Rangers Unite!!!!!!

This may noy be the place for this thread but.............

Has anybody else noticed that rangers get crapped on in Guild Wars. Do not get me wrong I love the game but come on Beast Mastery is like the worst skill in the game and now Thanks to the new Capture Sig rules we have to go all the way to the Freaking ring of Fire to Get barrage. The Best Ranger skill in the game, Sure makris has it but now in order to get a skill you have to kill the boss and when you kill Markis "POOF" the mission ends. THAT JUST SUCKS!!!!!!! this need to be fixed NOW or at least next Update wednesday. AS to the above mention Beast Mastery the DEVs should combine the skills charm animal and confort to one skill or at least get rid of the both and use an animal totem instead. Which you could put in your inventory. Keep the pet attacks skill to be fair but enough is enough. The way is is now you need 4 slots to have a good pet. that is way too much.

Rangers are pretty good. But yes, at first glance Beast Mastery does look a bit lacking. But even so, rangers have overcome this. So, if Beast Mastery is improved? THEN RANGERS WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

I am R/E 11 and am having a great time playing. Noone has ever in game said anything derogatory about my class as we teamed up for a mission. I think my level 11 wolf and my nasty Ignite arrows add something to the squad. Maybe all this anti Ranger stuff is PvP which I have never done, and probably never will.

I think beastmastery is one of the best lines in the game. The mana cost and recharge times are extremely low for what you get. Compare beastmastery to any warrior line and you will be amazed. So, as far as that goes I have no clue why your complaining.

As for the skill part of it, I see your point, but its one skill. Its a bug that has been discussed alot, and it's my understanding something is being done about it.

Rangers unite ? An excellent idea. First time I had grief from another player was yesterday while doing the gates of Kryta mission (2nd char). There was this n/w that kept on saying 'the ranger better know his job' and 'we should have kicked the ranger'...


Funny thing was though, not only only were the rest of the party telling him to shut the flip up but that he decided to act as a tank and go charging in to groups of mobs. Most strange. Of course he quit the party after we got the bonus so I think that tells you all about that particular person you need to know.

Barrage the best ranger elite skill?? I hardly ever use it. Barrage works only on enemies bunched together and doesn't even work with preparation. It works in pve with lots of mobs zero in on you, but in pvp it's not as useful as poison arrow. But yes, rangers should unite and develop some kind of professional pride. It's ironic that a necro discriminated against a ranger, because necro is just as screwed in GW as ranger.

People who play Rangers reall need to focus on the various ways they can support their group.

In PvE, you can duck in right behind your tanks when they get aggro'ed and use healing spring, while spreading your poison...always one target ahead of your warriors. You can do the same tactic by putting yourself next to your spellcasters and healers. Also, I can't tell you how many times Pin Down has been crucial to the success of our groups.....take the aurora glades mission for example.....crippling those crystal carriers can really make a difference. Also, Ranger is one of the BEST professions for pulling mobs out of big groups. (Ex. the Riverside Towers mission...Galrath...TotA.). And a Ranger who knows how and when to use interrupts like distracting shot and savage shot are priceless when you start hitting higher level mobs. All in all, in PVE...a good ranger will make each battle easier for EVERYONE in the group.

PvP....it's all about Poison and interupt. True, rangers dont get much respect in PvP, but not because they stink....more because taking down healers and warriors is priority one. Use it to your advantage, knowing that you'll prolly be one of the last guys attacked, and do what Rangers do best....support your team. Rangers don't do enough DPS to be considered a threat on their own, so you have to identify them as a support class, and use your strengths accordingly.

I have to agree with the charm and comfort skills. For what I am trying to do with my build, I find having both Charm Animal and Comfort Pet to be skill slot hogs (considering I also carry a Rez Signet). I don't feel that my current Beast Mastery skills are worth exploring (at this point). So I just use my pet as fodder (I don't carry Comfort). Once he dies, his corpse stays in place until I zone to another area. It just isn't worth losing a preparation or interrupt in order to revive the pet.

The idea of combining Charm and Comfort is a good one, IMO.

-chojin

Well lucky I got barrage but I'm sure there was another mission where you have to kill markis... I think thunderhead keep, can't remember but can't you get barrage from there, I remember the one in Irone Mines where you kill him and mission ends. Hmm can't remember maybe i'm getting my missions mixed up.

Anyway barrage is really good on enemies tightly clustered like scarabs, its works REALLY good on them. Its quite annoying though that for barrage to work the enemies have to be quite close and I mean really close but apart from that I think its a really good skill. If your a mesmer seconday then I'd pick poison arrow or incenediary arrows anyday since its goes really well with conjure phantasm and phantom pain.

