Curse

Laraja · Jul 22, 2009, 02:04 AM // 02:04

I hope this is an okay question to ask...

Everyone who plays a lot of PvP has their favorite ranger, but what I want to know is WHY they are so good. This isn't to provoke an argument, it is to learn what exactly (besides builds, because there is plenty of discussion about them and there are only so many viable PvP builds) makes them at the top of their game, what puts them above the average ranger? What is going through their minds as they play a fast moving PvP game, what are they looking for and so on. Again, this isn't about builds because one ranger can run a good build and suck and another ranger can run the same build and be a god... so please enlighten?

dr love · Jul 22, 2009, 02:08 AM // 02:08

probably dshot, snaring ability and poison spreading... is what makes the best the best

Aeon221 · Jul 22, 2009, 02:10 AM // 02:10

A good connection and a nice computer.

Ghost Dog · Jul 22, 2009, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon221

A good connection and a nice computer.

Yeah...that will get the game to start, not give you skill nor make you observant.

Laraja · Jul 22, 2009, 02:30 AM // 02:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon221

A good connection and a nice computer.

I wish.

I have a very fast computer and a top speed DSL line but it only ensures that I don't lose connection or lag.

If that's all it took to be a ranger, I'd be one of the best, which I'm most certainly not.

Still hoping someone will chime in ....

Icy The Mage · Jul 22, 2009, 02:35 AM // 02:35

The ability to quickly make decisions as to whether or not a skill is worth D-shotting or whether you should save it, knowing when to split / against what, extreme battlefield awareness required to spread poison effectively.

Icy Bowstring btw

farmerfez · Jul 22, 2009, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon221

A good connection and a nice computer.

That and reflexes like a cat will make you own

Twin Blade Warriror · Jul 22, 2009, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by farmerfez

That and reflexes like a cat will make you own

agree
12 chars

*lemming* · Jul 22, 2009, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Ability to press Keen Arrow on the spike.

Alternatively, ability to interrupt Apply through stance.

Shayne Hawke · Jul 22, 2009, 03:42 AM // 03:42

"Oh, look, there's something using a skill." *D-shot*

"Oh, look, there's someone running around." *Melandru's*

"Oh, look, that's what we're going to kill." *shittones of arrowz*

"Oh, look, I'm dying." *Troll Unguent*

In general, you have to have amazing battlefield awareness.

I Jonas I · Jul 22, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

A lot of emphasis is put on ping, and for very good reason. I know that some euro's get miraculously good ping when on their servers, but what kind of pings do the top american rangers get? I am kinda curious if it's my piss poor reflexes that prevent me from D shotting WoH on reflex, or if I simply don't have the ping for it.

I Angra I · Jul 22, 2009, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Awareness and managing several things at once.

Keeping up poison spread, interrupting key skills offensively or defensively based on what's needed at the time.

Knowing when you need to push flaggers, when you need to split, and how to stay alive on a split and how to be a threat while split.

A lot of times rangers in splits are one of the only snares, so being in the right places at the right time to control the movement of the other team is pretty critical.

Being able to dshot 3/4s casts reliably helps, though lately it's gotten to be less of a needed thing with the way the meta is at the moment. Most important thing is poison spread though.

scruffy · Jul 22, 2009, 05:10 AM // 05:10

know what you are trying to accomplish and how best to achieve your goal at any given time with the bar you have.

Necromas · Jul 22, 2009, 05:38 AM // 05:38

They can spread conditions like crazy and do great pressure by doing so, while at the same time being able to shutdown anyone of any class whose skills fall within the rangers skill level and connection speed as far as interrupt timing, so long as they can hit.

Specialized builds can of course do different things, and just about any specialized build can still shutdown because it will always be worth the 1 or 2 skill slots to bring interrupts if the player is good at interrupting.

Shrimz · Jul 22, 2009, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Also, good rangers should be able to predict when the enemy is about to use a skill to rupt it.

And as mentioned before, understand everything that is going on in the battlefield.

Ben-A-BoO · Jul 22, 2009, 06:40 AM // 06:40

In case you missed this little classical guide:

Rangers- The Team Toolbox by Yue

it might answer a few of your questions.
(ignore the sometimes outdated skill descriptions etc. it's about the general picture)

Master Ketsu · Jul 22, 2009, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonas The Keen

A lot of emphasis is put on ping, and for very good reason. I know that some euro's get miraculously good ping when on their servers, but what kind of pings do the top american rangers get? I am kinda curious if it's my piss poor reflexes that prevent me from D shotting WoH on reflex, or if I simply don't have the ping for it.

While this is not exact, a general concept is that for each point of ping you have your data takes 1 millisecond longer to reach the servers. This means if you are trying to interupt a 1 sec cast spell and you have 500 ping you must react within the first 0.25 seconds of the spell otherwise your rupt will miss ( 500 ping+0.25 rupt activation time gives you a 0.25 window ) Needless to say, if you have 500+ ping rupting is a massive pain in the ass.

To put things very simply: In most games, they have a player-client side "argumentive netcode" that would try to cause a tweak based action to hit if it would have hit in the event of 0 ping in order to prevent players with good connection from having a significant gameplay advantage over players with bad connection. Guild wars has almost none of this netcode. pretty much everything that happens server side in GW is absolute. This is one of the primary reasons behind rubberbanding.

Generally, you want your ping to be below 150. (ProTip: DO NOT USE WIRELESS)

urania · Jul 22, 2009, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Hm, best rangers in my book are these 2 people:

Squall (TA): basicaly, he just had the feel for rangering - interrupt-wise, support-wise. knowing what target to go on in hexways, knowing when a woh will likely t be casted and rupting it, never camping but still interupting apply poison on enemy ranger 99% of the time, great with his remove hex, and well, he was just good good. Had awesome synergy with Furion, the warr in our regular team from that time.
(by the time the FF era started he no longer played GW)

Truth Leaf (one of vD's core monks, plays a ranger in TA though): pretty much the same as the above - knows what to interrupt and when, never camps applies but still gets them in 99% of the cases, has great field awareness, and most important - great team synergy&coordination with the warr (Void).

Then, outside 4v4 arenas, I'd say our guild leader Alloces aka Leon Zero and Zed are two of the best rangers I know overall. Great and skillful split player with superior field awarness +the reasons named above.

And one more thing, you must trust the ranger in your team, else there's no real point in playing with them.

Burton2000 · Jul 22, 2009, 11:05 AM // 11:05

At the moment all a good ranger needs is to be able to spread poison well, keep it on most of the enemy team. There are very few skills that actually need to be interupted except high cast ones like PwK and recup so being able to interupt well isnt that essential, its just a nice extra being able to d shot woh or rc on demand.

Laraja · Jul 22, 2009, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Thanks Timebandit for the Ranger link by Yue. That was awesome.

Thanks everyone else for the little tidbits. They're all adding up and fortunately, I've been doing a lot of the recommended stuff. I do know that if you want to play a PvP ranger it's not a super trivial task if you want to be good. Fortunately, I'm getting good at interrupting by practicing in AB. I do know that if I hit a critical target with Melandru's shot or poison, that the target will usually attempt to heal very soon afterwards, so I have my dShot ready. I have a very fast connection and machine, so I guess that's why at this point I'm about 80% on my interrupts. With practice I'll get better.

However, I keep hearing this term 'splitting' and I'm not quite certain what it is. I probably know *what* it is once you tell me, it's the term that I'm probably not familiar with. Like at once time I didn't know what a 'conset' was. Someone told me and I knew exactly what they were, I just didn't know that term. Know what I mean?