Guild Wars 2

as the title says what is all qqing for?

You’re in an MMORPG class forum. It’s where the QQ dwells. Seriously though, ranger is alright. Are there problems? Yes, quite a few. Can we succeed at every facet of the game if we want to? Yes. Also, ranger is just fun to play. I still come back to it even though I can do any particular action (buff, heal, dps, tank) better on another char.

Stop reading the forum for a while and just play. It’s a fun class.

There are a lot of bugs (but there are a lot of bugs in the whole game, some classes more than others) and Rangers may not be OP, but they’re a hell of a lot of fun and very versatile. You can go range or melee and you get a bunch of choice pets to tag along with you.

The forums have their place, mostly to gripe but also to get good hints at better builds, etc. But if you’re new don’t be swayed by all of the outrage in the forums. Rangers are bad kitten

*I mostly PVE now and love clearing maps and exploring, so take this all with a grain of salt. If you want to be OP in PVP I can’t help you but ranger may not be the class for you (though there are a lot of people, if you look hard enough, that post about doing well in PVP and I hope to be one of them some day

actually…

from level 1-79 open field PvE ranger is actually one of the strongest classes. once we get full gear level 80 is where you begin to notice where the ranger is bad. the whining is mainly done by those who are competitive PvP players.

there’s currently 1 general accepted meta-build for PvP (with slight variation) which is the trapper ranger ( i don’t go full trapper for use of maximizing bleeds and survival via sharpening stone and spike trap), with a list of competitive pets (cat’s, dogs, hawk, raven). but using it you’ll have trouble against anyone who can reliably clear away conditions (i’m looking at you bunker guardians and d/d tanky elementalists).

in WvWvW/PvP i generally only have trouble against defensive playing thieves, and d/d elementalists. After 1v1ing multiple mesmer i’ve gotten used to fighting them.

that being said… i enjoy what i do. learning a couple tricks, mastering your weapons, and creating new combo’s is really fun with an “underpowered” class because of the fact that we still haven’t found what build truly work.

pets die instantly in dungeons, all you can spec in pvp is dps or dot. You don’t really have that great number of viable play style really once you get higher level.

In pvp, pets are next to useless have the time and generally rangers are squishy and don’t really have much control or much speed.

on top of all that, arrows miss so much for this class that sometimes you just get pissed off because of it.

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons, all you can spec in pvp is dps or dot. You don’t really have that great number of viable play style really once you get higher level.

i disagree… i keep my pets on passive in dungeons and specifically tell them when to attack and retreat, stealth, hunters shot (pet swiftness), thoughtful character placement and attentiveness means i can keep my jaguar alive for a long time (granted not as long as in open world; but still definitely not instant death)

… ranged pets (spiders/devourers) are even easier to take care of in dungeons… just press f3 when a circle appears at their feet/an enemy is in their face)

This guy sums it up pretty well:

Luriyu.6873:

the whining is mainly done by those who are competitive PvP players.

Not even close to that, the whining hardly comes from competitive PvP players, it’s mostly non sense whines because any competitive sPvP player knows how the current situation is, not really a ranger issue but sPvP in general.

Play whatever you want, imo ranger is good…yes it needs tweaking and some fixes but just like all classes.
If all you do is sPvP where is the deal? Create all classes and pick the one/ones that suit you best.

Don’t even listen to people who says pets are useless or die instantly, that’s completely false.

Just think about this, unless you plan on leveling every single class to lvl 80 you will have to adapt to the class you like, being stronger or weaker than X class…that won’t change since there is no perfect balance.

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Spec into beastmastery, don’t treat them as a fire and forget missile, and remember to use your F3/F4 buttons and they’re usually fine. This is from someone who melees with them by their side

I absolutely agree 100% with Sleepy. Most of the whining is complete nonsense. Buried in all the forum boohooing are some legitimate complaints, but nothing that makes the Ranger profession unplayable.

