Is being a ranger fun?

so the fact that pets have the best base armor in the game completely escaped you?

If you are going to be a part time trapper just use barbed trap and maybe flame trap if you have another spare space on your bar.

And yes, rangers rule!

go cap Oath Shot in thunderhead/iron mines/ring of fire missions. It allows you to insta-charge your skills.

Rangers are very variable, and that is why you see alot of bad rangers. Being a R, can be as good as any class with a secondary proffesion, and because of that, you have to keep your skills in the right class, If you brought up WS just for troll uguent, you could be making a mistake.

My ranger uses quickshot, and beastmastery, that way all I have to do is raise 3 atributes, Marksmanship, Beastmastery, and Expertise.

Quickshot alone isnt too much damage, and neither is a pet, but with both attacking at the same time, it adds up to more then alot of warriors.

I wouldnt suggest this build though, its in testing.

My basic point is, most rangers seem bad, because they try to spread out all the capabilities of a ranger, and their secondary, into 200 atribute points and 8 skill slots.

(Ranger and blood Necro are my favorite classes in pre-searing)

Im playing as pure ranger/trapper and it's a lot of fun. My char is a R/N but don't use any necro skills. Don't seem to need them. Not sure about PvP, but in PvE it's nice to have the mobs half dead before you even take em on!

The only problem I find is that people don't understand how trapping works. You lay down the traps and let the mobs come to you, but most people just barge ahead and start fighting before the mob even gets to the traps! DUH!

And that's why I usually use henchies.

However I think some people are starting to understand it a bit better as the last few days I've been in a few good pugs and recently done ring of fire with two of the players dropping out and we really had no problems. Course that could also be that players who have come that far in the game know more about it too.

Happy Trapping!

You're probably referring to Warriors. Most who don't have enough PUG experience are used to their own rhythm when soloing. Basically, results don't happen until you run into the fray.

As for PvP, most random and pickup groups aren't gonna wait around for the enemy to run to you and spring the traps. Even if they are nice enough to, the PC enemy is smarter than the NPC enemy. They don't fall for that. (except perhaps those same warriors who were on your team prematurely aggro'ing all those mobs.) So, in PvP, typically trapping is done discreetly while the battle is already taking place. ...or indiscreetly, if using one of the Mantras or Glyphs i mentioned in my earlier post

You hit the nail on the head. Thunderhead Keep = "nOOb filter"

I love playing my Ranger/Warrior. My Guild Leader loves his Ranger/Necro.

It's great for a laugh when both of us outlast Warriors in the last few missions XD

Myself, I play a melee R/W, and the number of defensive stances you get with that combination is stagering. Apply Poison + Hundred Blades vs. a largish mob = Loads of fun XD

My Guild Leader uses a blood magic R/N, with Barrage and a pet (on occasion). I've seen him take enough abuse to make me wonder if he's actually a Warrior.

I'd say the toughest part about being a Ranger is trying NOT to do everything, because it's all so good

Actually I find the ranger can be quite effective as a backup tank when the need arises.
My main char is a R/Mo and I typically use 2 stances to be able to keep a warrior or 2 busy, cripple enemy warriors so our casters can run away from the threat. I also use throwdirt to blind enemy warriors/rangers to help keep our squishy peeps alive (basically I do a lot of behind the lines defense and find that quite usefull and fun to do).

Also if you have a ranger and want fun you should definately try some underworld trapping .

its a lot more fun to play now that spirits are nerfed. reason is now every freakin other build isnt ranger. distraction rangers and frag rangers are being used still but not nearly the concentration of rangers in tombs and gvg that there were before. you can still use spirits just cant spam them.

Rangers are awesome.

Spamming spirits can still annoy the enemy, causing them to tab through numerous targets. Just can't set two identical spirits within range of each other. But true, yes, the nerf made enough of a dent to discourage the abuse that used to happen.

Rangers IMO should stay pure. They can do everythig with thier attributes. I became a R/Mo just so I could carry a rez spell in PvE.

Quite true as spreading your attributes makes some of the Ranger specialities less effective than if you have purely ranger attributes set.

The great thing now since the update is you can change your build as much as you want without having to worry about the refund points as before, which means maximum experimentation...!

I love being a Ranger, its my primary class and main character, I play as a damage Dealer using the Fireslinger build:

Posion Arrow (Elite) to start then I use Kinder arrows (20+ firedamage) and conjure flame (+8 firedamge) with a 14%+ damage while enchanted bow to do 10-80 damage per shot depending on the target.

Me too!

At the moment, i am a trapper, but considering experimenting a bit more with builds now they've removed the refund points

I chose ranger elementalist and im loving the combo, still love level but i have a feeling im gonna do pretty well.

Its been a while since I started my ranger, and now it is in the Droknars region and level 20. And man, it is becoming my most favorite character.

