I played aion (ranger) for like 3-4 years and reroll to guild wars 2 not so long time ago and as far as ranger was my class for such long time and i love this class in most MMO’s, it was obvious class to choose for me.
And i can tell you what i dont like in ranger so far.
Part. 1. I think its one of the most disapointment for me.
Ranger simply dont have beautiful skills in gw2, there are no skills that let you feel the power either, all we have is simple “arrow shooting”, even elementalists can summon frost bow and it have better looking skills then ranger ones. So you basically look at this “simple arrow shoting” all the time, no beautifull effects, nothing. Same problems goes to bow’s design, there are no bows on which i look and i’d say “I want this bow”, most bows are bad, swords look ok though.
Part 2. “PvP”
Didnt play WvWvW pvp that much, but i played arenas or whatever they are called here “sPvP”. In PvP ranger cant brust effectivly because he dont have power especially if we are talking about playing with bows, swords dmg i find ok, but warrior can make a paper from you so much easyer and faster, so i dont know why you even may want to bother to play melee ranger. Longbow firerate is nonsense compared to dmg output it gives. In “sPvP” maps designed with many obstacles in that way you offten find yourself fighting in mid / close ranger, all Longbow do in such situations, is makeing you laugh on how BAD it is. If u get downed by anyone and your teammates are braindead chances to survive are lower then any other class have. All you have to interapt finishing blow is one stun skill and as far as many classes have stability / or like thiefs will go in hide and finish you off, you can do nothing, look at other classes survivability in such situations.
My personal part.
I love ranger in Aion and it is called “Brusting wh**e there” low surviveability but great brusting dmg, looks like here gunner gets this role, atleast im judging by videos i saw (for me, i dont want to run with rifle, i want ****** bow). In gw2 i can get medium dmg + medium surviveability, or high surviveability + lol dmg.
And pet’s = dont love them atall in PvE they will lure all mobs arround to you (exaggerating but happened few times
), in PvP they are simply bad and most of the time their inpact is near to nothing.