Besides talking about the power level of the ranger or his builds these things are broken and need to be fixed, because some of them are beta level bugs that shouldn`t be in the game right now. The facts are:
Our Longbow skills are useless. It`s proven that just letting auto-attack do the work (again, only talking about Longbow skills) is the best way to go dps wise. There is no rotation or combination of actions that can outperform the auto-attack. And it`s a weak auto-attack! This is just not acceptable. You have to make me WANT to push a button for its effects. Thats the point about button pushing in general…and making a class fun to play. And i want to have fun with a longbow.
And please don`t fix that problem by lowering our auto-attack dmg, thats not the way to solve this issue!
Pet`s are all kinds of f… broken. From annoyances like pathfinding problems to backbreakers like pet stopping to attack and basically forcing me to stand still so that they can hit anything if i want to include them in my build as a factor. Because aggro holding is not their job either. And they die after 2 hits in pve.
Spirits…well. I make this one short: They suck.

I don`t care if there are builds that avoid the pitfalls and do good in any way. I want my class to work properly.

<—- Lvl 80 ele, ranger, warrior, thief

Ranger is my second fave next to ele. She has the best survivability in PVE and even dungeons among all my classes. And I am not even using warhorn.

I bet they are thinking Legolas or Aragon.

They are somewhat lacking in pvp I agree.

Loki.4871:

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Spec into beastmastery, don’t treat them as a fire and forget missile, and remember to use your F3/F4 buttons and they’re usually fine. This is from someone who melees with them by their side

pets die in 2-3 aoes from any boss. It doesn’t even matter how you control them because it takes them like 30 seconds to run back to you if you press the button.

Its gotten to a point where I just don’t care about my pet any more in dungeons.

Esrever.8613:

pets die in 2-3 aoes from any boss. It doesn’t even matter how you control them because it takes them like 30 seconds to run back to you if you press the button.

Its gotten to a point where I just don’t care about my pet any more in dungeons.

You forget that players also die to 2-3 aoes from any boss…even to a single aoe, your point is? If your pet dies to 2-3 aoes from any boss…why let it die if it’s not getting oneshotted?
Even in high lvl fractals pet don’t die that often if you use them well even when they get “oneshoted” by agony.

I can do an entire dungeon without my pet dying once. All it requires is a little micro management and attentiveness to your pet’s health bar.

Solo PVE farming the pet works fine.

Any form of PvP and the pet is nigh on useless, three quarters of your sots will miss because someone moved or there’s a blade of grass in the way.

In short if you want to play a ranged class that has more survivability, hits harder at range and doesn’t have the same issue with obstruction roll a warrior, slap on a rifle and facepalm ANET at how much better it is at range than a ranger….

Rangers are fine. Don’t listen to the haters.

Do what you want.

As far as PvE and WvW goes (except in small, sPvP-like skirmishes in WvW with extremely talented players, which is rare), rangers are fine. We need some balance and bug fixes, but so does every class.

In PvP…pet AI has an incredibly difficult time landing hits because they can’t attack on the move. Since our DPS is balanced around the pet hitting, our DPS is significantly lower than pretty much everyone else (this can also be a nuisance in PvE, since if you’re kiting a mob in certain patterns the mob is effectively kiting your pet). Our talents end up being a weird jigsaw for many meta-oriented builds that don’t mesh as well as other classes. Spirits die to a stray sneeze even when talented, and with a 5-player cap on teams they don’t scale as well as in 8v8’s or WvW, so a lot of our support builds are very weak. Ranger signet effects are underwhelming compared to other classes’ signets. Projectile obstruction is an unbelievable headache because shortbow and longbow arrows don’t track like axes, thief shortbow, warrior rifle, or staff/scepter. Ranger weapon skills in general have a skill cap and return on scale with elementalist, so while it’s possible to be frighteningly powerful there are few players who achieve this mastery. And since elementalists don’t rely on spirits or pets for various aspects of builds they’re the favored skill-bound class at the moment.

So yeah, rangers could use some love in pvp. Thankfully JP has stated that their first foci for rangers are fixing pet stationary attacks and making our talents mesh better. If these two things are ironed out I firmly believe that rangers will be a force to be reckoned with in PvP as well. If they ironed out the rest of the issues without also fixing the other classes’ various problems we’d be everyone’s worst nightmare.

Gah, can’t edit post. Sorry for doubling up.

Also, many of our critical talents don’t work as intended or simply don’t work. For example the 30% pet speed in Skirmishing buffs pet speed by about 13%, and the increase boon/condition duration from pets simply doesn’t do anything. This is no different than other classes though.

