Guild Wars 2

You are not the only one, Durz. Maul being a blast finisher would not only be amazing for bunker rangers, but also for trappers. Giving you and all your allies both fire and frost aura at the same time would be amazing.

I’ve found that even with Fortifying Bonds the pet will still die virtually as quickly as without. No matter how much +boon duration you have, your pet still only receives 3 seconds of regeneration (check http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond), and said regeneration uses your pet’s healing power, not your own, meaning it heals for jack all.

For both PvE and PvP I’d take Empathic Bond over Fortifying Bond any day of the week.

Also, in regards to Prayer to Lyssa: I’ve never used it, but it seems pretty weak. As a support/tank Ranger myself, I much prefer skills such as Lightning Reflexes, Quickening Zephyr, Protect Me, Search & Rescue, and Signet of the Wild, all of which bring much more to the table than Prayer to Lyssa.

Aye, it would make Greatsword a viable main hand, and it would also greatly improve Ranger’s group support capabilities.

Decent enough, though I’d sooner go 0/0/30/10/30 for Empathic Bond. I’d also pick an off-hand axe over off-hand horn. The axe works really well together with Healing Spring (and any combo field for that matter) and the 12% vulnerability is also not too shabby against bosses. On occasion, the projectile reflection is also pretty good. All in all, I find it offers much more than the warhorn, of which the only decent thing it provides in PvE is fury. The might buff is virtually worthless, and the swiftness buff is only decent for WvW.

I disagree with Barrage. It’s not a blast at all.

“Make Serpent’s Strike a Whirl Finisher.

Make Finishers from pets benefit the Ranger.

Give Spirits a Field.

Make Pounce (third auto attack on 1h Sword) a Leap Finisher. Crazy idea, but just thought I’d throw it out there. :P"

I agree with the others, but I disagree with these four. Serpent’s strike a whirl finisher? It doesn’t even look like a whirl. It’s a dodge roll. Finishers from pets affecting the ranger is just as nonsensical.

Spirits should not have fields. They’re buffers, not field generators, though if Anet ever decides to completely overhaul rangers, I wouldn’t mind having a couple of mobile combo fields around. It would make off-hand axe incredible with its 100% projectile and whirl finishers.

As for pounce being a leap finisher, that would be absurdly overpowered.

I’d rather have a one handed melee option besides sword, to be honest. But mostly because the sword autoattack rooting bugs the hell out of me.

Because of Empathic Bond, which makes your pet take all your conditions every 10 seconds. If you want to have some defense against conditions, it’s either that or Healing Spring. Signet of Renewal just doesn’t cut it.

If you’re going for regen, and if you’re not 30 in wilderness survival, I would advise you to take Healing Spring. It makes use of regen and also takes care of your conditions.

Excellent idea, and it wouldn’t be overpowered.

Horrible music, and the video starts out with you killing a bunch of upscaled lowlevels with awful gear and experience.

Oglaf.1074:

Because unforunately Rangers in GW2 are the lame Legolas-kind of Ranger, not the cool Survivalist/Frontierman-type of Ranger.

Legolas didn’t have a pet.

He was also very viable in PvP.

It’s no wonder that game blows so much, when the pet class is capable of storing its pet away permanently.

Aveneo.2068:

Tracking would be awesome too. At least it gives Rangers something unique and effective. And as I remember from playing my Hunter in WoW it was nowhere near OP against the Rogue who was invisible all the time.

But we’ll never get it as a tracking ability would make a lot of (bandwagon) Thief players scream like the world was ending because they’d lose their godmode.

Gods forbid they would actually have to think about what they’re doing during combat.

I disagree with CRrabbit. In my opinion, a 0/0/30/10/30 build is currently one of our strongest, if not the strongest, builds. Focus on toughness, healing power, and power. You will have much, much more survivability than if you were to have a more damage orientated build, while your damage will almost be the same, assuming you will be able to micromanage your main sources of DPS, which will be your pets, properly.

