Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying I speak solely for myself. I realize people aren’t going to necessarily agree with me, but I need to get this off my chest.

This class, more than any other class in this game, is awful. The two major gripes I have are its complexity and overall value to a group.

I realize the melee weapons are a bit more interactive and engaging, but most of us who play this class like to embrace the range in RANGEr. Why then are both the shrotbow and longbow so boring to play? All anyone does with either set is run around in circles autoattacking targets. There’s no flare, no interactivity, and no fun.

Shortbow: This weapon is very weak overall and lends itself to condition damage. It’s fast rate of fire actually makes it do better damage than the Longbow even with a power build, but the skill choices for it are redundant and ineffective. Since none of the skills do damage they just don’t feel very interactive or fun to use. It’s kind of like a dagger/dagger Elementalist where a novice can run in and just use anything when it’s off cooldown and be moderately successful.
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Poison Volley provides a debuff that already has limited real value in this game. It’s effectively just another bleed and it feels like something you just use because it’s up and not because it’s actually effective at doing its job.

Quick Shot is valuable, and is the main reason I use the shortbow, but it’s also quite ineffective. It often doesn’t leap backwards nullifying its whole function. It’s on a long cooldown when contrasted against the Thief class. It’s a mobility skill on a class that lacks real mobility.

Concussive and Crippling Shot are effectively the same exact skill. They’re used primarily for the same function, in the same ways, and rarely do I care/want/need to make use of the daze/stun for anything more than a gap closer/opener.
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Longbow: This weapon suffers from much the same thing as the shortbow. Since none of the skills really do any burst damage, they all feel like ‘meh… more auto attacks’. It’s even worse because one of the skills is effectively doing just that!

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Rapid fire is nothing but autoattack at a slightly faster speed. It’s still very weak and makes you wonder why I wasn’t just using shortbow instead since it hits for about half the damage, but fires 3 times as fast. Since rapid fire doesn’t really produce much burst to speak of, I’m just using it to use it.

Hunter’s Shot was awful before. Now it’s a DPS loss but provides stealth. I only used it for about 20minutes but it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be while I sat at work all day dying to get home to try it out. Since it’s new, I’m not going to pass judgement but overall it wasn’t enough to make longbow viable.

Pointblank shot is effective. Probably the best attack available for either bow. It does no real damage and probably isn’t any more or less useful as a defensive tool than quickshot.

Barrage is nice and is the saving grace of the entire weapon when you can find 4 other rangers who want to lay down the pain. It really is a good skill, just takes too long to use and its effects are too short to use outside of a supported group.
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THERE’S JUST NO EXCITEMENT ABOUT THIS CLASS! I literally do nothing but strafe in circles auto attacking things until they eventually die from boredom. This class doesn’t provide any real pressure because there’s no burst to speak of. It doesn’t provide any real peeling because the snares/stuns aren’t very long lasting. It can’t push because the skills are mostly all single target.

This class desperately needs some real burst attacks to provide pressure on the enemy. It needs to have a viable option outside of condition damage and regen builds because these builds are only effective because condition damage is a 1 stat function. If they ever get around to balancing conditions in this game, the Ranger will have nothing left.

Again these are my complaints with this class. I personally find it very monotonous and boring to play. I run full apothecary in your typical condition/regen build and do quite well. I have a typical power build and have fun when playing with a couple other rangers in a group while a zerg can act as out buffer. But it gets stale real quick.

I find the class’s complete lack of burst, interactivity, and depth just sucking the fun out of the class and game.

Again… these are my opinions. Thank you for letting me vent.

anet just doesnt know what the kitten they’re doing with this class

So you tested longbow in the same amount of time it takes me to eat lunch and, after your thorough testing, it simply wasn’t up to your standards?

Chopps.5047:

So you tested longbow in the same amount of time it takes me to eat lunch and, after your thorough testing, it simply wasn’t up to your standards?

I strongly suggest you try reading posts before responding to them. I very specifically said that hunter’s shot is new and I reserve judgement. It wasn’t ‘fun’, I know that much because after 20minutes I was done. But is it a valuable addition to the class? Remains to be seen… I said as much.

Beyond that not much else has changed with the class where you can’t simply extrapolate their impact on the class before the patch and after. It’s not going to take 100 hours to figure out how vuln on rapid fire and 300 additional yards on point blank are going to play out.

Atherakhia.4086:

THERE’S JUST NO EXCITEMENT ABOUT THIS CLASS! I literally do nothing but strafe in circles auto attacking things until they eventually die from boredom. This class doesn’t provide any real pressure because there’s no burst to speak of. It doesn’t provide any real peeling because the snares/stuns aren’t very long lasting. It can’t push because the skills are mostly all single target.

