Ranger disappointment

I have played my Ranger up through the levels and have found it to be a disappointing class. It does have it's pluses, but for the most part it seems to be a damage light class. After playing a warrior and running some tests, I find a sword wielding warrior (max dmg fire bow compared to a dragon sword) does about 90% the damage my ranger does and takes about half the damage (warrior shield has ar 16). When compared to a hammer build (again max dmg), the warrior quickly outstrips the ranger in damage output (hammers really throw down damage) and the knockdown abilities in the hammer line are impressive.

The ranger has some good skills, but I haven't found a combination that makes them as effective as my warrior builds. Damage wise my ranger isn't even close to my hammer build or my elementalist and truthfully in fights my ranger drops fast once I go through lightning reflexes. I have even noticed in PvP rangers becoming the last targets in fights as people don't seem to be as worried about them as they are monks, warriors and elementalists.

No other profession is supposed to do as much damage as a warrior without skill. I mean come one warriors are the easiest to play. Just run up and slash or bash. Other professions require skill to do the same amount. Rangers were never meant to deal the same damage with our bows without some kind of strategy. Im very happy with my ranger. In the academy I had a few kills because no one attacked me because they figured heh just a stupid ranger. Its all about strategy. Get up to a high place and do a preperation and attack. It also requires the right combination of attributes. Expertise and marksmanship are your 2 most important ones.

I just find it odd that there is a class that takes significantly less damage and deals almost the same damage or takes slightly less damage (about 20%) and deals more damage. I wouldn't even mind if the ranger was a more finese class requiring coaxing to get a really high damage output, but unless I am missing something rangers are way down on the dmg output list.

I like the built in heals, elemental armor and reflex spells which I guess are the upsides of rangers, but no ranger skill I have seen offsets for adren/shield or hammer/knockdown. Switch to the elementalist and you have skills such as aura of restoration which is far superior to troll ungent not to mention some earth armor spells which IMO are as good or better than lightning reflexes.

As a primary it seems rangers are weaker, but I may just be playing the class wrong.

Part of my guild has gone from like gates of kryta to crystal desert in about 7 hours.. Easily with henchman. 2 rangers with pure ranger skills no secondary profession skills and a w/mo. Plus 3 hench (Enchant, Fighter, Mage). We beat them all easily and failed less then the one time we tried with human players. If 2 rangers are on the team then obviously were doing something right because the hench were busy dying..

Yeah... What you're not taking into account though, is that Guild Wars is not as simple as just Attack/Defense, or Damage/Armour...

Rangers are pretty jack-of-all-tradesy. I mean, look at Mesmers. They don't focus in damage or defense, really, but in their own way they aid such. Interrupts, Debuffs, Buffs, Snares, Conditions and everything else all plays its own part. If you get a team of 8 Warriors, while they can indeed bash the hell out of you with a lot of damage, they could be shut down by a team with a Necromancer (and people think Necromancers suck ) that debuffed their attacks.

What I'm trying to get at in my poorly structured manner is that while Rangers are indeed not kings of damage, they are very versatile. A Ranger can annoy casters with interrupts, snare runners, defend critical points with traps and so on and so forth.

But yeah... If you want straight damage I'd advise you just play a War/El or El/x... *shrug*

yea i have found rangers to not be as good as they can be either... there isnt any true damage output at all on then. the only tru damage i have seen rangers do is when the are crossed with mesmer or warrior. other than that i havent seen any damage at all...

Well I guess it seems I have been playing my ranger correctly. It just seems the ranger is too situational (which can be good in some circumstances). On paper they read great (practically a self contained class), but in actual play they could use a bit of tweaking. Early on, they start as good if not better than other classes. However, my ranger fell quickly in usefulness once we got into Crystal Desert and beyond.

Mesmers ability to cast faster and hit with drains make them formidable. I fear a Me/E combo more than an E/Me combo. Sure the E/Me is going to cast more, but you are going to see damage flying out of a Me/E likely dropping a monk early on.