About the charm animal...I wish they changed it so that you don't have to carry it for the pet to follow you, I mean you charmed it, you own it... you don't need a freaking skill for it to follow you as if its like under a hypnotist spell or something. I prefer that if you charmed an animal then it always follows you outside without the need for the charm skill to be in your skillbar, if they add in-game commands like /sit /wait to call your pet it would be cool, if they took of the death penalty of skills recharging again that would be even better.

You're just using it wrong. And don't let anyone try and tell you there's only one way to play a ranger in PvP (poison everyone, etc.) Try different things, play other classes to learn their strengths and weaknesses, and realize that you might have to drop wilderness survival to get anything done. You might feel a little insecure about not having troll unguent or storm chaser so you can run around and annoy people after the battle's been decided, but that's tough cookies. This is not to say that wilderness survival is useless; in fact, it's one of the better attribs for bastardly ranger tricks. But sometimes you need to fill a different role.

If you're serious about using a pet, you need to have a lot of pet skills. I run with 5 minimum, and often throw in a 6th. The pet can do things twice as good for half the energy cost, so why keep personal skills when your pet can do nearly everything for you? Also, treat beast mastery just like marksmanship. Do you ever leave home without your marksmanship attrib below 12? I should hope not. Beast mastery affects your pet's base damage, which is equivalent to a max damage bow (15-28 @~2s refire). I promise that if you toss in ferocious strike (the elite pet attack) and pump your beast mastery to around 15 or 16, you'll see results, just like you would if you pumped any other stat to 15+.

Pets are how rangers achieve the damage of other classes. If you have a pet, and your beast mastery matches your marksmanship score, you are basically doing double your normal base damage. Now throw in ferocious strike to feed your energy reserves and you can spam massive power attacks with both bow and pet until you get tired of it. In PvP, be sure to bring along pin down and/or the pet cripple attack to prevent people from running away from the pet. In fact, why don't you just look at this build which I end up linking to in every ranger complaint thread to show how to build a ranger that can't be ignored. It still takes people by surprise in arenas; no one expects the pet to hit so hard, because so many amateur rangers use their pet as an ineffective meat shield. No one expects the pet to be nearly impossible to kill, because I heal him for 104 every second and he gives me the energy to spam it repeatedly.

Beast mastery is not useless by far. It's just misused.

At first in the lower levels i thought having a pet was great. It did a good amount of damage when i went for solo adventures and i took good care of him.
I invested a few points into BM and even used a couple of slots for pet skills on occasions.

In later stages, my pet became a major headache and i used it less and less. Having my skills stopped for 8 seconds upon the almost instant death of my animal sometimes prevented me from using a specific skill at a crucial moment.
Pulling a mob during a team mission was impossible if i had a pet because it would run stupidly into the crowd like stefan [fighter ****head] or that 1 watt bulb warrior that finds his way into your party every time.

I have never applied serious amounts of points into BM so from that standpoint i don't know. I do know that having points in healing, marksmanship and expertise helps to keep myself alive and does my job as an interrupter/puller.

If skill slots were not hogged by BM skills, as metioned, i too may think about using my pet more.

Us poor rangers are undervalued but only by the ignorant. Those players who respect us are the very people who have or do play as a ranger with another character, or who have seen us in action.

Pets just aren't worth it at higher levels, but I'm not saying they're completely underpowered (only slightly. ) I've played around at higher levels (in PvE) with attributes, and have gone as much as level 14 beast mastery. I also use comfort animal and healing spring, but the pet is still really difficult to keep alive. So far, I've experimented and found a few good ranger builds that I really like, none of them involving pets or beast mastery. I think pets really need a little more HP growth, so that they are useful at higher levels.

i play a ranger for my main, i live in maryland, and play on the amarican servers ( that might have somthing to do with the "classisom"), i like playing a ranger, i do sometimes get "rangers suck", or if we "need a monk" im often the one to get kicked, but i find that how you play a ranger, unlike the three other classes is more, not totaly, but more, based on preffrence, such as nature ritchules or beast mastery or marksmanship they all acomplish difrent things unlike the warrior, who has one choice, mealie on how to dispacth his foes

was his name ranger redhead? It happens to me all the time, ppl telling me I shouldnt tank, but on most mobs, vile touch works better than my bow skills, so... Anyway the pets are - in my opinion - more for fun and originality than effectiveness, although my little warthog really owns . Just a question tho: do pets grow over time (or over lvl) or do they appear in different heights? cuz ive seen a wolf wich was... well... bigger than the one I had at the time, and he was a higher lvl.

Pets do grow bigger as they level. I have a level 20 warthog who's about twice the size in each dimension as wild warthogs.

Really kinda shocked that the "Uber" rangers havnt gotten on here yet calling everyone nOObs for not knowing how to play the class properly . And then telling us how they can kill and "pwn" other classes in 2 shots or take on 4 w/mo and a monk and win. they will say all we need to do is use 3 diferent preps and traps (while their team is getting nuked into oblivion or chases the other team all over the map).

sting, u are right, rangers are not a class that work with a team... we work alone (that sounds silly) Ey Magus, tnx for the answer.

