Guild Wars 2

I have been playing ranger and I’m having a lot of fun, both in solo and in PUG commander groups.
Now i see a lot of necros playing life blast with pierce on a damage dealer role, mostly in guild groups (I’m assuming organized).

Why not ranger with piercing arrows?

Necro provides A LOT more to the group than just piercing life blasts.

But to your actual question, a Ranger could. The downfall is retaliation though as RF through a crowd will end up getting you killed surprisingly fast. It doesn’t have the same impact on Necros because they’re in Deathshroud and generate life force with life transfer.

What more does a necro provide to the group with that kind of build? (not trolling)

I found this build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmWarpx2G+bToLUQvmBQKE1EQ9Y0FLLA-TlCBABmq+TN6OWSJmCm4wS5hEKBB4BAI1+DMckAC4iAQKAmEGB-w

The focus seems to be damage, even considering Well of Corruption (pretty nice utility), it has a big cooldown for a static skill.

The wells do more than just damage. They also strip boons. If you take chilling shadows they also spam AE chill. As does plague form. The Necro is also very sturdy thanks to 40+k effective health.

Staff allows for AE regen, a poison field, a AE chill, unblockable fear. Blast finisher etc.

Has quite a lot of utility.

Ah, i wasnt paying much attention to conditions, so much cleanse they are pretty much useless.

Porknails.3415:

Ah, i wasnt paying much attention to conditions, so much cleanse they are pretty much useless.

There is a lot of cleanse, sure. But the condis the Necro provides are on pulsing fields so they just reapply in many cases. Dropping Darkness on a melee train push that pulses chill and blind is quite powerful.

Necros are master of boon manipulation— they can corrupt boons and also transfer their own conditions to people which can be pretty destructive in the right hands. Some particularly skilled ones try to seek out the enemy driver for a corrupt boon. In addition some necros like to abuse chills/blinds.

But this is apples and oranges. Rangers and necros are capable of different things— rangers obviously being better at delivering ranged pressure because necros have no good ranged AA/short cooldown attack outside of Death Shroud, but necro corrupts and bursts are just more valuable when it comes to zergs.

Atherakhia.4086:

Porknails.3415:

Ah, i wasnt paying much attention to conditions, so much cleanse they are pretty much useless.

There is a lot of cleanse, sure. But the condis the Necro provides are on pulsing fields so they just reapply in many cases. Dropping Darkness on a melee train push that pulses chill and blind is quite powerful.

If you think thats good try frost trap… much higher chill uptime (up to 4 sec a pulse) and much less cooldown. Dont forget pulsing traps are something rangers are good at too. Pulsing viper trap keeps the damage on and the heals minimalized while flame trap with the ridiculous low cool down keeps the fires burnin’…

Trapper rangers have a great place in wvw too. Maybe not as essential as boon stripping/corrupting but once you have that covered they add lots. Diversity!

Yup, Ranger trap is certainly better for chilling. Longer duration etc. But the well also blinds and is still on a Necro whereas the Frost trap is still on the Ranger.

In WvW, diversity really isn’t a deciding factor for most commanders. Everyone would rather have a 10th hammer warrior, 10th guardian, 10th elementalist, or 10th necromancer before their first Ranger unfortunately.

They’d probably prefer a 1st Thief, Engi, or Mesmer before their 1st Ranger as well unfortunately.

If you’ve managed to win an argument with your guild leader to bring a Ranger over a meta class for either a guild run or GvG let me know how you did it! Better Rangers than I have tried. No ranger policy still in place 2.5 years and counting.

dont let others dictate why you shouldn’t use a ranger , because most of the time they don’t know how to work with a ranger , they say stack but that don’t work as a ranger as most of our skills buff us on the move (might from crits , might from pets(Rampage as one, weapon swaps) buffing up may effect other classes more in pre combat but ranger can live without it.

you can skirmish ahead , prepair targets with traps , Muddy terrains and Wolf fears to break up the intial first attacks , and still come out of it alive alone without help , those extra evades and blocks are long enough to get back to your group.

its all about Venturing out first then withdrawning back to the group , a ranger staying on a stack is a wasted ranger , get out there and drain people of there CC’s and Bursts by using that superior CC / evades.

all you have to do is say no im playing my ranger and keep trying while changing builds to match your guilds team play its totaly possible , its just that other people need to widen the box outside of the meta classes and the typical rotation of classes to skills combos.

perfect example<< don’t give up or give in , its a long road to being a ranger.

