Guild Wars 2

TL;DR Ranger is highly pet based, that’s not a problem if you learn to play the class. Most people who whine about rangers just haven’t figured it out yet, and since I’ve been playing ranger since the servers first launched, and frankly most of the complaints have never been an issue for me

I’ve been playing my Ranger since the three day headstart. I’ve tried to level other professions (I actually have a character of every prof) and I’ve always gotten bored and gone back to ranger. My second highest is a thief at 46, but ranger is just too much fun. Since the game launched, people have been complaining the prof is too pet based, but I’ve never had a problem with it.

I will note that I LOVE pets. All my D&D characters have always had pets, and in games that have a pet option, I always use the pet. That being said, Ranger pets only die if you are a bad Ranger. Sadly, being a bad Ranger is very, very easy as there are numerous easy pitfalls, too many to list here. If you’re a good Ranger, you kick total butt. I never grouped up for Orr, even when during launch people were running 5 man parties just to explore, I’ve solo spiked warriors for over 20k damage, and my favorite Ranger moment of awesome was when during Frost and Fire I saved my party from a wipe by soloing the Molten Berserker after everyone else in the group died before he hit 85%.

The main key in Ranger pets is that you NEED to swap pets. Keep an eye on your pet’s health, if it gets low, swap it. If you swap pets when your pet is alive, it’s a 20 second(untraited) CD. Swapping a dead pet is a 60 second CD, which means your in what I call the swap graveyard for that fight, cause if your pet died once in a fight, it’s going to die again before that CD is up.

Worth noting that you can make some builds that are fairly effective for solo play that rely on pet swapping. The Beastmastery spec has some traits that not only reduce swap CD, but buff you, your pet, and sometimes nearby allies on swap with fantastic buffs like might and even quickness that combo nicely into other builds. As long as you don’t use really bad pets (my only Ranger complaint has always been that not all pets were made with an equal stat total making some just plain strictly better than almost anything else for the specific role they serve *cough*drakes*cough*) and swap when health gets low, you’ll be great.

You want to make dungeons better? Remove the swamp fractal entirely in fotm. I’ve only done fotm twice and both times my final fractal has been swamp, leading my previously fun dungeon and group to be a massive moronic ragefest and dissolve without getting any rewards. It’s just absurd. And since you can’t add people to your fotm group when others leave, one guy leaving means the group is over. I’m not doing fotm again until the swamp fractal is either made significantly more pug idiot proof, or preferably removed from the game entirely. I’m just done with that bs. /endrant

Pets aren’t broken if you know how to use them. If your pet is dying all the time, it’s because you aren’t paying attention to its health to swap it for a different pet or call it back from a dangerous attack or aoe. I personally despise this idea. Pets are an incredibly fun and powerful mechanic for those who can use it right. It’s just that those who don’t know how to use it like to blame their failures on the mechanic rather than on themselves. Once I started swapping my pets almost every time the CD was up, and healing it even when I didn’t need a heal, I’ve had few problems with survivability.

Great write up! My only objection is that I personally do not understand why canine pets are classified as defensive. My wolf has the same stats as my Drake, so the statement about canine having more defensive stats is a little bit baffling. Just my two cents though. I can see an argument for why canines can be classified as defensive (especially fern hounds), but I find my wolf to be a valuable ally for offensive play.

So, I was roleplaying and this topic came up. I honestly don’t know the answer. I checked the wiki, but it didn’t seem to have one either. I’m inclined to think they wouldn’t, but I’d prefer an answer based on more than my gut feeling. Do siege devourers have any traits that make them desirable and worth using alongside or even instead of Iron Legion vehicles?

nldixon.8514:

You can’t fit both into your build? What would you be giving up in order to have both? I’m assuming Eagle Eye?

Yeah you’d have to give up Eagle Eye. Which I for one am not willing to do in any Longbow build. Some might disagree, but I find the extra 300 range for maximum damage on my longbow and the 5% damage boost to be invaluable. I personally never saw the point of remorseless, piercing arrows or beastmaster is better imo. If you’re in WvW or PvE, I’d say piercing arrows is almost a must. While you may not be body blocked all that often, it can be really frustrating when you fail to get a kill just because some idiot moved in front of you at just the wrong time. Can’t comment on SPvP as I honestly know very little about it.