Guild Wars 2

I agree that ranger is good at 1v1, but still not the Top1. Mesmer, thief, engi, necro and warrior all have good chance to win or tie a ranger when equally skilled.
And most important, Roaming =/= 1v1. 1v1 is just a small part of roaming. You will face a lot more 1vx or 1vz situation rather than 1v1 only, forget to mention that roaming doesn’t only mean kill but also mean escape anytime on demand. Ranger is just mediocre in this meaning.
In my opinion, ranger good at roaming is totally misleading.

I’ll agree that rangers aren’t as dominant as they used to be at roaming, but I don’t have a problem winning 1v1s or at least surviving to escape 1v1 or 1vX. I’d say the strength of the ranger in roaming is being able to do that, and efficiently solo camps and take out yak’s(which are being defended). That is how you’re being useful to your server. The dueling is the fun in between. Really, in that frame, a ranger roamer is unstoppable.

If i’m running my BM Bunker build, the only class right now that really scares me is a Necro.

Warriors use to be scary, but since the Skull Crack Nerf I can take them easier now.

Thieves usually aren’t that difficult, Though the fight is usually long as they just keep vanishing over and over till they make a mistake and my conditions eat them.

Engineer’s use to be scary, but After I started overloading with Spiders they’re not nearly as bad..probably nerfs also.

Mesmer’s have never been scary, They tend to go very heavy on the offense, and have good “Power Build” defense but don’t take Condition Removal often.. so I tend to just eat them alive.

As for being able to survive multiples, you can survive bad players in this game, It has nothing to do with Class…If you come across 2 equally skilled players in a 2v1, You will die..

This game is very heavily slanted towards having more people.

For solo roaming the ranger is great. I use a condition/healing build with BM if I solo which grants pretty quick kills or a more supporty build if I roam with other people.

For the 1vs1x the ranger is great because:

1. You can stomp easily ig you pop RaO or let your pet harass the downed person while you go for the other ones. Chances are you’ll still have stability for a second stomp. You can also stealth stomp with LB. But I agree other classes have an either time stomping (except necros).

2. One important factor for roaming is how fast you can escape. A skilled ranger wont be caught. The sword/dagger is extremely nice with all the evades + the now nerfed natural vigor rangers have is icing on the cake. The power ranger set is also pretty neat for escaping when you use LB+GS.

“I agree that ranger is good at 1v1, but still not the Top1. Mesmer, thief, engi, necro and warrior all have good chance to win or tie a ranger when equally skilled. "

Agree and disagree. There will always be counters. I cant touch a necro on my power build if he uses conditions but with my other roaming build they’re food. When it comes down to a 1vs1 there isn’t a real “top tier”. At least that’s my opnion, some builds have bigger advantages then others and might win. However I have no problems with fighting any class and I do not feel like a build is too strong. unless I’m fighting a tanky warr with healing signet. I actually want to finish the fight before the next server reset.

4. Selfress with the elite spirit. It’s hilarious and rewarding, especially if you get to kill the guy who downed you or is trying to run away from a zerg.

5. The strongest downmode in game. I’ve been able to interupt a stomp 6 times without trying too hard.

I’m intrested in what you think is the best roaming class. Ranger might not be the best one at stomping and escaping but is on good spot. I didnt bring up damage inflicting since it’s on par with other classes if you spike or do conditions.

and about 1vsz, one man versus zerg?

Idk man, take a longbow and a sword and you can juke for days…. One thing that’s fun to do is when you’re running away with LB3, stealth and then sick your pet on some ambient wild life and watch them run that way thinking you hit F3

I have plenty of other videos with 1v2 fights with ranger. Here’s one of me escaping a large group of people. Rangers, in the hands of skilled players, do just fine.

Tricare.2946:

I have plenty of other videos with 1v2 fights with ranger. Here’s one of me escaping a large group of people. Rangers, in the hands of skilled players, do just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkX6q_kV-s

Awesome man. That is only the second person I have seen able to do that with sword. I have tried numerous times to pull it off but it never ends up any faster than straight ahead running for me.

