Thinking about starting a new PvE toon...

My warrior I have since beta has given me many hours of great gameplay. I have played all the professions in PvP and recently have really enjoyd playing Ranger. The profession seems really versatile and just plain fun.

I would like to start a PvE Ranger and Max it out like my Warrior but omg all those hours I have put in on my warrior...it seems kind of like it will be a grind to do a new PvE toon.

Is it easy to level a ranger and get into groups to progress fast? My warrior is currently at 95% in exploring tyria and cantha,,,,it just seems like it will take a very long time to get a new ranger toon up to the level of my warrior.

Anyone have any helpfull insight/opinions?
thanks alot!

IMO, a ranger is one of the more difficult toons in PVE. There are a few reasons for this but the biggest are other rangers. We are definitely a support class; not primary damage dealers. A lot of people who roll rangers are trying to be Legolas from Lord of the Rings. They get picked up in a group and then don't support the party properly. The group then becomes biased towards rangers, thinking they're worthless and a stereotype begins.

Additionally, even a good ranger can come across to others as ineffective. We don't have cool effects for attack skills like an elementalist. We often are disallowing an enemy's skills and some don't notice this. We're far back from the fight, often even farther than casters.

Warriors on the other hand are commonly considered the easiest class to roll. So no matter what profession you choose, you're probably going to have a tougher time than you did with your warrior.

Thats why I kind of am enjoying the class of Ranger. I dont have to be on the frontline and can hang back set traps or whatever but still support the team. I guess its like the flipside of warrior...

Gawd that long friggin grind though ugh...

Ive watched a group of Rangers totally whipe out enemies though...it was hilarious.

Doesn't mean we can't deal damage. My PvE ranger is in full beastmaster mode and Enraged Lunge dealing 100 damage every five seconds is nice enough damage for me.

I feel that Ranger is a more versatile profession than any of them really...you can play dmg dealer or support or whatever...

I guess I better just put my head down and start the long grind :P

Ahh, but when you need a break from playing your Ranger, you can always pick up your Warrior for a bit.

I love my ranger and have never had issues getting into PUGs and often times it was the fact that I was doing my thing that the group got out of a bad places, because someone over arggoed. And the group always notices it. The fact is rangers can fill any role in a group and the group will love you. Start in tyria through easier more skills for free.

If you have factions, leveling to 20 is a matter of maybe two solid days of gaming. Not too shabby really. Just do all the quests and missions you can.

I started in Tyria, did all the quests and got to level 7 in about 8 hours of play. Then I left pre-searing, got a run to Lions Arch and took the boat to Cantha. I was 20 in about another 8 hours, just doing quests and missions from Shing Jea to Kaineng. If you have friends to help I bet you can do it even faster.

I love my ranger, even though i'm still very inexperienced in most of their virtues. I primarily play a touch ranger since I don't PvP at all. :P Still, VERY often I am just standing around in a mission area and get an invite to group. Lots of fun. =)

Because of expertise, the Ranger is second best at almost everything in the game and best at many. He has the second best armor and the best defense against elemental dmg. The Rangers defense stances are almost as good as the warriors.

Expertise lets the Ranger use his secondary at a greatly reduced energy cost. Which is what makes him so versatile.

A beast master is really playing 2 characters at once. If he evolves his pet to dire, it can deal out great dmg by itself. And if it evolves to hearty, it makes a great tank. Of course you have to take the right skills to make either work at max. There are areas in this forum and guildwiki that tell you how to play beast master and evolve your pet.

The Ranger also has great running skills. He can run pretty much anywhere except maybe the Droks run.

I'm sure there are a few things I've left out about how great the Ranger profession is, but you get my point I hope.

Roll a factions ranger, far less grind that way but more expensive on skills. Personal belief of mine: beastmastery is going to continue to improve, traps obviously are improving.
Rangers are by far the most versatile profession, simply because of expertise and a very wide assortment of defensive skills. I don't think they are the *best* or teh uuberZ, but a lot of fun. I know when I first started playing GW over a year ago now, I made a ranger, and deleted it...about a month later I made another one...deleted... Im on my 4th ranger now. I think its more of an advanced class simply because its not a powerhouse damage dealer, and yet I still find things I enjoy doing with my ranger. Its what I consider my primary character at this point and is pushing 5 million experience. It requires more thought, more planning more knowing the lay of the land. Yes a warrior can use hammers, or necro stuff, yes a mesmer can interrupt... and they can likely do these things better than a ranger. But they don't look as cool doing it or have as much energy to spare after the flies land on the corpses of the fallen enemies.
I've never done thumper outside of RA/gvg, thanks you've inspired me

I Started with a W/E that I played exclusively up until Ring of Fire.
I too wanted something new to try and started a ranger (mainly because my warrior had been finding cool bows that I wanted to make use of them) BUT I also started a monk at the same time and progressed them together (with different secondaries - R/me and Mk/Necro to unlock all proffessions)
Doing 1 or 2 missions with 1 and then doing the same again with the other - they where never more than 2 missions apart from each other. This obviously took longer but it ment once I'd done a quest with both of them I could draw a line under it and say - never have to do that again.
This gave me 3 different classes I could play. Unfortunately these 2 twins have now got seperated - The Monk finnished factions and was always in demand but the ranger just couldn't get into groups when I had the time and needed too. She is stuck in the Hatchery and probably won't go much further.
I created a Necro from scratch for factions and that was fun so I now have 4 Characters.

I think creating a ranger will be fun and it is diverse but maybe you should also create a caster to get a completely different experience from the warrior one