Guild Wars 2

Ya, the much lower cool down makes them seem much more viable in situations like wvw where they were unlikely to ever live the full life span.

They still don’t seem to be very viable in huge zerg clashes, in my experience so far with the new build, but I can see them being pretty good in smaller 30 man fights.

kreios.7108:

When you create a ranger if u click icon they need to put a warning Window saying (are u sure u don’t want a guardian) XD

I’m pretty sure most Teir1 WvW guilds would pay triple digit gold values to have this dialogue box pop up when a person clicks “Join”.

nagymbear.5280:

Lets be honest there was one dev that took his time to approach the ranger community and look at the way we spoke to him… I wouldn’t want to communicate with the ranger community either.

Ya, except this isn’t a charity. They are being paid, with our money no less, to do a job that they haven’t been doing very well. Add in the times that they have given us the run around or just flat lied to us and there is no reason to expect us to not be a little irritable.

Hell, the community here is perfectly fine with having a real, honest discussion like adults; too bad Rob was the only one who didn’t regurgitate vague prepared statements and even when he did talk like a real human being his attitude was that the Ranger is A okay and just fine where it’s at. That’s not something that people who get constantly maligned in PvE and WvW want to hear even if he wasn’t directly involved in class balance at all.

It’s been something that we’ve asked for for a while along with maybe some kind of reduction in the damage they take from AoE but we’ve never really seen any real sign that it will ever happen.

Xsorus.2507:

Ranger has some if not the most God Awful Skills in the game.

Most of them require to much investment in trait lines to be effective.

Traps/Spirits For example, and Signets just to get them to freakin Work on the Ranger.

Whats left is Cruddy Utilities (Muddy Terrain), Sharpening Stone, Lightning Reflex and Pet Shouts…

Pet Shouts being quite possibly some of the kittentiest kitten abilities in the game.

I do love how our classes access to invulnerability (not even true invul) requires our pet to be alive in a situation that would almost guarantee it’s already dead when we need protecting.

I still don’t see the point in “Guard” and they will never fix “Sic ’em”

Durzlla.6295:

Chopps.5047:

Prime.8792:

Also, current WvW meta favors zerg balls with Guardians/Warriors/Necros/Ele. Hopefully, that will change with the borderland updates in 2 weeks.

Maybe, but note that there is a difference between what the meta says and what really is. I don’t see enough experimentation in the field to truly believe rangers are as bad as l33t players think.

Yeah, we’re the worst in WvW (Zerg wars not solo) but were not USELESS, a lot of people blow it out of proportion, if our pet were fixed in WvW to not blow up instantly than we’d probably be in a happy medium which is fine because we make up for that in how good we are at roaming.

We are however REALLY good at defense because we can use traps, and we can command our pets while we’re on a siege machine, you know how much fun it is to immob people with a drake hound as a ballista bolt is hurtling towards their face? It’s amazing.

Combining eagle eye and piercing arrows would go a long way for very little effort on their part. It’s especially satisfying to blast through 10-15 glasscannon backliners for 1400+ damage every second or so. I just wish I didn’t need to go 30 deep into marks to do it at 1500 range.

Kasama.8941:

Substance E.4852:

Kasama.8941:

AydenStar.4216:

Kas, I know the Ranger profession in and out. I have cheerleadered how good this profession has been for months. When this game came out 1 year ago I spent the first month as a Mesmer and switched to the Ranger and never looked back. I know Rangers are ok in PvE but for me the PvE content is a joke and sometimes the player quality as well. In spvp/tpvp, the whole condition meta and lack of different maps styles just turns me off.

In WvW, the last place of fun in this game now the current hardcore meta is only Guardians, Elementalists, Warriors, Necromancers and Mesmers. There is no place for this profession in the eyes of the community because of lackluster and redundancy the Ranger skills have compared to the other professions above and yes our pet mechanic are worthless in that environment. What happens when Anet start to adding larger group oriented PvE content? Guild leaders will start analyzing each professions contributions to the group, and they will come to the same conclusions the WvW community has.