Heh.

Of my 4 characters, it looks like 3 of them are going to have a ranger secondary.

My warrior uses the pet for two things: a place to store spare atribute points (because other than Strength and Swordsmanship, I need nothing else), and as help finishing the job. I can't tell you how often, especially in PvP, I've killed one enemy, reduced another to ~5%, died, and then watched as my pet pushed him over the edge.

My Necromancer is still in the early stages of pre-searing, but I plan on making her a master of Extras, going heavy on the Bone minions and her pet.

I think my Mesmer is going to take Ranger as his secondary because I'm a speed addict and Dodge looks like the speed skill for me.

That is silly. Rangers can work with their team just like any other class. It's usually just a matter of communication, especially if others don't know how your ranger is capable of helping them. Wilderness survival is an excellent attribute for helping your team.

One more thing. I wouldn't say barrage is the best ranger skill in the game.

Rangers have SOME excellent abilities, but they are not as good as other classes.

One of the biggest problems with GW's PvP (IMO), is that people don't want or NEED support classes. 5 Air Elementalists can spike anyone to death, regardless of anything, and a troupe of warriors can hammer pretty much anything to death. There's no reason to have Mesmers/Rangers/Necromancers in your party except for a few specific skills, which the other 3 classes can get by having Ranger/Necro/Mes secondaries.

Ok, Frozen Soil is a must have....but there's no reason why a Warrior can't carry it along with 7 hammer skills.

There's really no Reason why I should need 12 Marksmanship, 12 Beast Mastery, Kindle Arrows, Read the Wind, Favorable Winds, and Penetrating Attack just to do less damage than a Warrior with 12 Hammer Mastery attacking. (psssst, exaggeration. It's to get a point across).

I understand why they wanted to make some classes "support" classes, but with GW's cross classing there's no reason for it. Double so when MONKS are better tanks and heavier damage dealers than Rangers/Necros/Mesmers. That's just plain bogus. If a freling HEALER class can spec into a damage dealer by getting ONE attribute up to 12+, then there's no reason why I should need to get TWO up to 12+ just to be worse at it.

The only ADVANTAGE I've actually found to being a Ranger in PvP, is that most people don't care about you. Which means that I can walk past an attacking team in the Tombs and attack (usually failing to kill) their priest unopposed. Not exactly effective, but really irritating.

I can't really comment on anything you've said concerning PvP. Right now, I'm just worried about the storyline aspect of the game. But it's obvious that you have not played nor correctly built a Ranger. I have to toot my own horn here because I attempted the following with my W/N and failed MISERABLY, and yet, I made it with my R/Mo, NOT using any healing skills (the only Monk skill I have is Resurrect): I completed the following Missions with my level 12 R/Mo and 5 henchmen: Gates of Kryta, D'Alessio Seaboard, Divinty Coast, The Wilds, Bloodstone Fen, Aurora Glade, Riverside Province, and Sanctum Cay. I am currently attempting Thirsty River with Henchmen, as well. (I am now level 16, btw).

We all know how henchmen work-they attack what you attack. To know that I can make it that far with henchmen shows me that Rangers are leaders and excellent attack forces. True, their power is more subtle. A Warrior might knock you down for a second but blind him, poison him, distract him when he's ready to heal himself and watch what happens. An Elementalist may rain fire on you, but we all know they're useless without Energy-so relieve them of their power and watch the tides turn.

It really bothers me that people Ranger and Necro bash-They are, by far, my 2 favorite classes in GW. Rangers and Necromancers both have such a wide array skills, they're almost impossible to predict-but with so many people making their Rangers exactly the same, yeah, they're going to be easy to work against-there are no surprises.

So, Rangers Unite! Surprise the Arenas! Let's show them what we're made of!

I would say your right, BUT when you cant even get people to attack the same target let alone not to chase after someone then its a mute point.

Then your team deserves to lose to a more organized team to begin with. What professions DO work well in such a charlie foxtrot?

That's funny, I've seen so many air ele spike builds torn to shreds by rituals: Fertile Season, Nature's Renewal, Quickening Zephyr. Spikers sputter when they lose attunement, their spells cost 30% more, and their targets have twice as much health as usual. We don't even use elementalists, and only 2 healing monks, and spike builds have never been more than a nuisance. Teams can choose to play without any support classes, but they shouldn't be surprised when their obvious, cookie-cutter tactics are countered by teams with support classes, such as rangers. The funniest part, I think, is that often they have no idea what's going on. You get accused of cheating fairly often with rituals, because so many people have no idea what they do. Meanwhile, the rangers are pumping out debil shots, poison, and bow nukes at will, since they've pumped expertise to make up for zephyr.

