[Rylkan]

Instead of clogging up other posts with debates, let's use this please? I think people like Alpha might appreciate it.

[Cspace]

I generally try to run a fairly balanced team from the start, which decreases the advantages to taking an all-rounder who is going to be able to fill multiple roles. If they're not going to fulfill any of those roles as efficiently as a dedicated character would, I'd rather just stick with a dedicated character doing something that is going to be necessary throughout the mission. It's not like a ranger is going to be adapting itself for multiple situations simultaneously. Anyway, a lot of this kind of stuff comes down to playing style. I spend a lot of my time playing solely with heroes and henchies, in which case you definitely want to be giving them a role to fill within the party rather than leaving them up to their own devices to choose what to do. Basically my view of it is that if a party is reasonably balanced to begin with, and everyone does their job well, you can cover the weaknesses of any one individual member and the need for flexibility is greatly diminished.

You also don't want to leave the healer hero under Rat's control, in case he decides to flag him so that Dunky rushes solo at a group of Mursaat and Jade in hard mode. <_<

A ranger can be very good at up to two things, and bring a pet which is a decent extra tank.

Ranger-ish Roles
A ranger can easily daze and interrupt without using many skill slots (optionally including a pet skill if you go that way). Poison is effective and applies with every attack for a constant length of time. A ranger can cause bleeding. Barrage can cause a lot of pain with the right builds. Rangers can trap, which is a group-oriented role and can be more useful than some would assume. Rangers can light enemies on fire with ease. A ranger has many innate roles which can be useful.

Pet
Extra tank. With a lot of points in beast mastery, a pet can actually be rather tough. They may not be as useful in PvP, but they can help greatly in PvE. If there's a certain mob that's causing trouble for the group, sometimes I'd just send Butch to occupy it, while still loosing my arrows at the primary target(s). With more than 10 points in beast mastery, a level 20 pet can remain standing for a long time.

Secondary Roles
A ranger is a better tank than many would assume. Spread poison, cause bleeding, cause deep wound, avoid 75% of damage, have a strong heal, and have a pet attacking while waiting for your interrupt command. One-on-one, a tanking ranger can beat a warrior or assassin, although dervishes can be more difficult. Rangers also have enough energy to fulfill a specific healer, minion master, mesmer, or ritualist role. That can be done alongside the standard ranger roles, because many of a ranger's skills don't require extremely high stats or too many skill slots to be effective. Not all, but many.


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Why would it be a strength to fulfill two roles? If you're a pinch tank, no one will be able to run away from you because you can switch to a bow when they try. If you're fulfilling a secondary finger-wiggler role, your survivability generally allows you to stay in the battle longer, allowing you to shoot spells around after the dedicated spellcasters fall (if something goes wrong). Also due to survivability, a ranger can make good use of a rez skill. Minions can be worthy when fighting next to your pet. Rangers are fast and successful runners with a warrior or monk secondary, which is good for, well, running... As well as some mission objectives. Ranger coupled with a mesmer secondary can cause enemy finger wigglers a lot of problems. Many ranger skills also work with melee weapons and spears, such as poison... You can get creative and use skills like Hundred Blades to spread the poison around. You can help a lot with defending a base, and if you're good at placing traps, that can be very useful.

There are other useful roles as well, but these are what I can think of at the moment.


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I spend a lot of my time playing solely with heroes and henchies, in which case you definitely want to be giving them a role to fill within the party rather than leaving them up to their own devices to choose what to do. Basically my view of it is that if a party is reasonably balanced to begin with, and everyone does their job well, you can cover the weaknesses of any one individual member and the need for flexibility is greatly diminished.

I would think the opposite. As a ranger I'd usually be standing back with a bow while soloing, and can see the entire battle and direct the heroes and henchmen accordingly. I don't trust them to do exactly what would be ideal, so I consider versatility to be extraordinarily useful while soloing... More so than in a group. In particular while soloing, monk, dervish, and warrior secondaries are useful, not just to compliment a ranger's skills but to provide yourself with a new role if a henchman/hero fails. What if the fighters are killed? What about when a monk henchman goes into that rezzing loop, or finds it nifty to shoot blue orbs at enemies while everyone is dying?