You’re really just emphasizing what I said, when you say; “there is no place for this profession in the eyes of the community” and “guild leaders will start analyzing each professions contributions to the group”. The problem is not so much the Ranger, as it is the community. And ArenaNet can’t change peoples state of mind, only we as Ranger players can, by making the best of what we got. When guild leaders analyze the current meta, they judge it based on how professions are played, not how their skills work. If something is great, no one cares why it is great, only that it works. And the Ranger does work on some level. But like most other professions, it can’t do everything.

The things is, most guild leaders will try out builds themselves to make decisions. A good leader isn’t going to go on some forum to see if the ranger is any good they are going to crunch numbers themselves, try out a few builds or even just look at our skills to decide.

This is even more true now that BL’s are almost devoid of anyone on a ranger who isn’t devoted to the class and knows how to play it well. I see far more kitten poor players on necros, warriors and guardians than Rangers now by far and it has done nothing to curb their popularity.

That might be the case for some guild leaders, but even then, I’ll bet you that their decision is still going to be largely based on community popularity and conversations. If everyone says “the Ranger sucks and doesn’t offer anything to a group”, then why would a guild leader make an effort to try and change that? Only the Ranger community can really change it.

Actually, I see a lot of Ranger players in my borderlands. The problem is, most Rangers aren’t very confident players, meaning I very rarely see a Ranger that stands out in the crowd. For instance, by running first into battle, standing their ground when facing opponents, or fighting 2v1. It’s very easy to play “lazy” when playing a Ranger, because that’s how you play in PvE. And the problem is, the Ranger is one of the hardest professions to play in WvW, because you can’t just swing a hammer around like a Warrior does, or throw up a bunch of boons like the Guardian does, or go into stealth like a Thief does, or go into Death Shroud like the Necromancer does. As a Ranger, you have to be constantly moving, and use your snare skills to keep distance to your foes, which is completely opposite to how you play a Ranger in PvE.

You can’t go wading into battle if you need to keep your foes at a distance. They are obviously conflicting combat strategies. You can’t complain about how Ranger’s aren’t playing like tanked out warriors/guardians and then say we need to keep our distance and play fluidly to work best.

If that is really how you feel then your issue is with the class mechanics and not how people choose to play.

Durzlla.6295:

ilr.9675:

We need more interplay between “Combo Fields”
The Pets also need to create more of them. So do Spirits…

Our Horn blast finisher needs to work on Fire fields again.

• It worked initially when they changed it to a Blast finisher, but then somehow got patched right back out even though it DOES work on Ice field/trap.
• I don’t know if it was supposed to work with Poison fields, …but it should just for consistency.

We also need the shields generated by combos to not just last longer, but utilize the Buff-Duration & Condition-Duration stat modifier in their time calculation.

We need the BONUS damage dealt by combos to be modified by the condition stat so that people finally have a reason to use Carrion set in PvE.

We need the Healing stat to not just increase our Spring, but also healing it provide when sloshing through it with Combo & Blast finishers…. (triple it for lunges esp.)

We need our gear stats in general, to be shared with the pet so that it also gains these increases with the Combo system.

What are you rambling about? The horn DOES work as a blast in ALL fields, fire gives AoE 3stacks of like 20s Might, Poison gives AoE weakness, and the healing stat DOES buff our finishers in a water field.

Combo Field Creator = stats boost that field

Combo Field Finisher = stats boost that finish.

It does tend to bug out and not register the blast finisher quite often though. I’m not sure how common this is across classes but I have heard guardians complain about their hammer’s not triggering fields as well. I usually wait about a second after the field is cast to avoid triggering the blast before the game establishes there is a field there.

TehPwnerer.7215:

Lol 700$ are you serious?

MMO fanatics with tons of disposable income and nothing else to spend it on aren’t exactly a rare breed.

Chokolata.1870:

Honestly guys, have you ever considered that they do not know how to fix this ?? Or that they do not care ??

I think a lot of us have come to that unfortunate conclusion but it’s a free to play game (sort of) that has the potential to be good if just prodded enough in the right direction.

It’s kind of like getting a free scratch off every month. Maybe you’ll get something and while statistics and personal experience say it’s not likely, it’s free so you figure might as well try.

I find the Sword/Dagger combo to work the best for me in melee with offhand training turning stalker’s strike into a passable gap closer.

