Ranger

That's just you

It depends I guess on what you are doing. If every attack is a special attack you want the 13/14 expertise, depending on whether you are using 10 cost skills or not. the difference between an 8 and a 13 expertise is paying 50% for your 5 cost skills for example. Reducing my energy expenditure by 33% gives me a lot more energy, if you are feeling at all energy limited it's a great option. If you use a lot of spells or something, or you pretty much run enchantments and use very little energy you may not care.

It certainly depends on what one is doing. Im sure you can do without high expertise. But Ive found expertise to be primary for my usual ranger builds.

If you think about it, without expertise, rangers may be the worst class for energy usage. With high enough expertise, they can be considered the best, but boy, at what a cost. Adrenaline really helps warriors not depend on energy. Maybe some adrenaline based skills could balance out the whole "rangers NEED expertise". Powershot, for instance could have really used this.

Is your Greater Conflg spirit wearing Fur Liner Armor? No. Have I been on pick up groups that target spirits of Greater Conflag/Quickening Zephyr first? Yes. Touting spirits like a be all end all superweapon is silly. They're powerful, but if they do actually work against your team, they're easily delt with.

Seth, you can't get more than 10 arrows of Health Degen. Also be warry of using that on Necros, since they'll Plague Touch the conditions onto your own team.

Epine, this is a TEAM game. I've won rounds in Tribes and Unreal Tournament with AFKs and newbies. I've also been on both sides of 3 v 4 rounds in GW's arena where the shorthanded side won. Exceptional players can carry weak ones in a game like this. Being successful proves that your team is good, it says very little of you as an individual. I have no illusions about the fact that I've only been to the HoH on the stregnth of other players.

This comes down to what is success? Some claim that they are the best in the game (any who think that would probly claim that with any class IMO). Some say they can 2 hit people or "pwn". Some just say you nOObs need to learn how to play. While other give their "expert" advice telling how their lvl 10 R/?? is "uber". After 3 nerfs in early beta rangers have no damage spike skills left, dps is nice and somewhat helpfull but its easily remedied by heals. Do rangers suck?? No, they are 1 of the funnest but also 1 of the weakest one of the biggest strong points as stated on the forrums is there not considered a danger so they are near the bottom of the targets list. Thats like always getting picked last for dodgeball .

We're not going to turn this into a "Why do Rangers always get picked last?" thread.

A couple of points though:

-A pet gives you the chance to up your damage at the cost of many skill slots. You will increase your overall damage (not to 200% though), but you'll probably have to sacrifice using your secondary profession to do so.
That's your choice. Most people are obsessed with finding out how much damage they can do on each individual character rather than trying to figure out how they can be most effective in a team. Most people are also pretty bad at this stage in the game.


-Don't believe people when they post ridiculous numbers to back ridiculous statements. If you don't believe them, look through the info yourself.
At one point rangers were better than elementalist at spike damage, and with high expertise they could sustain their DPS at peak levels indefinitely. Thankfully, things have changed since then. Damage on ranger attacks was lowered for rangers across the board and elementalists got a bit of much-needed love.

-Zeru hit on a lot of good points about why rangers are valuable.
The best way to use a ranger is to make every attack a skill attack, and expertise is the only way to do that.
No other class can keep up a nonstop chain of skill after skill under normal circumstances. (A necro with high soul reaping could in certain conditions, or a BIPed caster, but those are not normal circumstances).

I disagree with what you said here, however. Those counters are not inherently anti-warrior- the only one in that group that is a counter to warriors is Ward Against Melee. All the rest can be used against rangers just as effectively as warriors, the only reason you might not see that happening is bias.

Ward Against Melee is a ridiculously great spell though, and there aren't enough good reasons not to have it on your team.

Warriors have a better rep in the Arena so people bring more hate with warriors in mind. There's more anti-ranger hate out there, but the people playing rangers (and there are a lot of them) aren't making themselves dangerous enough. Once they do, the paradigm will shift and people will start planning for teams that run more rangers.