Currently I am pure ranger, with a Mo secondary but only to be able to carry rebirth. I also have set beast mastery to 0 so I can spread the points out on expertise (11), marksmanship and wilderness experience. And I am having a lot of fun with Barrage as elite skill, distracting and savage shot in order to stop monks, spell casters as well as other skills, and lately I have been taking both lightning reflexes and stormchaser to be able to attack fast and move around fast.

Did the Mines mission (the infusion mission) the other day with a group of 3 rangers + E + N + W + 2Mo (latter 3 were henchies), and it went great! Couldn't get a human warrior to join though. As soon as one saw we had 3 rangers he left the group.

I will also one of these days try out beast mastery. One of the rangers in the Mines mission had a level 19 pet that was able to continually tank several Jade warriors, despite the fact that our henchy warrior died at the start of the battle. I don't know what skills the ranger with this pet used, but that pet was tough! It hardly lost any hit points and as the only tank it kept the Jades occupied until we could defeat them and the surrounding Mursaats.

I love playing ranger!

The Hearty variety pets are extremely nice for tanking, although with Otyugh's Cry and Call of Protection any pet can be impressive on the front lines. At 16 Beastmastery, Call of Protection gives your pet an absorbtion of 15, I believe. Add onto that an AL of 100 when Otyugh's Cry is up... Yes, my favorite PvE build is definitely a beastmaster.

i had a ranger/elementalist 2 and i must say it was preety good
you can just shoot your way trough it all and if mobs come 2 close you can use attacks like whirlwind to keep them away
2 bad i deleted him

and if you can find some...... also take a set with a wand/item which gives you skill recharge. I got a rockmolder and a gorrels cane.... they cost me about 5k total, and they give me 3x10% skill recharge. For the 2nd slot i might recommend flint's fleshcleaver....... 15 extra energy, and also sells for 3-5k

I have a pretty much pure trapping build, but it also works quite well outside UW. Its just a different way of playing

i got 16 WS, 8 MS, and 9 expertise.
sometimes i have to bring EW, and i put expertise down to 8, so i can take 5 beast mastery, which is enough for 70 secs (traps die after 90)

The skills i take are 3 traps(doesnt matter which, as long as dust is there), poison arrows to make my arrows do some good if i need them, throw dirt and whirling defense and storm chaser to not get hit / run away from enemies, and ofcourse troll ungent(does unbelievable healing with 16 WS).
If i have to bring any spirit, poison arrow drops

this way you can trap alot of traps in short time (pve/uw) or go into battle, put whirling on, blind someone and then put traps at their feet quite quick.
if you have a team of 3/4 rangers with like this, you cant loose in UW, since you can keep enemies blinded forever, and use your running skills if they're not blind

my 2ndary is elementalist atm, but i dont use any of its attributes/skills. i'm thinking about switching to mesmer for interupt-stops and conjure phantasm

Ranger is my character too. Elementalist secondary but I dont use any skills/attribs from it.

Until you start picking up alot of skills (latter half of PvE) you can't very well finish alot of these builds. Especially Trapper, since you dont start getting traps until after Loin's Arch.

When you start out though, You can still be effective. Most rangers just spam 3 bow attacks(pick your preference), with rez sig, troll unguent, and whatever can fill the last slots until you get better skills like Whirling Defense and/or Spirits. If you set it up right, you can endlessly shot off the 3 bow attacks in order (by the time the last is used, the first is recharged) without running out of energy.

Once your skill options open up - then you can break off how you like.

Ranger is my 2nd favorite class to play. I dislike caster types. That's just me...

The BIG one for me would be warrior. But now that I'm a ranger, how do I tank and take my fight to my foe without getting to them?

PET!!!

w00hah

I went R/Mo so I can carry Balthasar's Aura. Man this skill is TOOO good for what it does. @ 8 smiting, it does 180 armor ignoring damage in 10s. I'd go 10 Smite, but I need my points for marksmanship [I like bow, I was told going staff isn't a bad idea however, but a ranger running around with a staff could be called a druid I suppose...] I like bow range though, attack from REAALLLLYYY far away ^_^

at 16 Beast Mastery, my skills hit for as hard as a warrior can hit and what's more, my pet carries mirror skills a warrior does WITH NO PENALTIES!! [sprint + frenzy combined anyone? ^_^]

Also, the pets Pathing AI is beautiful. At Thunderhead, while I was shooting from the ramparts, the pet RAAN allll the way down the stairs, through the castle courtyard, and out into the frontier to slash at my enemy with his bigass paws... [snow wolf r0x0rs my c0x0rs...] On the average, when I looked at my Marksmanship skills at 16, then looked at my Beast Mastery, I like Beast Master WAAYYY too much in terms of efficiency. [no Marksmanship skill can manage energy or hit as hard as... FEROCIOUS STRIKE!!! MUAHAHHAHA]

So in going Beast Master, I've created in essence a long range warrior. Whether or not I go smiting staff is quite the question on my mind. Is there a smiting wand/focus combo I should consider using? [lol, wand focus on a ranger, oh the humanity!]

my 1st char and thus far fav char is Ranger/Monk.

