Ranger

Soul reaping rules... end of story.

Soul reaping = either nonstop elemental nukes / heals/protection heals... It's really just... limitless mana... use it correctly and you'll understand that this very possibly, could end up being the best attribute in the game, especially if they added any skills under this... my air ele is a N/E, and it stays with 12 air magic and 16 soul reaping... blind + lightning armor penetration = pure pvp ownage...



And the original poster needs to get his head out of his ass... rangers rule, end of story. I keep trying to explain to people that rangers can outdamage any class + has more interupts + has nature rituals, which no other class has... not to mention a great self heal (we all know this as troll unguent), it has all this, + blinding abilties, poisoning abilities, and aoe without exhaustion, and it can be repeatadly used with higher expertise...

And if you want to go beast mastery, i would suggest getting attacks for your pet... does a warrior not use bleeding/deep wound/other attacks to help himself... does an elementalist not use magic?... use your pets skills and Blaaam, instant dmg, plus EXTRA interupting skills if you're using a bow too... not to mention the mana stealing attack... try using your pet wisely and you'll be rewarded.



***If your ranger sucks, it's because of you.***

Pets have skills too. Oh wait, they aren't their skills. They are the ranger's skills. So if a Ranger wants to make a pet do as much damage as the ranger can do with a bow, then the ranger has to sacrifice his own abilities by using up even more than the basic 2 slots on his/her bar to boost the pet, thus crippling themselves.

This basically makes it so that if you want even a decent pet, you have to make your ranger more of the pet to the animal. At which point, with how cheap most pet skills are mana-wise, you may as well make a War/Ra so you have better armor.

Well I read these forrums everyday and I never seen you explain how you do more damage than an elementalist. About all people hear from you "Uber" rangers is people who complain suck LOL. But let me guess you put down 3 rutuals (wich benefit the other team as well) and a few traps and if your team is still alive after that and not chasing the other team all over the map your ready to "whoop azz" am I right? Or will you just call me a stupid nOOb now and go away

No need... you're a stupid nOOb (j/k)... and personaly i hate traps... use poison + bleeding + a power shot, = more dmg on non armored bastards... use penetrating attack = nearly same dmg on armored characters (warriors and such)...

Not to mention if they use the ranger correctly, the savage shots and such deal extra dmg to people casting spells + interupts them...

Besides that easily done dmg... you could plan before the battle and use winnowing + favorable winds and start dealing greater dmg + much better when you critical hit...

What i'm saying is... poison + bleeding on you're whole team is going to be ALOT more dmg then any elementalist can keep pounding out with his puny limited mana supply, especially with the good spells, in which cause exhaustion. A way to counter that sort of ranger would be to use martyr... but then again... i dont use a ranger...

Just to clarify where im talking about... I'm talking about guild vs guild, and tournament battles, with good teams... not sub-par teams that don't have ressurectors assigned before a battle... I'm definately not talking about those teams that scream "Ahhh, pure spike ele's!" and then run around like a dog with his... well, you get where i'm going with that.

I use an elementalist, earth myself... and spells dont touch me with obsidian flesh + 20% enchantment time + 16 earth... meh, poor ele's do nothin to me.


**Bottom line is, if you say a ranger sucks/don't like you... you just play it wrong, and it's you're own skills/stradegy that is lacking... not the game mechanics more then not.**

And really, i don't find a reason to convince people that rangers rule all that much,...

Not to mention (Greater conflag + winter = only cold dmg on the field), have perhaps three rangers with those... just incase the rituals get destroyed... and use mesmer secondaries... epidemic + poison + bleeding = aoe poison/bleeding, and if you happen to use inspiration and use mantra of frost... that's nearly 50% dmg reduction + whatever your armor is reducing it by + gaining energy every hit... add that with storm chaser, and you could get a whopping 5 mana per hit... Monks on your team could simply use inspiration with mantra of frost (stances are only ended by wild blow as i've seen... and it's not hard to blind a warrior)... and there you have a mana stealing + dmg reduction monk... it all depends on the team build, but a ranger could even make a team godlike...

barrage + short bow + conjure + tiger's fury

Good points but even in a low end HoH groups youll have at least 2 monks so at best using poison/bleeds are more of an anoyance than a real threat, Favorable winds benifit both teams. And Mesmer interupts are better (no flight time and no dodges or blocks) and have energy steal or added damage.