Ultimately you will want to look at how much you want to use condition damage sword/dagger/torch are pretty reliant on it where as the GS no longer even has any condition damage so it would go well with the LB on a pure physical build.

Kasama.8941:

AydenStar.4216:

Kas, I know the Ranger profession in and out. I have cheerleadered how good this profession has been for months. When this game came out 1 year ago I spent the first month as a Mesmer and switched to the Ranger and never looked back. I know Rangers are ok in PvE but for me the PvE content is a joke and sometimes the player quality as well. In spvp/tpvp, the whole condition meta and lack of different maps styles just turns me off.

In WvW, the last place of fun in this game now the current hardcore meta is only Guardians, Elementalists, Warriors, Necromancers and Mesmers. There is no place for this profession in the eyes of the community because of lackluster and redundancy the Ranger skills have compared to the other professions above and yes our pet mechanic are worthless in that environment. What happens when Anet start to adding larger group oriented PvE content? Guild leaders will start analyzing each professions contributions to the group, and they will come to the same conclusions the WvW community has.

You’re really just emphasizing what I said, when you say; “there is no place for this profession in the eyes of the community” and “guild leaders will start analyzing each professions contributions to the group”. The problem is not so much the Ranger, as it is the community. And ArenaNet can’t change peoples state of mind, only we as Ranger players can, by making the best of what we got. When guild leaders analyze the current meta, they judge it based on how professions are played, not how their skills work. If something is great, no one cares why it is great, only that it works. And the Ranger does work on some level. But like most other professions, it can’t do everything.

The things is, most guild leaders will try out builds themselves to make decisions. A good leader isn’t going to go on some forum to see if the ranger is any good they are going to crunch numbers themselves, try out a few builds or even just look at our skills to decide.

This is even more true now that BL’s are almost devoid of anyone on a ranger who isn’t devoted to the class and knows how to play it well. I see far more kitten poor players on necros, warriors and guardians than Rangers now by far and it has done nothing to curb their popularity.

Just pretend it’s a slimy, undead version of the Claw and you won’t even notice the pets uselessness.

Chopps.5047:

Someone may have said this already but I think they’re counting character slots. Myself and a few dozen regular posters on this forum are about the only ‘main’ rangers in the entire game. Last night in wvw, myself and Dewolfe were the only two rangers I saw playing for JQ on JQBL.

You only really see rangers on EB and late at night when the zerg train guilds are transitioning from West/Central players to Oceanic.

I can go for hours at a time on a BL and be the only ranger that I ever see.

I still see tons in PvE though. It’s still a very popular class amongst newbies and casual players.

Knote.2904:

Yaki.9563:

No MMO is good for esport. Not a GW2-specific issue.

Just because there hasn’t been a good one yet doesn’t mean an MMO can’t be an esports.

Epsorts need some modicum of balance. Balance isn’t something mmo’s have ever been known for.

While I agree it makes more sense I would only want the switch if it were made an adept trait so I can run honed axes and spotter at the same time when using the axe as my ranged weapon choice.

Chopps.5047:

I don’t buy into that logic, cufu, mainly because Anets stated design goals are for every profession to be viable everywhere. Also, teamwork is rarely utilized. Imagine a bunch of zerk/longbow/eagle eye rangers always porting out of enemy range with mesmers. Imagine flanking with shadow refuge and dropping traps to bust their foolish pin sticking.

It’s not all stack on commander and spam AoE. Think outside the box.

Except that’s how you win T1 fights with the smallest margin of error.

Sorry, but you aren’t better at tactics than the collective commanders of 3 servers. If “trap bombing” worked better you can bet your kitten they would be doing it just like how confusion spam was the fotm when wvw culling was in effect and how everyone necro mark spams now. They don’t use traps simply because it isn’t better.

I think all you have to do is look at the patch history of the two classes to see which is obviously deserving of the long term investment of a legendary.

I still feel bad for the rangers with the Dreamer…

Behellagh.1468:

And it doesn’t need color blind mode, just choosing color pairs that still contrast when filtered to simulate the various forms of color blindness. It’s not undoable, just infrequently done when choosing color pallets.

That’s because they are pallets that are most contrasting to the human eye and therefore the best for choosing good/bad differentiation. Ultimately they are going to choose what works best for the most people.

