Guild Wars 2

I never thought I would say this, but…

I think I hate rangers more than I hate hammer warriors.

At least I can dodge that blasted hammer! What cruelty have thieves deserved to be hunted down in WvW and pinned down with rapid fire? Oh, woe for every thief that comes across a longbow ranger these days. It’s like a long range backstab, – you don’t need to get in close and stab them in the back! That sudden, “ahh my gosh, I’m dying from one skill!” is OUR signature trait!! (crud, did I just make thieves sound OP?) But that’s not the point! A graceful backstab would require at least some level of finesse~ And I don’t see the finesse in rapid fire!!

Even a bearbow can do it. A bearbow!! Since when did a PvE bearbow become a THREAT?! Answer me, since when?! -shakes fist- Come back here and fight me, you little bearbow ranger! Let me see how long you’d last against my blades, if you weren’t hiding inside your zerg!! -huff-

All this pent-up hatred of the thieves seemed to have come in full swing! Why? Why us?! Were rangers this neglected and forgotten, that such extremities had to be made? It simply could not be the class design – I have come across rangers in the past who have put up a vicious fight. Sadly, such rangers were few and far between. But it convinced me it was not a lack of balance, but merely a lack of understanding of the ranger class. I had always viewed a skilled ranger to be a nasty counter to the thieves.

…Now rangers are a counter to thieves, regardless of skill level. -sulks to the shadows-

===

(Another dramatic post. I figure if I got to keep your interest within a wall of text, it’s worth the write. It was just a bit trickier to make a ranting post instead of a mournful one.)

It only made LB rangers more viable than what they were before, they have now a more solid weapon option. Rangers deserve to shine though as theyve had their time in the dark. I can understand how rangers can wreck if they focus you in a group fight/small scale fight, but 1 v 1 on the thief we can take them.

Drop BV for DS and laugh as the rangers kill themselves. DS increased my survivability by a ton, I don’t think I’m ever going back to BV.

I also hate rangers but for their use of knockback in pve.

On topic, don’t sleep while playing a thief, now you can at least avoid most of RF dmg by a single dodge or reflect it and rofl at a dead ranger.

DS is mandatory now for sure. And keeping a warrior’s whirling blades is also attractive. I’m back to maining the thief again as I have harvested all the karma I needed on the ranger in 2 weeks. Twas a silly 2 weeks of machine gun murder with no risk.

literally the only thing i did to adapt to this scum new power build is to slot ds and still own rangers like before only now even the good one kill themselves more then i do.
ds now after the bp nerf if you play d/p is kinda mandtory if you want to face tank for a bit

Yea Dagger-storm is superior to BV in WvW in most cases. On demand reflect and stability is much appreciated and has been way more useful to me than BV especially post patch. Plus its just more satisfying when using it correctly. I’ve also been playing around with summon druid spirit, sylvari racial. Besides its horrible cooldown that makes it rarely worth it, its pretty kitten powerful, does this aoe immobilize every ~8 seconds and draws conditions

DS? Hm….

The stupid rangers will keep AA/RF you then die.

The smart rangers just barrrage/send pet in and wait out the stability/reflect and laugh at you. That or an 8k maul in the face.

Azawrath.7304:

Drop BV for DS and laugh as the rangers kill themselves. DS increased my survivability by a ton, I don’t think I’m ever going back to BV.

talking about wvw I can see this working cos wvw is full of no brain pve carebears. Unfortunately WvW is not PvP, just a huge number of chicken smashing buttons.

I’ve tried playing around with my Thief at sPvP a while back (I just started being a Thief) and after doing some tests I dropped the Blinding Powder from my utility and picked Smoke Screen for a change and I came out with a better gameplay vs LB Rangers as a result.

Thieves are the best in terms of mobility, abuse that and you can outsmart 2 rangers in a 2v1 scenario.

:3

uh i would rather fight rangers than engis or medi guards

actually zerker RF rangers are easy food for thief, at least i have killed every single ranger with d/p trickery build…. obviously besides the situations when i was already low on HP and ranger would join mid of fight, but it is still possible to kill them even then if you use steal his stab/interrupt him, at that point thief jumping on you would be bigger threat tbh

as far as wvw goes, never had issues really

Once you close the gap and block their initial attacks, they are food.
Trying to dodge multiple rangers though is near impossible.

WvW? The only time a ranger has killed me is when I’m already fighting someone else or they knocked me off a cliff. However, I do use daze on steal, which makes things easier.

1.) Save Shadowstep for when you get knocked down
2.) Dodge away (back left or right) from their RF. If you dodge towards them, you will often suffer a pet knockdown or immobo and then suffer because you ran out of dodges.
3.) If you don’t like your position, then Infiltrator Arrow x 2 + stealth away and reset or make them chase you. It’s good if you make them chase you. They will not catch you with their GS. Your main goal is to get them to burn their elite and signet of stone. Then they’re pretty worthless. If you try to engage in a deathmatch when they have those up still, then chances are you will get planted into the floor. That’s just life.
4.) Also been fighting on the other end and have noted thieves using trees and uneven terrain which works really well too.
5.) I can understand being hit by rapid fire, but barrage? No!

Copy paste from my reply from the Ranger forums:

Long time Ranger main here (haven’t touched it since my return in preference of my Thief who, admittedly, had more or less become my main before I took a year or more off from GW2). I was surprised to see that Rangers had received any buffs at all.

I run a D/D Thief for roaming and solo camping in WvW. You get 3 dodges with full endurance and LDB. Basically, save your evasion frames for the rapid fire attack. You can dodge 99% of it with some patience. Don’t fight in Barrage, use Cloack and Dagger on the pet as much as possible (this is key, as any pet class should be easy pickings for a thief since pets cannot evade CnD).

You’re a thief, the master of deciding which fights you want to fight and which you don’t. If you get a poor opening on a Ranger, run away. Come back on your own terms.

Vecuu.2018:

Copy paste from my reply from the Ranger forums:

Long time Ranger main here (haven’t touched it since my return in preference of my Thief who, admittedly, had more or less become my main before I took a year or more off from GW2). I was surprised to see that Rangers had received any buffs at all.

I run a D/D Thief for roaming and solo camping in WvW. You get 3 dodges with full endurance and LDB. Basically, save your evasion frames for the rapid fire attack. You can dodge 99% of it with some patience. Don’t fight in Barrage, use Cloack and Dagger on the pet as much as possible (this is key, as any pet class should be easy pickings for a thief since pets cannot evade CnD).

You’re a thief, the master of deciding which fights you want to fight and which you don’t. If you get a poor opening on a Ranger, run away. Come back on your own terms.

I agree with all the tactics… big problem nowadays in CnD does nothing to stop the pain… the ranger can see you all the time.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I also hate rangers but for their use of knockback in pve.

+111111111

Sad thing is, all rangers are like that. Ranging from PBS when people are pushing with their high dps melee skills, to using Hunter’s Shot just to stand around in stealth til it wears off.

I only really have an issue with them when there are 2 to 3 focusing me. They are still quite easy to burst down and send into panic mode.