I had no trouble soloing with a very diverse range of skills, even before heroes and the henchman controls. With my bow/sword build that everyone questions so much, I soloed all of Prophecies, including the old THK before they added ogres to distract the mursaat in the end. I don't rely on the AI, but instead try to cover for it. It's more effective than one would assume, sometimes perhaps more than specializing while going solo. It's also fun.

[mvtaylor]

Specifically ranger related.

Rangers have alot of use in both PvE and PvP. Barrage on a R/E or R/Rt seems like the "weapon of choice" against mobs and Broad Headed Arrow is great in PvE where the enemy casters will spend most of their time stationary and as mentioned have great shut down options. Not just with many blocking skills (that increase attack or movement speed at the same time) but the constant extra armour against elemental damage. PvE pets draw aggro very well so can be very helpful although they've got to be healed to avoid that skill disable on death. Trapping also has numerous uses.

PvP Rangers take on a slightly different role. The PvP Rampage as One Hammer Ranger sees alot of use in HA and other less organised areas. Ranger spikes involving glass arrows with Dual Shot and Forked Arrow are also extremely popular. In GvG it seems the most versatile killer of NPC's is also the Gank Ranger, press O and observe any Top Guild's match to see an R/Mo. (Burning Arrow/Crippling Shot, Apply Poison, Savage Shot, Distracting Shot, Natural Stride, Troll Ungeunt, Mending Touch, Resurrection Signet). Trappers are again used occasionally.

[Rylkan]

Before people skim my post thinking it is another call to save the ranger, it isn't. I see the point Goto and others are making against Rangers, and I agree in certain circumstances.

The circumstances being? Well, the same that make a dervish, or a necromancer, or any class useless as well. That being, it depends on what I am doing.

Each class as I see it has a few things it excels in. In the case of rangers, I think it is one of the top classes for spreading conditions next to Assassins. They get a bit more in terms of quick application, but lack some durability. But that is neither here nor there. The point is, if I am facing a fleshie opponent as my ranger, I am happy. I can blind, burn, poison, cripple, etc. That's just great. Now if I see something, let's say a Jade Bow, which is not fleshie and resistant to piercing damage, i know I am in deep doo. Sure I have skills to work around it, as Cspace said, a beast master works beautifully, but the point is, I am not alone in this.

Not to single you our Goto, but it's a good example. When we went on hard mode and you faced enemies with Mist Form. There wasn't much you could do except stand there, and they were not even attacking you exclusively. Is it a fault with the Dervish, or more specifically, a Tank build? Not really, no. It's that you aren't designed for that type of opponent.

So let's reexamine the issue of balance to a team.

Two situations come to mind, one where I know what I am getting into, and one where I do not. If I know I am facing something that having no ranger, or necromancer, or elementalist, would be good, then be sure, I would agree with you that "Hey, maybe my ____ is NOT the best of all the classes FOR THIS PURPOSE." But let's say I didn't know. Let's say I am vanquishing. I run into a warrior with amazing armor, my dervish cannot score a decent hit, but I can constantly cause massive degen on him while my elementalist blow him up, I wont regret bringing my Dervish, he has a purpose, just one limited in scope for that situation. Next enemy may be something I don't work so well against.

I think the point alot of people miss is the context. In PvP I have run into situations where I go "If I had changed one skill, I would of definitely beaten that ____." It happens. I don't sweat it or think anyone is better than the rest.

Now for a bit of ranger defense. Ranger's may seem too down the middle, but it really depends on how you set it up. I don't agree with Cspace's healing or MM argument, but I do whole heartedly agree with the statement having some stats in many things CAN be good. For example, wilderness survival. I can put in maybe 3-4 points into it, and then use Apply Poison. Well, thats only 5 seconds or so of poison. Doesn't sound so good right? Except I keep reapplying it.

