PvE:
Jaguar: Use for single target fights
Jungle Stalker: Use for single target fights and when your party is not reaching 25 might
Red Moa: Use when your party does not have perma fury
Ice Drake: Use for trash and multi target fights
A few others have niche roles, but those are the 4 I rotate between the most. You can use birds instead of cats if you like as well.
Even at full dps you are not even close to the DPS classes.
DPS-wise, ranger is competitive with warriors, engis, necros, mesmers (0-1 phantasms) and guardians. The issue is more or less Elementalists being OP (damage-wise) than rangers sucking.
Feline pets are fine in high level fotm, except for the boss fractals. Ooze, Brie and Lupi are only the problematic fights in Arah off the top of my head. TA aether I haven’t done in a while, but I think I only had issues (if any) with the last boss.
I can support with all those things you listed except for Vigor on HS with the meta builds.
Yeah i’m gonna buy all zerker exotics I just gotta save up some gold. I’m hearing that bows kinda suck right now so i’m using greatsword/axe+warhorn….is the greatsword ok or should I swap it for sword/warhorn or something?
It’s really just a matter of preference. Open world is the place to run whatever you want.
I use GS + longbow or axe/x in open world content because I don’t feel the need to min/max and optimize my game play for open world. Axe/ + Longbow are what I bring when I just want to tag stuff for loot.
Anything goes as far as open world PvE goes. You’re better off going with a dungeon or WvWvW build and just using that there. Individual builds, gear and skill are far less important in zerg content. Just try to use gear with Power as the main stat.
Again, you are completely missing the point here. You do take 25 in skirmishing for some brainless dungeons where bursting the boss takes precedence over everything else, but in mechanic based dungeons, like high fractals, 25 into WS is far superior. OH training is the best trait the ranger has. There losing 250 precision is meaningless because there really are not that many situations where you can continuously DPS the boss with sword1.
Shorter CD and bigger range on horn/OH axe is much better then some extra damage for yourself. The pet will always be buffed due to FBond.
You’re the one missing the point here. Reflects aren’t the ranger’s strength, so it makes no sense to trait for it. Untraited axe reflect does the job just fine.
And you can pretty much melee every boss in fractals if you really wanted to. 250prec/25% crit damage is still more helpful for ranging fights than 250 toughness and condition damage. A boss fight having mechanics doesn’t make traiting for DPS obsolete, even then most fights are just DPS races or become much easier the faster you kill it.
If you can’t keep your pet alive on 90% of the fights in this game, then you’re doing something wrong. There are very few fights in this game where you’re likely to have both pets dead at the same time. I already told you this before, but you don’t take Skirmishing for the pet traits. You take it for the 250 precision and critical damage AND the 10% damage modifier.
Just because we follow meta builds, does not mean we are blindly following it. I know the reasons why the DPS meta is the way it is, and why this build is so effective. I’ve also done my fair share of build experimenting for fun, and they’re usually not as effective as the spotter/frost spirit builds. And FYI, I run the Nature magic variant, which I originally got from GK before Brazil popularized the remorseless S/WH build.
the 25 in skirmishing is only better for some easy mode dungeons like CoF1 or CoE. Any other instance where there is a need for increased AOE or reflects, 25 into WS is much better. The increased AOE on axe 5 is huge…. IT IS HUGE for group play
PS: you are just copy pasting a build Brazil talked about.
It’s not a ranger’s job to reflect, and Axe 5 is less DPS than auto attacking. If you need reflects, bring a mesmer or a guardian instead. 25 skirmishing works fine for the “hard mode” dungeons as well.
25% extra endurance, AOE vigor, prot on dodge, OH training and 10% more damage at full hp>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>fury and swiftness on swap, more pet critical damage and 5 secs of pet might stacking.
This isn’t true at all. You’re also forgetting that skrimishing also 250 precision (~11% crit) and 25% critical damage
NOONE TAKES RANGERS INTO A GROUP FOR DPS!!!!!!!!!