The biggest thing is Rangers in early Beta (from reading about them here not personal experience) was considered one of the strongest in the game untill it was nerfed 3 diferent times to "support" class status. All or the "support" classes can be taken as a secondary without much of a loss (rangers strongest point against this would be its armor).

Yes, but if you add say, a team like this---

Ranger/me, that could be mana stealing + poison + bleeding + epidemic
Warrior/Mo, i would suggest smite, with judges insight, and use for res.
Mo/, Protection monk using high divine favor for spell breaker + protection
Mo/, Healing monk, high divine, word of healing + divine intervention
Mo/, healing/protection monk, healing hands + life bond + few protection
Ele/, dmg dealer + knockdown, air specialist
Ele/, earth aoe knockdown + aftershock, + wards
Mes/N, primary spell blocker/blackout + necro curses

I may be crazy, but the rangers job is simply to add help in interupting + dmging the whole team, while the primary dmg dealers target one person and destroy them... it keeps the monks purely occupied, and if the team sucks and doesnt have any sort of condition removals... then they die, and if they do have condition removals... it's still going to be a pain in the ass to heal + condition removal as much as a ranger can poison + bleed with epidemic causing it to react in aoe...


Currently i am working on a pure no-monk build, the start of this build can be seen in another thread.

I hate to admit it, but that's actually quite good. Using a Beast Mastery skill no less. Bypassing the time it takes to recast preperations is quite clever. A Warrior can use Conjure Element with Frenzy or Battle Rage to get the same effect, and knock you down while doing it. However, for a Ranger I take my hat off to you, nicely played.

No offense ReLLik, but I don't believe you're as much an expect as you claim to be. Poison does surprising damage. A Poison Arrow does about the same damage as a Lighting Orb. However, they have time to heal from a poison arrow, whereas when you spike something to death, it's done. When you're spiked, you're spiked, but when you're poised you have 10 seconds before your monk even needs to cast that 5 mana heal.

As for Epidemic, why do people (especially R/Me's) fuss over that skill so much. It sounds good on paper, but the targets literally have to be standing shoulder to shoulder for it to work. It's not worth 15 mana by any means. Just use Poison Arrow several times.

I also hope that the Elementalist's "punt little mana supply" you're talking about doesn't refer to the ones who have well over 100 mana to work with, because that would be silly.

How many times has Greater Conflag been brought up? It doesn't help the monks, and when they're dead you're not going to take 8 men by yourself, even with 115 armor against physical. That skill is an excellent concept, but I've yet to see it put to the super-use people claim it can do.

What's this ressurecters assigned before battles stuff? If your teams are so elite, why aren't you just not dying? What do your assigned ressurecters do when Frozen Soil is down?

I still have trouble seeing the Ranger primary being "one of the best classes." Secondary Rangers can use Wilderness Surival to get most of the things Rangers are good for (Nature Rituals and Apply Poison), without having the downsides of Ranger-dom.

Edit: that last post makes me trust you even less. If you're playing against organized teams, then why do they have such bad monks? If you poison every memeber of the team, they can wait it out and cast Heal Party once. Not every monk will panic and Mend Condition himself out of mana. In fact, most won't.

The only teams I've made it to HoH on have been "weak" spike builds with 4-5 Eles. My job is to listen to Vent/TS for the first "one, two, three, GO!" and then drop Frozen Soil. I put in my Penetrating Attack when I hear that "GO!" but I'm not fooling myself into thinking that my 40 damage is doing anything to bring down a target every 5 seconds like that. I occasionally blind/pin down warriors who get too close to me ele allies, but even if I didn't the monks could take care of it.

