Guild Wars 2

Sure, it’s a shame I never had people around me willing to speed run. No one I know does that, I have never ran a speed run (though I am quite capable), and anyone I asked—like Obal—just basically told me to roll warrior then we could talk.

I don’t really care about recognition though, I was joking (hence the Kind of a Big Deal phrase). I’m just glad that when I pug high level fractals, people don’t kick me. That’s all I ever wanted: to be able to do my favorite thing which is to ranger in dungeons.

And now I can. So many people are rolling ranger just because of that 5:27 cof run. It’s been so much better to play gw2…I was on the verge of quitting to be completely honest. For me, it was hard to reconcile my love of the ranger profession with the community’s rejection of rangers. Because if I wasn’t playing ranger, I wasn’t min/max’ing fun. If I was playing ranger, I just got crapped on.

Hey, Brazil, my man—I’m just glad to be here. You’re a better player than me anyways, you deserve all the recognition you get.

I have to work now. Bleh. Happy hunting!

If you think marks is bloated, what do you think about wilderness survival?

Atherakhia.4086:

The longbow change was inconsequential in my view of things. Do you think ANet came up with the idea of stealth first or the remorseless trait first? I think remorseless came first honestly. The stealth is simply too clunky to use effectively because it’s so unreliable. The vulnerability on Rapid Shot makes sense logically, but it doesn’t really work out practically. And we’re still left with a Rapid Shot that needs a second trimmed off its duration.

The shortbow nerf I find the largest insult to this class because a lot of people out there use shortbow #4 and #5 to help kite. While the intended purpose of #5 is an interrupt, the travel time and unrelaible nature of shots can be a detriment on those clutch heals, fears, stuns, etc you’re trying to interrupt. When they reduced Shortbow’s range to 900 to match the axe, you left the 2 weapon sets being almost identical. A ranged snare, an AE condition, and an auto attack. With the changes, they should have removed the facing requirement for Shortbow’s bleeds and even with this, Axe is still probably a stronger overall option.

Now you’re right, a lot of the weapons have strong defensive options, but not every weapon for every class is split along these lines. There’s nothing wrong with expecting a class to switch to another weapon set when things are looking bad. Especially when one of those weapons is a Ranger’s greatsword which would probably be the most overpowered weapon in the game if it were given to any other class.

As to the traps, you’re right… some variety is nice to have… but the 3 traps are excessive. There’s no reason to have all 3 and Frost is the least used of the bunch (by me). When this class has such an obscene lack of AE and burst damage, having skills that are all functionally the same are among the first things that should be dropped to add it.

I had to echo this, again, wonderful post, thx.

Wow, an insightful post that doesn’t complain, thoroughly explains the issue, and doesn’t arrogantly offer up proposals for fixes? +1 aetherakhia

It’s a feature that has no utility so it will not happen. I wish the ranger forums had two neon signs:

1) No, pets will never be perma stowed
2) Yes, sword is functioning as intended—go practice with it

SFShinigami.2015:

As the holder of The Missionary Position in the Holy Church of Jedsus Chris of Saturday Feints, I would like to take this moment to apologize to our regular followers who so love to hear the words of our Lord and Savior, Jedsus Chris. Tonight the Sister Fisters were performing our weekly ritualistic atonement for our wins, led by High Priest Deadlyfrost, by chasing down two blasphemers, building all the things, getting crabs and jumping around like idiots for an hour and a half. When we finally rid ourselves of the crabs we realized that there was no room for us to continue our aggressive storytelling to the face so we granted ourselves a well deserved night off. To quote the book of Cue, “There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say. You remain, my power, my pleasure, my pain.”

In the name of the Jed, The Wok, and the Deadly Frost, we pray. bows head

There’s a sort of pride that people who don’t buy gems have. That’s odd. I buy gems and am proud to support them. :p

There’s no where else to put piercing though besides an adept spot. The reason is because you don’t always want to pierce, at least in pve. Examples are anywhere you need to control aggro like Candidate Trials t4 or arah. But if it’s a minor trait then you have to take it.

ccspokai.6941:

Chopps.5047:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Chopps.5047:

Of course, Guang and Brazil get all the credit for that build. If it wasn’t for Brazil and his meddling bear, I’d be kind of a big deal. Lol

You had a much longer time and a greater opportunity to do exactly what Guang and I did and you did not accomplish that.

