Ranger Blues

Interestingly my pet leveled at almost exactly the same rate that I did.

Pets are great, and make great tanks or extra tanks. And work well when controlled correctly. I have a ranger as one of my characters, but rarely use my pet, as I find the other skill lines much more interesting. But when I do need a tank, I take my pet, comfort animal and at least two other beast mastery skills. With a high level pet and extra skills for extra speed, armor, or various attacks, a pet can be quite effective and deadly.

But regarding pets, two things irk me:

1) People in the party before the start of a mission or quest yelling "no pets!". If pets are controlled well with intelligent targetting, pets are no disadvantage!

2) Rangers taking pets anywhere but not taking a skill to resurrect them. Think about it! As soon as that pet dies, not only has the group lost a good tank, but the ranger has completely wasted a skill slot (with charm animal). What is the use of that? In my opinion, either leave the pet at home and use all skills for something else, or at least take a skill along to rez your pet!

To consider: pets can be a better (more controllable) tank for a party than a lot of the warriors you meet as PUGs out there today ;-)

And the funniest thing is that I've seen an "Everybody hates X" about every profession, including Warriors and Monks...

i love playing ranger in pvp
but i deleted my pve ranger eventhough i loved the char i gave up due to not being able to get in a group to do missions

in pvp....
nothing beats seeing a ranger killing casters with ease using fav winds + choking gas + dualshot/quickshot

If you liked playing ranger as a character, then there is no reason to delete that character because you can't get into a group to do missions. You weren't trying hard enough! Sure you can stand around for hours in a mission town with no one inviting you, and sure you will find lots of unknowledgeable players, mostly warriors, claiming that they don't want to be in a party with a ranger. But I can't believe you cannot get into a PUG group for a mission as a ranger. There are lots of players out there that realize how valuable a ranger can be.

I've never had problems getting into a mission party with my ranger. If the going is slow, I just form my own party. There are always friendly and good players out there that are willing to join. Best thing is, as a ranger, you don't need warriors in your team, and it is probably the warriors that least want to go out with you as ranger. As ranger you have the option of tanking with pets. But even this is not necessary. I did Abaddons Mouth mission with a team of 6 rangers, none with pets, and two henchy monks. And it was easy!

Rangers play a vital role in later missions, and one of the most crucial skills is Concussion Shot. This costs 25 and only works if it hits while a spell is being cast. Watch the bad guy with your finger on Concussion. When he starts a spell that takes a few seconds to cast, let him have it. Now he is disabled for the next 17 seconds and cannot cast anything. The Warriors kill him and take the credit. Oh well.

Yes, and I used to think "wow, that skill costs 25, too energy expensive, I'm not taking that one with me, my total energy is only 35!" but then everyone must remember that you use 4% less energy per skill for each point set on expertise. I have my expertise up to 12 so that means the wonderful Concussion Shot only costs me about 13 energy points to use.

Do not despair, my friend, but simply spread the word on the efficacy of the Ranger. First of all, during Ranger spike, Ranger was very useful. Secondly, on missions in UW and other areas, having a ranger to "pull" is invaluable (those who don't are missing out!).

And then there is Expertise, which I think is probably the best Primary attribute out there.

And when the time comes for an experienced ranger, you'll have a better shot at getting a group!

Expertise is the most awesome primary I've seen.

eitherway - Rangers at later areas of the game get more respect if they fit into conformed builds the group likes.

Either a Trapper with all traps, Serpent, and so on. Or an interupter with Distracting and concussion/etc.

In Hells I hear every group takes a ranger along...if only for "Winter" whcih has a big use in that mission.

(BTW, i've been seeing more of Power of My Rangers in HoH)

Probably no different from most other classes, the 8 skills that a ranger equips has to work well and make sense as a whole. That's why I don't use my pet so often; if I am going to take a pet, then I want to devote at least 4, maybe 5 skills to the pet so that the pet becomes an awsome tank. Then I have a rez skill and troll unguent, and so there isn't much room for much else.

Usually I drop the pet and go as interrupter, packing distracting, savage, and maybe concussion shot. I'd love to use the various poison or fire preparations but I find Barrage as elite too much fun, and that negates all preparations. So I usually fill up with some combination of lightning reflexes, throw dirt and traps.