Well I dont have a big guild to get a HoH group. And spending an hour or so wait for a PUG isnt fun I play mainly 4v4. And you try telling your team no dont attack them I put my trap here or my spirit here LOL theyd laugh at ya.

I saw an intelligent ranger that put the traps on a bridge, so when we inevitably retreated across, the enemy got skewered

Yeah bridges are ok but bringing in a skill that at best cant be used that often because you have to place them where you think they will go. You could place them in the middle of the battle but its easily interupted. So its to conditional for much practicality especailly in HoH but it just my opinion.

I've seen pickup groups call spirits, so I think you're being just a tidbit arrogent there. Rituals are one of the few things that set Rangers apart, I'll grant you that, but you have to consider that they work against you just as easily. You're depriving your team of everything you deprive the enemy of, and giving them all of the same advantages.

I want to hear more about these "bow nukes." I'm aware that I suck, but apparently the "uber" rangers that make up 90% of the community elude me just out of spite. I've never been hit for more than 60-70 damage by a Ranger, which every other class has managed to pull off. Hell, I've been hit for 100 by every class except Necromancers and Rangers. So what is a "bow nuke," exactly?

As for traps in the Comp. Arena, I've seen Barbed Trap used effectivly here and there. When you do find a team that plays defensive, it works. Despite my distate for the other traps, I will give credit to people who can use that one effectivly.

Lauren, PvE is nothing to gauge by. I learned that real quick when I thought I was good. I did some of the Ascention stuff with Henchmen, I still totally suck at PvP. You might think some things are awesome in PvE simply because those enemies don't carry a counter.

Edit: late night pondering.

We've all played Chess right? You know Knights. They're that wierd piece that most people don't like to use because they're difficult to use well, despite the fact that they have a whole slew of advantages over other pieces. Rangers are kinda like Knights, nobody likes them because they're not straightforward. They can give you a big advantage if you use them correctly, especially against an opponent who's unprepared.

However, consider the Queen. Everyone likes the Queen. Queens are good right out of the box, even an inexperienced player can do some damage with that piece, and an expert can use it to decimate the opponent (I'm very familar with that recieving end).

Now, you may or may not be able to take down the Queen using your Knight, but is anyone going to try and say that Knights are as good as Queens? The Knight offers some unique tactical advantages, but I sincerely doubt that anyone would take one over a Queen.

The same applies here. The quirkiness of Rangers makes them an advantage in certain situations, but most of the time you're still better off with something stronger. I'll grant you, I've only been to HoH twice, and rarely fare well in the Tombs, but I am smart enough to notice that most of the winning teams are the ones that focus on one target, drop it like a bad habit, and move on to a new target. What place do Rangers have on those teams?

A bow nuke is any bow "power attack" that gives a temporary increase in sustained damage. Under zephyr they recharge twice as fast, making the surge in sustained DPS occur twice as often (as energy allows). I've never achieved elementalist-like spike damage with my bow; spike damage isn't where the ranger excels. They cripple, debilitate, and take their time finishing off the enemy bit by bit.

Rituals affect both sides equally, but that doesn't mean they don't work to the casting side's advantage. If your team equips zero enchantments and hexes, and piles on 5-energy skills (especially word of healing) and energy drainers/knockers, aren't you more prepared for the rituals than any given foe? Rangers are easily the class that thrives most under these rituals, with warriors as a close second.

A ranger can have any place on a single-target team. How about mass poisoning and bleeding to force healers to keep everyone alive at once, taking heals away from the called target? Energy draining and interrupting the off monk(s)? Pin down or crippling shot on the primary target? Melandru's arrows and/or melandru's assault to punish enchantment-heavy targets?

I strongly agree with this and hope the devs are at least considering it. Right now my ranger has a few bow attacks, a prep and stance, and charm and comfort animal... with no room for a res/cap sig or one or two useful skills from my secondary. Since there are only 8 slots, it seems unreasonable IMO to have to use 2 slots -- 1 just to bring along your pet, and a 2nd to heal/res them. They should be combined.

Right now my ranger uses:
Poison Arrow(E)
Healing Spring or Troll Unguent

and the rest are secondary spells(air elementalist) and Res/Cap signet.
I used to use ignite arrow and dual shot as a R/Me, but then I switched to Elementalist, and the lightning spells were much better than ranger skills. I have Chain Lightning and Whirlwind instead of ignite and dual shot, as chain does so much better in the damage area and Whirlwind has knockdown.

I'm pretty sure that I am supposed to use traps, pulling, and interrupting as a ranger, but I would rather deal large amounts of dame with lightning spells and use poison.

I would really love to get Barrage as I have conjure lightning, and it seems like those two could work really well together.

I also think that using two spots just to keep a pet alive is wasteful, if I want pets I will just change to a necro and use some of the summons for only one spot instead of two.

It would make a good elite.