Curse

Athis Strider · Nov 17, 2005, 05:36 PM // 17:36

I must be extremely lucky. I have Never been kicked or not accepted by a group. My one and only char since the beginning is a R/e with a /Mo optional second. I am a mature (ahum) player, and have concentrated on this one char. I explore every aspect that I can.
My 2 cents. Rangers have been designed by Anet to be a class that takes what is seemingly and obviously more time to master its affectiveness.
This is the root of all complaints. All the other proffesions seem to "mature" quicker in their skills at lower levels. At least this is what I have come to understand by many many hours of reading.

jibikao · Nov 17, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Try to advertise that you are a beast master and need a Group. lol What's the chance of you being invited?

That's my experience with PvE so far. I never tell them I am BM. I just tell them I am Ranger.

And if they ask what kind of Ranger I am, I told them "does it matter?"

Athis Strider · Nov 17, 2005, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by jibikao

Try to advertise that you are a beast master and need a Group. lol What's the chance of you being invited?

That's my experience with PvE so far. I never tell them I am BM. I just tell them I am Ranger.

And if they ask what kind of Ranger I am, I told them "does it matter?"

I have.

Maybe there are places where its more acceptable than others to load BM build.
My Snow wolf, "mange" is great. A bit on the dissobidient side

hahaha

I duuno.

Dakna DiHarr · Nov 17, 2005, 05:54 PM // 17:54

RAngers are Awesome, I like archers tho something i just like. I am making me a new ranger at the moment actually a R/Mo but anyohw yeh join a guild that supports rangers, in my guild alone we have many rangers and they are way handy. Help alot as disrupting and poisoing traps etc.

Garreth MacLeod · Nov 17, 2005, 09:22 PM // 21:22

First off, hi all. I actually joined this forum to reply to this thread. lol

My first character was a ranger, choosing beast mastery even before leaving pre-sear. This was back when the game was first released. The difficulty of getting into groups was not a bother for me at first. I just grabbed henches and went on my merry way. I finally had a friend who bought the game and I paused my ranger character until they could catch up.

It was a bit discouraging when she kept getting invites to groups (an ele) and I wouldn't get any. But not to discouraging. I continued using henchies all the way through to ring of fire, even on THK.

I get to ring of fire and all of a sudden everyone is asking for a ranger with winter...hmm...what's a ranger to do. I grabbed the henchies like usual and did the mission. lol.

If any of you need help in a mission because you aren't able to find a group that will let you join, or you need to fill out a group you are starting, PM me in game. ign: Garreth MacLeod

My ranger/beastmaster and warrior have finished the game and I've a monk at henge of denravi.

Mort · Nov 17, 2005, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garreth MacLeod

First off, hi all. I actually joined this forum to reply to this thread. lol

My first character was a ranger, choosing beast mastery even before leaving pre-sear. This was back when the game was first released. The difficulty of getting into groups was not a bother for me at first. I just grabbed henches and went on my merry way. I finally had a friend who bought the game and I paused my ranger character until they could catch up.

It was a bit discouraging when she kept getting invites to groups (an ele) and I wouldn't get any. But not to discouraging. I continued using henchies all the way through to ring of fire, even on THK.

I get to ring of fire and all of a sudden everyone is asking for a ranger with winter...hmm...what's a ranger to do. I grabbed the henchies like usual and did the mission. lol.

If any of you need help in a mission because you aren't able to find a group that will let you join, or you need to fill out a group you are starting, PM me in game. ign: Garreth MacLeod

My ranger/beastmaster and warrior have finished the game and I've a monk at henge of denravi.

Garreth... you are absolutly right... If your a ranger and you can't get a group... Just use Henchies. IMO... Rangers are the best at commanding henchies around. Im a very experienced PVE player. I completed the game with 4 chars. So now I love to help people get through tough missions such as THK. I just pretty much take 6 henchies and my ranger and run them through!

