What would Commanders/Players in WvW like to see for Rangers bring to Group Play.

I fully believe Anet does not know the exact Stigma, hatred, or annoyance directed towards Rangers, from Commanders and/or other professionary players in WvW. I would at this time ask that the Commanders of all Servers VOICE their opinion what they would like to see Rangers have in order to make them more indispensable to WvW Roaming, Havoc, and/or Zerg play.

What would you like to see Rangers have for SKILLS/TRAITS in order to be more useful to group play, or an improvement to SKILLS/TRAITS that would make Rangers better in TOTAL.

Rangers in WvW already know from direct conversation with our own individual servers, players, guilds and commanders how you feel about our profession. Maybe you should tell Anet why you specifically DISLIKE Ranger in your Group/zerg. Because that IS the information that Anet needs. Feel free to post why you believe Rangers don't bring anything to group play, or post what you believe will help Rangers to become better to change your negative opinion on our class.

From a zerg perspective, bring something that another class cannot do better. Damage, sustain, support, cleanse, doesn't matter. Support druid is viable and fine in 15s, but for full map blob fighting it falls off.

roaming and havok rangers x druids are good.

basically if the ranger knows his thing, he will have no problems being in a squad or not.

and in blobs, healing midline backline ranger is nice. kill those necros x revs x eles.

Your OP is flawed. Few I know regard rangers as undesirable in roaming or havoc. Quite the opposite actually.

And I think that the term synergy with the group would be the major request for squads.

Boon sharing, AOE attacks, frequent large scale group healing,

Also... what is different about this post and the 'ranger hate' posts, or 'is WvW actually this toxic' posts that currently reside on the forums

We are no more telling Anet in this post than those.

They read the forums. They know. They have a different vision of ranger. They have built it (likely unknowingly) as a roaming/havoc class for WvW. Much like the theif.

Due to the fact that is a problem related to:

1. Boons Sharing
2. Party size

Can't you simply join discord/ts and stay outside the raid group doing your work from the dinstance?I do this with my thief with SB ( daze + poison ) and it works perfectly ( and since i have less boons sharing than a ranger i pretty understand why i can't be into the raid untill i use another chara ).

I honestly think that ANet designed Rangers, Thieves, and to a lesser extent Engineers to not be a part of a zerg squad. Perhaps not consciously, but they are definitely far better suited from a design standpoint to run as a havoc, solo, or small group player. Players of these professions should perhaps embrace these rolls rather than try to shoehorn themselves into a roll their class doesn't excel at. Back when zergs were all running pick you saw quite a few Rangers and Thieves, but lately you don't see them in the main zerg squads nearly as often.

edit: They had a wonderful opportunity here to make sure that with the new elites Rangers, Thieves, and Engineers had a better chance at being invited to squads. Holosmith probably will get that chance. Ranger and Thief? Dunno.

Here is how to NOT make rangers viable.*do not try buffing their AoE damage capabilities. There will always be class dominance and people would rather have scourge or rev dps over whatever a ranger has to offer.Here is how to make rangers viable in group play.

Add following skills to game.Peaceful stride:StanceDuration: 10 secondsRecharge: 28 seconds.Immunity to cripple, chill and immobilize. Gain 2 stack of stab (3second) each second.

Elephant's tranceStance:Duration 18 secondsRecharge: 45 secondsOn skill activation and hence every 3 second pulse; execute a blast finisher at your feet, stun break. 15% damage reduction while active.

Serpents quickness.StanceDuration 18 seconds.Recharge 60 secondsGain quickness, alacrity and superspeed for (2seconds) every 3 second pulse.

Group healing, preferably without water fieldsGroup condition cleansesAoE or cleave DPSGroup boons/boonshareGroup stabilityGroup resistanceAoE CCNo pets to get conditions then epidemic bombed.

Rangers need no pets and 3-4 of the others to be useful in zergs.

1. Boons
2. Cleanse/healing
3. Aoe damage

Surprised not many rangers have realized this, but dragonhunters are essentially what a ranger should have been. They have better bow skills, better traps, better utilities, no pet to deal with. I played my ranger/druid full time for about 6 months last year, I never once cared about being in a squad to play, there were times I had my own group running. I had fun on it, but to be perfectly honest when I switch to my dragonhunter, it was just so much better at doing the same things while having a lot more options for group play.

@Kaiser.9873 said:I honestly think that ANet designed Rangers, Thieves, and to a lesser extent Engineers to not be a part of a zerg squad. Perhaps not consciously, but they are definitely far better suited from a design standpoint to run as a havoc, solo, or small group player. Players of these professions should perhaps embrace these rolls rather than try to shoehorn themselves into a roll their class doesn't excel at. Back when zergs were all running pick you saw quite a few Rangers and Thieves, but lately you don't see them in the main zerg squads nearly as often.

It's because they were designed for higher single target damage as their role which is why they have less group skills, something many fail to see to this day and they choose to blame other players and not accept what their class was designed to do. They were not designed for specific groups sizes, I doubt the developers even had that in mind, they designed the classes with a role in mind, how they fit into groups of whatever size was going to be up to the players to figure out.