This class desperately needs some real burst attacks to provide pressure on the enemy. It needs to have a viable option outside of condition damage and regen builds because these builds are only effective because condition damage is a 1 stat function. If they ever get around to balancing conditions in this game, the Ranger will have nothing left.

Just from reading these two paragraphs, I can’t seem to figure out why you chose Ranger as a profession. A thief would have fulfilled your desires if your looking for burst.

If you want burst you’re playing the wrong prof, thief IS burst, ranger is SUSTAIN, if you want burst you’ve come to the wrong place.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Atherakhia.4086:

THERE’S JUST NO EXCITEMENT ABOUT THIS CLASS! I literally do nothing but strafe in circles auto attacking things until they eventually die from boredom. This class doesn’t provide any real pressure because there’s no burst to speak of. It doesn’t provide any real peeling because the snares/stuns aren’t very long lasting. It can’t push because the skills are mostly all single target.

This class desperately needs some real burst attacks to provide pressure on the enemy. It needs to have a viable option outside of condition damage and regen builds because these builds are only effective because condition damage is a 1 stat function. If they ever get around to balancing conditions in this game, the Ranger will have nothing left.

Just from reading these two paragraphs, I can’t seem to figure out why you chose Ranger as a profession. A thief would have fulfilled your desires if your looking for burst.

I am a Thief now… or was anyway. But the reason I made the Thief was exactly for the reasons you mentioned. It’s just more interactive. Even low burst wouldn’t be so bad if this class was more than auto-attacking 90% of the time and 9% of the rest made up of me using skills for no other reason than they’re on cooldown.

But like I said in the OP, I’m setting myself up for failure because I want the Shortbow and Longbow to live up to more than ANet appears they want them to. Axe mainhand is fun and the off-hand options give some variety. But I made a ranger to use a bow to begin with and the class just never lived up to it.

For me anyway.

Durzlla.6295:

If you want burst you’re playing the wrong prof, thief IS burst, ranger is SUSTAIN, if you want burst you’ve come to the wrong place.

Every class is capable of some burst. This is a PvP game… the only damage that’s valuable is the kind that can provide pressure. There are only 2 ways to do that: burst and AE. The ranger just doesn’t have any. The little it does provide is pet reliant and we know how that works out in WvW with the zergs.

One thing I gotta say, ranger is the only prof that stayed true to the original Combat aspect of GW2 (surprise surprise, least edited one), it’s damage comes from auto attacking and then its utility/support comes from activating your other skills, which hurts your DPS, so if all you want is top Damage (because god knows why that’s “fun”) then you won’t be doing kitten. But in PvP there’s still a lot of interaction, and real PvE (not speed run), so there’s that.

All that being said, I’m giving my engi a lot more love again (idk why I stopped) because it provides a lot more of that thing everyone hates called CC.

Atherakhia.4086:

Durzlla.6295:

If you want burst you’re playing the wrong prof, thief IS burst, ranger is SUSTAIN, if you want burst you’ve come to the wrong place.

Every class is capable of some burst. This is a PvP game… the only damage that’s valuable is the kind that can provide pressure. There are only 2 ways to do that: burst and AE. The ranger just doesn’t have any. The little it does provide is pet reliant and we know how that works out in WvW with the zergs.

You’re right, this is a PvP game which is why you’re wrong, you can also do sustained damage and shut down the enemies attempts to kill you and save themselves and do just as well, if not better, just because burst is the easiest method to perform doesn’t mean it’s the only, let alone best, method.

Sounds like you just dont enjoy the way the class plays, rather than there nessesarily being something wrong with it.

Its good that different classes play differently. What would be boring is if every class was different on the surface but underneath all worked on the same basic idea.

If you dont like how the ranger works thats fine, but just saying its working and therefore rubish is very narrow minded because clearly many other people like how the ranger is.

I think that too many new rangers are a little overly dependent on bows.

Try playing with the sword and greatsword. The sword is a very fun weapon, though it is rather difficult to master. It has high damage output and it can be paired nicely with all of our off hand weapons.

The greatsword is a fantastic overall weapon. In wvw, it works great as a swap-out weapon due to the swoop skill which is perfect for gap closing and escaping. Now that we can stealth ourselves with the long bow, swoop is even better than ever. Counterattack and hilt bash are also extremely useful.

In my experience, bows are best paired with a melee weapon. Melee weapons can cleave, and our melee weapons have built in evades.

Try experimenting a bit more with other ranger weapons before giving up on the class.

almost every ranger weapons is awesome counting out maybe offhand axe which you cannot whurl while moving.

generally easiest class to play even a total muppet can kill stuff while playing a ranger.

all weapon combinations are general faceroll however you use them, it’s almost impossible to use them wrong no matter what traits you pick. only thing you can go wrong is pick following spirits and not use spirits.

granted in pvp you might lose to some competent opponents but can’t always win everything.