Alesia and Lina FTW!

jibikao · Nov 18, 2005, 12:46 AM // 00:46

I think in most cases, Fighter and Brawler can tank just as well as most W/Mo. lol

yangster · Nov 18, 2005, 02:22 AM // 02:22

My first character was a ranger because I get a Ithas bow since I pre-ordered the game. I never used the bow but I loved my ranger. My, used to be, friend kept saying rangers suck and blah blah blah. I told him go play a ranger before saying that and then he told me he did and it sucks. Unfortunatly he sucks at playing ranger and lies a lot. I over ranked him in the guild and I guess he got mad and left.

Whenever I PvE I always use henches and they are definetly smarter than random pug. It might take time for some missions but it's worth it to only do it once than multiple times.

Hiryu · Nov 18, 2005, 02:25 AM // 02:25

I feel pretty strongly about this issue, and countless posts like these have been popping up absolutely everywhere almost ever since the game even got released. I actually think that there's a very valid reason for the W, Ele, Mo, groups to be so prevailent in the PvE game (much to the chagrin of countless R's, N's, and Me's out there). The reason is because this group combination can be highly efficient at achieving the ultimate objective virtually all the battles in the PvE game (wiping out the enemy team while staying alive). I think that this is because of a very severe and fundamental design flaw in the game.

All the classes are well balanced in PvP. I feel that all of them are useful, and a team build can be constructed based around any 1 type of profession (eg: some well known ones would include Smite Ball -- monks, Ranger Spike -- rangers, IWAY -- Warriors, Fragility -- mesmers, FoC Spike -- necromancers, Lightning Spike -- elementalists) or a combination of them. Check out the build for Esoteric Warriors posted on www.guildwars.com for example. Balanced Build, 2nd place spot, 3 weeks. A nice variety of professions are featured. Each character can serve their purpose.

My opinion of PvE is far worse though. Simply because in some cases, the monsters are just pathetically stupid (so their stupid behaviour could be exploited to perform "overly"-efficient things -- ludicrously fast and easy Area of Effect farming prior to the November update, for example), or the monsters just plain "cheat". As a result, some of the important functions that the "support" characters play, such as effective shutdown (which can greatly contribute to the ultimate objective of wiping out the enemy team while staying alive), cannot be carried out efficiently.

An example of the "cheating" that I'm referring to is a bunch of the bosses in the game having 2, or maybe even more, copies of the same skill in their skill bar. For example, you might have your mesmer cast Diversion on a monk boss that just refuses to die (like Covetina the Matron), blocking out her Orison of Healing --- but then immediately afterwards, you see her cast another one! So you diversion that one. And she casts another one, before that stupid boss finally suffers from the increased cooldown. So much for Diversion, and the mesmer, actually being able to do it's job.

Another example might be the decreased utility of air elementalists in PvE. Few can deny the effectiveness of a successful lightning spike in PvP as they often almost instantly annihilate any target that's unfortunate enough to have been hit by it. For those who don't know, Lightning Spike works in PvP by capitalizing on the fact that soft enemy targets often have only about 500 HP. Lightning Orb at lvl 15 does 100 damage with 25% armor penetration, and Mind Shock at lvl 15 does 100 damage with 25% armor penetration as well (provided you have more energy than your target). On a target with 60 armor (which will take full damage from spells), Lightning Orb will do 125 damage and Mind Shock will do 125 and land about 1 second after Lightning Orb lands if you cast them in succession. So total damage from 1 air ele is 250. Now if you have 2 air eles timing their spike at the exact same time, 500 damage, just enough to kill their target, will be done in the span of about 1 second when the spells land. Pretty much an instant kill. The problem though, is that your targets in PvE often have far more than just 500 health and even enemies that are supposed to be soft targets (eg: enemy mesmers) often have quite a bit more than just 60 armor. The result is that the potential benefits that the air ele can provide to a PvE team is less than the potential benefits that the air ele can provide to a PvP team.

