time. But if enemy is chasing you, Use skill4 to Cripple Enemy and Dodge as your moving. If you run out of stamina and u still have agro, use Skill3 to dodge again, which will also give you Swiftness for quicker movement speed to evade attks with movement. If your pet dies, use F4 to swap your pet.

If enemy is still chasing you after you summoned New pet, Set a Spike Trap and Flaming trap to Damage/Cripple enemy, then swap to LongBow and Knowck enemy back, Take down it’s defense, Deal tons of damage with skill2 and stay on ur toes.

You can use a Utility skill “Forgot name” that helps you get Endurance quicker to dodge faster and it will also roll your backwards. Pretty neat.

This is just 1 example. 1 Strategy. 1 Set.

Sorry if I didnt Name any skills… I cant remember the Skill names by heart. But Only remember the icons and skill#s.. lol

This post is getting too long… Sorry about that!

Or you can roll warrior and oneshot the mob with hundred blades…..

Hundred Blades dont always oneshot.
Also, Problem with that skill is it takes “Control” away from you. Meaning you’ll take damage. That’s a risk depending on the combat situation. Specially in dungoens and champions. But I like to use “Endure Pain” which allows me to take No Damage for 5 seconds when using Hundred Blades. But Normally I try to only use it when I dont have agro so I can evade and dodge while using the other skills for damage.

Again, it takes skills and timing. Spamming skills on normal monsters? Sure!
But in Dungoens? Noo… Just No…

Again, its all based on fast pace strategy. Thinking and using the right skills on the fly for any class. Not all about DPS.

I like my ranger even with its faults, sure other classes do more damage and are better designed but in dungeons I always seem to take my ranger before other classes.

The 2 main things I would change if I could are:

Bow damage. You think of a ranger you think of a character with a bow, so why don’t rangers have the highest ranged damage out of all the classes?

And the 2nd : If I put the pet away, it should stay away even in combat unless I get it out, not hidden and as soon as I get hit it auto appears. There are occasions when having a pet is more of a hindrance than a help. If the rangers damage is offset by the pet, then it would be nice to be able to choose to put the pet away and have a damage buff that you lose when the pet is out.

In WvWvW the ranger pet is next to useless 50% of the time, if you are attacking or defending a tower or keep the pet just stands there unable to do anything, in cases like that I would much rather have no pet and a buff to my damage to offset the lack of pet.

On a side note, I would love to know why the ‘obstructed’ bug hasn’t been fixed yet, altho I said I prefer my ranger in dungeons, the opposite is true for Ascalonian Catacombs … in there I am next to useless as I can’t hit the burrows.

I think as somebody mentioned.. do not rely on your pet. To me they are there for bonus damage and that’s it, they are fairly useless at holding any aggro. It doesn’t matter if I send the pet in to attack first or not.. the mobs always run to me.

With that being said, I start with the LB, nail them with skill 3, then proceed with rapid fire. This takes them down to about 20% health, combine that with the knock back, they are usually dead before they reach me. If they are not dead by this point, i swap to SB, cripple them and kite till they are dead.

If I’m running around by myself, the only trap I use is the elite skill root trap (for when I encounter large mobs), root them and AoE them down. If I’m in groups, I replace the root trap with whatever that stability fury elite skill is. I have really no problem with soloing any mobs in the game (except champions of course lol)

I only have a ranger though so far so I’m unfamiliar with exactly how much better a warrior is, but I will be rolling a warrior next.

The changes I’d like to see for the Ranger are:

- The obstructed problem addressed (happens far to often despite nothing in the way)
- Rangers theoretically should be doing more overall damage with bows than every other class, whether it be doing more damage per hit or just over attack speed increase
- Less damage reliance on pets, and pets given more survivability with a little bit better aggro control

DeadlySynz.3471:

I think as somebody mentioned.. do not rely on your pet. To me they are there for bonus damage and that’s it, they are fairly useless at holding any aggro. It doesn’t matter if I send the pet in to attack first or not.. the mobs always run to me.

With that being said, I start with the LB, nail them with skill 3, then proceed with rapid fire. This takes them down to about 20% health, combine that with the knock back, they are usually dead before they reach me. If they are not dead by this point, i swap to SB, cripple them and kite till they are dead.

