Great, the other classes are easier to pick up and play. Ranger’s have a deceptively high skill cap in the sense that you need to pay attention to two healthbars, something that most of complaining population refuses to do.
The only complaints I really view as valid are spirits going pop way to quickly (few counters), and pets being broken in fractals and Jade Maw (no counters).
Every other complaint on this forum I have found a counter too. Which means yes its a l2p issue. Its just that most vocal rangers have refused to l2p and demand the class gets dumbed down to pew pewing arrows.
I agree, however there are some major issues that aren’t L2P issue like pets in fractals and spirits. The pet fractals issue is affecting our dungeon experience and is an unfair disadvantage. Spirits are horrible no matter how you play them you are better off bringing something else than those skills that barely do any support. I agree that rangers have a steep learning curve, but there are just too many essential parts that are broken and can’t be overcome by L2P.
And I don’t think the other classes are happier because they are easier to pick up, because classes like mesmer and ele still have a learning curve to work effectively. They are just working as intended with minimal bugs and problems.
I should re-clarify. Other classes are more straightforward to pick up, they do what you expect them to do. Even Ele and Mesmer are straightforward and doesn’t take long to get it rolling. Rangers cannot until you learn to work with the pet.
You will never see the damage numbers unless you work with the pet; CC with freeze, entangle, cripple whatever to get your pet in range (since fix pets hit pretty reliably once they are in range). You can also kite in a way to force your opponent into the pet. Melee makes it overly simple to max out your damage.
and when you fail to utilize the controls we have for our pet (what seperates us from MM) yes I expect your dps to suffer.
And yes, as I mentioned and you more or less repeated, I agree, we are broken in fractals, and most of our spirits are underwhelming (except stone and Elite) and insanely squishy when we fail to place them in an overly protective place.
The problem with what your saying is that for some reason you seem to thinks pets are working like they should be. They are not. I almost exclusively play WvW because that is what i enjoy but I can probably count on the fingers of one hand where my pet was a deciding factor in a 1v1 fight. I have said this in another thread but when was the last time you heard or read in chat a warning to “watch out you have a Rangers pet on you”? Or “hurry up and focus that pet down”? Really most dont even pay attention to a rangers pet myself included. When i fight a ranger 1v1 I dont even worry about their pet at all.
I dont really do dungeons but PvE in general i consider the ranger class AWESOME. I typically have no problem whatsoever fighting 4 lvl 80 mobs at the same time. it is WvW where we have problems and i would assume SPvP but i cant say for sure as I rarely go there after getting repeatedly killed by thieves with next to no effort at all.
couple of days old I know, but meh I was on duty all weekend.
This actually works to your advantage as ranger. I kind of enjoy the fact that our damage numbers come out as a stream versus splashes. People panic at the sight at mesmers and thieves. They are on their toes around these classes, and they get focused down. Awesome. They are feared.
We on the other hand have two smaller numbers popping up on the enemies screen, deceptive, it doesn’t feel as much because the chunks are smaller, but they damage is coming at a comparable rate (none burst rate). If they ignore the pet, all the better, less micro managing for me.
I also get a kick out of opponents who charge in on my roaming kitten looking for a “free” kill. It doesn’t take them long to figure out the battle is not going as they planned at all. It also helps that there are many terri-bad rangers out their that help reinforce this stereotype of the ranger.