This part is true, but not an excuse to kitten your damage for a useless trait line (Wilderness survival)
I won’t believe that this is everything a ranger can do. I’ve heared they can rock with some traits (+150 Precision for everyone?) or Spirits (Frost?) and even outdamage many other classes (melee???).
Damage-wise, rangers are near the bottom of the tier list. They’ll do slightly less damage than a warrior (~5%), but both spotter and frost spirit are ~7% party dps increases. The ranger by itself will never do as much as any other class in melee because we’re balanced around having a pet active at all times. Kinda like playing a mesmer with no phantasms out. With DPS pets out and alive, we’re competitive with other classes.
Frost Spirit is always on my bar.
Stone spirit is alright, but it won’t proc when you need it.
Water spirit i only take if i’m bored.
Nature spirit’s heal is actually a pretty potent cooldown. Like the devs said, it’s like giving a warrior’s healing signet to everyone in your party for a minute. Sadly, it’s getting nerfed on tuesday.
The other 2 spirits are not worth taking unless you want to complete your petting zoo.
Only problem with this build is that it doesn’t have Remorseless. Which some people value a lot more than I do.
Sadly there is no tanking in this game, there is kill em supper fast so they do not kill us though
No, there IS tanking and there IS support, it’s just not meta atm, which Anet don’t like and as such they’re trying to bring support and tanky builds up and bring DPS down a little.
You can support with DPS builds just fine as long you get the idea out of your head that “Support” is only healing.
And there will never be true tanking without a real aggro system. The intricacies of the current one are largely unknown and dynamic to prevent a single person tanking for his team. If the the tank doesn’t hold aggro, then what is the point?
Support doesn’t mean healing, support has always, and will always mean buffing AND healing your allies and generally just making them able to stay in the fight longer as well as boosting their damage.
And you can tank kitten pretty easily in PvE, low health, high armor, or being a bear, tends to kitten off just about everything in the game and if you’re in, say clerics gear, you hit both those marks and have a ton of self healing allowing you to stay in there longer and kitten stuff off a lot. Also, just like in Gw1, hard CC tends to anger mobs (just like players) and if you spam that or are the only one using them you kitten things off and “peel” them from your allies. Granted this becomes harder to do if you’ve got 4 Melee zerkers there because once any of them gets hit by a stiff breeze they suddenly become target #1 to most AI.
Keep in mind, this is the GENERAL AI thought process, there are absolutely outliers, like the mages in the searing fractal, they don’t care about anything they shoot at everyone and don’t give a kitten about anything.
For PvE tanking think PvP tanking “how would I kitten a player off enough to focus me over a squishy?” Is generally what you wanna ask yourself…
Well, i’d argue that debuffing your enemies should also count as support because of the important of active mitigation in this game. A thief or warrior spamming blinds/weakness to protect their team counts as support in my books.
I feel healing-based support builds should never be meta or good, because it defeats the purpose of removing the trinity in the first place. You can’t heal through one shot moves, which is what this game’s PvE is based off of.
Sadly there is no tanking in this game, there is kill em supper fast so they do not kill us though
No, there IS tanking and there IS support, it’s just not meta atm, which Anet don’t like and as such they’re trying to bring support and tanky builds up and bring DPS down a little.
You can support with DPS builds just fine as long you get the idea out of your head that “Support” is only healing.
And there will never be true tanking without a real aggro system. The intricacies of the current one are largely unknown and dynamic to prevent a single person tanking for his team. If the the tank doesn’t hold aggro, then what is the point?
Very well said! There is more to team play than individual dps. Slightly decreasing your individual damage output in favor of support will make team damage higher in most cases.
I dont see how
perma regen, a waterfield, over 33% uptime on vigor (from me alone, likely much higher with others there), extremely fast and safe rezzes that put them at 50% of their healthbar instead of a measily 30%, a large uptime on protection, and perma fury.
increases your team’s overall damage. All the optimal meta builds already include the traits that increase group dps while builds such as the one Durzilla uses actually decreases team dps compared to a 30/25/0/15/0 build.