These PvE things that greatly reduce the overall effectiveness of many builds and even professions, to an extent, might explain why for the past long while a lot of us have only been able to see the mundane Warrior Tank, Ele Fire Nuker, and Monk combination everywhere.

Since the game (especially the skills) was built from the ground up for PvP, I think we'd be able to experience a lot better game if they changed specific parts of the current PvE game to be more like the PvP game to better work with the game's original design structure.

(But then again, who knows, maybe we will be able to. Arena.net did mention recently that it wanted to change the PvE game to be more like the PvP game. Perhaps changes like eliminating the "cheating" that the monsters are doing and tweaking the monsters' defensive/offensive ratings, which should accomodate for more diverse groups, are what Arena.net is referring to.)

Egis The Ranger · Nov 18, 2005, 02:41 AM // 02:41

All those who says "rangers bad", "party without monks - dead party", "mesmers s*cks", "necros weak" and so on are (imho) just stupid or can't read (every skill is listed at balthazar's priest).
There is no good ar bad proffesion or character. There is only good or bad players.

About rangers.
Average damage output of my ranger (when i run dmg dealing build) is 60-80 (varies from 40 to 120) per shot to "soft" targets (necros, monks, eles, mesmers) and 20-30 to warriors and other rangers (varies from 5 to 60). Using only ranger skills. I am to lazy to tweak my build, cause it for sure can be upgraded

Does other profesions do the same dmg per one strike ?

heist23 · Nov 18, 2005, 06:46 AM // 06:46

maybe hammer warriors......i'm not sure.

warriors, elementalists and monks are considered bare necessities, yet i finished Thirsty River (after about 30+ tries) on my elementalist with a group that had 0 monks. eat that, n00b warriors.

rangers are considered useless because they supposedly cannot match the amount of damage a warrior or elementalist can put out. they supposedly cannot interrupt as well as a mesmer, either. and (obviously) they cannot heal as well as a monk. no, healing spring doesn't count.

stupid warriors.

ghostlyranger · Nov 18, 2005, 07:42 AM // 07:42

i have to agree that is the player that sucks, not the proffesion.

i complete my Last Day Dawn quest with mesmer, necro, ranger, monk.
profession is not really important, if everyone know how to play their own proffesion

- edit -

for ranger out there , that cant find a group for mission. mayb u can try to start ur own group, i did glint mission once with all ranger and win it.

krammit · Nov 18, 2005, 08:11 AM // 08:11

Goooo patch. E < R in many cases now. Why cast lightning orb when you can spam pretty much any ranger skill 3 times over for less mana?

Karls Bronson · Nov 18, 2005, 09:49 AM // 09:49

I play only the monk class, and I have had a few repeat problems with rangers that I will sadly admit have made me biased.

1) They have a pet and expect me to waste my energy to heal/protect it.
2) They assume control of all 'pulls' and create dangerous situations.
3) They do not use interupts, even though this is a strength of their class.
4) A high % of the population playing this class literally has no idea what they are doing.
5) They use spirits that have negative affects for me and/or other party members (or help monsters more than our party).

However, compared to some of the tanks I've dealt with, these guys
(rangers) are saints.

As for other 'unpopular' classes such as mesmers and necromancers, I'm seeing a major rise necromancer use since I started playing this game at launch. Although, this is probably due to 'faddy' builds like batteries for FoW and minion masters for SF.

I know there are good rangers out there, I've run into a few...I think with time like many have said, if PVE becomes more and more like PVP the ranger will find a more solid role in most parties, until then I will remain skeptical about inviting them into my party until there are some more AI patches.

Nibbler · Nov 18, 2005, 10:19 AM // 10:19

Nice post Hiryu, won't quote it 'cos it's quite big!

You raise a very valid point though, the simple reason support classes can'r get on teams is simply because they aren't needed. Taking along my Mesmer to SF means that the healer bosses will drop like a stone, but given that they will drop anyway with a decent couple of nukers in tow why take someone extra?

