Do Rangers suck?

So Rangers suck or is it just me?

I've been playing aroud with my Ranger/Mesmer the last little while and no matter how I try and set him up he is sub par compared to anyone else I group with, or my friends characters.

Well I'll go ahead and post my build and let you guys tell me what I'm doing wrong.

At lvl 17 I have

Expertise 10
Wilderness Survival 2, 1 from my mask
Marksmanship 10

Penetrating Shot
Hunter's Shot
Distracting Shot
Pin Down
Resurection Signet
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal
Leech Signet

Now as far as I know as a Ranger I have to keep Exp/Mark high in order to pop off my skills, right? But by doing that I have no extra points to put into things such as my mesmer skills.

Basically I don't do as much damage as a warrior or elementalist. I don't tank very well and my secondary class isn't helping me in the least. Now what I get from reading posts here Rangers are very good if played right, so I figured I'd just ask, what am I doing wrong?

I'm currently at Riverside Province, and I'm not sure how close that is to when I get to change my sub class, is it far and I should stick with this?

Dump , Charm Animal and Comfort Animal. You have no points in Beast Mastery and the effectiveness of your pet at this stage of the game is not going to be enough to warrant wasting two skill slots on it. I would get rid of Leech Signet if I were you, too.

As for other skills to consider picking up, depends on what you want to do, really. Tiger's Fury is great for boosting attack speed and damage output, and preps like Ignite or Kindle Arrows also help that.

Savage Shot might make a good replacement for Leech Signet, as it still interrupts actions and is anti-caster (albeit it does damage, rather than steals energy). Throw Dirt is good if things decide to get too up close and personal, as is Whirling Defense. There are some fun nature rituals you could play with as well, like Favorable Winds. Or you could just toss out Wilderness Survival entirely (Seeing as you're not really using anything from it) and maybe knock Markmanship or Expertise down a point (and then get a mask to raise it back up) and dump the newly freed up points into Mesmer stuff. (I'm not a big Mesmer player, so what exactly you do from that angle is up to you.)

Your main problem seems to be your selection of skills, really. You're wasting a lot of slots on very subpar things. You also lack a definitive direction in terms of where you want to take a Ranger. My advice is to think hard about what you want to do conceptually with your Rangering.

Hope that helps.

ok ai have a ranger/mesmer too, heres a few things, mgiht as well get rid of wilderness replace the mask for +1 expertise and for god sakes lower the stats and get a mesmer attribute

Quote:

Well Leech Signet interupts skills so that's why it is on there, I mainly use it against those trolls if Distracting shot is down to stop the regen.

I have been messing around trying out different skills and whatnot and most of the mesmer ones really didn't seem that great. I've been picking up most skills that I find along the way up to this point, from quests only though. Should I cave in and just buy the ones I need of trainers?

You are right, I don't really have a purpose and that is because I can't see any good way to make this build work, atleast not until I get some skills that are probably not available for awhile.

Thanks for the responses, I'll try and put them to use.