As for ranger groups in PvE, won't argue they get the job done. However, anything a ranger/ranger group can do an Elementalist/Monk group will likely do faster and easier. If you have ever seen the monk tank/ele nuker combo or the ele tank-nuke/monk support combo run you would have no doubt either... doesn't work in PvP, but PvE it is disgusting. Watching a W/Mo group is fun too... seeing zeros fly over your head while a zealot fire drops tons of critters is equally amazing.

"It does have it's pluses, but for the most part it seems to be a damage light class"

If it's pure damage you're looking for, then Ranger is not for you. Rangers are much more a support and team-based class than they are a soloing class, as Rion is saying.

I play a Ranger/Necro, focusing on Curses. I may not do a warrior's damage, but between Faintheartedness (or Shadow of Fear), Weakness and Price of Failure, that warrior's going to be doing even less damage to me or someone else.

While a warrior is pretty good in terms of ease of use for damage, they're the most easily dealt with if they're unskilled. Last night, I was using my R/W in a team arena match, and was using Barbed Trap and Apply Poison to annoy the other team's entire party. Somehow the 3 other players on my team died, and there were 2 warriors left on the other team. Of course, they both attack me, hacking and slashing away.

My solution: I immediately hit Gladiator's Defense as soon as they focus on me, and I run around them to force them to be adjacent (took .5 seconds) and hit them with Throw Dirt. With both of them at 10% chance to hit, and 25% chance to hit after that, they were taking damage on every swing. I took this opportunity to throw down a Barbed Trap for them, and to Apply Poison again on my sword. Around this time, my Gladiator's Defense wore off, so I threw up Whirling Defense.

Bottom line: As a Ranger/Warrior I took down 2 Warrior primaries at the same time and with only 50% of my health. After the fight I got a couple WTF's.

Now, I know this would never work if they'd take Wild Blow. It'd really just shut me down. Since they didn't, they were very easy to deal with. Truth be told, it was probably the most favorable situation I could hope for with that character.

Could I have done the same as a Warrior/Ranger? NO. HELLLLL NO. It's all because of the incredibly long duration of Whirling Defense and the ease of use Throw Dirt has. And they're both Expertise skills. There's your Finesse. As a Ranger primary, see where your Expertise skills can get you. You should be using it anyway.

My ranger/mesmer trick shot build has left many an enemy AND player crying.

Lead off with Backlash, Chaos Storm, and Conjure Phantasm, then rain down special arrow attacks. Not much stands under the barrage.

Quote: Originally Posted by Griminald

After reading how ranger X beat up two warrior Ys it is clear that warrior Ys were REALLY bad players. My W/Mo build removes "keep you alive" crap, then throws on bulls charge and runs players down. Reflex would keep you alive for a few seconds, but when that thing wore off you would be eating damage and you sure wouldn't be stopping to fire arrows. I am just an average PvP'r with probably an OK build... a better PvP person would ripsaw a ranger especially one that used enchantments and hexes as lead damage.

I believe there are situations, but I was hoping someone would post some cool combo of damage that is ranger based (not mesmer/warrior/ele) to reinvenerate my ranger. I think the barrage/dual shot/hunter/ignite arrows/live vic might be a nice build, but i haven't gotten barrage yet to try it. As it stands now, I think my first character the ranger is the gimp of my bunch R/Mo, W/Mo, E/Mo, Me/E (not sold on the Me/E so far either).

Whirling defence lasts on the order of 20s at maxed expertise. Modulo wild blow, are you planning to just sit there and hack at the ranger and somehow maintain the equivalent of 100+ dps while hoping the ranger doesn't have net 30-40 dps, or do you have some sort of better plan in mind?