Greatsword is definately a great secondary weapon, but not a main weapon. As a main weapon, anything ranged will serve you well. I’m personally a fan of axe/dagger, but axe/torch and axe/warhorn are also decent choices. I’m less a fan of the shortbow, and even less of the longbow, but feel free to try them out anyway.

FLFW.3105:

Rangers are pretty fine at the moment. QQers will QQ.

And liars will lie. Do not delude yourself into thinking that Rangers are fine. True, some people severely overestimate how much the class sucks, but we’re right down there with engineers and (arguably) necromancers when it comes to class balance. It is utterly undeniable that the very core aspects of our class (pets, spirits, sigils and shouts) need quite a few bug fixes and minor buffs, as it is also undeniable that thieves, warriors, and mesmers currently utterly dominate PvP. Likewise, guardians utterly dominate PvE. The only thing we dominate is the graveyard, if this game had one.

Quarktastic.1027:

Adaneshade.2409:

A week ago I would suggest any other class for PvP…… But last night I watched a SB ~ S/D ranger take on a bunker ele.
Just let me say I’d never want to cross paths with that ranger…..

Either the bunker ele was lagging, or wasn’t playing very well.

If neither of those was the case….I really want to know that ranger’s spec.

On that note: I watched a bunker ele fend off a group of around 10 players for the better part of 15 minutes.

I once fought a D/D bunker elementalist for over five minutes with neither of us ever getting below 90% health. It was rediculous. The only reason the fight ended was because he had enough of it and logged out. Either that or his client crashed.

Craptrain.7203:

Agadar.4931:

Lorian.4028:

Agadar.4931:

Have you seen Hunger Games?

The first poor guy who died was the Ranger.

Are you forgetting the main character?

Main character was most definately a longbow warrior.

Or a shortbow thief.

Meh, she was too stupid to be a thief. Definately a warrior.

I’m not entirely sure whether the OP is joking around but failing at being funny, or whether he genuinely believes he’s a top level player.

Kasama.8941:

It’s truly amazing how this topic just keeps coming up time and time again. Hopefully ArenaNet will take this as a clue, and we will see a rifle for the Ranger in a future expansion.

If Ranger were given a rifle, Anet would pretty much indirectly confirm that we’re nothing but gimped warriors. I doubt they’ll want to do that.

Besides, what druidic/hunter-like abilities would you suggest a rifle to have, anyway? If anything, the loud noises it makes would scare your pet away.

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

Seod.7924:

I prefer warrior because they have the best of both worlds. You can go Melee with Range and excel at both.

Ranger is a fun profession i admit, i run a full glass canon.

However, pets in wvwvw are somewhat useless. In dungeons they always die *making u very vulnerable) The ranger is plagued with the “obstructed” bug. Most of the time, if i chase a enemy or even standing still, my shots can be obstructed. The warrior’s rifle seems to be a lot more forgiven with that bug.

Ranger’s longbow is pretty decent for wvwvw, however, skill 1 is somewhat slow and easy to dodge (same for war’s bow)
Warriors has heavy armor, vs medium for Ranger.
Ranger has very poor condition removal
Melee wise, unless you run full spirits, warrior will eat a ranger for diner. Especially if you plan on running with a GS.

It;s just my opinion but go with Warrior. Better dps, lots of builds to try and have fun with. Can adapt to all situation and no pets to manage and less bugs (so far).

However, GS warrior, is not the only way to go
I suggest you go in the mist and fool around with both prof and try different builds, see what you like best.

Eat us for dinner? Have you seen this guys videos?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/14j8nf/pain_inverter_volume_4_asura_melee_ranger_world/

Check out the earlier ones as well.

Yeah, pain inverter is definately a really good skill.

Too bad it’s an asura racial skill, and not a ranger skill.

