Guild Wars 2

So, after this last update I tried a couple re specs. Once that have shared here. Only got to play them for a day or so but found myself totally worthless. Not really the builds fault but I just don’t have the energy or interest to have to relearn how to play my ranger all over again. After almost 900 hours of play it feels like I have to start over. A lot of the things I worked hard to obtain suddenly worthless. Every major patch in this game seems to be another start over for the ranger class. Another forget about everything your doing and start over. Legendary’s being worked on… now worthless.

So yes whine and cry about it. No. Just done. I’ve never played a game where I felt as off everything I tried to do was punished. I try to farm for the stuff you require, in return you remove the farms but not the requirements…. I try new locations to achieve what is required and I’m docked via DR for my efforts. So I have to play even longer. Even harder to achieve those requirements… I feel like a mule with the carrot on the stick and frankly I’ve had enough of it.

Rangers have always been the embarrassment of the game. When we do fine a tweak that helps us it’s taken away. People are actually scared to post good builds now for fear they will get taken away. Pointless. No one wants a ranger in a party. WVW, Dungeon, whatever, there are other classes that would better fill the slots and help the teams.

So, now the latest hammer. All the time I spent earning ascended gear to match my build worthless… Suddenly I can’t survive lvl 20 fractals where the day before I could run 23-4 without worry.

I almost logged in tonight… it’s been almost a week, then I though about it and was like “what’s the point”

I completely understand.

While on this note, I wish they would allow for a mechanic where you could trade your soulbound ascended items in for equally valued soulbound ascended items…… :/

In the end the answer is this. I have $$. If I don’t want to play I will not spend the $$. There are a lot of current games and a lot of new games right around the corner begging for that $$.

The last major update prompted me to almost quit. I level’d up an Ele to 80 instead thinking well, maybe this will make the game enjoyable now… then I realized, I hate being an ele. I bought this game to be a ranger. I’m a ranger in all the mmo’s I played in the past. Some for many years. This game has so much promise but that’s quickly turin sour.

What kind of builds have you tried on your ele?

In my defense I’m always afraid to post my builds, good builds mean people copy it, which means less diversity, which means more people know how to counter/fight my build. Etc.

That being said I’m growing tired of my ranger too, but not for the same reasons, I’m sick of not having any unique utilities minus Muddy Terrain, if that even is unique… I mean for kittens sakes, everything we do is done by someone else, Shouts = warrior + guardian, sigs = everyone but engi traps = thief, spirits = may as well be banners, Wilderness = generic skill type that every prof has

swiftpaw.6397:

What kind of builds have you tried on your ele?

Honestly not many.

Started here….
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-Staff-Ele-1-18-13/first

Then did this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBablZUB-4&list=UUDQB-raxmhDat2gZ-LnPn9g&index=1

Then

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/20973-elementalist-condition-build/

Then

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-5-12-12/page/11#post1581617

And that’s where he currently is.

Gercoa.7490:

swiftpaw.6397:

What kind of builds have you tried on your ele?

Honestly not many.

Started here….
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-Staff-Ele-1-18-13/first

Then did this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBablZUB-4&list=UUDQB-raxmhDat2gZ-LnPn9g&index=1

Then

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/20973-elementalist-condition-build/

Then

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-5-12-12/page/11#post1581617

And that’s where he currently is.

Basically I find the best way to play the lee it to just bash your face into the keyboard repeatedly…

Have a try at S/D ele with might stacking combos.
Also if you want a challenge, try out the full glass cannon Lightning hammer ele, hits like a truck.

I’m bored with the game too, but ele can be pretty fun.

I’m actually trying a Necromancer right now. Not a Minion Master…because…I have enough pet problems.

I mean..I still prefer to do dungeons on my Ranger over my Guardian, Warrior, Mesmer and Engineer…but something just feels off this patch. Or someone said in a 16 fractal today that monsters seemed to have had a damage buff lately. I didn’t think so…then the Ascalonian Captain hit me for 10,001 damage on that meteor spell.

I know I’m running a glass cannon build now but…that’s ridiculous for a random attack in an AoE that doesn’t have any kind of indication besides “It’s raining pain. Oh dear god it’s raining pain.” Sorry…got carried away there.

But yeah…I mean…I just really got into ranger a couple weeks before the patch. I went from level 1 to 100% world explored in under three weeks. I still like it enough to do a P1 CoF run, a 6/8 Fractal run and a 16/18 Fractal run per day…but just kinda bleh feeling

i have long time ago, have logged in like 2 or 3 times in the last 3 weeks or so and after the update it cost me just to log in and do the daily, is a pain to even use my ranger.

I just finished leveling my Guardian, getting her dungeon gear now. I enjoy playing her. When I first started leveling her, I was like OMG I’m useful! I got a ticket today and Idk if I should get the longbow(because I love that skin) and hope that Rangers and the LB get better, or get something for my Guardian. I think I’ll wait to see what the Devs say tomorrow.