Lol I hate making videos though :p

I did talk a lot about it but was always shouted down, made fun of, or basically ignored so I gave up. I had no street cred. You do, thank you for getting the message out.

Remember how Guang was treated at first? I was treated the same way here, on guru, and on reddit. I didn’t have the math and experience like Guang to argue my points as well as he does though.

Seriously, though, thanks for finally showing everyone that ranger is “OK”. I am grateful for that! Rock on!

why would people underestimate sword ranger
i believe each profession does relatively high melee dps and weaker range dps (well not engineer bcz they dont have melee)

At the time people would post screen caps of their random ranger alt hitting for 1k sword crits and then they’d laugh about it. In reality, buffed and with level 80 traits, you can be doing 2.5k crits pretty easily, not to mention the pet. So I’d make that argument and I’d get 50 responses saying basically “you can never factor in pet because it’s usually dead”. Then I’d explain how my pets don’t die in dungeons and then they’d rip on me for taking a drake instead of a cat all the time.

I seriously could not win. Were you around to see those debates?

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Chopps.5047:

Of course, Guang and Brazil get all the credit for that build. If it wasn’t for Brazil and his meddling bear, I’d be kind of a big deal. Lol

You had a much longer time and a greater opportunity to do exactly what Guang and I did and you did not accomplish that.

Lol I hate making videos though :p

I did talk a lot about it but was always shouted down, made fun of, or basically ignored so I gave up. I had no street cred. You do, thank you for getting the message out.

Remember how Guang was treated at first? I was treated the same way here, on guru, and on reddit. I didn’t have the math and experience like Guang to argue my points as well as he does though. I’m an intuitive player who avoids math in gw2. I also refused to level other professions and spent more time playing than min/max’ing.

Before you came on the scene, I asked DnT’s guild leaders if I could join to theorycraft ranger in dungeons. I was laughed at and ignored. I think that’s when I gave up on helping the community. My primary guild is Strikeforce so, as you’re probably aware, we do more wvw than pve. And by more I mean most of my guildies don’t PvE at all unless it’s a guild mission. So I wasn’t ever in a position to do what you did.

I’m no genius. You play ranger long enough you start to figure out “oh I need fortifying bond” or “wait a second, spirits aren’t paper” or “ah, that’s how the sword is played!”

Seriously, thanks for finally showing everyone that ranger is “OK”. I am grateful for that! Rock on!

Well, alright, you asked so I’m going to go through your points. I can maybe see the 5 stack vuln on GS but I disagree with the rest of the changes on GS. I pretty much disagree with all the changes you mentioned.

I mean, the DPS pets not being able to reliably hit a moving target is a class mechanic, when you choose those pets, you need to CC/immob your target, or cripple them with sword, or use muddy terrain—you’re helping your cat land hits this way. Anyone I see asking for “pets hit moving target” I think is likely a new player. All the old rangers understand that interaction and why it’s there.

I think a lot of people might agree on remoresless being 25 but I don’t. With a power/vitality/crit dmg build, remoresless (when it’s fixed! Currently buggy) is very powerful in my opinion.

I don’t like your merging of HIPS and shared anguish since I use those separately a lot. Signet of stone is too strong to also be a stun break.

I don’t know, seems like you need a few hundred hours more play to understand why things are the way they are. I just don’t see any of this stuff happening.

Sorry I came down on it like that, I know you thought hard about it and formatted it well. It just needs…you know, you can’t make changes in a vacuum. There has to be a reason for these changes and that reason has to include interactions with other classes.

I’ve been around since the beta weekends. I like to brag about how I have almost 2300 hours on ranger. But I don’t even claim to know enough to suggest balance changes. Ot won’t stop me from complaining about bugs or annoying quality of life things (WHY YOU HAVE NO PET BOON/CONDITION MONITOR BAR???), but at the end of the day, there isn’t much substance that I (or you) can offer.

I know Chaplan is a nice guy and entertains our questions, as well as Hrouda, yet here’s an analogy: us trying to give John Chaplan Sharp game design advice is like us trying to give Phil Mickelson golf advice. It just doesn’t make sense. I’m a mechanical engineer, you’re whatever you are, and ANET makes games. Let’s all stick to our day jobs. They’re career professionals, ya know?

I hope that helps. Rock on dude

Do I count the cost of my new computer? I also buy gems monthly at roughly the rate of a subscription service, maybe a little more.