And the end of the day PvE will need to get harder to get these "less popular" classes involved 'cos they will then be needed.

-Loki- · Nov 18, 2005, 11:08 AM // 11:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karls Bronson

1) They have a pet and expect me to waste my energy to heal/protect it.

Then they are a lousy beastmaster. A beastmaster should be able to keep his pet alive.

rainy · Nov 18, 2005, 10:47 PM // 22:47

i have to say that some of my best experiences have been with rangers, theyre usually nice people and know waht theyre doing, unlike the nooblet warriors and ele's (no offense to those that play them well)

i think its ok that rangers are rare, means i have a higher chance of getting someone who knows waht theyre doing in the game

sybban · Nov 19, 2005, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by zalzan

rangers rule. I have six characters, one of each class, and my ranger is my favorite followed by mesmer/ele. Join a guild that supports rangers. My guild goes farming in UW with nothing but rangers. I suggest you hang at temple of ages and look for underworld ranger groups, and perhaps you can find a ranger-friendly guild in there, one that will also help you with other missions and quests.

Wait we can have 6 chars now? I haven't played in a couple months, when did this happen?

coolsti · Nov 21, 2005, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nibbler

Nice post Hiryu, won't quote it 'cos it's quite big!

You raise a very valid point though, the simple reason support classes can'r get on teams is simply because they aren't needed. Taking along my Mesmer to SF means that the healer bosses will drop like a stone, but given that they will drop anyway with a decent couple of nukers in tow why take someone extra?

And the end of the day PvE will need to get harder to get these "less popular" classes involved 'cos they will then be needed.

Yes, nice post Hiryu.

The thing is, with a good party of players, just about ANY combination can defeat any PVE mob. Granted, some combos are not feasible, like maybe 8 healing monks, and other combos are more difficult. But you can go out with 8 rangers, for example. Or 6 rangers and a monk and anything else. Or you can go out with 6 Mesmers in the party. And you can go out with no rangers and no mesmers at all. Its just the lazy less adventuresome players who got stuck in their rut of W+E(nuke)+Mo, of which unfortunately there are many of, who seem not to want to take along R or Me in their parties.

I remember farming in SF as Mesmer with another Mesmer friend of mine. We were in a party with 3 W and 2 or 3 other characters. My friend and I casted energy surge, shatter hex, cry of frustration where one of these was doubled up with the help of arcane echo. All of these do instantaneous damage to all nearby foes, respectively 72, 104 and 37 (depending on attribute levels). Think about that: 3 warriors attracting all foes around them and 2 mesmers then casting the damage above: the warriors had little to do. And they noticed! By the end of this SF party the warriors were literally singing songs about how they loved mesmers!

The same for the situation with rangers: it is just a matter of education. The better players learn that it doesn't matter so much what the composition of the team is, as long as people play well and play well together, everything works. And different combinations make the game interesting.

A comment to Hiryu about air elementalists: if you see the air elementalist as merely a damage dealer, you have a point in what you say regarding PVE. But the real value of an air elementalist is NOT direct damage, which is not so great against high level monsters and bosses, but the secondary effects: blinding using blinding flash or glimmering mark, for example. And weakening, using enervating charge. These effects are extremely effective and good support to the rest of the team.

Ellix Cantero · Nov 21, 2005, 09:38 AM // 09:38

All you guys saying "I did a mission with six rangers and two healer henchies the other night, none of us had pets." aren't building your group right then. One of you should have played beast master, taken revive animal along with a couple of calls. Then the other rangers only have to bring charm animal, and with the help of the one beast master's calls, their pets turn into quite formidable tanks. I did Last Day Dawns the other day with 3 rangers, 1 wa/mo, 1 monk, and 1 mesmer. I switched to a beast mastery focused build and asked them to bring their pets. Nobody even came close to dying, our pets did almost all of the tanking and did a wonderful job.