Its the same reason traffic lights use the classic red/green instead of green and blue or some other color combo.

We are supposed to be hitting in tandem with our pets to equal the damage of other classes. Since pets are worth didly kitten in WvW you will be hitting for much less than pretty much every other comparably equipped class.

The only thing that comes close is a max range longbow shot on a power/crit build.

I will agree that it’s sad to see tanked up guardians hit for more than an offensive ranger but that’s just how it is and will be.

The other problem is people in WvW run very, very toughness focused builds that don’t sacrifice much in the power department so you wont hit them for a lot but they will steamroll a zerk build.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Conan.8046:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Conan.8046:

Namica.2951:

Greastsword is a defensive weapon
Sword is an offensive weapon

Quit complaining, they both have their place. I’d prefer GS as it is rather than being a sword, just bigger.

Its not…anyone who says it is frankly is wrong.

1 – Offensive
2- Offensive
3 – Offensive (can be used to run away but not its intended use)
4 – Defensive
5 – Offensive

Sword is more defensive than that with all the rolling around.

compared to sword it is a defensive weapon
lower dps auto attack with a built in evade
block
control (hilt bash)

the only thing defensive about sword is the poison evade (i wouldnt count hornets sting because of the annoying period where your character stands still and throws bees in their face, which leaves you very open)

Comparing 5 abilities to 3 is hardly the same. You have an offhand with a sword…take your pick..want to be defensive go dagger or axe.

one short evade that limits your mobility whilst using it on dagger
one projectile reflect that roots you in place (in wvw thats often a death sentence; some smart person will put an AOE under you) on axe

… the pull on axe isnt defensive… i suppose you could use the dagger cripple to kite (well… not on sword obviously) or try to escape

i survive much much much better in wvw zvz with GS than with sword/x

If you think the dagger 4 is a loss of mobility then you obviously haven’t used it with offhand training.

It’s practically a gap closer and if used next to the enemy will not only give you the dodge but will also fling you all the way around to their flank in a fraction of a second.
It’s basically serpent’s but without all the stuff that makes that skill crummy.

Quarktastic.1027:

• More concise pathing for pets.
• Pet status bar with more information.
• More freedom of movement on the sword.

Those would be my top three. I wouldn’t mind a decent gap closer on the sword either, but that may be asking too much.

Just flip the order of the hornet sting/monarch skill. Suddenly we have a gap closer to open with and a dodge back if we need it.

Kjeld.9730:

Shiren.9532:

Pets can’t aggro something the party hasn’t already aggroed. I’m not certain of the specifics, but at the very least, if your whole part stops at the water in HotW and you aren’t in combat, no matter where the pet is, it won’t aggro something unless it attacks it.

The only part I’m uncertain of, is if mobs have shared aggro. By this I mean, if you send in a pet to attack the Nightmare Tree in F/U, will it aggro all the spiders if it hits the tree? Not that it would matter for that encounter anyway (the pet will die from the tree’s attacks in no time) but the specifics of the new pet aggro are still a slight mystery to me.

My pet was on passive because i was told to do so and it still aggro’d the champ, to my knowledge pet aggro is the same as normal aggro.

Pets used to not draw aggro from npcs they hadn’t attacked, they fixed it a patch or two ago because people were using it to kill npcs in wvw camps and such.

Chokolata.1870:

The utility is useless anyway

^ this

Comboing these two was the only reason I ever even used the skill.
5 stacks of bleeding isn’t that bad but it’s not worth a whole utility on a 36 second (traited) cooldown.

Excalibur.9748:

looks like ranger is in a better position than thieves at least.

It depends on the situation. I still see people respecting thieves for their cluster bomb blast finishers, group stealth and superior scouting ability. They might not bring anymore to a zerg fight than a ranger, probably even less due to their supreme squishiness, but they do seem to fill some rolls that no one else can fill as well.

