Guild Wars 2

I won’t say too much because I promised Deus Ex Tree I wouldn’t share the build, but I will say that we have been having some great success making quite an impact when running with our group in WvW. We had 15 [GF] running around and were able to largely hinder enemy movement through several means as well as keep perma-fury on our guildies. We were also throwing out some excellent damage.

Some takeaways:

• Ranger has several skills that work very well when paired with other Rangers using the same skills at the same time (easier to do than using skills while each other’s is on cd like with walls of reflection, etc.)
• Healing Spring should never be underestimated as it is easily the best water combo field in the game with the highest up-time as well (50%).
  • 2 Rangers is 100% up-time. 3 is 150% up-time, and so on.
  • With your group coordinating combo blast finishers, you are a Godsend to any small bunker-busting group
• Hindering enemy movement on a large scale is the difference between:
  • getting rolled by a large zerg when pincered and escaping from that situation
  • several enemies escaping your zerg bust and you cleaning most/all of them up
  • turning an enemy charge into a routed enemy force
• Ranger has the ability to impact the movement of enemies in the front line and back line at the same time.
  • Add multiple rangers for some “meanness”.

Sebrent.3625:

• Hindering enemy movement on a large scale is the difference between:
  • getting rolled by a large zerg when pincered and escaping from that situation
  • several enemies escaping your zerg bust and you cleaning most/all of them up
  • turning an enemy charge into a routed enemy force

also

• shaking off a trailing zerg

but agreed, some of the control abilities of rangers would be great if it wasn’t for the 5 target cap. Stacking multiple Barrages and Muddy Terrains ontop of another while having +100% cond duration might be a viable way of throwing off zergs.
Also Chill Traps and Spike Traps.

Aye, those do work well. Cripple stacks in duration ;-)

Sadly, cripple + chill doesn’t seem to make enemies move any slower than just chill.

Damage is not an issue. Burst damage? Sure. We have to invest more to get that.

The main issues are that we are not really driving the meta much (aside from healing spring + blast finishers for organized groups) the way walls of reflection, lines of warding, feedback, and glamor builds are. Rangers do not have any abilities that affect more than the AOE cap of 5. Mesmer, Elementalist, and Guardian do. Mesmer and Guardian have several.

Aside from that, the whole “pet class” issues need to be addressed. People on walls are immune to my pet :-( People below me when I’m on a wall are immune to it too :-/

(1) I’m not die-hard. As I’ve stated in multiple Ranger and Mesmer threads on these boards, my Mesmer is still currently my main.

(2) The Ranger can do some great amounts of burst. There are videos serving as proof of this. However, more often than not, the Ranger has to invest considerably more cooldowns to accomplish this than other classes.

(3) You have people there who aren’t really even familiar with the Ranger class

• Healing Spring is superb for groups to jump to, throw down blast finishers and jump right back into the fight
• Muddy Terrain is nice, but so are traps
• Entangle is the only ability like that in the game
• Traps are invisible to enemies, which can be quite helpful for surprising them when they are charging your position
• Traps are great AOE in the middle of a fight and very low cooldowns to boot.

The Ranger, as a class, suffers from a few things:

• Pet issues are hindering the class a bit
• There are several bad players playing as Rangers
• There are several players that bandwagon on someone else’s ideas instead of truly testing them out.

People were saying throughout beta that Mesmer was going to suck and be weak and useless because of this reason and that and that the Mesmer’s clones should persist from target to target and every other thing they thought should be different.

What happened?

Many of us that loved the class, despite the bugs (many of which are still around), continued on, showed others how to play the class right, and now it’s considered one of the most powerful classes in the game in both PvE and PvP and its community is awesome.

Just because someone is a guild leader, doesn’t mean they are an expert on the game. Being an expert on the game and each class is not a pre-req.

Just because someone has a podcast, doesn’t mean they are an expert on the game. Being an expert on the game and each class is not a pre-req.

If you believe everything you hear without verifying it yourself, then you will often live with incorrect information.

Take a look elsewhere. The forum is aware of the pet F2 problem. It is not relegated to just the drakes.

Take a look at this thread, you talked about other topics as did the video you linked.

Feel free to fraps. My Ranger runs around with the [ROTH] tag on Ehmry Bay unless I’m running with a particular guild. My Mesmer too. Sadly though, that means you need to be on Anvil Rock or Borliss Pass to get a shot at me at the moment as we seem to be stuck in an eternal war with those two.

I run in a 5 man, as much as I love my ranger he doesn’t come close to providing as much as my upleveled guard does.

We are usually up against much larger forces, so it can be difficult as a 5man group to stand inside of the healing spring when you are fighting upwards of 15 players at a time(obv not always the case). In order to survive we have to kite and/or push when the time comes so sometimes healing spring just isn’t an option. As amazing of a water field that it is, in some situations you just aren’t going to get the total benefit.

Really the only truely unique things we bring to the group is AOE root and the spring. It’s just more beneficial to the group for me to bring the Guard.

My guards heal on dodge and condition removal shouts alone make him a better option for our group.

Again this is for organized 5 man group play, I don’t zerg often enough to comment.

Ranger is my solo roamer, but as soon as our group gets more than 3 people I switch to guard.

Orodret.8230:

Meh…internetz…
I see you wont stop spaming here, so ill take my leave.
To devs- please reconsider drakes F2 cast times and range.
To Sebrent- I hope we meet on field or in PvP. Frapse never lie.

What a dumb, pointless, chest thump reply because you couldn’t get your own way in the space of 3 posts.

Sebrent.3625:

…
The main issues are that we are not really driving the meta much (aside from healing spring + blast finishers for organized groups) the way walls of reflection, lines of warding, feedback, and glamor builds are.
…

Blast finisher? the non controllable “tail swipe”? how do you manage to get this off where you want?

Ranger target caps hurt the most. Elementalist static fields have no target cap. They can stun 50+ people if they’re stacked correctly. Line of warding has no target cap. Neither does the mesmer focus line. I don’t really see the point in capping a ranger’s target number. It’s easy to get out of entangle. In a large scale fight, there’s so much AoE flying around that you often don’t even have to auto-attack. Entangle is also on a two and a half minute cool down, two minutes if you trait for it. Traps aren’t instant, even in ground target form. They still have a travel time, and the only CC we get off them is condition based, freeze and immobilize/cripple. I don’t know why we got the shaft when it came to large scale combat. There’s really no reason for it.

@Longtomsilver: Look at the part “for organized groups”. That is pivotal as you are relying on your group to blast the heck out of your water field in 1-2 seconds and go back in. It’s extremely effective.

@Kiran: While I agree the traps aren’t effective at twitch CC, they are still extremely effective when you trait for them. Muddy terrain is effective without traits. Entangle is amazing with organized groups. If you’re dealing with conditions, stuns/dazes/knockdowns, and entangle, you’re in trouble. This is the 3rd piece to CC when zerg busting.

Ranger allows a group to drive into the middle of a larger group and stay alive via healing spring + blast finishers and keep the enemy CC’d via traps, muddy terrain, entangle, and pets.

Orodret.8230:

What all of this convo have to do with drakes F2 and ranger AoE dmg?
Tread spoiled, ill open new one soon.
If there are mods here, this tread is for recycle bin.

Topic says “wvw and ranger. Organised grp play” and that’s what they are discussing. It’s a kind of answer to your points about aoe and drakes – they are trying to show other things ranger can do to “balance” it.