In most cases deviating from meta builds for more support is going to lower your groups overall dps. Only exception i can think of is Empower Alllies for warriors
(I’m assuming this is for PvE) Playing the sword is more about knowing the encounter than the class. Turning off the auto attacks won’t prevent you from getting animation locked (and being unable to dodge). If you attack too slowly with the auto attack off, then your dps will also be really kittenty. You pretty much need to play thinking 1-2 seconds ahead and predictively dodge attacks. Basically, don’t queue up your AA chain when you know you need to dodge something soon, OR use your dodges 1-2 seconds earlier. I play with the auto attack turned on most of the time (because mashing 1 gets tiring), but I turn it off for certain fights.
Making use of animation interupts (such as WH 4 and weapon swap. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUwHpIxY52U) help a ton. This is more useful for fights such as subject Alpha, where there is long delayed one shot move that gives you 3 seconds to react. In that fight, you can also just stop your auto attack (by default pressing esc) for a second, to dodge.
So rangers suck. Anybody knows it and no respectable player would wear a ranger. And if you happen to log your ranger, there is hardly a group where you are not told by one or more morons that you suck just because you are a ranger.
I’m just wondering
1. where this really started and how can you really tell that a class or a player has a low damage without dps parser?
People say that a thief or a war with a bow does more damage than a ranger. How can anyone prove this claim?
2. if rangers are improved, and would perform as a welcome (ranged) dpsers, how long it takes before the antiranger prejudice dies?
But it is true, I made a ranger character, I got to lvl 45 and it’s pretty clear that there is absolutely no objective reason to play a ranger over a warrior or any other class, they don’t do anything better than another class.
Yes, wanting to be efficient and stack is evil. We should all make our dungeon runs take as long as possible to enhance the dungeon crawling experience.
All a warrior, guardian, or mesmer needs to do to not be “useless” is swap out to a utility that sees active use. This gives them much more flexibility in build choices. If you’re trying to be optimal, there’ll certainly be an optimal build to take.
But the problem with Ranger is that the line between Useful and Optimal is so narrow that there isn’t much wiggle room.
Well, I agree that this is a problem. On my warrior I can screw around with Empower Ally builds and still helpful with 2 banners and FGJ. A ranger without spotter/frost is not worth bringing. Some classes have near meta non-optimal builds that still perform well enough compared to their optimal counter parts that they are not dead weight.
More DPS oriented utility would be nice, since thats all what people care about. Some PvE-only spirits would be nice. Ie. a fury version of stone spirit for example.
Overall, I just feel ranger utility is “fine”, and would benefit greatly from bug fixes and QoL adjustments (which can include trait flexibility).
I think reflects are fine, only a very small portion of the player base can do those big reflects that one shot enemies or skip phases. They also reward your party’s class diversity and players for coming prepared to the fight with the right skills.
And for stacking, you still need to deal with the fight’s mechanics (Except for a few cases where stacking legitimately is an exploit that bugs encounters. Spider queen is not one of them)
As long as people are chasing their carrot on the stick, they will want to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible.
(PvE only)
[Warrior] Banner bot and GS camper
[Guardian] Clerics/tanks
[Ranger] Ranger is for ranging. Bearbow!
[Necro] Useless
[Thief] Probably going to die a lot
[Mesmer] Timewarp is their only good skill
[Elementalist] “What’s a blast finisher?” Ice-bow dispenser.
[Engineer] “There are 8 classes in this game?” Flamethrower/EG engi.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bonfire
Torch, It’s great for out of combat fire fields or if you group with a LH ele.
Drakes usually open with their Tail Swipe too, so its predictable at least. And ofc, Mighty Roar has a tendency to fail occasionally. Only problem is that you can’t Tail Swipe out of combat.
So if you take torch and warhorn. That’s 2 weapon slots devoted just to stacking might, both on quite long cooldowns (25 seconds on bonfire, 35 seconds on call of the wild). Isn’t that still jumping through hoops to get on par with other sources?
There are also other reasons for a guardian to use a staff, or a warrior to use a longbow outside of stacking might.