A couple things have changed since HoT so that a pick team isn't really required anymore, when the boon sharing ball zerg became a thing, your back line basically became the mid line with tempest and reaper. Did anet really have group sizes in mind and how it would affect group comps when they pushed the squishy back line to be more covered in mid line? doubt it.

P.S the only group sizes they would have considered is 10 man raids, which is probably why the druid was born, before that there wasn't even a need to think about sizes, just bring your top dps to whatever.

I normally want ranger to run havoc, tapping stuff, gank people (they are really good at this)

but if for zerg fight, unless they can pump tons of healing while staying alive (and that require you to equip with Druid spec), I want them to stay the f out of frontline. stay with those necro or bomber in backline, keep yourself and backliner alive. and snipe those went down. they need to always aware of situation and move fast. because once opponent start pushing. rangers will be caught in the cross fire and being one of the first to go down.

nobody wants rangers. they suck at zerg fights. there is nothing you can do about it.druids on the other hand... just visit metabattle.comget on voip, tell people you are running a healer build and that you don't suck... people will come around if youre a chill person.

Nothing. There are no simple changes ANet can make to base Ranger, to make it viable for large scale group play.The entirety of base ranger is a selfish class that offers little to nothing to even a small group outside of damage & some some CC.

ANet would have to redesign core Ranger from the ground up, in order to make it viable for large scale group content.

Or, alternatively, they could create an elite spec with really good burst healing.

They chose the latter.

anti glider pew pew. Which they alrdy do to a large extent, better than any other class. If they wanted to give it another boost in that department tho...cool.

Other than that, nothing.

@Caliburn.1845 said:From a zerg perspective, bring something that another class cannot do better. Damage, sustain, support, cleanse, doesn't matter. Support druid is viable and fine in 15s, but for full map blob fighting it falls off.

I think an important thing to bear in mind, is that ranger DO bring something most other classes doesnt do better (other then engi). That is FLEXIBILITY. You can set a ranger up to do the task of multiple classes, while performing around 75-80% of what the "native" class would do in that same role. Of course, it comes at the expense of something else. However, there arent many classes allowing you to build for multiple roles, without severe drawbacks. Ranger do get drawbacks, but the class design allow it to take a "lesser hit".

But in the end, most pugs will never understand or bother to do that, so the stigma will stay.

Not every class/spec is designed for blobbing. Instead of wanting Anet to adjust the class from bottom to top, why not make a guard/rev/necro/ele/war for WvW?

@Aury.1367 said:Not every class/spec is designed for blobbing. Instead of wanting Anet to adjust the class from bottom to top, why not make a guard/rev/necro/ele/war for WvW?

very true. However, there is not AS big a balance problem, as a perception problem

Ranger, especially GS melee ranger, is very durable if you meet the following stats; 500 healing power, 23,000+ HP, 2800 ArmorWhy are these so "big a deal"?Even without druid or soulbeast, ranger can easily maintain as high or higher passive regen then warriors, the inbuilt evade is like having random 50 man blind AOE spam. It once every 1.5 sec you get a complete damage mitigation. That is strong, VERY strong. But WITH soulbeast, ranger is a monster.

However, it is no point in talking about it, let me show you such a build.This build, is not very hard to play, not very hard to set up, not very hard to understand. You maintain regen and protection as much as possible, while spamming 11111111 on GS. When you need movement or blast finishers, swap to WH and use #5 (also pretty good Fury duration)... you'll have VERY high protection uptime, which is VERY important on ranger. But why?

Enter, Wilderness Survival Minor #3.... Rugged Growth. This skill HEALS you per sec while you have protection. Look at this builds protection uptime, factor in a guard or someone else giving you some protection too... look at the healing, add ontop of that a permanent regeneration boon... in addition to that, if you stay in beastmode, you gain the effect of Natural healing, so with some napkin math we see that ranger can have roughly 850HP/sec of passive heal, pretty OK damage, high Fury uptime and, AND provide stability for the group. But wait, there is more

Enter Soulbeast Major trait #1,Second Skin. While you have protection, condition damage on you is reduced by 33%

However, Dolyak stance is so much more. You need to look at the effect, then look at the Soulbeast "GM trait" #2... Share stance effect "Dolyak stance: Movement impeding conditions doesnt work"... So not only are you safe from stuns (stab), but also most common movement conditions (chill, cripple, immob)... which is the issue we have now, we CANNOT avoid being immob or chilled/crippled. Thus we cannot run away even if we have stab. This stance, is incredibly strong.

Ranger is MORE then capable of being a strong teamplayer in zergs. Commanders just need to understand it, and they DONT WANT TO.