As far as the pets argument goes, I'd be happier if they changed it so as long as you have any pet skill (not Charm) on the skill bar you can bring it along.
And while they're at it, get rid of the skill freeze when your pet dies. That, I feel, would level the playing field with pets, compared with say minions.

If you want your pet to be great you should have to put those points into Beast Mastery. It's a bonus not a right.

haha.. If you quote the word for emphasis, you might look at the spelling... have to admit that is kind of funny.

You're nothing but a trolling nerd, i could care less if i spelled strategy wrong... i can continue to do it even more if i want... does it make you less of an idiot for pointing out such stupid errors? Nope.

I've also stated that two-three rangers cast these, i know there are smart groups out there that kill the spirits, but in the heat of battle, people rarely will switch to a nature ritual.

The greater conflag + winter stradegy is easily killed with necro/mesmer/smite dmg, so it's not like you're instantly having a "superweapon". It's just a simple cure to the "all powerfull" spike builds/warrior builds... and it works quite well.

There are always ways to counter everything, and that's why i love this game.

It's a lot of hurting, but not quite as much as you think, degen maxes at 10.

I agree. I think rangers got nerfed a little hard. Their damage is mediocre and their interupts require precognition to be effective (or luck). Sure, they can live longer than anyone, easily, but that's worthless. Wow. You're an invincible target! Congrats. Traps suck, and Natural Rituals are only useful in some instances (like when they were used for Fertile Season and Symboisis).

I've been playing a Elem/Ranger in RP and I wish I had read this thread before creating it, because without Expertise, and with pets requiring so many skill slots and generally having poor AI... my Ranger side is completlely inactive. It seems like the worst secondary you can have is the Ranger.
IMO, Rangers should be the primary interrupt profession, not Mesmers. And/or perhaps they could also get a "sneak attack" feature that lets them flank for more damage. Also, maybe their bow attacks should not be "evade"-able. I think it makes sense that melee and wand attacks can be dodged, but an arrow is easier blocked than dodged. Shrug.

I play a R/Mo and the only monk skill i use is rebirth... i have 13 in marks and 12 in wilderness... (3 in prot). I too found that using a pet later in game is quite useless as they die quite easily... damage output is great if u have 12 put into beast however, their hp is still something lower than ours i beleive... not only that, but they act as NPC's and tend to run into battles (when u call a target) by themselves and die anyways... i've actually found it more useful to deal more damage using skills (usually 14-16) with poison arrow or ignite arrows... in pvp my general damage is 50-60 a hit and that drives monks mad... not to mention distracting shot! combine your build with either barrage or spike trap and a ranger is almost lethal. A ranger is not meant to be a primary attacking class, since when have you ever seen a ranger (besides lord of the rings) used up front for a main attacker? A ranger is used for support only and does less damage in time, that's how it works normally. it takes a while to reload a bow... and besides, if you had someone slashing a sword at you i think it'd hurt more than an arrow or 2 sticking out of your side... but a ranger is totally not useless or bad with beast mastery... if you want to not add 16 damage to your personal attacks but have your pet deal the most damage it can and perhaps make up for those 16 damage you miss out on it's possible and do-able! beast mastery is not useless at all, it's just a minor inconvienience (sp?) late in game because the pet's hp doesn't keep up with the rest (that and the pet doesn't wear armor lol) that's the next thing... more gold sinks! get armor for the pets!!! :P (and perhaps weapon upgrades like steel paws or something i don't know... That's the beauty of GW, they create something truly amazeing at no cost at all per month and leave it wide open for the community to fill in the gaps we want filled in only to make the game better

(and i am aware i prob will have people argueing against what i'm saying)

There are skills (and I think some nature rituals) that add armor to a pet. But you're right, they do suck later in the game. They're dead before they know it when they go fight a Mursaat.