And in terms of spike damage, since people prefer that over Degen (though spike can be reduced, which is can be bad, though as I stated earlier, not saying spike damage isnt good, it just has it's own time and place to be used) we can very easily do the same amount as a warrior or paragon. maybe not a damage focused Dervish, but they are the hardest hitters in the game, so we shall give them their due. Such things as multiple life stealing attacks, etc, can cause a large drop in someone's health.


So really, all I want to say, is think of when you need what. It isn't about what class is better or not, though obviously it's fine to have a favorite to use, you just have to know when to use what.

[Ratty]

Necro tank ftw.[/spam]

Nah, seriously speaking, rangers are pretty versatile. I think we proved that in thirsty river, hehe. Necromancers just as much too, though. The tank classes are just that, tanks that can do heaps of damage to clustered enemies. As long as the rest of the party can make up for the individual downsides of the others' classes, then it's all good. That's the point of having a balanced party =P I have no idea where this post is going, but I agree with what Rylkan, Cspace and Goaty have said


Shiny sword ranger =D

EDIT: Oh, and btw. Managed to do Aurora Bonus on Hard with H/H team Necro tank ftw.

[Cspace]

I wouldn't say that a ranger is a great healer or MM, but it's something painless that can be brought without really reducing effectiveness. Rangers are great survivalists. Unless something really bad happens, a ranger can outlast the finger wigglers and monks. It never hurts to drop a group heal when a battle is close, or to give someone an extra few seconds to do what they need to do. If a battle can't be won, and a group gets basically wiped, a ranger can escape and return to rez. Anyone can do that, but a ranger's already in a good position to drop aggro. In terms of MM, that's more of a fun thing to do solo, but it's not bad by any means. You can bring a lot of crowd control between a pet you can control and a bunch of mindless meat shields that follow you around. I wouldn't intend for either the healer or MM roles to be a ranger's primary thing, but something extra that a ranger can painlessly bring.

I see a ranger as a ranger. Pet, interruption, damage, conditions, and traps are a ranger's things. However, a ranger is flexible, and can do any of those while also bringing one or two supplementary skills for when certain situations emerge. A smart ranger would know when to use the other skills, but would otherwise be dealing with his/her primary role. Secondary roles could be for tanking, a heal to help relieve some of the pressure, a minion skill for crowd control, mesmer skills to help with your interrupts and Broad Head Arrow, a drag rez for preventing a wipe, or whatever else. A ranger can have a secondary role that doesn't need to compliment a cohesive build.

I see this as very useful (and fun) for soloing. A build may not seem to make logical sense (like having marksmanship and swords), but I sometimes divide builds in half for handling each situation differently, and it works better than some would believe. Maybe I'm used to being a druid in EverQuest... You get invited into a group for healing, but when you drop that big nuke when it's needed, or cast the evac that saves the group from a wipe, it reminds everyone why a hybrid class can be useful.

Now a specialized ranger is a different thing altogether, but I'm just saying a ranger can do this better than most classes.

[Goto]

I'm not going to respond point by point right now, since I'm a bit short on time and tired enough that I suspect it would come out as unintelligible gibberish.

I certainly agree that there's some things Rangers can do exceptionally well, it's hard to party with Rylkan and Lynn and not see that. I'd say they beat Assassins when it comes to widespread condition spreading, and they're probably equal best for interrupts (Mesmer interrupts don't need to travel through the air as projectiles, but Rangers have dazing). There's obviously a lot of other roles they can play effectively too, often incorporating other classes to build on the natural strengths of Rangers.