Their insane speed also means they can keep ahead of a zerg to trigger supply traps early and get into circles to hold them up long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

Chopps.5047:

Paz Shadow.9715:

Just to add some more, I guess I am talking about feeling important to a zerg… you know here are some examples:

Commander: “Alright mesmer, drop a portal down to get the rest of our guys up”
“Mesmers, viel please for the zerg on my command”

Commander: “Can necros please put their wells on the door incase the zerg rushes out”

Commander: “Gaurdians, blast finisher and might buffs please”

Commander: “Ele static fields please”

Like when is the last time (if any) that a person has heard a commander have a routine role (that another class cannot do) just for the ranger?

I was laughing because you forgot “WATER FIELDS! BLAST!”

“Just for Ranger” doesn’t apply when eles and engineers have 2 water fields each and eles are actually welcomed into a zerg.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Just to add some more, I guess I am talking about feeling important to a zerg… you know here are some examples:

Commander: “Alright mesmer, drop a portal down to get the rest of our guys up”
“Mesmers, viel please for the zerg on my command”

Commander: “Can necros please put their wells on the door incase the zerg rushes out”

Commander: “Gaurdians, blast finisher and might buffs please”

Commander: “Ele static fields please”

Like when is the last time (if any) that a person has heard a commander have a routine role (that another class cannot do) just for the ranger?

We actually used to be pretty awesome when it came to running our pet over necro mark spam on a choke but then spvp ruined that for the most part.

Malpractice.7850:

Substance E.4852:

Atherakhia.4086:

Someone has to arm the arrow carts.

Seriously though… go ask on the WvW forums for anyone to list the classes in order from most to least useful. You will always find Rangers as #7 and Thieves as #8. This class is awful. It brings the greatest water field in the game and that’s apparently enough.

Thieves have 3 blast finishers and group stealth that can make portal bombing much much easier. Ranger is easily #8 by a margin.

Most forget rangers have a ton of fields they can lay down, and can maintain HP nearly as well as a guardian if traited right (melee, tank, and ignoring the pet for more survivability)

You have access to
Fire (2 ways)
Water (a great one)
Ice (only 2 other classes can do this, Engis is a elite)
And a lot of poisons.

Also, they have the ability to almost permanently give everyone swiftness, and regenerations. As well as providing Fury/Might about 50% uptime.

Furthermore, with proper pet usage, you can give perma fury or do many other things (utilizing the moa, various pets with aoe buffs)

Smoke/Water/Ethereal when under water

Theyre also excellent at stalling and slowing enemy movements with barrage, and on par for the best scouts in the game (imho)

Their “zerg” ability is either tanking or support. YOull never see the aoe numbers of a ele, but you can put up respectable numbers WHILE crippling. Youre more a support for the zerg, rather than the hammer.

You’ve listed nothing that other classes don’t also do while performing better overall in a zerg fight.

We only have 1 fire field usable for stacking might which can just as easily be done by an ele that I guarantee will be there to do it. Flame trap is a field, yes, but it hardly counts since you need a foe to trigger it and you don’t need more than one field to stack before a push anyway.

While our water field is spectacular, it has never once been enough for anyone to actually respect me being there on a ranger to use it, not when guardians heal better and eles can also put down a comparable field of their own. Maybe it’s just a Blackgate thing but I also rarely see Rangers on SoR or the other mystery server that aren’t solo roamers.

As far as conditions go a marks necro is just flat better at it and that won’t be changing anytime soon since they decided marks needed to be even larger.

The regen from natures is not terrible but suffers from an aoe cap like all skills and also suffers from the fact that regen is based on the targets healing power, not the casters. I could have 1000 healing but it won’t do much for the necro with 0 I put it on.

Pets also suffer from the aoe cap and thus are ineffective for stacking purposes never mind the fact that often I can’t get the pet to actually fire off its buff before the group has started to move because anet seems to think pet skills should take all day to activate.

I don’t think I have ever even seen two zergs meet in the borderlands lake and if they did they would probably just try to get out of the water before the other and kill the one who wasn’t fast enough.

Barrage is okay but doesn’t hold a flame to skills like the guardian wall, spectral wall, or static field when it comes to controlling enemy movement. Most of the time I feel like people only move out of it to avoid stacking too much cripple or because they reflexively think it’s an arrow cart, not because it poses any immanent threat.

Rangers can do a lot of things but we don’t do anything spectacularly and when a zerg gets to 50-60 strong the value of a jack-of-all-trades diminishes to the point of uselessness when the chances that a specialized person is there to do a particular job is almost a sure thing.