Atherakhia.4086:

If you’ve managed to win an argument with your guild leader to bring a Ranger over a meta class for either a guild run or GvG let me know how you did it! Better Rangers than I have tried. No ranger policy still in place 2.5 years and counting.

We have a guild on FA that advertises on the FA forums something like “we don’t run the standard hammer meta, we run with a lot of thieves and mesmers, we choose the player over the profession. NO RANGERS.” Ha.

Aside from my guardian for extremely lazy zerging, I am WAY more effective on my ranger than any other class, so I keep taking her.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

dont let others dictate why you shouldn’t use a ranger , because most of the time they don’t know how to work with a ranger , they say stack but that don’t work as a ranger as most of our skills buff us on the move (might from crits , might from pets(Rampage as one, weapon swaps) buffing up may effect other classes more in pre combat but ranger can live without it.

you can skirmish ahead , prepair targets with traps , Muddy terrains and Wolf fears to break up the intial first attacks , and still come out of it alive alone without help , those extra evades and blocks are long enough to get back to your group.

its all about Venturing out first then withdrawning back to the group , a ranger staying on a stack is a wasted ranger , get out there and drain people of there CC’s and Bursts by using that superior CC / evades.

all you have to do is say no im playing my ranger and keep trying while changing builds to match your guilds team play its totaly possible , its just that other people need to widen the box outside of the meta classes and the typical rotation of classes to skills combos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBp7NS6KgaQ

perfect example<< don’t give up or give in , its a long road to being a ranger.

As that video shows that cc is very effective for small group fights but don’t expect that to work against an organized zerg running rotations to keep up stability, protection, retal, etc.

For group fighting a ranger needs to behave like a thief. Pick off squishy targets, try to separate people from the rest of the group, use your superior mobility to reset a fight when you need to. A good ranger will destroy most thieves in a 1v1, in big zergs just stick with the back line to defend against thieves trying to take out the ele’s and necro’s, while at the same time pressuring the enemy back line and commander with your superior range.

Atherakhia.4086:

If you’ve managed to win an argument with your guild leader to bring a Ranger over a meta class for either a guild run or GvG let me know how you did it! Better Rangers than I have tried. No ranger policy still in place 2.5 years and counting.

I wouldnt bother arguing… my thought is if you play ranger you have to accept youre seen as the red headed stepchild. But I roam solo with guild groups all the time and I’ve gotten complements in ts on well placed traps, so I know they see the value. And I survive quite well by bouncing away from the pin when there is too much heat (poor pets).

I don’t argue. Unfortunately, I agree with much of his (and many others) opinions on where the class falls behind and why it’s not found at a competetive level.

It’s a very strong roaming class but it really doesn’t have a role to fill in an organized group. Partly because the class needs improvements but also partly because the competing classes are simply too good and overshadow what the Ranger actually does do well.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

dont let others dictate why you shouldn’t use a ranger , because most of the time they don’t know how to work with a ranger , they say stack but that don’t work as a ranger as most of our skills buff us on the move (might from crits , might from pets(Rampage as one, weapon swaps) buffing up may effect other classes more in pre combat but ranger can live without it.

you can skirmish ahead , prepair targets with traps , Muddy terrains and Wolf fears to break up the intial first attacks , and still come out of it alive alone without help , those extra evades and blocks are long enough to get back to your group.

its all about Venturing out first then withdrawning back to the group , a ranger staying on a stack is a wasted ranger , get out there and drain people of there CC’s and Bursts by using that superior CC / evades.

all you have to do is say no im playing my ranger and keep trying while changing builds to match your guilds team play its totaly possible , its just that other people need to widen the box outside of the meta classes and the typical rotation of classes to skills combos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBp7NS6KgaQ

perfect example<< don’t give up or give in , its a long road to being a ranger.