What I don't see them doing very well is trying to substitute for other classes and roles entirely, particularly if they're only doing so as a secondary role in a pinch. I'm aware there are times at which that might become necessary, as I was talking to Rylkan about today. Since he works on titles, he doesn't really have the option of swapping to another character to finish areas or missions that aren't well suited to Rangers. It's to his credit if he's able to make even a mediocre nuking, MM, healing, etc. build with a primary Ranger, since those really aren't roles they're built to do. They don't have the primary stat, energy supply or regen for them. Since I find numbers more useful than opinions in this kind of situation, I'll pull a few stats off guildwiki for that MM example.

First of all, MM is definitely not something you can put just a couple of points into and still be at all effective, so I'll be assuming that a Ranger is putting almost a full half of their available attribute points in to Death Magic, to bring it up to the secondary-class max of 12. For this substantial cost they get an army of 8 minions compared with the 10 a primary MM nearly always has, but the minions are much weaker. The 'standard' minion level (Bone Horrors, Shambling Horrors, Bone Fiends, Vampiric Horrors) will only be level 14, with Jagged Horrors at level 12 and Bone Minions at level 10. Recently most of us have been spending the majority of our time over in Eye of the North, where even on normal mode enemies are usually level 24 or so, ranging up to 28. At that kind of level gap, minions really don't act as too much of a meat shield, their armour and health means there's every chance they'll die faster than they're created. The animation of the minions is actually more significant as a problem, Expertise does nothing to discount the rather large energy costs of creating a minion army. Necros only manage it because every time a corpse becomes available, they get a large hit of energy due to Soul Reaping. Not only do you have to pay full price for them, but Rangers have both a smaller energy pool and a reduced natural regeneration. Ranger attribute lines aren't usually too worried about spell energy management, so I can't immediately think of anything there that could help offset the disadvantages. Evidently it becomes more important to keep the minions alive so as to reduce the need to make new ones, unfortunately most of the popular healing options come from other classes such as Monk, Ritualist or Paragon. There's still one or two choices without serious investment in other attribute lines (Blood of the Master comes to mind), but heavy saccing during battle is going to decrease the resilience of the Ranger which is just about the only advantage it has while casting, increasing the risk of a death setting all the minions hostile to the party.

Anyway, that's getting a bit away from me and I think you can see the pattern emerging. Obviously MM is an extreme example of why Rangers are better sticking with the roles they can do well, but there will usually be similar logic for most of the other common roles. I understand why they might take such a role when the available characters are severely limited, but from a party leader's point of view it's much, much better to take a character designed with that role in mind rather than subscribing to the 'Rangers can do everything' approach. They can do a lot of things, but they're better off not taking too active an approach at spellcasting.


For tanking Rangers can be... reasonable I guess, although I find them to be too fragile. They're very good at survival, but that survival is based around the avoidance of getting hit rather than the ability to take hits like a Warrior can. This is almost always accomplished through the use of stances. Without those stances, they tend to be very easy to take down. Their base armour rating (for physical damage, as well as other non-elemental sources) is only slightly better than that of a mage class. In situations where you can run away or kite then this doesn't matter too much, but if the tank does that then they scatter aggro onto the casters, which is pretty much the opposite of the goal. I tend to take wild blow with me everywhere to deal with those pesky rangers, and I can't think of a ranger I've ever come up against in AB that presented too much of a problem once stances were removed. I think it tends to be the mindset that because you can block 75% of attacks, that will continue to be the case. So they can tank in PvE if the enemy's skills are known in advance, but in unfamiliar areas or PvP it's a substantial risk.

Umm.. Really low on time, so I'd better head off. I was exaggerating when I said I couldn't do anything against those Mist Form guys though. I was still maintaining a reasonable amount of aggro from the enemies, and I was using AoE holy damage to do at least some reasonable damage.

[Rylkan]

I'm just teasing you.

And rangers are not good casters, I agree. We are not the end all of classes. But I think the same of every class.

And those AB rangers always overlook the use of a good throw dirt, cripple, and run strategy for when you pesky tanks get too close.