Because there is only so much gold and if you want a person with deep pockets to buy your item instead of the one listed by the guy next to you you better offer the same product for less since we can’t sell a “better” version of it or at a greater convenience.

It’s the people who leave their listings at over 50% or more than the lowest that you should be questioning the sanity of.

Atherakhia.4086:

Someone has to arm the arrow carts.

Seriously though… go ask on the WvW forums for anyone to list the classes in order from most to least useful. You will always find Rangers as #7 and Thieves as #8. This class is awful. It brings the greatest water field in the game and that’s apparently enough.

Thieves have 3 blast finishers and group stealth that can make portal bombing much much easier. Ranger is easily #8 by a margin.

Ive found a hybrid build with rampager’s soldier and rabid gear works the best for me in wvw but to each their own.

They can’t even seem to have a solid grasp of how their own lore works. Any film would be a mess of retcons and things introduced out of nowhere just to serve as plot devices.

JorneMormel.9850:

I pretty much abandoned all hope of pets getting fixed. They are a fire-and-forget weapon in its’ current state and do not feel like a tool at your disposal as much as a hindrance to your profession. The old Quickening Zephyr made the pet somewhat more reactive because the Quickness boon helped getting off a pet F2 skill in an acceptable timeframe. Most pet F2 skills are simply inferior to the more commonly used pets and the few that are acceptable are plagued by bugs or poorly programmed pet AI.

Even after having said all that, they still contribute to the Ranger’s damage (yet the damage does not show on the combat log.) The best way to make pets work is to be as little dependant on them as possible and use them for the toolset a few useful pets bring (such as the Wolf’s F2.)

It is a shame, really. Thinking back: I was really excited about pets being integrated with the Ranger profession because in GW1 they were optional and only useful if you built your setup specifically around them (and even then you were giving up superior options for dependency on an NPC.) The one situation in which they shined was as fire-and-forget meat walls in Barrage/Pet teams. I guess I got my hopes up too much for thinking that mandatory pets made them synergize better with the profession.

Instead they became the once more intrusive fire-and-forget meat wall.

Actually their role in B/P teams was as fodder for the minion necros that created the meat shield for the team which anet put an end to when they made pets leave unexploitable corpses in every game mode to combat minion builds in pvp.

Funny how history repeats itself sometimes.

Pets actually because pretty good by the end but they always had the problem that sins ran into in that you had to pretty much devote your entire bar to the pet and would have next to nothing to keep the ranger alive which meant anyone with a brain would just kill the ranger since the pet died when you did. It’s ultimately what kept it from ever being a decent pvp/endpve build even when they had more tank and spank than a warrior.

I’m pretty sure the vines work on the same mechanic as attack chains. The vines will appear around their feet but not actually register a hit to “immobilize” them. It will also work if they stealth after getting rooted since the entangle vines work on pulses which means you can just simple dodge out of it if you time it right or use a long duration evade.

The SB still tends to be a good weapon when traited to pierce if you are defending a keep or tower where pretty much every target is going to be in 900 range.

As far as open combat goes you might as well just use the axe if you really want to do ranged damage within gapcloser/cc range.

Portal, Veil, and Time warp are so useful there is no real contest.

Paz Shadow.9715:

lol I can relate to this too well, full zerker I HAVE to use the food that gives you health when you crit, otherwise I will literally down myself when I hit 60 man zerg with barrage…. the heal when crit food helps alot though if you have high crit.

I find the heal on kill works much better since you will likely get tags on GCs that will die early enough to give you health when it matters the most.

maddoctor.2738:

Malevil.2104:

rchu.8945:

Siphaed.9235:

P.S. Guild Wars 2 is a great game. To you, personally, it might not be. That’s your opinion, however wrong it is. The millions of current players, and the Chinese players who are going to be added end-2013/early-2014, also think it is a great game.

With ESO coming out, this game will become another WoW wannabe with some gear grind but no raid content (lol). Anet chose to please the PvE crowd, and they should pay for it dearly.