As that video shows that cc is very effective for small group fights but don’t expect that to work against an organized zerg running rotations to keep up stability, protection, retal, etc.

For group fighting a ranger needs to behave like a thief. Pick off squishy targets, try to separate people from the rest of the group, use your superior mobility to reset a fight when you need to. A good ranger will destroy most thieves in a 1v1, in big zergs just stick with the back line to defend against thieves trying to take out the ele’s and necro’s, while at the same time pressuring the enemy back line and commander with your superior range.

Hence why i said venture out and regroup nothing about front lines or zergs. the classes that make up a ball are just taking advantage of that naturaly high upkeep of boons just as you said. and ps it does work i do it all the time with my guild in wvw running with friends 15-20 ps farshiverpeaks not too shabby.

it will only work if your good enough, no ranger newbie should try it and should hide behind the meat shields because thats all i see a zerg as a big pile of meat that can’t be hurt vs the i can’t be caught easily only a thief or a mesmer will be able to pressure me so the rest im not too fussed about i have team mates for a reason.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

dont let others dictate why you shouldn’t use a ranger , because most of the time they don’t know how to work with a ranger , they say stack but that don’t work as a ranger as most of our skills buff us on the move (might from crits , might from pets(Rampage as one, weapon swaps) buffing up may effect other classes more in pre combat but ranger can live without it.

you can skirmish ahead , prepair targets with traps , Muddy terrains and Wolf fears to break up the intial first attacks , and still come out of it alive alone without help , those extra evades and blocks are long enough to get back to your group.

its all about Venturing out first then withdrawning back to the group , a ranger staying on a stack is a wasted ranger , get out there and drain people of there CC’s and Bursts by using that superior CC / evades.

all you have to do is say no im playing my ranger and keep trying while changing builds to match your guilds team play its totaly possible , its just that other people need to widen the box outside of the meta classes and the typical rotation of classes to skills combos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBp7NS6KgaQ

perfect example<< don’t give up or give in , its a long road to being a ranger.

As that video shows that cc is very effective for small group fights but don’t expect that to work against an organized zerg running rotations to keep up stability, protection, retal, etc.

For group fighting a ranger needs to behave like a thief. Pick off squishy targets, try to separate people from the rest of the group, use your superior mobility to reset a fight when you need to. A good ranger will destroy most thieves in a 1v1, in big zergs just stick with the back line to defend against thieves trying to take out the ele’s and necro’s, while at the same time pressuring the enemy back line and commander with your superior range.

Hence why i said venture out and regroup nothing about front lines or zergs. the classes that make up a ball are just taking advantage of that naturaly high upkeep of boons just as you said. and ps it does work i do it all the time with my guild in wvw running with friends 15-20 ps farshiverpeaks not too shabby.

it will only work if your good enough, no ranger newbie should try it and should hide behind the meat shields because thats all i see a zerg as a big pile of meat that can’t be hurt vs the i can’t be caught easily only a thief or a mesmer will be able to pressure me so the rest im not too fussed about i have team mates for a reason.

Yeah I think we are arguing the same point. Basically a ranger has to be much smarter when fighting in a zerg. You have to always be fully aware of your positioning and maintain an avenue of escape.

It is ridiculously fun to use the main hand sword to bounce through the middle of a zerg and then use your leaps and evades to escape, but it isn’t something most people, can pull off until they have spent a ton of time on their ranger. The types of zergs you are running up against also make a huge difference as to what type of build you can pull off. Heck you can pull off a condi build against mot of the pug zergs but that doesn’t mean it is the most effective thing you can be doing.