Chokolata.1870:

it does not lock you IN PLACE, it locks you ON TO the target so that if it moves, you jump to it right away . Stop just basing things on PvE .

I don’t always agree with Chokolata, but when I do, I really, really agree.

colesy.8490:

ccspokai.6941:

colesy.8490:

Marrond.1385:

Chopps.5047:

Some small fraction of players who farmed CoF suck at dungeons. That does not mean that someone in CoF armor sucks at dungeons. To be honest, as a player who prefers ranger in dungeons, I’m more worried about elitism than anything else. Also: nothing wrong with full berserker gears.

If someone kicked your ranger from CoF farm because of your class he’s just so dumb it’s not worth thinking about it. Any class (maybe except Elementalists since they’re extra squishy) in zerker gear just tear through enemies. Not to mention full zerk ranger melts gate faster than full zerk thief (which is often taken to farm runs). Also don’t confuse elitism with blindness

Some small fraction of players who farmed CoF suck at dungeons. That does not mean that someone in CoF armor sucks at dungeons. To be honest, as a player who prefers ranger in dungeons, I’m more worried about elitism than anything else. Also: nothing wrong with full berserker gears.

Actualy huge fraction sucks. People post “only experienced”, “speed run”, “gear check”, “only ascended” and then you’re seeing them not knowing how to speed up NPC, not stacking adrenaline, mesmer doesn’t using feedback or pulls wrongly, mesmers that doesn’t use inspiration ring, warriors that don’t care to FGJ at the same time so Mesmer can multiply might stacks… and so on, and so on… this run is really easy and fast to do but so many people fail at it, it’s a pain.

People boot rangers because the population of competent, proven rangers is Brazil and … nobody else.

And for as long as 99.9% of rangers sit there shortbow spamming with bear pet, i’ll just kick them on sight. Brazil’s tests do make me want to level one up and test them out in my farming group though so I can see on my very own game whether they’re worth it or if the spot can just be filled with another war like it usually is which has the plus of having more room for error unlike the ranger with the rooting attack chain.

i will accept ranger , if they are sword spec , it deal decent amount of damage that can parred with thief

I have never met a sword spec ranger.

I have been running swords and spirits before The Masked Paradigm and the rest of the min/max guilds started posting record time attacks. :p

I was running frost spirit and 25 in nature magic before they combined the now extinct spiritual knowledge and vigorous spirits traits. In fact, I was getting made fun of for using spirits and there was a long thread, roughly march or april timeframe, where a few people did “zomg maths!” to try and show me “why spirits suck, noob”.

Of course, Guang and Brazil get all the credit for that build. If it wasn’t for Brazil and his meddling bear, I’d be kind of a big deal. Lol

Spirit of frost chills on secondary. Lately, I’ve ran spirits in zergs just fine. Trait Nature’s Vengeance and spirit bomb their kitten on the front lines. I try new things all the time. We won our fights and I had fun. :p

Atherakhia.4086:

You can make it a rant if you want. This has been complained about nonstop for as long as I’ve been playing this game. It’s a shame because the animation looks good, but it’s just not functional at all. There is absolutely no reason it has to jump around like this.

You must not spvp. The sword function is to cripple and stick on a running enemy. This complaint is exactly why ranger needs another mainhand like dagger. It’s also why a new mainhand should come before another ranged weapon (ew rifles).

I really get sad by this community. This week I’ve read that you guys want to take away my sword and get a rifle. I’d quit the game if that happened, to be completely honest.

This question has been asked before. It will be asked again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again

The Outsider God (Durzlla) should not be trifled with. He is a Dolyak rank and only spvp/tpvp’s so…ya, he has indeed played good players.

Let’s examine why durz has no issues with conditions. His stated favorite gear sets are magi, soldiers, and carrion. Those all have vitality. Vitality counters conditions. Mystery solved.

Hey, I have retaliation now at least. :p

LordByron.8369:

Rising Dusk.2408:

They (ANet) already did a full investigation of drop rates from chests and things, and found no particular issues of note with them besides the tagging issue which they address awhile back.
.

*cough final rest *cough

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a FOTM sword. Does anyone have it?

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Chopps.5047:

Brazil: King of the…Simin mystery? No…king of the rangers? No, too over the top.

Brazil: King of the Longbow Bears.

I like it.

You could just keep it simple and say “Brazil: King of Guild Wars 2”

Whoa whoa whoa! Let’s not go too far! King of the Longbow Bears it is!!! Glad you like it

Frostfang.5109:

I tried to mail them… and do Everything that I could to make it stick… but nope… Perhaps more ppl will have to want it to stick… I agree we need a Bug-report thread.