If I’m running around by myself, the only trap I use is the elite skill root trap (for when I encounter large mobs), root them and AoE them down. If I’m in groups, I replace the root trap with whatever that stability fury elite skill is. I have really no problem with soloing any mobs in the game (except champions of course lol)

I only have a ranger though so far so I’m unfamiliar with exactly how much better a warrior is, but I will be rolling a warrior next.

The changes I’d like to see for the Ranger are:

- The obstructed problem addressed (happens far to often despite nothing in the way)
- Rangers theoretically should be doing more overall damage with bows than every other class, whether it be doing more damage per hit or just over attack speed increase
- Less damage reliance on pets, and pets given more survivability with a little bit better aggro control

Looks like you’re doing well. =)
Pet is nice for bonus damage and Bonus agro control. Even though you’ll still get agro, it helps a lot. As a Warrior using Bow, you dont have that, so you’ll be more on a constant run while shooting. Still fun though.

I enjoy both Ranger and Warrior.

You get one of these for every profession. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means you don’t like it.

I will be honest. Im pretty new on this game… only rank 17 at spvp and I will tell u guys, I’m having tons of fun with my ranger..

Those that say rangers are bad and complain about how bad their abilities are only show how bad they are at playing the ranger.

I consider my self a newb on this game and im being first 3 almost every spvp match I play. My strat? Simple. I read about my class, practice different specs and create new specs by myself according to my playstyle and I have tons of fun. Rangers are great when people learn how to use them. Complaining wont make u better… but worst.

When u understand the problem is not the ranger but instead the way u play it then you will become a better ranger.

Ranger is bad because A-net pointed at us and said we are a pet class first.

Some of us, like myself, wanted to play as RANGERS first with a pet sidekick. How effective that pet is was SUPPOSED to be on how we spend our trait points: on us or on the pet. I spend points on my pet and my pet does more for me. The downside is I am not specializing in myself.

So personally, I wanted to spend points on ME to make myself more effective and use the pet as the sidekick. The reality is my pet is a LARGE portion of my total effectiveness from step 1. So there really isn’t a choice. I can’t be the master explorer ranger..I’m pet class.

The last thing I wanted was for a large portion of my DPS to be controlled by an NPC AI. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened. The sad truth is your enemies can ALWAYS exploit an AI and defeat it. In the end it is a string of code with a pattern. Anyone can eventually figure out how it works and get around it. When they do say goodbye to half your effectiveness.

Rangers are bad before the dec 14th patch.. They do somewhat decent now i actually get at least 15 kills on spvp on my ranger and 20+ on a good day, but they are still far from being considered good due to couple bugs, no high damage burst and longbow being terrible.

Condition damage ranger and tank ranger are superb atm though.

There are some nice burst builds but they rely on pet.

@ OP question.

1. Pets have a lot of trouble attacking on the run. So, in PvP, they will chase someone around, but not really do a whole lot to them.

2. Pets are ridiculously squishy. when in a sizable fight in PvP, or in an instance, a ranger pet is usually dead in the first 5-10 seconds, leaving us underpowered.

3. Spirits are even squishier than pets. Plus their buffs are terrible. People want to use spirits, but can’t, because they’re awful.

4. Longbows, which many people including myself want to use, are really bad in WvW unless you are with a zerg. Let’s face facts here, you could be level 30 in all blues with empty traits and you’d be fine running with the zerg. But, to roam solo or in small skirmish 2v2s and whatnot, glass cannon longbow is crap. It has gotten quite a bit better since the last patch, but it isn’t quite there yet.

That’s where a lot of the complaints come from. I, for one, adapted. Of course, once I got to level 80, got full berserker gear, and realized very quickly that my long bow crit build was crap in small WvW situations, I cried. Once the tears stopped, I adapted, changed gear and specs and I am just fine. But still, I would like to stand a chance in a solo fight against a good player with my longbow. Is that too much to ask? =)

I just hate how ranger fights with a sword….this is the main reason why I don’t use one-handed sword anymore.

I do, and have for over a month now, use a 1h sword in WvW. Once I got comfortable with the “stickiness” of auto attack, I learned to adapt with it. For starters, if/when someone has the notion to run away from me, I really don’t have to do anything but wait for them to realize it isn’t going to happen. The “unresponsiveness” of the auto attack actually keeps me locked on someone AND keep them crippled as they try and move.

