Why is it that RANGERS are not wanted when doing like a HoH battle

I have a lvl 20 W/Mo and a lvl 20 Ranger, both ascended, and I feel that the ranger is a more balanced and better class than a warrior, and is more fun to play as well. Being the most balanced class in GW, rangers don't need to group with anyone else but rangers. A group of 8 rangers, with some specializing in traps and some in anti-caster roles, but all with Troll Unguent, is a perfectly balanced group that can stand toe in toe with groups of any other combination.

And how does my ranger beat a W/Mo? Whenever a warrior runs toward me, I use Throw Dirt to blind him for 9 sec then put a barbed trap under his feet. Then run a few steps back, put a Dust Trap to blind him for another 9 sec, and keep pumping tons of poison arrows and hunter arrows (with fire prep) into him. Not to mention I have a Troll Unguent with +9 Health regeneration in case he wants to get personal. No W/Mo, not even a primary monk, can purge these many conditions time after time. So while two warriors can kill a ranger, a single W/Mo is no match to a single ranger. This comes from my experience as a W/Mo and a R/Mo

If you can't find a group, why don't you start your own instead of waiting for someone to go "LF ranger"? Makes the most sense to me

Good Job! One of the most true posts I've seen in a long time Did anyone notice how at first, everyone more monks, then people wanted warriors to kill the monks, then people figured that's still kinda hard, so people wanted mesmers to kill monks, maybe the monks will outsmart the mesmers and then it will be up to the rangers, however they would just get outsmarted too .

Go talk to KCHS. There are plenty of guilds who love their rangers.

Rangers are not meant to be a heavy damage dealing class, not many people understand that which is why people say ignorantly "rangers suck." Rangers while in pvp imo are meant for shutting down a ceartain player by blinding them/crippling them/blinding them again/interrupting all their spells/draining their energy like mad. Of course, if you combine all of those, rangers can deal a lot of damage to one person. Or if you want, equip barrage and you have lots of damage spread across if people are grouped well.

My take on it.

Rangers are the Jacks of All Trades, masters of none. Mesmers out counter them, elementalists out damage them, and warriors out tank them. When most people create groups, they're not looking for someone that is "okay in everything", they want someone to fill a specific role in a group. In a 6 man group, a tank I go warrior, not a ranger. Damager, I go elementalist, not a ranger. Counter, I'd rather have a mezmer. Then a healer, and maybe in that last two slots I'd take a ranger.. maybe.

That said, the reason behind this has been stated before, so few rangers play rangers properly. I have a ranger, and I'll be the first to say that ranger isn't an easy class to get to know. A ranger is the only class that can fill in any role on team as a secondary, except monk. They are the second best counters sure, but can easily out damage a mesmer. Second best tanks, but how many tanks have ranged attack and counters. Second best ranged damage dealers, but they have better armor and can counter.

Problem is, so many people play rangers and just shoot their bows for damage then get frustrated when the teams don't want a ranger. Rangers need to shut down the enemy while dealing ranged damage, its what they do. No one takes a mesmer along for damage, they take them along for shutting people down. If more rangers would be played properly, and not just a poison dealing, mediocre damage dealing ranged attacker, more rangers would be taken.

Ironic thing is, some group leaders who are rangers themselves don't want rangers in their group and want more tanks and monks instead. Kind of sad.

best post yet. from everything i've heard the reason ragners aren't favored is because people don't play them correctly. in PvE as a ranger you can just sit back and unload the bow....so players get used to playing this way. In PvP other players aren't gonna just sit there and let you plunk them with your arrows.

Well most of it comes from the fact that in most other games the "archer" classes sucked generally from nerfs (ie DAoC and from what I hear EQ and WoW) so that generally carries over to GW where early in beta the ranger was considered 1 of the elete classes to have. Then A-net nerfed them to a "support" class what are people suposed to think. Perhaps rangers were to strong early on (dont know how they got to that conclusion when an elementalist can nuke for over 100dmg on an AoE with knockdowns LOL) but they did. And like the nerfs in other games IMO they went a little to far.