And if you want to provide more than that, you need to take healing spring, trait 10 points & use a utility for spirits, 20 for spotter, or 40 for shout regen/swiftness.
I’m frustrated because despite what I wanted to believe, it seems that playing a ranger well in an organized setting is more of just taking the right build than playing and timing well.
I’m frustrated because despite how Guild Wars 2 was presented, and how the balance team says that they want to encourage build diversity, Rangers do not have much build diversity.
If you had to be the might stacker, then yeah. In organized groups, it’s usually just the ele or engi’s job to might stack. I don’t really feel its the rangers role to stack might anyways, our job is really to be a walking discipline banner (spotter/frost) with a feline pet and auto attack stuff. If you have a single ele or guardian in your party, then you don’t need to provide the fire field. Other classes have that issue too about devoting weapon slots they might not normally use to stack might.
Running the right build is important on any class. (ie. Guardians/Mesmers “need” to trait their reflects kinda like how we “need” to trait our frost spirits). As a result, there’s only 1-3 “viable” meta builds for every class. Here’s a list that Nike maintains: http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars2Builds/comments/1pdukv/behold_a_list_of_the_current_meta_builds_28102013/
There isn’t much room for build diversity in general. Like, I think a banner-less warrior or reflection-less mesmer is useless, but they won’t get as much hate as the ranger in PUGs becasue they don’t have the bearbow stigma and the general player base is uninformed. Any class needs to trait and bring the right utilities.
In order to get 12 stacks of might on party you need: Fire trap (requires hostile npc to trigger)
Drake AI blast finisher (not on command)
Jungle Stalker Active
Warhorn Blast finisher
If you’re a guardian, you need:
A staff.
In order for a warrior to get 12 stacks of might on a party, they need:
Longbow fire field (requires full adrenaline, which can be accomplished out of combat using heal)
Longbow blast finisher
For Great Justice
and a Banner which provides so much more than just 2 blast finishers.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bonfire
Torch, It’s great for out of combat fire fields or if you group with a LH ele.
Drakes usually open with their Tail Swipe too, so its predictable at least. And ofc, Mighty Roar has a tendency to fail occasionally. Only problem is that you can’t Tail Swipe out of combat.
Empower is not as effective as blasting fire fields and the might stacks only last 10s. Significant dps loss in combat makes it not worth switching to in combat most of the time.
Warrior could do like 18 stacks if he really wanted to lol.
Unlike the guardian and warrior, you could do the fire field and blast in combat without being stuck on a kittenty auto attack for the next 5-10s. In terms of practicality, rangers don’t have it that bad in terms of might stacking.
Rangers have other ways of supporting too but those tricks aren’t really needed in organized groups, and are situationally helpful in PUG-land. We’re not just a walking discipline banner.
blame zerker gear cause people cant play with it..the problem is not the zerker gear..it´s the kittening content !
and if you say you could play your war you just cant your war
I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but I’m guessing you’re insulting me and covering it up with smiley faces lol.
And no, I don’t blame zerker gear in pve, I’m just saying people should play what they want to play. But the whole “if you’re not zerker, then get out” kinda things gets on my nerves.
You can play whatever you want, PvE is easy enough that you could do it naked if you really wanted to. Only difference is that it will take much longer and people don’t want their CoF 1’s to take 44 minutes instead of 10. Just avoid playing with people who want to speed through the content and find like minded people.
I use 15/20/0/20/15. Less zerky with more sustainability. You can’t expect your pugs to be all zerk and experienced. Gives access to longer duration of banners + increased power to everyone.
Utility is usually a stance, a shout, and a banner. Very broad here since the shout, stance, and banner depends on what you’re facing and if there’s other warriors in the party. I always have Endure Pain or Dolyak signet as a precautionary measure to how bad the pug teams can be.
Weapons are usually GS, Axe/Mace, Rifle, and Sword/Warhorn. Longbow is really optional. GS + Axe/Mace is usually the best DPS you can have.