If you’ve managed to win an argument with your guild leader to bring a Ranger over a meta class for either a guild run or GvG let me know how you did it! Better Rangers than I have tried. No ranger policy still in place 2.5 years and counting.

I had to meet a LOT of requirements before my guild let me run ranger (or whatever I wanted). I’m one of the longest playing members, can roam/group effectively, and can multiclass on any class in the game well enough to be able to fill holes in our line up for any given night.

Beyond all of that, I’m the guilds go to mesmer, and only get to ranger when “we have too many mesmers,” the meaning of which I didn’t think existed, because how can you have too many ranged damage dealing, boon ripping, team stealthing, single and AoE damage based players that by default have a piercing 1200 range high damage, unstrafe-able autoattack?

But I digress; when the leader says I can hop on my ranger, I say “I’m Rapid Fire 1” and essentially am the replacement for any poor thief who thought they were going to get to play with the group that night and not have to switch classes or roam.

I’d argue that most rangers know how to deal their damage effectively and to the right targets in a group scenario (catching the enemy backline out of position and nuking them from a “safe” distance). But that a certain stigma comes from the next statement that keeps the “no rangers” policy in effect, which is; most rangers also have no idea how to take the blinders off. They pick a target, lock in on a target trying to kill it, sacrifice positioning, and get caught out of position and killed. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m referring to ANY forum goers, because most of us are competent to the degree that we would be an asset to any team. But there are THOSE players for every profession that only ever end up on the forums once in a blue moon to complain about mechanics they don’t understand because they died to it and now think that the mechanic is overpowered and not that they are incompetent (remember all those Rapid Fire threads?).

Anyhow, yeah. To anybody outside of my situation, I don’t think that the community stigma will ever subside at this point enough to allow the mindset of players to shift away from the “no rangers” philosophy, even though it’s basically a proven science that a single group of competent power rangers using VoIP can singlehandedly melt an entire backline of a WvW zerg and swing the fight before the first “regroup and push again” ever happens, unless of course the enemy backline is an enormous amount of players (even then the damage will be significant and the fight will still be skewed in your favor).

I still refuse to buy into the ‘stigma’ argument. To believe a class stigma would have a lasting real impact on how a guild recruited and ran an organized event just doesn’t hold up in my opinion.

There are some very ‘famous’ guilds playing (played) this game at a very competitive level in WvW/GvG/Guild Groups with players that are more than capable of judging a class’s worth without investing hundreds/thousands of hours into the class to figure out every nuance for themselves. In 2.5 years, they’ve never budged on their opinion of the class. The damage/utility/support/sustain is simply not something they’ve found useful. It’s more than just a stigma.

Take WoW for example. Everyone has heard the term Huntard. It was coined practically on day 1. I was a Hunter in a highly regarded raiding guild and got invited to 100% of raids during my entire lifetime with the guild. Now if I were the only Hunter in the guild I’d agree with you that player skill was the deciding factor and the huntard stigma was a reality. But I wasn’t, we routinely brought 3 to 5 Hunters. Contrast this to Warlocks which never had this stigma (only 3 very entertaining videos about how bad they were) and my brother never got invited to raids because Warlocks were awful for the first year or so of WoWs release (needed one for CoE and a guild officer’s girlfriend was a Warlock).

Our guild leader only ever played a Thief (and eventually a Paladin as we were Horde). We were a cutting edge guild that couldn’t wait for other guilds to build statistics, addons, and walkthroughs for content before we could progress. But somehow my guild leader in WoW could judge a class he never played patch after patch accurately to determine if they should be brought to a raid but in 2.5 years no single commander found a use for a Ranger in anything but sPvP? And even there it was more thanks to a condi/AI meta?

Just doesn’t make sense imo. It’s easier for me to believe the class has problems.

ps. I realize this is a PvE to PvP argument. I’d give a PvP to PvP argument but apparently I’m the only player willing to admit to playing Shadowbane for 2 years so no one would understand the reference.