We do have one good thing going for our talents – the trees are incredibly well compacted. Just look at the trap talents – they required 4 major slots in 2 trees during BWE, but now they’re just 2 slots in a single tree. Some builds in other classes, and some entire classes (like necro), don’t have this luxury.

Rangers do fine enough, but many of their skills and traits are rather poorly designed or just outright buggy so you’re constantly forced into picking the same skills and traits because the rest is terrible and that gets really boring after a while.

Other professions usually have builds where every trait just clicks together, the ranger trait lines look like they weren’t designed with sinergy in mind most of the time. I mean the closest thing I can think to good sinergy are the Marksmanship and Skirmishing bow traits.

Angela Ranna.5638:

Just look at the trap talents – they required 4 major slots in 2 trees during BWE, but now they’re just 2 slots in a single tree. Some builds in other classes, and some entire classes (like necro), don’t have this luxury.

I actually think that’s one of the many bad examples of trait distribution. Having both trap traits on the Skirmishing line is just poor design, Trap Potency should be in the Wilderness Survival line where it belongs.

Hello! I’m new but I’ll share my experience. I came from another MMORPG, and yeah, that game was broken. So on here, I tried almost every single toon – engineer, warrior, elementalist, mesmer, guardian, ranger. I didn’t try thief (because sins broke that other game I was on LOL) and necro.

But among all those I did try, I love ranger the most. So far, I’m level 20, and I only died in one part – story quests when someone goes trigger happy and lures like 10 mobs to me. Otherwise, I don’t die.

To the poster who mentioned Legolas. I totally agree. I really feel like Legolas on my ranger. LOVE IT. So do play a ranger if you like it. I love the pets, I love the traits, I love the skills, so yay! (: Equip a longbow and a shortbow and EMBRACE HOT LEGOLAS.

McSquishy.6281:

But among all those I did try, I love ranger the most. So far, I’m level 20, and I only died in one part – story quests when someone goes trigger happy and lures like 10 mobs to me. Otherwise, I don’t die.

When you lvl up, you will rediscover how much fun and bug free it is. Ow wait…

Excidium.6712:

I actually think that’s one of the many bad examples of trait distribution. Having both trap traits on the Skirmishing line is just poor design, Trap Potency should be in the Wilderness Survival line where it belongs.

Trait distribution is wonky, yes, and that’s part of why it’s focus #2 on JP’s hit list. But trait compaction is awesome. Necromancer minion builds need four traits in two lines. Death Shroud/Spectral builds require four traits in one line (i.e. it’s impossible to get all the talents for a complete Spectral build). Rangers are a great example of trait compaction, where we can get all the things that benefit certain builds best in very few talents. You’re absolutely right that those great compacted talents are usually located in weird places that don’t lend themselves to synergy with the rest of the build, however.

Luriyu.6873:

actually…

there’s currently 1 general accepted meta-build for PvP (with slight variation) which is the trapper ranger ( i don’t go full trapper for use of maximizing bleeds and survival via sharpening stone and spike trap), with a list of competitive pets (cat’s, dogs, hawk, raven). but using it you’ll have trouble against anyone who can reliably clear away conditions (i’m looking at you bunker guardians and d/d tanky elementalists).

It’s funny but I’ve noticed a diversification in pvp rangers away from trap builds based on the informal experience of what I’m seeing in Tpvp.

Rangers have viable tank builds…. Most dificulty is creating a legolas archetype that pwns in tpvp. In some ways that’s the rub for people that choose a legolas archetype class.

It’s not that rangers are bad, it’s that we’re outdone in pretty much every role. There’s not much reason to take a ranger when another class can do the job better.

This is because of a few things
1) the current meta doesn’t really support a jack of all trades character. It’s either burst, bunker, condition, or support. No hybrids.
We can be decent in any one of these roles, but other classes can do them better.
2) a lot of our traits are pretty useless. Most shouts and signets and every spirit except spirit of nature.
3) pets are unreliable and can miss attacks. They also account for way too much of our DPS.
4) our arrows have this weird thing where they can miss. No other ranged class gets this (except maybe warrior bow. never tried that).

Sleepy.2647:

Esrever.8613:

pets die in 2-3 aoes from any boss. It doesn’t even matter how you control them because it takes them like 30 seconds to run back to you if you press the button.

Its gotten to a point where I just don’t care about my pet any more in dungeons.

