Guild Wars 2

This is my old Ranger build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsmOmMwXCo

I became disgruntled after the quickness and pet damage nerfs so I stopped playing for a while. I recently came back to see what had changed in the last few months to find some interesting things. The shortbow nerf is another nail in my Ranger’s coffin but the longbow buff is nice. I messed around with my Ranger a lot to see if I could come up with an effective build but felt like nothing really gelled well enough. I could go into detail about specific traits/weapons/utilities but that’s a TLDR waiting to happen.

So… I leveled up a Warrior and I’ve been roaming in WvW. To my own surprise, holy crap I am a total powerhouse. I’ve got a short guide video for my current build uploading now, it will be available here: http://youtu.be/66zDxuTSsnM

To the point:

I want to try my hand at a little whining about class balance because I feel like Warrior is far away the superior of any Ranger with the exception of perhaps a couple of super specialized situations or builds.

Warrior traits are more powerful than Ranger traits. This isn’t just a feeling I get based on certain trait synergies, this is something demonstrable. This is just one example related to the Greatsword:

1:
Master trait for Warrior: Forceful Greatsword – 20% CD reduction AND might on crits.
Master trait for Ranger: Martial Mastery – 20% CD reduction. Thats it.

2:
Master trait for Warrior: Slashing Power – 10% increase in GS damage.
Master trait for Ranger: Two-Handed Training – 5% increase in GS damage.

Why the disparity? These traits are all majors of the same level. They don’t involve the Ranger’s pet in any way. There are no bow traits that compare in power to these warrior traits. To me it isn’t explicable. Yes, Rangers have access to some builds and traits that work well together. Yes, class balance is a delicate matter that involves far more aspects than this. Yes, -insert obvious detail about GW2 here-. This is still not OKAY.

Those are two very straight forward examples.

Just want to throw it out there that Warriors get 400 hp per second passive from Healing Signet now without ANY healing power gear. That is half of Troll Unguent but with permanent uptime, PASSIVE.

Robert Hrouda, you need to stop being so humble and make a little noise in balance discussions.

Sincerely.

Let me start off by saying it isn’t always fair to compare traits and skill from one class to the next. If traits are underpowered (which the majority of ranger traits are) is one thing, but asking a trait to be identical to another class is something else. Look at the greatsword itself. Can you imagine how amazing the Warrior would be if he had access to our greatsword? Can you imagine how absolutely awful we’d be with theirs?

Now that said, you’re still right about the general issue with this class. The traits are an absolute mess. Tons of them need to be merged, even more need to be moved to other trees, and most still would suck. Same with skills… the Ranger got the worst of the bunch for the overwhelming majority of them. Worst stun breaks, worst traps, no activated damage skills, signets that are dreadful without 30points in marks, etc etc.

They just haven’t given this class the attention it needs and it shows in how boring its gameplay is, the complete lack of depth, the limited way to play it, and how ineffective a lot of its traits, weapons, and skills are.

I find warrior way more boring than ranger.

The reason Ranger gets less from the skills is simply because they do have a pet. Yes, with nerfs it may not be doing as much damage but it still does some and has a lot of utility so where as the Warrior is doing all his own damage rangers have a buddy to help and that is the most logical explanation for them doing things like this.

signets and traps in skirmishing are the only things that i really do not understand… other then that ther is room for improvement but nothing to seriously broken. ranger is better at other things then warriors …

you can go to any class forum in everyone ypou will find a post like yours. maybe ranger is okay but warrior is broken.