I didn’t mean it to sound as though I wasn’t saying rangers don’t have problems hahaha, sorry if I did.

My tl;dr/summary post would say something like: “basically, in WvW you only take a Ranger in a large group versus group environment over a thief. But mesmers override the need for rangers to even be played, and are never going to impact the demand for the GWEN core without a serious gameplay redesign.”

That should about sum up the point I intended to make lol.

Atherakhia.4086:

I still refuse to buy into the ‘stigma’ argument. To believe a class stigma would have a lasting real impact on how a guild recruited and ran an organized event just doesn’t hold up in my opinion.

There are some very ‘famous’ guilds playing (played) this game at a very competitive level in WvW/GvG/Guild Groups with players that are more than capable of judging a class’s worth without investing hundreds/thousands of hours into the class to figure out every nuance for themselves. In 2.5 years, they’ve never budged on their opinion of the class. The damage/utility/support/sustain is simply not something they’ve found useful. It’s more than just a stigma.

Take WoW for example. Everyone has heard the term Huntard. It was coined practically on day 1. I was a Hunter in a highly regarded raiding guild and got invited to 100% of raids during my entire lifetime with the guild. Now if I were the only Hunter in the guild I’d agree with you that player skill was the deciding factor and the huntard stigma was a reality. But I wasn’t, we routinely brought 3 to 5 Hunters. Contrast this to Warlocks which never had this stigma (only 3 very entertaining videos about how bad they were) and my brother never got invited to raids because Warlocks were awful for the first year or so of WoWs release (needed one for CoE and a guild officer’s girlfriend was a Warlock).

Our guild leader only ever played a Thief (and eventually a Paladin as we were Horde). We were a cutting edge guild that couldn’t wait for other guilds to build statistics, addons, and walkthroughs for content before we could progress. But somehow my guild leader in WoW could judge a class he never played patch after patch accurately to determine if they should be brought to a raid but in 2.5 years no single commander found a use for a Ranger in anything but sPvP? And even there it was more thanks to a condi/AI meta?

Just doesn’t make sense imo. It’s easier for me to believe the class has problems.

ps. I realize this is a PvE to PvP argument. I’d give a PvP to PvP argument but apparently I’m the only player willing to admit to playing Shadowbane for 2 years so no one would understand the reference.

I played Shadowbane. It was my first mmo and I didn’t last 2 years!

Speaking to your point, it’s really hard for me personally to go with the flow.

But it has been 2+ years…. you would think that if something were worth doing, it would of been tried by now.

I’d like to see a full Non GWEN comp that works. I bet it’s possible.
Thief Ranger Engi Mesmer TREM Ftw!! Now that would be an epic video.

I laugh at anyone who says their guild ‘let’ them.

For chill necro and ele are enough and they have aoe and spike capaciti + fields and a lot more spammable cc and survive. Ranger is an easy to spot thing and have much less survive as a zerker ele or necro

The ele meta is soldiers with some berserker trinkets. You can kill a full glass ele in a single hit.

McWolfy I think you may be on the wrong forum; you have post after post demonstrating you don’t understand anything about rangers other than they can use bears as pets.

jcbroe.4329:

I didn’t mean it to sound as though I wasn’t saying rangers don’t have problems hahaha, sorry if I did.

My tl;dr/summary post would say something like: “basically, in WvW you only take a Ranger in a large group versus group environment over a thief. But mesmers override the need for rangers to even be played, and are never going to impact the demand for the GWEN core without a serious gameplay redesign.”