Sarosna.6708:

tiboi.3108:

as much as I wanted this feature implemented haha. I’m afraid this will make all the thieves out there qq and rage quit the game. Yup, I’m serious XD

Do we really need that many Thieves in the game to begin with? Thief was fun and acrobatic when I played it but I just couldn’t stand playing the FotM. Ranger is supposed to be an outdoor survivalist…did they suddenly loose their ability to track…anything?

WoW Hunters were trackers. Literally. They could actually see humanoids and beasts on their minimap, depending on which tracking skill you had activated.

GW2 Rangers can’t track anything. We’re not trackers. We’re gimped archers with pets dragged from the special animal olympics.

Lorian.4028:

Agadar.4931:

Have you seen Hunger Games?

The first poor guy who died was the Ranger.

Are you forgetting the main character?

Main character was most definately a longbow warrior.

Have you seen Hunger Games?

The first poor guy who died was the Ranger.

This will only be a problem in group combat, and considering the pet is essentially half a character (you, the ranger, being the other half) I have no qualms with a party member, who is a whole character, to be given the buff over my pet.

With a build partially focussed on regeneration and group support, Healing Spring is the vastly superior choice for me.

Glass cannon ranger is not worth it. It’s all glass and little cannon.

Arpheus, the leap finisher only heals the leaper. It is the blast finisher which also heals allies.

Protect Me oftentimes gets your pet killed within two to three seconds, even against a single opponent. If pets weren’t this squishy I would consider using it, but as it is right now, Lightning Reflexes is far better by miles, for the reasons Raven provided.

Greatsword would be a great main weapon if it weren’t for its extremely low damage. It is however still a viable secondary. Many a times has it helped me keep thieves and warriors at bay until my other cooldowns were back up. A greatsword is good for any build, and will serve a condition build and a power build in about equal measure due to Maul’s nature of doing both direct damage and bleeding damage.

Sword is currently a broken weapon due to the auto-attack disallowing you to dodge. Proper use of this weapon thusly requires careful micromanaging of your auto-attack, in other words, turning it off and manually tapping ‘1’ when required. This off-puts a lot of people, myself included.

However, despite this flaw, the sword allows for two evades, a poison, and a high damage auto-attack which also buffs your pet on every third strike. Carrying a dagger in the off-hand will almost make you thief-like, by adding a third evade as well as a ranged cripple. Off-hand dagger is thus prefferred for condition damage based tank/evade builds, while off-hand warhorn is preferred for power based buff builds and the torch for condition based damage builds.

Off-hand axe does not compliment sword that much in my opinion. All it does is add one ranged attack, and one projectile blocker which roots you in place.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the Ranger.

Seriously though, this thread should be stickied and renamed ‘Watch this video before you think about rolling a Ranger’ so that nobody makes the horrible decision of rolling a class which cannot even kill a critter.

Got bored after 30 seconds. If it was supposed to be funny, then it failed horribly.

Wasn’t it bugged? I recall the range being very small. I also recall the healing done being incredibly little.

Aveneo.2068:

Luriyu.6873:

i’m gonna speculate they’re gonna try and fix the dead pet healing underwater glitch….

it’s absolutely game breaking underwater, and i rely on it constantly as a crutch in any bad situation (hey i’m losing, and it’s a 2v1? well i’m gonna try and last as long as possible so i’m gonna hop into that water and face-tank them, kill 1 and then force the other to rage quit in frustration)

Why fix what isn’t broken? Your pet is basically someone that’s reviving you. If your opponent shows any form of intelligence, they would know that reviving goes faster than someone dealing damage and that they should interrupt the one that is reviving.

That is all… But yes, it is kinda sad when we need to jump into the water as Rangers in order to stand a chance; because we’re pretty lackluster when it comes to fighting on land.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Unless we’re meant to only function underwater.

Did the latest patch not change our class name to Aquaman?

Considering the 10-second cooldown between procs is still in effect, they’re still utterly useless.

The last ranger I ran into who used spirits got his kitten handed to him by me.