You forget that players also die to 2-3 aoes from any boss…even to a single aoe, your point is? If your pet dies to 2-3 aoes from any boss…why let it die if it’s not getting oneshotted?
Even in high lvl fractals pet don’t die that often if you use them well even when they get “oneshoted” by agony.

you can roll yourself. your pet just sit there looking dumb.

Rangers are a fun class, just we also have a lot of bugs (Random Obstructions; although this goes for many of the other classes ranged projectiles too, but it seems worse ont he ranger for some reason… and a not so much a “bug”, but the Invulnerability of enemies because of the “fair fight” rule that Anet seems to have just hinders longbows and even melee, to a great extent sometimes; I have had up to 50% of my shots in dungeons get the Invulnerable message when there was absolutely no reason for it other than I was attacking at a range…).

The traits look like someone just threw very inaccurate darts at the trait slots (I’d hate to see the wall next to them…); many of the traits lines just don’t mesh well.

Pets also need working on (a lot of working on in my opinion):

• Sacrificing my pet by dumping everything plus the kitchen sink on them to save myself is not my idea of fun class mechanics (unless I am a necromancer, maybe? lol).
• Pet skills don’t proc nearly often enough (mostly just due to cool downs)
• If the target is moving even a tiny bit there is a good chance a pet skill will miss (my wolf will miss its lunge about 80% of the time unless the enemy is aggroed to it)
• Pets just stand there like idiot when there are AOEs… (meanwhile I dodge every single one, but the pet will take it up the butt =_=’ ) Because of this, they aren’t very good in certain parts of dungeons (heck even the parts you can use them in they aren’t that great because they just eat all attacks that come at them).

Sleepy.2647:

You forget that players also die to 2-3 aoes from any boss…even to a single aoe, your point is? If your pet dies to 2-3 aoes from any boss…why let it die if it’s not getting oneshotted?

You also forget that players can dodge; pets just take it up the rear to make the player start flipping tables. I can dodge AOEs left and right, but pets don’t dodge at all. Give them some kind of dodge/avoidance mechanic independent to player action that takes priority over all other pet actions, just below player commands.

Esrever.8613:

Loki.4871:

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Spec into beastmastery, don’t treat them as a fire and forget missile, and remember to use your F3/F4 buttons and they’re usually fine. This is from someone who melees with them by their side

pets die in 2-3 aoes from any boss. It doesn’t even matter how you control them because it takes them like 30 seconds to run back to you if you press the button.

Its gotten to a point where I just don’t care about my pet any more in dungeons.

Which is, assuming you’re not worrying on getting out of melee yourself, the point you hit the F4 button to swap the pet out and have the replacement by your side. I did say to make use of the F4 buttons.

Do that and, barring the git deciding to aoe spam on you, the pet should be fine.

I can understand a pet getting oneshotted, but claiming that “my pet dies to 2-3 boss AoE attacks” is a joke, if you know the next attack it’s going to kill it…just swap the pet, use heal or make it passive until your swap cd is back…quite easy, isn’t it?

It’s like saying that I die to 2-3 boss AoE attacks because i refuse to dodge.

Sleepy.2647:

I can understand a pet getting oneshotted, but claiming that “my pet dies to 2-3 boss AoE attacks” is a joke, if you know the next attack it’s going to kill it…just swap the pet, use heal or make it passive until your swap cd is back…quite easy, isn’t it?

It’s like saying that I die to 2-3 boss AoE attacks because i refuse to dodge.

so your pet is either useless in passive mode, might as well be dead.

or you swap a pet in just have it die in 2-3 aoe and you wait to repeat.

or you heal the pet and let it get off 1 more pathetic attack on a boss before it dies.

Esrever.8613:

so your pet is either useless in passive mode, might as well be dead.

or you swap a pet in just have it die in 2-3 aoe and you wait to repeat.

or you heal the pet and let it get off 1 more pathetic attack on a boss before it dies.

I have yet to see a boss that spams aoe after aoe, there is a difference between putting your pet in passive for a couple of seconds than having it on passive the whole time.
I’m sorry if you can’t handle your pet in PvE.

Even in Lupicus two devourers can be alive for the whole fight…probably the charr fractal boss is the only one who “oneshots” your pet fairly often with the agony AoE to even whine about it.