Maybe in PVP, but it's kinda tricky on how to balance out the skill slots you lose with them. Edge of Extinction is a good nature ritual, and almost worth the attribute points in beast mastery, if only it did more damage. Considering how much a corpse-nuking Necro can do, and you're basically doing the same thing...you'd think it'd be more, right?

Samurai, Mongols, and Native American's fought almost exclusivly with archers, albeit mounted ones.

The Battle of Hastings was won by archers, who were always the backbone of the English army (though not always in front).

The Greeks used the shortbow as their primary weapon.

The point of an Archer is to kill your opponent BEFORE he gets close enough to use his sword. Doing so doesn't constitute high armor and low damage, but they're not going to totally rework the class to act like an actual archer.

I just got an interesting history lesson

Rangers are not all that bad. They are a class that REQUIRES a certain amount of skill to be usable (for real purposes). The problem is that many lack this skill, and rangers come off as crap...

I played a PvP game vs. an excellent ranger. I came charging at him with my warrior, and he annhilated me after I took around five to ten steps....and then he took out another person (by himself as well) before being swarmed by the rest of our team because his team sucked and they had already died

Quite true the archers killed almost as many as the "knights/foot soldier" while being only a fraction of the force, but then they were the most despised becasue it wasnt considered honerable as killing somone face to face.

Killing someone B4 he gets to ya wouldnt be fair by any means but they should be at least hurt LOL (unless your the uber ones who 2 hit people).

Did you not have any self heals with you?? I wasnt there but it sounds more like you were hit by more than 1 ranger to me. I play a R/Me and ive tried maxing Marksman and expertise out have a ??-27 bow (not best but not worst in game). And I could never kill someone in 15 steps let alone 2.

Most of the time when archers have been used in battle they are set in the back due to the fact of their low armor. I do not know exactly if one could call them the main attackers let alone secondary but they happened to have been the most needed in battles. I am slightly disappointed how badly people look upon the archers in GW. The skill of the rangers in GW is so open it is one of the best classes (tied with monk as the best primary). If you use the correct build you can take anybody out with a ranger, actually... if you have a full team of rangers you could easily win a match. Key skills such as Barrage, Melandru's Arrows, Lightning Reflexes, and Favorable Winds will help take down a team like the strongest man in the world arm wrestling a fetus.....aaah, I love that analogy.

I did... heal sig doesn't do crap and is easily interrupted, sadly didn't have "mend condition" for cripple, and all I had for real healing was breeze...and the amount of DPS made it useless.

And he didn't kill us both at the same time... he had time to rest up, etc.

Whee, more history!

Archers actually make up the vast majority of ancient armies in almost every case. 100% in the case of the Mongols and some other peoples.

Bows were considered dishonorable by the Europeans because it was a peasant's weapon. Everyone could afford a bow, and everyone had one (by law in England). Only nobles could afford to have horses and Knight's armor and equipment. Since they considered themslves superior, they looked down on the archers.

Knights were valuable because they were the counter-weapon to archers, fast, armored, and armed with melee weapons. Archer's can't shoot if you're fighting their forces hand to hand, because they'd hit their own men. The only reason Knights exist is, ironically, because of bows.

Again, I'm not suggesting that Rangers replace Warriors as the backbone soldier in GW (although I wouldn't mind ^_^;). I just wish they had something in their arsenal that made people think twice about taking that 3rd monk instead of a Ranger.

Frankly there's not a whole lot that can be done about people's misconceptions about Rangers except patience and time. However, they aren't completely wrong about Rangers being bad. Pre-crystal desert I would never think about taking a Ranger along in a pug; they don't have any elites nor tigers fury and won't be able to have 12 marks and 14 expertise either and especially before they hit 200/200 attribute points Ranger primary borders on dead weight. Once Rangers hit Draknors and get their full attributes, runes, and skills, their jump in power is absurd.

ManadarTheHealer... by any chance, do you remember the ranger's name? and his/her secondary prof?