More dps is pretty much always the answer to kill things before they become a problem. Dolyak Signet and Endure pain is defensive overkill and not needed. Instead, grab a sword offhand with Sigil of Energy. I find the extra endurance and block helps a ton more than using up utility slots. Tbh, the biggest thing that will help you survive encounters is more experience and practice.
Well, an idea like that could be having Spotter be centered around the ranger’s pet, rather than the ranger.
That way the ranger can stay at range, but the team can still enjoy the buff.
That’s just one idea, though. Obviously there are cases when ranged attacking is inappropriate, but that is up to the player to learn, not an issue with the class.
I was just thinking about having some more synergy between ranger and pet and buffs/auras also emerging from pets, when I read your post.
In the case of spotter, maybe both ranger and pet could apply the buff around them, that way rangers that like to use bows from max distance could do so and still be able to provide this particular buff to their teammates in melee range.
Fortifying bond could be made to work both ways somehow, maybe if distance between ranger and pet is more than x distance from each other or something.
It must be possible and viable to play from range, even in dungeons. I’m willing to bet that the majority of rangers picked the class for that very reason, that they are supposed to be “unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows”.
I know I myself started out fighting from a distance with dual bows on my ranger. Nowadays, I fight in melee range maybe 85% of the time.
Anything is viable, but not everything is efficient. Engineers and Eles have viable (good) ranged builds (staff/grenades) but they are still played in melee range to not scatter mobs, and for buffs.
Also, I wouldn’t want spotter only on the pet. Certain fights are problematic for pet survival and losing Spotter when you make a mistake and let your pet die would suck as well.
I run full clerics with a 0/0/20/20/30 build or something like that and I’ve been having little issue, I run a sword/horn and a longbow (primarily the bow) with Mercy Ruhes, LR, HS, SotH, Stone Spirit and Elite Spirit, my utilities get changed up every now and then but the general theme behind the build (tanky supporter) stay the same.
Pet is a fern hound and a brown bear, the bear just eats up everything and doesn’t give a kitten, so many times him tanking as I rezzed the idiots in zerker who died again has made us not wipe.
I’m curious: what level fractals do you run and how long are your runs?
Bad players are bad players. A bad player in tanky armor will die almost as much as a bad player in zerker armor in high level fractals, given that most things that kill you will do so very quickly.
I’m at like 25 atm, slowly working on getting AR, reason I even started them was a friend of mine said his group of regulars only has one zerker and it takes em 40min (they’re at 50) so I figured hell why not.
I get downed very few times in fractals, and normally when I do it’s from lack of AR or me keeping someone from going to defeated/thinking I can Rez em fast enough.
And while your stood back using your “bearbow” tell me, why do you think these “idiots in zerkers” are downed in the first place?
Hint: dungeon/fractals are best for a group of 5, not 4.
Um, i use a Fernhound most of the time and only swap to the bear when the Fernhound is getting low, or we need the condi removal, also i go in and out of melee ranged, and if we’ve got an ele I tend to be in melee a lot more than normally because i can constantly be blasting fire fields for might for my allies via warhorn and sometimes just swapping the bear out to a drake etc.
And the reason they tend to get downed in the first place is normally they don’t pay attention and they end up eating some AoE, or they’re too stupid to put the Tears of Dwayna in on time and end up dying to the toxic because they’ve got no health/no way to heal through it and end up dying before they get their heads out of their kitten and put the crystals back in and i end up being the only one standing… There’s also the occasional mindset of “That ranger is able to sit there and rez while eating all that bad kitten i should be able to!” and they die because they’re not geared to do so but i am.
@Bambula: I’m not gonna lie, i’m in no way, shape or form trying to “optimize” my fractal runs, the only reason i use clerics is because that’s what i built for my WvW build and i just cram that into PvE situations because i have no room to store a second set of armor. I mean if there was an ARMOR LOCKER HINT HINT ANET in PvE i probably would just throw on Zerker (more likely to be Rampager tbh) gear, slap some Mercy Runes on it with some Sigils of Water and go with a Crit based pet build or something of the sort (Aka 20/20/0/0/30).