Any chance you can give me the link to your bugs thread? Thank you for trying, I’ll give it a shot, maybe if enough of us bother them they’ll lift a finger and do it.

Shini, our gospel of the jed HAS PARAGRAPHS! Jed said let there be readability!

Brazil: King of the…Simin mystery? No…king of the rangers? No, too over the top.

Brazil: King of the Longbow Bears.

I like it.

Yeah stuff like this makes me really dislike this game and community. /end thread

Lucius.2140:

Chopps.5047:

Also, just to add, there are no NA low pop servers. Especially when you have ghe event API gw2stuff.commthese events are always swarming with guests.

Proxy, have you tried since achievements gave rewards? Do you have any clue how many people are trying to “go to low pop server and spam aoe”???

It needs a fix, stop standing up for broken content. So many apologists around here.

It isnt broken lol, you will get it eventually.
Pd: last week i saw the boss at top hour, was with my engi doing that area, entered the fight and got one cristal lol.

Because is difficult (it take time in this case) it doesnt mean is broken or its not planificated.

If I can’t do it with ranger in a few dozen tries then it’s broken IMHO. I have exactly zero crystals so far. Yes I stand in front of paw when he raises it, one time I messed up and got too close and ended up getting crystalized.

Are you EU or NA? Because NA is always slammed, every server, every time I play. Why does an achievement have to depend on guesting to a low pop server in middle of NA night. Why is it so hard to ask for a health buff for the crystals?

For the love of god, everything else in pve has 100k health or more. Giant awful health pools. But the crystals? Nope! They have 1 health point.

Finally one more thing: if you already have this achievement, get off this thread. ANET fixing it for the rest of us affects you in no way.

Also, just to add, there are no NA low pop servers. Especially when you have ghe event API gw2stuff.commthese events are always swarming with guests.

Proxy, have you tried since achievements gave rewards? Do you have any clue how many people are trying to “go to low pop server and spam aoe”???

It needs a fix, stop standing up for broken content. So many apologists around here.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Got this achievement, and would have gotten it multiple times if it was possible… I don’t get the issue. Just pay attention and you’ll get the chance to.

If you really are having those many issues guest in a low population server by odd hours. Tada.

Didn’t know I’d have to give up my normal daily routine (work/chores) so I could get up in middle of night to maybe MAYBE possibly if I get lucky score this achievement.

It’s harder than intended. I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.

Where is it?

/15char

Correction: there no longer appears to be a bug reports sticky…

Please post this in the bugs reports sticky. It won’t get seen here.

Evans.6347:

Chopps.5047:

If it’s personal, I won’t even be able to use it to get new people through things like the frogger rocks on cof1 or the lasers in coe. really really lame ANET

Well you won’t because like the portal gun, this consumable will very likely be disabled in dungeons.

No, I won’t even BEFORE I run into the consumable restriction because the portal is personal in the first place. Unless ANET comes out with a good reason for personal portal, it seems like a completely useless item. I will think about how I might use it in pve…I just can’t think of one instance where I would say “gee I’m glad I spent X number of mats and gold on that!”

This kind of thing is only desirable in wvw (all the mesmers in my guild are sick of being portal robots) and dungeons and you can’t use it in either so it’s almost certainly not worth the gold. It’s not even a convenience thing like the unbreakable harvesting tools. It’s just a waste of gold, it seems.

I’m sad that this is their solution for the stated design goal of giving more people access to portal. That’s like giving me a brand new M3 and I’m only allowed to sit in it: no driving! It’s a tease with no pay off.

Durzlla.6295:

Correction, they nerfed non pet reliant builds, if you take a 30 BM cat with 30 in skirm (Carn appetite, companions might, and pets prowess) on a Sword/Horn Build you are going to WRECK FACE with your pets damage output, not possible to do by yourself pre patch. Don’t even get me started on what happens when you’ve got 25 MB, bear that hits like a cat? Yes plox.

.

Algreg.3629:

it is quite possible to get them, it is just hard to aim for the achievement. Just keep on doing Shatterer, sooner or later you will get some crystal prisons by mere chance. 10 times doing the event is not much. I imagine not standing on the mound where everyone gathers, but fighting more in front of him could help you.