I honestly laugh on everybody who thinks that ESO will be problem for gw2

I laugh as well, a buggy mess like all Bethesda games is coming and somehow people think it will offer any kind of challenge for Guild Wars 2? Yeah right.

Because GW2 isn’t riddled with bugs? Many of which have been here in some form or another since launch?

The difference is that Bethesda, or their outsourced dev house, can put out a game riddled with bugs and it is still so supremely fun and engaging that people just don’t care.

Will it be any good? Who’s to say but trying to act like an IP known for glitchy games will be no match for Anet/GW2 is an extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Can’t wait to try a piercing PB shot now and the new hunter’s shot sounds like skirmishing is going to be a lot more fun. I just wish the jag hadn’t been nerfed just so we could dance around in stealth while a stealthed npc crits the opponent constantly.

Also, thank kittening god that we finally get a blast finisher. Now we just need skills and traits that give boons to things other than just our pet and we will be set. Just make RaO give might on hit as an aoe and we would be actually desired in zerg combat.

Fyrehawk.1674:

SynfulChaot.3169:

[…]But rangers ran spirits better than rits, IMHO, when you didn’t need to use them as a wall due to being able to cast them more often and more cheaply.[…]

No offense, but that logic only made sense when a GW1 PvE ranger was attempting to justify a spot in a group for anything perceived as remotely challenging. Most spirits were on a thirty to forty-five second cool down, couple this with ‘Spirit Syphon’, ‘Summon Spirits’ and the fact 3 spirits were derived via a signet and any channelling ritualist could manage spirit up-time equally if not better than the perceived energy management benefits from ranger’s Expertise.

This is ignoring the fact that a PvE ritualist could attain 16 attribute points in channelling making everything in that line more powerful – including ‘Spirit Syphon’. Assuming a channelling ritualist was not selfish and avoided ‘Communing’ opening up a slot for an additional spirit spammer; the subsequent heavy investment in ‘Spawning Power’ not only increased spirit health but increased weapon spell duration allowing a ritualist to front load, on to a couple of physical-based party members, ridiculously powerful weapon spells like ‘Splinter Weapon’ and ‘Great Dwarf Weapon’.

In my opinion, there is an ironic reminiscence between the GW2 and GW1 ranger with regards to PvE, their presence in a PuG very much dependent on group tolerance rather than some objective desire to add one.

To be fair, by the time EotN came out the game was in such a kitten poor state it was not much of a surprise that things turned out how they did. They never addressed the prevelance of discord/cryway or did anything about permasins making the game a joke.

Hell, I never even fought the destroyer at the end of EotN. I like most everyone else just stood there while a fifty five soloed the thing.

I never really thought ill of them for it because I knew they had checked out and were focusing on GW2 which is why it’s so bad to see it here as well when they have no excuse.

Aridia.3042:

Shiren.9532:

For a development team that doesn’t like passive mechanics, it’s strange that they created a class built around them.

I find it doubly ironic that for a team so keen on counter play, that they made a game with such limited skillsets with overtly long cool downs with a crippling weapon swap. I LOLed when Sharp mentioned “Pros” having high APM in last SoTG. Really, what does that have to do with this game? Some utilities have 25 seconds to a minute cool down. The skill cap is low for this game. This is one of the many reasons why I can’t take this game seriously on a competitive lvl. It’s not about skill, it’s a build war which makes it even more flawed when combined with something like a node cap.

Get rid of the node cap, lower cool downs across the board, add more skill sets and get rid of weapon swap cool down, and maybe we’ll get somewhere interesting.

Game modes other than capture point? Blasphemy!

Fomby.4295:

My big problem is the limited pet range. If my pet is going to die by a light breeze at least let me send it out front so it might waste some special abilities of people.

It used to be fun to be able to enjoy blowing up necro marks by sending a pet through a choke before my allies and I charged in.

Xsorus.2507:

Don’t use Shortbow..

I still find that the SB is the best weapon when piercing for fighting inside towers and keeps since targets are rarely 900+ units away. (Plus t1 keep battles have so much lag that you can only auto attack most of the time so might as well go with the king of #1 spam)

But, ya for roaming, not even worth it anymore.

Puandro.3245:

Zoose was the 1st to bring up Ranger pet damage being too strong in sPvP to the devs in a State of The Game. Doesn;t surprise me he is complaining about spirits instead of learning to play.