I was previously a smite ranger 11 smite, 1 beast ,2 expertise, 12 wild, 12 marks.

using precsion shot, distract shot, smite, melandrus arrows, troll ug, banish, re-birth and bane sig.

It's a funky combo, does damage, especially on undead...but then i replace melandru with judge insight and smite with barrage...ultimate FOW smiter.

Now im trying a NEW and more EXCITING build.

12 expert, 12 marks, 12 wild, 2 beast

precision shot, distract shot, penetrating attack, ignite arrows, troll ungent, dual shot, re-birth, practiced stance.


and.....this new build runs PvE.....very well. How well? I did the mission "Ring of Fire" with henchmen....and passed, i didnt die, henchies died once each at different intervals. the flame spiders that usually tear me up, got wasted by my new build.

with prac stance, ignite arrows lasts for 40 secs, NOT 24 as it usually does, so i alternate with pierce, precised and dual attacks for some nifty damage, even if they evade, the splash dmg gets them. so far, its proven as worthy, as my beloved smiter ranger build.

I also am spending all my attributes on marksmanship, wilderness exp, and expertise. Since I got barrage as elite skill, I stopped bothering with all the other various marksmanship "improved shot" skills. Since barrage seems to negate ignite arrows, I stopped taking that. So I have

troll unguent, re-birth, barrage, distract shot, savage shot, lightning reflexes

as basic skills, and for the remaining two I am playing around with

barbed trap, throw dust, storm chaser.

I can't figure out what I like best, but I find taking both distract and savage shot to be nice. It gives me double the capacity to interrupt, while savage is very quick and distract of course adds recharge time to the interrupted skill. I take lightning reflexes not only to help me if I get in trouble, but to quicken my attack with barrage for about 9 seconds at a time. If I take barbed trap, I lay a trap where I take a stance just at the start of a battle, allowing me to retreat if I get surrounded. Lately I have been taking throw dust because it is just fun to blind the warrior foes if I happen to be near my tanking teammates. And lately I have been taking storm chaser more and more, firstly to be able to get away from trouble fast (since I have rebirth I can do the resurrecting) but also to allow me to quickly close in on, for example, spell casters during a battle. Barrage as my only damage enhancing skill does not give the best extra damage, but it is cheap, quick, and it looks impressive (a lot of my teammates have said "Wow!").

But there are so many more skills that are great! It is just so hard to decide what to take. I also like pin down (instead of the trap), and then there are the spirits. But, no room!

Im of the mind rangers are the most versitile charicter class in the game..

my first char was a ranger/ele using primary bow skills ( ward vs melee and the occasional fire storm wher about all I used of the ele side.) I went on to open up secondary monk, war, mez, and necro classes for the charicter and played about with all of them. then I set up a spare set of armor for trapping so I could do UW runs when the urge hit.


I played a war for a while when the Iway craze first hit and changed his secondary about as well then tested r/w in pvp random arena using tactics combos and some beastmastery with the degree of sucess I found with that build I went on to make a pve based r/w and now that I can see the damage Im findind using a pet much more enjoyable..

conditions are rather fund and effective to use ... with sever artery, desperation blow, balanced stance,gladiator stance, apply poison, charm animal, feral lunge ( the one that does damage and heals the pet)and rez sig im finding a ranger to be a better tank than a war for a lot of pve.

the use of a pet is actually entertaining since the pets base attack is higher than most hammer attacks

and with stacking conditions its as though im dual weilding weapons with the pet whacking away on the target ....

the only down side is pug monks cant figure out that pets are a good addition to the party and hardly ever heal...( which is why I dont use a more solid damage pet attack)

Rangers. A testimony to their lethality: in pvp my R/Me gets targeted by the entire opposing team 5-10 seconds after I start my attacks.

In Pve, my barrager plows thru anything with a hench team. I've decided to stop using henchmen, is just too easy. I play in Pugs for the challenge now, oh the irony.

I have a Beastmaster R/N

A R/N isn't that bad actually, Curse magic works charms in my case!

Two skills: Ignite arrow + Mark of pain!

And it isn't all that bad either with spells like: Weaken armor, parasitic bond and suffering you can still deal much damage and cause alot of harm while you and your pet pound away!
Though most of them cost alot, 1 well placed necromancer skills/spells can spell doom in PvE and PvP.

It think that people prefer N/R in most cases because pet death=horrors, but a R/N can be as valuable.

I hear you! This was my observation some time ago. If I want to finish a mission or cap elites or any other kind of "task", I take henchies only. If I want to amuse myself I go out with Pugs.

Barrage is such a great elite skill, it is tough for me to put it away to use anything else!