I can’t seem to not lose time when I try and turn around for the 1st backward jump …and don’t know where to begin to practice it properly. Would be a big boost to my potential builds because currently I need GS always for my mobility.

Make sure you have auto-target off and these are the steps.

1. Run the direction you want to go
2. Select a target behind you or even something you’re about to run past (rabbit ect.)
3. Use your #2 skill
4. Drop target
5. Make sure you’re facing/running the direction you want to go
6. Press #2 again.

No matter where your target is, the move will face your target and evade away from it.

Hey Rangers I must say is my favorite class. I have been roaming since game released and playing a ranger since beta. Take a look at my roaming vids. I uploaded one recently.

http://www.youtube.com/user/joeadams101

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Have fun!

-Chronix

Ranger can do well roaming because it is a strong condi duelist class. Most people in WvW don’t bring enough condi removal and you simply eat them alive.

A lot of it is skill level though. Sure you can 1v2, but you cannot if they are equally skilled as you. Because of tPvP balance, you will die to a 1v2 with decent people against you.

On Tricare’s note : You can also drop target, turn around very quickly, and complete the combo that way. You lose maybe a quarter second of run time if you do it that way.

Who said roaming was 1vX?

Rangers are great at 2+vX i.e team roaming.

Forzani.2584:

I can’t seem to not lose time when I try and turn around for the 1st backward jump …

The first jump is always away from your current target, so if you’re running away, and have a target selected behind you, hitting the skill will automatically have your ranger turn around to face the target, then jump back. The jump being slowish will give you plenty of time to turn the camera around again to turn and continue running after you landed (and use the second leap).

I can’t use that skill to gain any time while just running, but when chased, it’s easy to pull off. Extra points if you can use the second leap to cross a chasm.

Kinda agree with OP on this. Most classes can be good roamers with a good player using them. Necros and guardians do suffer from being too slow for solo roaming, IMO, but other than that I think any class is up for it in the right build.

Also I agree with Xsorus than 1vX situations really come down to how good your opponents are. We’ve all won 2v1, 3v1s, etc, but we’ve all lost 1v1s against the very same classes that we sometimes beat when outnumbered. You cant win outnumbered fights unless one or more of your opponents is significantly worse than you, or you are running a build that they are simply not able to deal with (and no decent roaming will be running a build which 100% cannot fight vs another build).

If anything, rangers are bad in 1vX fights because we lack good ways to stomp people. Just looking at Tricares video (purely because he posted it here, nothing personal :P) in that third fight he downs one guy and goes to stomp. The guy got res’ed too quickly so no stomp, and trying to do it half killed poor Tricare. That fight was lost there if it wasnt for another teammate coming in. Res’ing just heavily stacks the odds against you if outnumbered, especially if you cant stealth or invul stomp.

To me a good roamer needs to look at the big WvW picture constantly. You can’t simply roam around solo, prancing happily in the wilderness because you’re experienced and can beat down most people that you encounter. There will always be groups of enemies out there and the very occasional blobs. Roaming requires strategy, looking at the map and thinking: this is how I am going to support my world, this is where the enemy is at, this is how I will flank their approach, this is how I will avoid certain death, this is where I will risk my skin (or bark if you are a Sylvari like me) to flip a camp, or to put a dent in the enemy force’s supply runs, etc.

Ranger in my opinion can accomplish this task, much like other professions can, the key is whether or not you are skilled enough to fight in the middle of a supply camp against 1 or 2 enemies and survive and flip the supply camp. That’s the real skill required to be a successful roamer. Now if you need to run away from imminent danger, there is always a blue icon on the map that allows you to port back to your world’s home… and back to roaming again.

Question for those who actually roam (I mean I do sorta but it’s never solo) is it useful to use traps ( the universal WvW ones) at all?

Durzlla.6295:

Question for those who actually roam (I mean I do sorta but it’s never solo) is it useful to use traps ( the universal WvW ones) at all?