Well, on the plus side, they can’t make spirits any more kitten than they are so we might as well have them as a balance dev lightning rod for the class.

Forzani.2584:

5 of the last 6 weeks all I have seen is the outnumbered buff on my screen. So I have two choices. I can either log, or do what I can to try and have some fun….and you’re right, most of the time they are auto attacking doors PvE style….and man, that sounds like a lot of fun+ they are getting points for their realm !

It is, and the extra hp and node harvests aren’t bad either.

Forzani.2584:

FrouFrou.4958:

Prysin.8542:

no really, it seems you all think T1 WvW is where it matters…. in T1 or T2, all that matters is MANPOWER. The bigger blob wins. get down to into T4 hell, try T5-6-7-8 and you’ll see that roaming is what pays off. Not because roaming is all you can do, you got lots of zerging there. but its not impossible to make it on your own.

Actually, tier doesn’t matter as a rank 20 server you might end up against a rank 1 server (hello borked rating system!), thus this problem exists in every single tier and rank. Arenanet supports and keeps on adding features for zergballing with wubwub patches so there isn’t really any point of thinking outside of the box when the 80 man blob rolls over your poor little ranger.

I can’t recall the last time an 80 man blob has rolled my ranger. Pretty easy to avoid. Recently I have been shadowing the zerg on my solo Ranger waiting for opportunities to cull the herd by picking off stragglers.

And while you’re attempting to “cull the herd” they are auto attacking down tower doors and earning points for their server.

And chances are you aren’t “shadowing” them. They know you’re back there and they just don’t care because you aren’t doing enough to make them stop, turn around and roll over you.

Prysin.8542:

Zenith.7301:

BM/spirit ranger is alright for roaming but roaming is not a guild activity, and it sure as hell isn’t as profitable/geared for progression compared to zerg fights.

I mean, if the class’s only good use is a roaming spec and spvp bunker condi spec, who the hell is gonna play it?

uhm, the people that find zergs boring?

no really, it seems you all think T1 WvW is where it matters…. in T1 or T2, all that matters is MANPOWER. The bigger blob wins. get down to into T4 hell, try T5-6-7-8 and you’ll see that roaming is what pays off. Not because roaming is all you can do, you got lots of zerging there. but its not impossible to make it on your own.

Also, there are a few builds viable for rangers, and they can bring seriously good support for allies. The thing is, that nobody seems to bother doing any experimenting outside “BM Bunker” and “Trapper”. Because people seem to think there is only 3 builds. BM, Trapper and GC.

Well, think again.

I can tell you for a fact that it is not always the bigger blob. More often than not it comes down to composition and tactics unless the ratio is 2:1 or above.

A team of 40 GC’s will get curb stomped by a team of 25 ptv/knight’s people who know how to maneuver and stack.

Robyn Yew.6072:

false alarm fellow rangers, today’s not our day. Just some whining from the public squalor.

Good. The last thing we need is to be doing amazing in spvp again. It’s the reason we are in such a kitten poor state as is.

hyjaxxx.1584:

its an easy fix folks, 90% of mice or keyboards have macro functions. so what you do is turn your Auto attack off so you can click one move at a time. then on a macro bound to where you want make a macro that does key up/key down on a repeated loop, add a delay as needed and now you have both.
and this way when you let off the macro key you have immediate control of your character.

90% of gamer peripherals. Not 90% of computer peripherals.

Not every one has money for a macro keyboard or mouse and its bad design to make it so they are needed just to be baseline optimal.

Ranger zerg combat is basically go piercing arrows or go home. We can do a decent job of mop up and killing people who break from the group but most anyone can kill a guy with 50% or less HP so not much of a plus.

The great sword with it’s auto dodge can give you some good survivability in a zerg but if you get over 60-70 people in a single area the skill lag will make it all but impossible to actually complete the cycle on a target and you’ll die pretty kitten quick. Meanwhile, your pet has been dead since about 1 second into the fight.

I’m pretty sure no serious tier 1 guild even brings rangers anymore. (I still use mine occasionally because it’s the best class for how I play but I’ve been pretty much forced to make a Guardian by this point.)