I’ve played it dozens of times in the last few weeks, tried low pop servers, discovered there are no “off peak” times I have access to, and still can’t do it. Seems like you need to cheese it with a guardian and their aoe mainhand. Ranger must not have fast enough projectile speed.

It’s just frustrating because this achievement was most certainly NOT intended to require specific professions or weapons. They should not be 1 shot crystals the way people swarm these events now.

That achievment was put in the game before they realized how laggy those events get. Before they implemented a bonus rare. Before the api and gw2stuff.com

The result of all of that is to make the achievement harder than intended, if not impossible for some.

Some small fraction of players who farmed CoF suck at dungeons. That does not mean that someone in CoF armor sucks at dungeons. To be honest, as a player who prefers ranger in dungeons, I’m more worried about elitism than anything else. Also: nothing wrong with full berserker gears.

Guilds running tagless is an odd way to play wvw. Do they still communicate with other guilds on coms? On jade quarry we have a tight knit community, in fact, we pushed out selfish guilds that refuse to command or tag up.

fellyn.5083:

I got that achievement in 1 try.

Go do it right now. This isn’t head start weekend. We have gw2stuff.com and the API now. Everyone swarms these events, everyone tries to blow up crystals since achievement points are worth something.

People like you upset me. You think because you did it 5 months ago everyone should be able to. But you can’t, things change:

1) gw2stuff.com
2) achievement point hunting

Means it’s now basically impossible for most people, including me. Don’t be judgement of others and instead use an open mind.

Mileinnor.7125:

Impossible? Nope. Got mine by guesting to a low population server (can’t remember which). There were only 12 players against Shatterer. Only 12 players , no kidding.

That doesn’t work anymore, too many people swarm events due to things like gw2stuff.com. Also, some people work so they can’t just get up to play shatterer in middle of night. The achievement is simply much harder than intended right now and I hope they fix it because I need it too.

I’m a hardcore player who has solo’d T4 trials and almost solo’d lupicus. But I can’t destroy those crystals!

Vol.5241:

BUY BUY BUY ARTIFICER MATERIALS

Why? This item sounds useless. You can’t use it in wvw and it portals just one person (the user). Ooo I can save one jump in a jumping puzzle (I’m a platformer and have already completed all jumping puzzles in the game). Some people might like it on jumping puzzles but this is lame if I’m interpretting it right.

If it’s personal, I won’t even be able to use it to get new people through things like the frogger rocks on cof1 or the lasers in coe. really really lame ANET

For those asking “why portal for your ranger chopps?”, it’s because portals are too useful in pve for only mesmers to have. It’s stupid, in my opinion, to gove such a powerful utility to just one profession. Sure in pvp it makes sense but in pve it makes the mesmer in too high of demand (many people cannot beat the rocks on cof1 because they’ve never done it without a mesmer blink/portal). Also in wvw it’s too high demand. Just my thoughts :p

You understand that berserker is the general dungeon meta, right? knowing that, if you still want just one set of gear, I’d say probably either valkryie or knights gear. If you do use valkrie, make sure you take Precise Strike (25 in marks). At least 15 in nature magic is required for dungeons and current meta is to slot Vigorous Spirits and run frost/stone. You can use any weapons you like just realize that torch is for blast might stacking, warhorn is for blast finishes, and offhand axe reflects both projectiles and damage.

Valkryie build: 25/20/0/25/0 with strength of spirit and vigorous spirits / spotter

Knights/zerk build: 20/25/0/25/0 with spotter, companion’s might, and the same nature magic traits mentioned above

Dukenikum.3982:

I like that but Shhhh anet might hear XD i was wondering more about if it has a distance limit for it boosting effect

also am i right that the Sharpened Edges should be changed? maybe Pet Prowess or Companion’s Might but i’m not sure.

Yes spirits are distance limited to a few hundred units. Yes the devs know about frost spirit—ANET knows all and sees all. Yes no ICD on spirit of frost is intended (hence spirit of frost and not frost spirit—it has a different naming scheme). Yes the tooltips are messed up, which ANET has said they have a new interface for traits and tooltips so maybe sometime down the line the tooltips will actually be correct.

Reisinger.4203:

Chopps.5047:

With that build, I’ve found the deciding factor in whether I can reliably beat the zerk thief is whether or not I have torch equipped.

Yes! This is a great suggestion and in fact, should be included into some sort of counter-thief tutorial for rangers new to WvW.