Quote: Originally Posted by abimelech

ever seen a ranger use judges insite + barrage? I did in a bwe did around 60 dmg on 5 targets for 5 energy.. please tell me how this is bad -_-

As with almost any build, it could be said "my X/X could beat up your X/X", and they could be right. We all know how balanced this game really is.

That being said, Rangers do have the benefit of Ranged attacks that run the gambit of the skill spectrum. They can effect conditions of all sorts, elemental damage, and even armor penetration, all while being out of range of the enemy. Combined in a team environment, rangers are particularly effective at directing mass damage on individual targets.

All in all, its not what you play, but how good you (and your team) are with it.

Ranger's are all about support. As a self contained class, they play terrible. Troll Unguent is horrible and their other stances have ridiculous recharge times.

A trapping Ranger can be a pest in PvP and can really hold the other team up if they are played well.

R/N is easily one of the best combos. Using cheap curses like Enfeeble, Shadow of Fear or the real winner, Rend Enchantments and you'll be happy. Never forget Distracting Shot or Debilitating Shot in PvP... Pin Down is pretty nice too, if a bit pricey. You COULD still run Debiliating Shot + Malaise if you wanted, but it's effectiveness has been lessened now that it ends if your target's energy reaches zero.

Any and all ranger's using bow skills should be using Tiger's Fury (unless you're a R/W for some reason). Tiger's Fury boosts your DPS quite a bit. Pick up a Half Moon or Short Bow... I was never a big fan of the lessened range but I've been converted totally now.

Barrage + Zealous Bow String is gorgeous as an energy powerhouse, especially when used with Tiger's Fury.

Ra/Me is another viable class. Maybe even Me/R... I've heard a lot of good things from Echo + Debilitating Shot.

Ra/Mo is good for a soloing Ranger... Healing Breeze makes Troll Unguent look retarded... but you're a pretty bland ranger if you're doing minor healing and bow skills. Judges Insight is nice with Barrage, but it's that 2 second cast time that really bothers me. It's really up to you.

Either way, Ranger's are quite useful out there... don't discredit them totally because they're not matching the damage of a Hammer Warrior. They can be played many different ways for a variety of reasons.

Quote: Originally Posted by Straegen

Shrapnel_Magnet, thanks for the ideas. I will give some a whirl and see what pops out. I hope it is just a finese thing on my end and not a flaw in the overall design of the Ranger class. Personally, I still think there is a problem in the bow dps... max dmg bows should at least be on par with max dmg hammers.

Quote: Whirling defence lasts on the order of 20s at maxed expertise. Modulo wild blow, are you planning to just sit there and hack at the ranger and somehow maintain the equivalent of 100+ dps while hoping the ranger doesn't have net 30-40 dps, or do you have some sort of better plan in mind? Whirling defense lasts 18 seconds on the top end and for most rangers it is more like 12 seconds. Also, 25% of the blows do get through and most fighters have some version of a heal/stay alive. Few rangers (if any) can take an equally skilled warrior one-on-one. You might be able to use a pin down and kite strategy, but toe to toe the ranger is at a disadvantage.

Quote: I may not have found the "secret" mix of skills that enables the ranger to be on par with the other classes. Quote: I have tried the popular builds and they don't seem as powerful as other builds in other classes. Just my opinion, but I think that part of the reason you're having a difficulty with this is that the Ranger really isn't about power or damage per second, which seem to be fundamental desires in your gameplay approach.

Like it or not, the Ranger is really about timing and patience. A single well-timed, prepared shot at just the right spot can make all the difference. Setting up traps in effective places, then luring opponents into them takes a lot of patience and control, especially when everyone else is spamming dps all over the place.

The Ranger's dps will never match the other more powerful classes, as you've already discovered. Well then... change the focus from damage per second to effectiveness per second.

If you could only take one shot during an entire party battle, what, when and where would that shot be to have the most effect on the overall outcome? Imho, if that question itself brings up any impatience or irritation, or it just doesn't excite or inspire the player very much, then Ranger isn't the profession for them.