Most rangers don't realize that beast mastery is the secret to unlocking their damage potential. And I don't mean spamming tiger's fury, either.

well, this isn't quite true.
almost all rangers out there believe they have a good interrupt ability. In PvP, your interrupts are instant hits, like mesmer spells, or they aren't interrupts, as monks can just cast their spells before you hit them. Rangers can do an awful lot of damage if they are primed right, but the way rangers outshine everyone else is that they can avoid damage like no other, a)because they can run like crazy men (storm chaser) and b) avoid damage for a long time (dodge, whirling defence etc.). This means that they are like the proverbial shielding hands warrior monk, a tank who will simply be ignored while the other team flattens yours. Rangers simply don't have much synergy with other builds, apart from silly combinations like using Greater conflagration + winter and everyone having cold resistance skills. the most use i've seen for them is if they are purely used to throw out conditions. Rangers are kings at this, better than even sword or axe warriors, as you can have every shot do poison damage / fire damage etc. Also, in Tombs the Traps can catch a fair few people out in fights, as they generally dont target the ranger standing a few feet away, and suddenly everyone in the area is either blinded or crippled and bleeding or on fire.

Rangers simply dont work so well in a team. Hence, teams dont want the vast majority of rangers, as the vast majority don't force them to work into a team. by the way, feel free to disagree with everything i've said - i've only ever used a secondary ranger for the traps

oddly i always get in HoH groups some even ignore the fact that i don't have ts/ventrillo

rng/mo - i'm a sniper type though so i always stay in the background with my incendary arrows and judges insight (50% armor penetration and seeing someone hp drop from 3/4, to half 1 arrow helps =P).

problem is that many don't know how to play rangers well giving rangers a bad name in general, this goes with primary mesemers they are good too hell they are one of the best for shutting down classes because of all those indirect spells.

most of my HoH expect me to interrupt and focus kill since i can deal one time dmg more than a knight usually and if a monk is in trouble i can always blind that war and take tanking as the monk gets back to healing.

ranger classes isn't too much defined by PvP so you need to show it out there in battle, most of the pick up parties in HoH i get invites from are from leaders that i killed before xD

you need to show you can play with the team, so rangers have it harder because most of the population of rangers solo which usually puts the team in a disadvantage

Ty all the replies, and by the way i try to keep my target under effects usualy bleeding crippled and daze along with some other ones for show lol

I agree. Actually ranger is made a class with only 2/3 physical damage in mind, the other 1/3 lies in the pet. So it's possible that pet is the reason why ranger damage is nerfed. But the problem with pet is pet isn't strong enough, doesn't deal with enough damage and that Charm Animal skill is useless. And pet isn't targeted in pvp, when it is and dies, ranger suffer all skill reset. So A-net has got to boost beastmastery skills so a new high damage ranger build is possible.

I disagree. If you aren't getting good damage from your pet, you aren't trying hard enough. Get ferocious strike and disrupting lunge.

Once again I'm linking to a good pet build in hopes that rangers will see how to make their pet effective. I've been using the build and it works beautifully. Ferocious strike isn't hard to capture with henches.

The hard thing for rangers to understand is that they might have to drop wilderness survival to do the most damage. Preparations are nice, but so is raw damage. I've never tried the flame slinger template, or gotten serious about dual shotting/barraging, so I might be wrong on this. But dual shots don't give you back energy or interrupt every 5 seconds.

Let your pet do the damage while you do the things your pet can't do as well: energy denial and crippling.

Hmmm, that's interesting, maybe I'll try that with a new pvp character... That's for a bear pet, right? Yea, wilderness survival is hard to drop, especially with Troll Unguent tied to it...

wow ty for the build info

so wats the best secondary profession for a ranger? i was thinking of making a ranger/necro...but any suggestions?

thx!

ya i agree with u all, rangers pretty much suck.

Uhh, if im not mistaken most ppl said rangers are good if used right, or are you just illiterate and can not read? I bet that is it