But on a more relevant topic, I know what you mean my Ranger feels clunky and off. Despite using a SB and trying both the Axe and the LB after the patch, I’m back to my condi build, but I can’t be bothered. I loved PVE and especially FotM. I hit lvl 30, and now I struggle with anything above 18. I struggle getting a group, and at this point having a Ranger is almost embarrassing. I occasionally hear them joking referred to as “Charity Cases”, but sadly there is some truth to that. Until Rangers get the changes they need in PvE I will probably be on my Guardian.

I only have a ranger in my account. Despite all the negatives all the class i still loved it. Finding groups for Dungeons / Fractals was a pain in the kitten but i was somewhat useful… Went from playing ~4-5 hours per day this game to loging in 1 hour in the past 5 months.

Anet simply ruined the game for me. At least if they had given me a sign when i was starting the game saying " WARNING DO NOT PLAY RANGER ! MOST USELESS AND FORGOTTEN DEV CLASS IN GAME" maybe i would have started of with a warrior or elementalist and still enjoy the game.

Hmm good point OP, never actually thought of the impact on players with ascended items and given how long it takes to acquire them..

So we find a build that we like because it works so we enhance it with ascended gear. Anet now decides they don’t like it and nerf the build to the point it isn’t really viable anymore rendering all that ascended gear worthless to the build..

So now what? Spend another 5-6 months gearing up for another nerf? I’m sure glad I havn’t spend any Laurels yet.. I believe I’m still sitting on 140 of them.

I respecced after the patch, only to go back to the spec I was running previously. I did swap one of my pets, and I was forced to swap out quick draw for companion’s might, but my bow is really a secondary weapon.

Swapping my jaguar for a lynx has returned some of the single target burst I lost, and companion’s might has restored some of my drake’s AoE burst. Rending pounce hits decently hard, is a leap finisher, and has a rather long bleed attached to it. Stacking signet of the hunt and hilt bash behind a rending pounce tends to cause that first hit to land somewhere in the 4-5k range, with the second hit following up at about 2k.

Signet of the Hunt / Hilt Bash don’t stack with each other, it is annoying, it would be better to Hilt Bash, hit f2, and try to time the signet to get it on the second hit.

At least they made it so mesmer can’t spawn duelists on keep walls. Thankfully, they fixed ‘obstructed’ on keep walls too for bow wielding rangers. Oh wait…they didn’t fix either of those issues. They want you to have stability to stand on top of the lip and not get pulled! Better have a guardian on your squad that wants to stand there and do nothing but give you stability. It’s not like they’d be more useful elsewhere or anything…

I mean, it’s not like Ele’s and Guardians can’t spam attacks through walls. Because if ranger could do any of that it would have been nerfed months ago.

Lunchbox.9543:

Signet of the Hunt / Hilt Bash don’t stack with each other, it is annoying, it would be better to Hilt Bash, hit f2, and try to time the signet to get it on the second hit.

You probably are aware of this, but if not well…. axe #3 and signet of the hunt/hilt bash stack.
Few months ago I could literally one hit (well 2 hits since its is x2 attack with raven f2) a golem in mists..pretty cool

I started getting bored and annoyed with ranger months ago, but already full equipment set. I had changed from the build I really wanted to use and love because it was always weak, and switched to condition trapper, which worked out OK in its way, but just wasn’t what I really wanted. Since then I’ve spent a great deal more time playing an S/D ele and a necro (power/crit with axe/focus and dagger/warhorn). While neither one is the bow ranger I really wanted from the start and still want even now, both are superior to the ranger as it currently exists in the game.

Then there is this latest patch, which, while improving my necro build a bit, actually made ranger even worse. And then when you take the OP’s points regarding gearing into account, it just seems totally worthless for anyone to start working on a ranger, or to try and rework an existing ranger to adjust to the new meta. Until the game actually has something useful and meaningful for rangers that makes them fun and useful, I just don’t see the point. Even if the devs actually do make considerable improvements to the class to make it become worth playing regularly again, there is still the high probability that it would require rebuilding and regrearing, so why bother to do so now?

As others on these forums have pointed out repeatedly, even before the patch, there simply is nothing that the rangers can do that cannot be achieved by other classes as well or better, and that just isn’t worth it when all we get are pets (pets that we have no control over the stats or evolution of, and that die so horribly easily). And with this new patch, and the nerf to shortbow (admittedly useful in sPvP, but solidly detrimental in very nearly every other game mode), the class is now worse off overall than it was before, and the minor changes to traits and other skills simply goes no where near far enough to make up for it.

The way I see it, the only thing that will help is a major rework of the basics of the class and its skills to give the class something unique that is good and useful (as opposed to the liability that pets can be), plus the ability to perform at least 1-2 roles as well as other classes (note, not better than, but as well as). And of course, that would likely result in more issues regarding gear sets. Why should anyone work toward a legendary or ascended gear for a build knowing that it will never be as good as any other class, and that once the class is finally updated may require a totally new build and gear set anyway? Spend time and money on a class that has always had problems since launch and has never had any real improvements despite numerous promises from the devs? I’m sorry, but no thank you. Honestly ArenaNet is lucky I still play at all at this point (though I do enjoy my necro reasonably well), and I certainly have no intention of buying gems anytime in the near future. And all of this is really unfortunate, because the game has such great potential.