Just once in a while I wish I had more to contribute to a team than 1 effing totem.

1. Warriors do NOT attack 2/3 times per second. The fastest attack is 1.33 seconds.

2. Yes mesmers have better interupts, no one said they didnt. However, a ranger can be a r/me for maximum interupt potential. Rangers are incredibly versitle, this is only one of many options.

3. Yes, I have played monk vs ranger both ways, many times. If both players know what they are doing it comes down to build and tactics..with build usually being more important. With ranger I like to hunt monks, hit them with a movement decrease, thrown in interupts when possible and barrage them with damage. Does it normally kill the monk? Nope, however, it normally forces the monk to concentrate ALL of his/her healing powers on themselves while the rest of my team kills the target. If the target is the monk, Ill target the next priorty caster and make thier lives miserable. If that caster is an elementalist, I can normally kill them with ease. If its a necro I can normally cause them to run and stop doing damage to my party while their monk is taken out.

4. Rangers have unique skills that are very useful in GvG builds. Yes every class has unique skills, but only ranger has skills that entire group builds can be based off of. I guess you could count air elementals..maybe, its not so much skills as cooridnation with them though.

Rangers dont suck, if you think they do then stop playing them. They also arent "super-rangers." They are a well balanced class, that when played by a capable player tend to outshine other classes. Same is true with a mesmer. They are more difficult to get truely proficient with. I dont think rangers are a good choice for a first character.

You dont have to take anyones word for anything, but from the stuff your spewing out is plain wrong. Warriors dont attack nearly as fast as you claim, for instance. And yes, rangers have THE highest sustained DPS. This is only true when using a pet, but its true none the less. You have to devote a whole attribute line to pets, but I like to think of a pet as basically 'passive' damage. You can certainly opt to not go with a pet, and focus more on whatever your secondary proffession is. If you do this, remember you are now a pure support character, your not there for the damage anymore. You have other duties in fights, if you dont understand that then dont play a ranger, please.

Warriors attack faster 1 hit/second with frenzy on. Rangers hit 1 shot every 1.33 seconds with Tigers Fury on (why are you using a bow without TF anyway?).

Rangers will not outdps buffed warriors conventially. The difference is that many skills have an inherent anti-warrior bias, while relatively few have anti-Ranger bias. Things like wards, guardian, blind, enfeeble, shadow of fear, etc, are going to be thrown on warriors very often but rarely on rangers, partly because people think ranger dps is terrible. Considering the only real anti-ranger skill is spirit shackles and is not very popular, Rangers can outdamage warriors when all this is factored in.

Secondary Rangers are absolute rubbish in most circumstances (exceptions are nature rituals). Expertise is what defines the Ranger; it is by far the most valuable primary attribute line. Rangers do well by spamming their skills due to high expertise/low cost.

Rangers don't achieve good use or even high dps via degen, unless you are considering Melandru's Arrows mixed with apply poison. They do it, again, by spamming skills.

Rangers don't outdamage warriors, they don't outspike eles, they don't out-interrupt/energy deny mesmers. I won't include Necros cause they're such a wierd class and while rangers are second best healers after monks ranger healing is still terrible. However, Rangers can put in high dps, interrupting, and energy denial all in the same build and do them all extremely well. That is their strength.

It's not a matter of having bad monks... it's a matter of dealing more dmg then the monks can sustain for the battle. besides, the poison is only an added effect to the spikers of the team... It's a little thing called "stradegy".

Besides, i'm not talking about only poison, i'm talking about bleeding dmg + healing interuption...

Yes, i dont care if you have even 120-140 mana, those spells cost alot more mana to keep going + exhaustion then its going to be regaining... you will not win vs a group that you cant hurt as well... I'm sure in your experience with going vs other spike builds, yes... it's quite easy to destroy the other team, and do it quickly, and have enough time to regain mana before the next battle... but oh yea, you're talking about hoh battles... and in hoh battles, it doesnt amount to nearly as much as being able to constantly barrage the whole group or continously keep them poisoned...