Well, I won’t criticize your build since plenty of other ppl will do it already. But I will say this: How do you feel about PvE players taking their PvE gear (zerker) and builds into WvWvW. Let’s say they also don’t care about optimizing their playstyle and do things such as rally the enemy zerg or waste supply.
It’s the same problem in PvE when you go the other way around. Bag slots and exotic armor are cheap, and traits are easy to change too for fractals atleast. Also, not every PvE player you run into will be a “idiot in zerker” and designing your build around playing with bads is usually not a good idea.
Buff range isn’t really a ranger specific issue, the 600 range limit affects all classes which is why melee stacking is so dominant. It does suck however, to have only one viable build and to have to trait for fortifying bond. A few other classes do have the trait utility problem where they have to spend 30 points in a traitline for all meta builds.
Some adjustments to F2 skills (or spirits… i guess) would be nice changes for ranger utility. Ie. making the pet cast times more responsive and not bug out, be affected by boon duration without a trait etc.
In my experience, groups that auto kick based on class or AP are not worth joining. Most of them don’t understand what rangers can do, and there’s nothing you can do about it but try a different group. There are also those who do understand the value of a ranger, but do not want to risk PUGing with one on the off chance that he knows how to play his class.
I never understood why people want to spend more time in a dungeon for the same reward.
The reward is usually as meaningful as the struggle/journey to obtain that reward… Ever heard the saying “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory” ?
If you put it like that… why would you even want to spend any time in a dungeon, just have a starting vendor with all best gear in the game…
Well… GW1 was like that. Everyone was equal stat-wise and only grinded for cooler looking gear.
Also, no one really cares about the struggle/journey after the first few times you do it. It then just becomes farm to grind for the next legendary, cash shop item or piece of ascended gear.
People are idiots, get over it.
Haters gonna hate.
As long as you are kicked from most groups without notice, it is hard to get over it. I don’t mind being hated. But, compared to other classes, some parts of the game are out of limits for you, as long as you play a ranger.
Yeah you can keep trying and trying and hope for a group which would not reject a ranger. A lot of fun indeed. Or you can go and roll a war. And this means that rangers needs fixing.
The elitist just do what they usualy do, only in GW2 they use some absolutely stupid critetia since they don’t have their dps parsers…
You could always just form your own groups or join a dungeon guild. I have 0 problems PUGing any PvE content in this game as a ranger.
Rangers do need fixing, but it’s not for this reason. The general player base is very uninformed and full of stupid players.
I’ll give you a hint, if you aren’t already, run the meta build for rangers. If you aren’t already, it’s no wonder why you’re seeing so much ranger hate.
The hate is never going to go away, the ranger equivalent in other MMOs are usually hated as well. (Usually for lack of control over pet or basic understanding of their class).
As much as I would like more skills and build variety, introducing a soft trinity is not the way to do it. If you make “tanking” or “healing” required you ruin the unique thing about GW2 in the first place and what the devs were trying to avoid. I feel the game should stay the way it is with the dodge or die mechanics but with adjustments to class balance.
For that vid, obal had a max dps build, prec infusions, prec stack, the best food and potion, max might, max vuln, fury, a traited frost spirit, an untraited frost spirit, empower allies and banner of disc and banner of strength boosting him as well, if I remember that day correctly. He’s also as much inside the mage crusher’kitten box as he can so that he maximizes the amount of times that the attack hits.
It looks like he also used a strength booster as well.
I can’t think of a class that’s worse for PvE than Ranger.
Necromancer
Full berserker necro with dagger/whatever (focus?), wells and piercing life blast.
Not fantastic, and yet better.
That build doesn’t contribute anything to the team except some vuln stacks and some condi removal.
Rangers can at-least bring two unique damage buffs, water fields, fire fields, 1-12 might stacks, fury, reflects, resurrects etc. Their melee options can also hit more than 1 target. Not sure what the benefit of piercing life blast is, but rangers can do that as well (though you shouldn’t).
Don’t get me wrong, this class has problems and is incredibly frustrating to play on certain fights (as indicated by the OP), but it still brings enough to the party to make it worth bringing one ranger.