Leo Paul.1659:

I find the avatar of melandru very useful in wvw.. in fact i take it instead of time warp or mass invisibility. i like the 1200 range of binding roots

Too bad it only lasts a horrible 20 seconds.

Because it suits my playstyle, and I like dogs.

Personally, I’m expecting it to be ‘fixed’ soon.

Number 4 does impressive damage when it lands, and #5 has its uses against thieves, as well as being a combo field. It also does big damage against the few numbskulls who don’t dodge out of it.

All in all, it does more damage than the dagger off-hand. However, personally I would probably still pick the dagger over the torch, because it provides a poison+evasion as well as a ranged cripple. Especially the ranged cripple makes it good for both a melee build as well as a ranged build.

Durz, every chump in this game has at least one kind of interrupt on their skill bar, so it takes just one chump to make you waste a 25-second cooldown skill unless you pop one of the two sources of stability we have.

Munrock.3092:

I think if this could move it’d be OP. The dual role it plays as ranged defense and melee AoE isn’t confusing/inefficient/nonsense at all, it means the skill always has a use no matter what type of opponent you’re facing.

Using Whirling Defense against a melee opponent is only going to get you killed.

I’ll take Thief’s stealth finishing over quickness finishing any day of the week.

Happy new year to my fellow beastmasters, trappers, archers, and spirit herders! May 2013 be the year in which Rangers finally become the kings of the jungle! Go forth, and slay thieves in celebration of the new year!

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Akisame.9508:

Othayuni.7369:

Remember that Aragorn in LotR was also a ranger

Yea, I remember, and if I remember correctly, he wasn’t forced to use a pet was he?

Depends on your outlook towards dwarves and hobbits.

I recall he was throwing dwarves at his enemies similar to how we throw our pets at our enemies.

I’m going to need to test this out in some way. I need a definitive answer.

In that case I find myself agreeing with you completely. As far as I know, the only ‘burst mobility’ we have is the Greatsword’s Swoop. No weapon, utility or elite ability we have provides any burst mobility besides Swoop. It’s depressing, truly.

Elthuzar.9478:

Durzlla.6295:

And that’s the -point- of burning and poison, they don’t stack in potency but you can stack them up to last FOREVER, they will ALWAYS have 33% less healing which in PvP that’s a kittening death sentence! The point of using poison is more for the kitten block to healing it applies than the damage, but you know, half of this forum is to stupid to think about building for anything other than MOAR DAMGZ!!

This ^

Poison as a condition is one of the strongest conditions in the game, it’s damage is in between bleeding and burning and reduces healing by 33%. A great condition for PvP but also for PvE against mobs that use regeneration and heals (Skale for instance).

A ranger could easily make a build and gear set around poison as a primary damage as it’s theme, with sword & dagger, Shortbow, viper traps, devourer or spider pets and runes and sigils that boost condition damge and poison duration. It would be an amazingly helpful build in a team environment, ensuring constant poison uptime on multiple targets and putting them on the defensive.

All three conditions have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I would hazard a guess to say the developers don’t want the ranger to have a poison field on a utility skill as well as pets because they don’t want one class to have continuous access to every field and finisher.

I do believe elementalists have almost every single combo field in the game, as well as plenty of finishers.

Durzlla, conditions are only removed on the first heal, not on every tick. The official wiki says so, and I’m inclined to believe it. My personal experience also confirms this.

fivekiller.1432:

escaping from bad situations is the one thing that rangers need.

i fear much of the community and perhaps even the developers think swiftness is mobility.

it is not.

Swiftness is definately a form of mobility. It’s just not a very good one. I’ll take a teleport or stealth over swiftness any day of the week.

Ideally, that’s how the traitline would look like. The question is however, what would replace the beast mastery tree? We’re not only talking about a traitline rework; we’re taking about an entire overhaul. Anet does not have the resources nor the incentive to do undertake such a massive operation.