Other than that, I rarely get screwed by not being able to dodge or anything any more because I just hit the escape key and dodge roll out or swap weapons. Trying to learn to play with the animation lock actually made me better at using the weapon because instead of waiting to NEED a dodge roll but being locked by my auto attack, I found that I was more mobile in a fight. The result of being “all over the place” actually improved my fight win percentage.

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

Rangers trying to play like warriors are bad. Rangers trying to play like they’re any other class but rangers are bad (need t3h big numberz plox).

Rangers that play like rangers are good. My view of it is that we’re not as good at straight up tanking as other classes. guardians can do that, Necros to an extent, im sure some others- but the difference is rangers can balance excellent survivability with damage, which the other bunker classes can’t even really finish off other players.
THAT is our trademark, along with imo the most offensive condition combinations. Lots of bleeding, burning, poison, chill…while other classes get weakness, and some cripple, and some blind(wow, 1 attack. cool), etc that help them but our conditions are for killing while theirs are more to mess with you. Pets also come into play here, giving you access to things supposed to be specialties for other classes (wolf’s fear, for example) or to supplement what you already do (more chill, more bleeding, more burning).

1. trait for surviability, and traps
2. kill with conditions
3. ???
4. profit

There’s fancier ways of killing, but our simple way of killing you with traps and conditions and…well pretty much just the shortbow work just fine

Yes lets all be forced to use condition builds. I like not having other options.

Why is Ranger Bad?
1.oh its easy cause of pet they useless, why? cause they die they always die and they rly bad at hitting running foes. In www you pet will be dead in 5 sec if, in cpvp ranged do zero damage melee just chasing target trying to hit it and sometimes they even hit!!! in dungeons pets live to first aoe, so mostly i don’t even bother to swap dead pets and its rly funny cause main thing i want anet to do with ranger is to give him buttom hide pet even in combat and give some trait like +20% damage when pet is hidden.
2.No boon control when u see thats some guard buff himself with tons of buffs u cant do anything with that.
3.Spirits they even worst then pets they die in 2 sec why we cant kill warrior flags? or shouts? have u ever see rangers in spirits?
4.Bow attacks miss alot from distance and not cause enemy dodge it, just cause he runs

Clovis.7386:

Yes lets all be forced to use condition builds. I like not having other options.

I am not a PvP monster but I’ve run into Mud Hooks’ GC ranger build on WvW and it’s something of a terror when done right (curse you, lifesteal food). I am not in this subforum often, do people dismiss this build out of hand?

I keep toying with the idea of leveling a ranger next over my thief; because I am always surprised by how effective good rangers are. And I always laugh when I think I’ve cornered a ranger and suddenly they become a feral perma-evade ball of fury with a sword while also turning me into the neglected homeless bird lady from Home Alone 2.

Also, it seems like some people are under the mistaken impression that Ranger is an awful class. It really does just seem like Necro, in that it’s almost done. If you’d like to see a class that really is broken right now and has a dubious future, go level an Engineer. Remember to bottle and sell the excess despair, because your tears will come gushing forth.

Joiry.2504:

Turn autoattack off on sword? Why is it ranger is the only class that has to do this? I can’t believe how many people are trying to pass this off as a feature and not a bug.

Most good melee classes do this. It’s only ranged weapons that should be left on auto-attack. For example, thieves with auto-attack on don’t land backstabs reliably and tend to break stealth. D/D elementalists who leave auto-attack on tend to miss casting times and fail combos by mere milliseconds. Mesmers also tend not to auto-attack, as standing still like a frightened deer is actually a good strategy for a mesmer in a field of clones.

So no, Ranger would not be the only class to do that. It does seem to me like they’re one of the classes where it’s more important to do that, though.

KirinDave.6451:

For example, thieves with auto-attack on don’t land backstabs reliably and tend to break stealth.

Failed attacks(aircutting) don’t break stealth. Auto-attack in stealth = backstab. It’s virtually impossible to not land a backstab when stealthed unless your foe evades/blocks/becomes invulnerable.

There is an easy PvE fix to pets dying so fast. This is an issue in almost every other game out there, well, WAS. The fix? Pets now have a passive that decreases AoE damage by 90%, since they can’t avoid it. This way, in PvP, if someone wants to focus fire on a pet, it won’t effect it in PvP but will be perfect for PvE. Why this hasn’t been implemented yet is beyond me. The AoE damage in this game is downright insane. I don’t even like being melee in this game at all because of the low survival rate of melee.