Besides the fact that there are mana depleting spells that are easily casted on elementalists. And with your already high costing spells, you won't be keeping it up...

**Just for the record again, i play an elementalist, and yes, i have 89 mana, and it runs out plenty quick enough in those long battles without ether renewal**

And why again are they dieing when they have life bond + mantra of frost... you do understand that's first, 47% off the dmg, then you subtract that by another 50%, that's taking only 1/4 of the dmg... i mean seriously... why die when you can hardly be hurt?

We're not talking about Physical dmg armor, we're talking about physical + all elemental dmg being REDUCED

You're brain dead, and obviously don't know how to read. Greater conflag + winter = all cold dmg on field... we agree on this yes? besides of course the obvious holy dmg mesmer dmg and necro nukes. You give your monks secondary mesmer, 10 inspiration, 11 healing, and 10 divine favor... switch healing for protection on the protection monk... You're monk uses mantra of frost... 47% dmg reduction from all cold dmg (remember now, all dmg is spiking as cold now)... and you get 1 mana for each cold dmg recieved... wow, that's how it could help...

Spikes on the ghostly hero are reduced to what? ZERO with spell breaker... besides, if you add quickening zephyr, it's causing other teams to break down even fast then a mantra of frost + greater conflag + winter team...

The spikers are reduced to having nearly no dmg with the mantra of frosts(and it's a stance with a reasonably high time on it, keeping it easy to have on), their "spikes" are costing them exhaustion and mana depletion, while mantra of frost is giving 50% dmg reduction + extra mana... And sorry to tell yea, but you're puny ass spike builds cant handle arrows worth a crap... their little pathetic armor is nothing compaired to a ranger with his elemental armor + mantra of frost + poison + bleeding + the nature rituals as explained, not as you may so think in your little head.


Next time listen, then you won't sound so stupid to me... eh?

Ressurectors arent assigned, it's just a warrior monks main job besides making the monks run out of place and stop the quite so effective healing. Frozen soil isnt much of a problem, because then their teammates arent resing either, it's really quite stupid for a spike team to go against better ranger/warrior groups, because they will get torn to pieces if the group is playing well, and playing their characters the way they need to be played vs such a group.


*Perhaps when you play against a team using such a stradegy, you'll understand how weak everything besides mass dps on a whole team becomes*

But oh yea... you people havent evolved yet... still using those spike builds, meh, sorry, sometimes i forget.

Pet attacks are twice as good as equivalent bow attacks. Why don't you use pet attacks instead of bow attacks? I don't understand. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having 5+ pet skills on your bar. The more pet skills you use, the more your pet will kill. The less pet skills you use, the more your pet is a waste.

It's absurd to say that with 5 skills devoted to your pet, and only 3 to yourself, that you're useless. Have some faith in your pet's abilities, build correctly, and you will see results.

I agree that a ranger's pet should have more damage output. That is all.

Pfft. That's nothing.

Favorable Winds + Apply Poison + Hunter's Shot (first skill used while they're moving) + Conjure Phantasm = -12 Health Degen + a lot of hurtin'. Maybe switch out Poison for Incendiary Arrows (although I hate how it doesn't last long and has a long recharge time).

Barrage isn't all it's made out to be. Being a poisoner, it just doesn't do much for my side of things.

Oh, and yes, this is my first post. Sorry, I've been lurking for too long.

Back to lurking....

I really think rangers pets damage output is fine. I definately see the argument that they could use a little more armor (perhaps through a nice spell that gives them X armor for a decent amount of time, 120 seconds?) and mostly they need to be considered 'infused.' But damage, they do good damage.