Very. Just keep in mind that you can have only one active at a time (or maybe one of each?), so don’t spam them: the old one will disappear…

Supply traps are precious to save some time against tower ninja’ing. A small/medium group hit by it won’t have enough supply left for 2 rams or kittenlowing them down considerably, giving more time to react. A zerg will still have supply, but even a single supply trap can be enough to slow them down a bit in a keep fight, lowering their remaining resources for inner. You can also drop the trap right behind the outer while it’s still there. Even if you leave immediately back to roaming, you’ll have contributed a fair bit to the defense.

As for the stealth traps, they’re hilarious. In a 1v1, don’t even try, you’ll just die, but if a nearby thief is ganking someone else and you can deploy the trap and bait the thief to it, it’s party time! Works a treat on stealth-spam thieves trolling groups. Or predict a place where a spotted thief may come through like the ‘lake’ supply camp narrow gate, or the south supply camp bridge. But my favourite is to drop it on a friendly sentry and wait there like an idiot. There’s always a thief spotting the free kill. From there, it’s your turn to laugh.

cafard.8953:

Forzani.2584:

I can’t seem to not lose time when I try and turn around for the 1st backward jump …

The first jump is always away from your current target, so if you’re running away, and have a target selected behind you, hitting the skill will automatically have your ranger turn around to face the target, then jump back. The jump being slowish will give you plenty of time to turn the camera around again to turn and continue running after you landed (and use the second leap).

I can’t use that skill to gain any time while just running, but when chased, it’s easy to pull off. Extra points if you can use the second leap to cross a chasm.

I bind the ‘about face’ button to (x) with ‘forward run’ bound to (w). It takes some practice to get the timing just right, but if you hit the about face while running and then tap hornet sting you’ll make a consistent leap in your running direction of 400 units with a slight gain on distance traveled vs just standard running (out of combat).

While your in the air use your mouse to fix the camera in your direction of travel and hit (w) to keep on running forward.

You’ll then have a few seconds to cast your 600 unit monarchs leap which is just pure distance gain. If your trying to run someone down select them before you leap and you’ll go right in their direction, bonus if your close enough to hit you’ll cripple.

If your running from someone its a good idea no to use the ‘about face’ for your hornet sting, but to instead use the ‘look behind’ camera function to select your pursuer. You’ll gain a fraction of a second by not stopping to turn around before you cast. Its kind of a pain, I usually forget.

On the contrary, I think your video is a good sample of ranger being not good at escaping.
You did a great job at the begining when you 1v1 and 1v2, you simply overplayed them. However, when more enemy came, most of them were just not focusing on you but your teammate (was killed eventually), only a guardian is fighting you.
In fact, you might already have time to simply WP back when they were killing your teammate but you choose to stay. I would say it’s a dangerous decision. Luckily none of them are real roamer (good roamers usually have very good chasing ability such as Warrior, Thief or engi), it was the guardian with a hammer/GS(which is well-known bad for roaming) who caught you once. If one more immobilization or cripple land on you, I guess you were over.
However, a thief or warrior roamer will have 0 problem to get out of combat like that(or even closer and dangerer) , and mesmer or engi can also get out of combat in higher chance and with lower risk.
I am not saying it’s not doable for a ranger to do that, but there are classes who can do better and easier.
In this point, in my opinion, ranger is just mediocre roamer. It’s a class for fun, but you just can’t take it seriously in a competitive level.

Tricare.2946:

I have plenty of other videos with 1v2 fights with ranger. Here’s one of me escaping a large group of people. Rangers, in the hands of skilled players, do just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkX6q_kV-s

Tricare.2946:

Make sure you have auto-target off and these are the steps.

1. Run the direction you want to go
2. Select a target behind you or even something you’re about to run past (rabbit ect.)
3. Use your #2 skill
4. Drop target
5. Make sure you’re facing/running the direction you want to go
6. Press #2 again.

No matter where your target is, the move will face your target and evade away from it.

watched the vid. you’re a decent player, but you got lucky to get away from that group and you know it. also, the post I’m quoting basically highlights a gimmicky way to move around the battlefield and only reinforces the need for better forms of movement to stay more competitive in wvw.