In regards to the healing bunker build, I think you are overrating the healing abilities. I’ve tried a shout build (mostly for swiftness) with some healing power (had a mix of everything) and found the healing to be negligible, at least in contrast to a profession like warrior. I run a shout-healing build on that, and with rare-quality healing power armor, I heal a lot more than I do on my ranger.

That’s not saying it’s not a viable build, but in my opinion, if you’re trying to primarily heal with a ranger, you’re best off setting yourself up for a spirit build and running warhorn 5 with healing spring than actually focusing on healing power for your gear.

And with a blast finisher on warhorn and retaliaion on offhand axe, it’s a tougher choice these days but the torch still wins in a 1v1 vs a thief.

Now if we could only equip a whip I would move to TC and role play Indiana Jones.

Cuchullain.3104:

Durzlla.6295:

As it turns out… Magi, Soldiers, and Carrion gear (oh look the 3 i use lol), have next to no issue against retal because hey, vitality is awesome vs condis and retal.

braces himself for “Those Sets are terrible!” posts

Yeah, wear a full PVT set just to avoid damage from retaliation. That’s a solution.

How about this for a solution: get rid of retaliation. It’s stupid to punish people for shooting the enemy while rewarding them for being shot.

I like my solution better, don’t you?

The Outsider God will defeat your ranger with three different professions. Do not question him.

With that build, I’ve found the deciding factor in whether I can reliably beat the zerk thief is whether or not I have torch equipped.

Yeah, another one hand melee option is needed far more than long range aoe/control. Unless ANET can add and balance multiple new weapons for each profession (which I doubt), there is no real debate in pve and wvw: one hand melee should come first.

I’m not nearly as proficient in spvp so I won’t comment on the usefulness of a second melee option or whether that makes sense in spvp.

Basically, I think the sword’s leap animation is great for sticking on target (could even use a buff on the leaps for more stickiness) but most avoid it in pve and wvw for that exact reason: the leaps “root” you onto the target.

With the greatsword, this isn’t an issue as you all know. It’s too bad we can’t slash freely in melee with a one hander. The push for more medium/long range weapons just doesn’t make sense to me. :/

I’m just being realistic. It’s not even what I want. Personally I want a whip. But we can’t always get what we want. :p

Maybe just try to consider that we’ve discussed this topic to death? Maybe you should go read that thread, Kasami? Instead of being such a meany face to everyone who disagrees…

Algreg.3629:

keeping Elixir R aside for a moment here, are you sure that mysterious super OP engineer magical skill wasn´t just a simple rally?

…Teldo just used it the other day in tpvp to win a 2v1. :p

Crazy that people didn’t know about elixir R or the spirit of nature…probably because actually utilizing them requires great timing.

darkchicken.8692:

Blix.8021:

Water field bot

Seriously though, it feels like they envisioned the ranger to provide damage and soft support through aoe cripples, snares, and fields. Unfortunately in pve it’s not a useful role when compared to zerker melee trains.

But the thing is, you dont need a zerker melee train always. I pug with my ranger most of the stuff and its rare that i have a “bad dungeon”. I do great dps, i survive well, i res mostly everyone (i run full zerker).

I have been part of a full zerker speed run and yes they are fast but ive been in some made up group that has been “almost” just has fast.

Nothing in this game require really that amount of burst and speed perhaps except high level fractal (i guess im not there yet because i find them boring).

For all i do so far, ranger perform well.

The only thing i hate is my pet dying too fast on some bosses where even with micro managing, i cant stop them from being one shotted out of the blue therefore losing dps.

Just think about it, think about every dungeons (except super high fractal), Ranger can do it just as good as any other classes. Do zerker warrior have an advantage? Yes of course really, is 2 min more on my CoF run make me a piece of garbage? If 2 mins is that important to you, you shouldnt play a mmo.

Ranger speeds up CoF path 1 runs; current record as far as I know is 5:27 s with two thieves, one ranger, one warrior, and one mesmer.

Gorath.5076:

And there’s always the old song:
Ranger is the merger of the two beta classes of the warden and Trapper( I think that’s what he was called?).
Anet combined two classes for which it could not find a role/niche on its own, thereby forgetting that null + null still = nothing.

It was warden and beastmaster; yet there were originally 12 concepts for professions and that was whittled down to 7: everything we have now minus engineer. The engineer was added at the last minute to round out eight professions. The ranger is unique by definition: ANET gives all the professions unique roles.