One assumes that "think logically" is your codephrase for "grossly distort the facts"? Bows do the second most damage per hit in this game (after hammers). So, unbuffed, you do more damage per hit than most warriors (given that most warriors use a sword), the only ones who do more per hit are hammer warriors, and they barely attack any faster than you do. Now start throwing some buffs on it. You have your nature rituals, you have preparations, you have enchantments from your secondary, and you have a speed buff. Warriors generally at best have an enchantment from their secondary and a speed buff. All things taken into account, you should be doing more damage per hit than any warrior, even a hammer warrior. The only reason warriors should outdamage you is because they're getting more attacks per minute than you, and that difference is only large if they're using the less powerful weapons (axe or sword) which don't do nearly as much damage per hit as a bow or hammer.

You're only getting one attack every two seconds? One assumes you've passed up on the most damaging skill in the ranger's arsenal (Tiger's Fury) because you wanted to nerf yourself? Ask anyone who thinks rangers don't do much damage to describe their build, and you'll notice they invariably leave off every skill that would actually increase their damage significantly.

If you want your ranger unnerfed, I'd suggest you stop nerfing him. You might want to check this thread. My own strategy for a high damage output ranger is in reply #11.

These threads devolve into "Rangers suck" vs "Rangers are great".

The fact that anyone is succeeding with rangers eliminates as a possibility #1 - thus, not all rangers suck. There are many ranger builds that do suck, particularly those that invest 4 lvls in Expertise and expect to be using skills.

Does it take a lot to play an effective primary Ranger? Yes. Does it take a lot to play an effective primary Elementalist? Yes. Both necessitate taking high levels in two attributes, one of which is the primary.

Is Bestmastery a good line? Yes, it can be. Is it optimal? No, probably not - I think it is roughly one slot too expensive, in that it requires both comfort animal and charm animal pretty much as it currently stands. BM builds can work despite this, as many players can work with a slot gimped away on a useless skill - think how often you've run a mission with a res signet you never used. Make pets resurrectable by Monks and you eliminate the need to bring comfort animal; you need it if your monk isn't healing your animal, or to be able to res from a huge distance/do it yourself fast in combat, but no longer a necessity. That or merge comfort and charm animal.

BM is only as good as you make it. If you invest 2 skills and 4 attribute levels in fire magic you wouldn't expect results. If you invest 12 levels in Fire and only use 2 skills from it you probably aren't really taking advantage of it, right? Bring 4 pet skills along and it starts getting interesting.

The fact that people enjoy playing and succeed with the ranger indicates that it is not horribly gimped - it might take more skill to play, and it is somewhat constrained by the nature of Expertise, but then again many classes are restricted by their primary - you need DF to heal well as a monk on a monk's energy pool, you need ES as an elementalist to use the great energy recovery spells and to have the power for a long battle, you need SR as a necromancer if you want to do anything with minions.

My humble 2 cents:

I think its a good observation you made about rangers maxing out 2 attrabutes to get 100% of his damage output.
If it where reconsidered though, that a ranger can choose to max out 2 attrabutes to get 200% of this damage output, then that would balance out that issue.

Thats the way I was understanding it.
You could go 12 beast mastery and 12 expertise and ignor marskmanship all together. That way you have an energy effecent 100% damage output ranger that uses only a pet. That idea is such a break from the norm though. Why a ranger that doesnt do heavy hit damage with a bow? I can think of reasons why.

With atleast on major rune you can have 12 in beastmastery, expertise, and marksmanship. Now you have a very balanced heavy damage dealing ranger.
I hope your putting out the same about of damage compared to an elementist, where as an elementist can relay on maxing out one attribute to get the same damage.

Now I really dont know if thats how it is, cuz I dont use pets. I have other reasons as to why I believe they are gimped, but damage output isnt one of them. Even the extra skill slot it takes to use charm animal is validated to me by being able to increase your maxium damage out put to 200%.

But that was just my understanding. If I am wrong then, dang it, the pets need more than a little help.

My big gripes about pets, skill lock on none pet skills and pets are hard to control.

I think rangers can do fine without maxing expertise, only pumping it up to around 9. Maybe that's just me.