That should about sum up the point I intended to make lol.

and thats why my guild don’t run gwen , we just do as we wish and use teamwork but there is always someone to stack might we always have enough guardains to blast ect ect , sometimes we only have one guadian and the rest is RTGM and proberly throw a E on the end if our local ele turns up to fight.

though our Main guadian goes Cleric+magi with zerk weapons , i run spotter and Gs , sword horn or LB, S+H lighting reflexes Vigour on healing spring.
so everyone in the area gains that 7% crit hit , i’ve worked with this guardain to match stats so he gains the most without having too much crit hit for a clerics build.

though Gwen is generaly the Easy pick me up rule since no Custom tweeking is needed.

jcbroe.4329:

I didn’t mean it to sound as though I wasn’t saying rangers don’t have problems hahaha, sorry if I did.

My tl;dr/summary post would say something like: “basically, in WvW you only take a Ranger in a large group versus group environment over a thief. But mesmers override the need for rangers to even be played, and are never going to impact the demand for the GWEN core without a serious gameplay redesign.”

That should about sum up the point I intended to make lol.

We need
1. More team support / more aoe
2. Pets need to be redesigned to survive in heavy aoe

I honestly don’t see any of those 3 ever happening. They are all largely covered already or irrelevant in spvp and pve and Anet has shown time and again to only ever balance around WvW when the planets align.

Fluffball.8307:

The ele meta is soldiers with some berserker trinkets. You can kill a full glass ele in a single hit.

McWolfy I think you may be on the wrong forum; you have post after post demonstrating you don’t understand anything about rangers other than they can use bears as pets.

Than tell me. If ranger is that supergood why noone use them in meta play?

McWolfy.5924:

Fluffball.8307:

McWolfy I think you may be on the wrong forum; you have post after post demonstrating you don’t understand anything about rangers other than they can use bears as pets.

Than tell me. If ranger is that supergood why noone use them in meta play?

I believe that’s called a non-sequitur.

Substance E.4852:

jcbroe.4329:

I didn’t mean it to sound as though I wasn’t saying rangers don’t have problems hahaha, sorry if I did.

My tl;dr/summary post would say something like: “basically, in WvW you only take a Ranger in a large group versus group environment over a thief. But mesmers override the need for rangers to even be played, and are never going to impact the demand for the GWEN core without a serious gameplay redesign.”

That should about sum up the point I intended to make lol.

We need
1. More team support / more aoe
2. Pets need to be redesigned to survive in heavy aoe

I honestly don’t see any of those 3 ever happening. They are all largely covered already or irrelevant in spvp and pve and Anet has shown time and again to only ever balance around WvW when the planets align.

I agree.

A HUGE part of what I think is flawed about the Ranger class is that most of our building options are selfish, and geared towards improving our own capabilities. The few functional team buffs we do get are Spotter, which has hard competition in that Master Trait slot (I’ve always argued that spotter should be Adept tier in Skirmishing), or Spirits, which are so frail that they aren’t even the meta build in PvP (which is comparatively small scale to WvW) because they just melt so quickly.

Shouts, though. Shouts are where all of the immediate redesign potential is at imo. Right now, we have a single trait/shout gimmick that really has nothing to do with how good the shout actually is (Guard by itself is terrible), but with how often it can be spammed.

Now, take Guard, and rework it from its current function to instead be somewhere along the lines of http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shelter from GW1 (aka allies affected by Protect Me cannot take more than 10% of their health from a single attack. Pet takes damage instead until the shout ends or the pet is swapped/dies/etc).

Really, any sort of team support that isn’t just another “flavor” of the same mechanics we already have would be a welcome change, provided it was actually useful functionality.

jcbroe.4329:

good points

I was running with a berserker LB build tonight on (T2) reset, in a zerg, which I almost never do. Queues on all 4 maps so I’m taking up a spot.

The commanders never saw it, but the focused fire I had was literally keeping the zerg alive. I actually gained a new respect for myself. If half my zerg goes down and I can get them back up again by playing selfishly, I think that’s ok. I visually saw myself saving the day, rez after rez!

My opinion of zerker LB rangers is shifting.

Edit: And the points on kill thing is just stupid, obviously a good LB ranger is going to more than rack up a few 1vX stomps + ppk on their way to a zerg fight. That definitely factors in.