[Goto]

Like I said, that kind of tactic works when you're trying to protect yourself, but not in a tanking strategy. Well... Throw dirt still works then, I guess.
But you need quite a lot of Expertise to get a decent duration, and even then you're only going to be protected by it less than half the time. I'm sure there are other skills that can augment its usefulness, but most people seem to fall back entirely on using stances for tanking.

[Cspace]

The only role that I'd say a ranger can do as primary, that would normally be another class' role, would be tanking. I would never spec my ranger to be a dedicated spellcaster, at least if I want to be effective.

However, as a ranger you can bring one or two spells and make use of them, without losing much (if any) of your ranger capabilities. Many of a ranger's roles can be tackled without maxed stats. Why not put the rest into healing, protection, blood magic, death magic, or whatever else, and bring one or two extra abilities which can help win a tight battle.

Stand back with the spellcasters applying poison and interrupts, but maybe take a build to cast that area heal if they start taking damage. If a lot of mobs are around and a group is fighter-heavy, bring and use Well of Blood when you can afford it. If you're going with Beast Mastery, maybe try death magic and take a single minion skill as a distraction (or to fight other minions). In PvE, going back to the minions, you can sometimes fool the AI finger wigglers into wasting their opening skills on them. Perhaps bring the drag-rez so you can prepare to bring the group back if a battle can't be won (rangers are survivalists, and are already in a position to lose aggro). Maybe a protection spell to help allies defend against high-damage attacks. Some mesmer skills tie right into a ranger's anti-spellcaster abilities. What about a key ritualist skill, or paragon skill?

All of these suggestions require only one or two skill slots, and one extra stat to be raised (which can often be afforded as a ranger). Rangers also have the energy to do it (up to 32), and many ranger skills are light on energy anyway. It wouldn't turn the ranger into a spellcaster, but could give a ranger the ability to help in many more situations. A secondary role that can come into play when a battle goes bad. Otherwise a ranger can interrupt or do whatever else, and still do it very well.


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However, I do understand the other view. Sometimes I'll take things far just to have fun and try something new, not intending to be as good as possible (hey, it's a game). But, from playing hybrids in other games, and from soloing all of Prophecies and much of Nightfall with that split R/W build, I'm confident that being a "hybrid" class isn't a weakness. It just means that groups won't trust you right away, which is perhaps worse in GW since everyone has a formula for how things "should" be done.

It's so bad that I've had a PvP team completely disband because I had a sword in my hand. That's why I solo most of the time. Although, if a group needs a trapper, an interrupter, extra DPS, or something else specific, I'll go with a 100% ranger build. That's how I play in most PUG's, but with DoA I experiment a little bit more. I just hope those who doubt me can understand where I'm coming from, because I haven't ever felt weak or felt a strong need to change my play style. I'm not saying it's superior, but it's just a different focus.

[Goto]

I'd be kind of interested to see how a hybrid approach would fare in Hard Mode, really. My gut feeling is that it wouldn't do well once the difficulty level was upped considerably.

[Cspace]

It's not really that much different to be honest. I think we're all blowing things out of proportions a little, because one or two skills won't necessarily break a build unless it's intended for a very specialized role. Unless I'm going R/W, almost all of my skills are ranger skills. I can apply poison, interrupt, heal myself, have a decent pet, and still have room for extra skills. Whether they are more ranger skills, or something like a group heal, doesn't really win or lose a battle. When dealing with henchmen, though, I'd prefer to have something like a heal to back them up for when the AI does something unexpected.

When I'm in a balanced group of players who are after success with something difficult, I'll usually bring all ranger skills and one monk rez.

When soloing, I prefer hybrid regardless of difficulty. When grouping for something less difficult than hard mode, I'll sometimes go hybrid as well. When doing something that is a big challenge with other players, I'll do a more typical ranger job. I prefer to go as a hybrid class, but it all depends on how essential my ranger skills are to a group. There are times to specialize, but also times when flexibility is worthwhile. It depends on the mission, the group, and the mobs that will be faced.