Do the warriors on my team know I am occasionally blinding the foes they are tanking with throw dirt? I wonder.

Not going as trapper but having a trap to use in PVE is just irritating. The warriors on the team have no patience and usually charge forwards instead of letting the enemy get lured into a crippling trap. I still try to take a trap when I can, and I tell the monks and elementalists to run past me when they get chased.

well i deleted my ranger cause i needed a pvp slot
and i couldn't bring myself to delete my monk and elementalist (both finished the game)
and my minion master was just to much fun to show noobs that necro's do not suck
thinking of deleting my minion master to create a ranger again
cause then i could use my stormbows again (>^_^)>


hmm... gonna delete my necro :-)

No, not the necro! That is a fun character too!

Only one way out! Do as I did and buy a second account! (Price is coming down by the way).

Does 'Dazed' mean someone cannot cast spells????

BTW: For all the people who cannot find a group as ranger (or as mesmer or necro), just whisper me ingame.
I am European but we can always meet in international, I will try to help those people who cannot find a group.
I can be a ranger, but if you like a warrior/monk (and no, im a warrior with patience(its possible), so no rusher) as well, as long as it is not further then Thunderhead yet.

Im in for anykind of game, mission/quests/farming, i don`t care.

Funny thing, though, is that my ranger does better than my warrior/monk, and elementalist/monk when farming with henchies in Grenths.

Savage shot, Melandru's Arrows, throw dirt(some times pin down as a sub), fire trap, barbed trap, rez sig, troll unguent, dodge --- oh yeah!

I lay down the two traps, then cast Mel's arrows, then off I go.

I think I'm going to put out the following call tonight for the Ring of Fire missions:

"Looking for 4 Rangers to party with 1 W/Mo, 1 E/N, Lina, and Mhenlo."

How many Ranger players would have a heart attack seeing that one?

ROFLOL, yeah, we'd be real shocked!

I was doing Abbadon's Mouth and had a team that was warrior heavy (3 or 4). We died charging the gate and the 4 warriors said that the monk (me and another) sucked and quit. So we ended up with a friend, and another ranger that stayed and discussed why things went bad and we restarted. We joined up another group that had a monk, an ellie, a warrior, and a necro. So at first we were looking for another tank. Just our luck, for once there's not an abundance of warriors and another ranger pm'd me in private that he could interrupt, corrected my misconception about Barage, and suggested that people bring quickshot instead. He sounded competent but since we already have 2 rangers, I was leary but asked the group anyway. And for once, people didn't care (what? that never happens!). The 3rd ranger actually brought a level 20 spider and it was an excellent tank, I had loads of fun healing it because it just kept on charging to the right enemy. And when it wondered off too far and I couldn't heal it in time (the damage spike in these missions are just awful), it dies we yell, noooo! And the ower rez it and we went on. I must have been lucky and grouped up with an excellent PUG as no one complained that we had 3 rangers! I wonder if the warrior knew that he didn't die more often not only due to excellent healing, but even more importantly, damage control as I see many chain-lightnings (among many others) from ellie mobs that are incomplete.

The thing is...it'd be a great party.

1. As long as I don't Leeroy all over the place, and that's not how I play, Mhenlo and Lina *should* stay with the rest of us instead of running into the mobs. They get really excited sometimes, though, so we'd have to watch them.

2. Anything that gets past your pointy minefield of death would be on the ground, burning, never to be heard from again. (OMFG I'm a n00b I just insinuated that Warriors and Elementalists can be used as support instead of primary Tank/AoE!)

3. Rangers are ideal target callers and lurers because you guys have hands-on experience with bows *and* you have speed skills should you chose to bring them. I know, as a Warrior, I *can* use a bow. I even have one ready, but to be brutally honest I've equipped it maybe twice. I don't know the different ranges on the different bows, etc. Leave it to the experts, I say.

4. Spirit of Winter? Army of Pets? Barrage? Healing Spring? Better AoE than Nuking anyway? Do I need to go on?

Yeh, dazed means their spells will all fail for 17 seconds. It's fun to watch Concussion shot take effect. The spell they are casting is stopped cold, and then they try other spells, all stopped. The 17 seconds never ends because they die while trying to cast.

I suggest you guys practice hard core interrupting as rangers. In PvE, you won't be appreciated, but when you transition to PvP you're skill level will be higher than most