Sleepy.2647:

Esrever.8613:

so your pet is either useless in passive mode, might as well be dead.

or you swap a pet in just have it die in 2-3 aoe and you wait to repeat.

or you heal the pet and let it get off 1 more pathetic attack on a boss before it dies.

I have yet to see a boss that spams aoe after aoe, there is a difference between putting your pet in passive for a couple of seconds than having it on passive the whole time.
I’m sorry if you can’t handle your pet in PvE.

Even in Lupicus two devourers can be alive for the whole fight…probably the charr fractal boss is the only one who “oneshots” your pet fairly often with the agony AoE to even whine about it.

Every other boss in an explore dungeon spams AOE left and right.

Esrever.8613:

Every other boss in an explore dungeon spams AOE left and right.

I guess i must have been playing another game all this time…

Ranger is very good but don’t believe the hype of a melee ranger, it just sucks. And most pets are useless also. Besides that i have 450 hours logged on my ranger and i love it.

People find Rangers annoying because.

1. Poor pet controls
2. Managing a pet (if you want it to be useful) is more tedious then the utilities of any other profession
3. Your pet makes up for a major portion of your DPS

All legitimate concerns for every mode of the game. -_-

Ranger? – Out-shined by every other class in the game.
They have their pros and cons.

on-top of my head:
pros: You can never run out of endurance i.e. the dodge gauge bar is always full. You can pretty much dodge everything (if done right).. I’ve solo’d bosses in fractals after the rest of the party wiped (took a while to kill the boss, but i dodged everything it threw at me)
cons: ^ that’s your only pros.

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Um, my polar bear doesnt die hardly at all in dungeons. He is like having a mini tank by my side. Sorry yours does. My pet has tanked and lived through many boss battles, sometimes even to the point that my team mates agreed that if he wasnt “tanking”, the battle would have been harder.

Aerwyna.2541:

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Um, my polar bear doesnt die hardly at all in dungeons. He is like having a mini tank by my side. Sorry yours does. My pet has tanked and lived through many boss battles, sometimes even to the point that my team mates agreed that if he wasnt “tanking”, the battle would have been harder.

mini dungeons don’t count…..

I was tossing up between an Ele and a Ranger for my next alt. So I have rolled both. I prefer my Ranger over my Ele.

I only do PVE.

I have not had a chance to do any dungeons yet so cannot comment on that aspect. Pets die. You die. It’s a mechanic of the game, deal with it. My pets do not die from one hit, they take a little while. If I want a tankier per I equip one. If my pet dies, I swap it for the other pet viola brand new pet at my location.

There ARE a lot of haters and QQrs on this forum. Do not listen to them. Roll the what you want and judge for yourself.

Ridgeblader… please get to 80 then comment. I found lvling not a problem, infact easy to 80 on the ranger. That is not the issue, the issue is Ranger is compleatly useless in dungeon and the bottomof the pile for adding to partys. The ranger is crap at pvp, and only really can be played at a some what tedious support role both in pvp and wvw. It really does suck being a range class, but other classes with range weps are simply better all around, so why bother?

Sounds like the problems with Rangers in this game are identical with Rangers in every game. The Pet AI is horrible, the pet utility is horrible, the class is balanced around having 100% active uptime pets, and the class is given poor survivability because of the idea that max range is some how a benefit to a class when every other class in the game has numerous tools to close the gap.

They should just give pets a 95% reduction to AE damage globally, pets should always try to move to the back of a target to DPS from, and they should remain corporeal while the ranger is outside of combat so they can always stay at the rangers side.

These are changes many MMO’s end up incorporating before too long because of how terrible the developers always do with this class. I don’t see why we shouldn’t just cut to the chase and do the same thing here. That will fix the pet problem.

Then you need to work on the DPS issue. The pet DPS needs to be reduced and the damage given back to the ranger. 80% of a rangers damage should come from the ranger itself. And that damage should be on par with other classes. The remaining 20% is where the ranger should get their burst damage from. Have the pets become moderate low damage DOTS and allow the ranger to tell their pets to consume a stack of bleeds for XXX damage * [stack] for example. Have the pet consume a daze/stun to do XXXX damage etc etc.

The problems in PvE is utility and the class legitimately doesn’t seen to have any.
The problems in PvP is lack of burst more than anything.

And my highest char is only 10 and I managed to figure all this out by simply playing other MMO’s.