I dont know what more you could give rangers then what was given with soulbeast. The ranger is borderline brokenly OP (sustain wise) under soulbeast. Yes there is some hassle in getting the right pets (Jacaranda, found in Domain of Vabbi, North west of "The Necropolis" waypoint) which is an incredibly strong pet, even as a pet, and even more so once merged (dat heal, + you get a kind meh but long range low CD AOE)

If you want to build a strong ranger, you can. Its not hard. Its not even complicated. You just got to understand the class at even a basic level to see how this would work. Oh, and you got plenty of low CD stunbreaks

Build Link:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBhYD7kgXoWQsjXwhXgqFskJYNJrAwBI/1Ob3tP1gU1j7EWP3VA-j1xGQBA4iAgQlfJS9n+9EAYjuhyt/QGVCGA4Aw93f/93fft/+7v/+7v/+7vfUQlG-w

@Prysin.8542 said:Ranger is MORE then capable of being a strong teamplayer in zergs. Commanders just need to understand it, and they DONT WANT TO.

You had me up to this point, but even I wouldn't take a Ranger when other classes can do everything a bit or even way better than rangers do. Example, using your soul beast, you maybe able to push in with the front liners, but what are you really giving to the front liners in terms of what they need? Damage? Boons? Corrupt or remove boons from other players? These are things that all commanders should take into consideration.

For example, a mesmer even on mirage don't push in with zergs generally, yet they are sought after in a blob for their viel's (both veil and mass invisibility), for their pulls, and for their portals (which are still better than a scourge's even though scourge can use its in combat a lot easier than a mesmer/mirage/chronomancer can). You want a class that is really beneficial for the group, then try this example. A guardian will almost always have a top spot in a zerg because they can do pushes, purging flames to clear condi's from themselves and others, pulls if on dragon hunter, much more. Elementalists and their elite specs can provide a lot of team support. However, maybe not so much for weaver, but that's another story.

And with that getting back to what the original poster was trying to say, I don't think that Anet should change anything with ranger, engineer, nor thief. Their adventure classes for a reason. They aren't soldiers, which when I think of soldier I think of frontline war zone. They aren't scholars, therefore not truly backline, even though some scholars do a very good job in even close range fighting.

An adventure class like Ranger is the perfect in-between between a soldier and a scholar. They can do most things solo without help and even thieves, can be a pest and uber hard to kill. Okay, maybe "uber" was a bit over an over exaggeration, but you get the point. Rangers don't have precise control over pets and pets can give away a zerg's position at times because they auto attack. Even a soulbeast merging with the pet, isn't likely to win over any commanders because they literally don't offer nothing that they can't find elsewhere in better amounts.

TL;DR Just saying that even a soulbeast isn't likely to win over any commanders to allowing or even seeking out rangers, because the class is an adventure class and like all adventure classes they don't offer much in the way of group support and cohesion unlike other classes do. Especially, when you consider that they don't remove boons as well as necro's and spellbreakers do. They don't heal others as well as a heal-bot tempest/ele does for group healing. They don't offer up anything that you can't find in other classes that do it better than any form of ranger does. Sorry, but its honestly why guild groups rarely like any adventure class joining there runs...

A Ranger walks into a WvW raid.Kicked.

@Aury.1367 said:Not every class/spec is designed for blobbing. Instead of wanting Anet to adjust the class from bottom to top, why not make a guard/rev/necro/ele/war for WvW?

No class was designed for blobbing, the outlook at the start of this game was PvP was the serious bit whilst WvW/PvE were just casual fun, hence the combat / class mechanics in this game were built around PvP (go find Sacrx video banging on about how it was all about what Teldo & Co thought in alpha, whilst WvW/PvE players were basically ignored in regard to class balance).

Then for 3 years the game was virtually entirely balanced around PvP "e-sports", it was only with the run up to add PvE raids with HoT they started meaningfully balancing for that, WvW on the other hand merely gets the odd crumb thrown in its direction, so there is no "design" for WvW classes, it is simply the fallout from whatever decisions they make for PvP (and now PvE raids).

@KayCee.4653 said:You had me up to this point, but even I wouldn't take a Ranger when other classes can do everything a bit or even way better than rangers do. Example, using your soul beast, you maybe able to push in with the front liners, but what are you really giving to the front liners in terms of what they need? Damage? Boons? Corrupt or remove boons from other players? These are things that all commanders should take into consideration.

I won't say that rangers do things better than other classes, and I'll probably have to fall back to guardian as soon as raids become a bit more serious again, but SB has really improved things imho. For important stuff, SB provides aoe stability (dolyak stance), resistance (supportive pet F3), big heals/condi clears on the move (supportive pet F3, bear stance), blast finishers (merged drake F2, warhorn, pet swap, you can also carry the water field if needed too, but I find bear stance a better performer with the condi spam) and aoe cc (immob+slow from traited heal). There's also the minor stuff on the side (fury, swiftness, regen...) but that's stuff everyone's already swimming in.

The main downside is that a lot of what you grant is boons, and boon hate is at a record high right now, so...

@zinkz.7045 said:

@Aury.1367 said:Not every class/spec is designed for blobbing. Instead of wanting Anet to adjust the class from bottom to top, why not make a guard/rev/necro/ele/war for WvW?

It's too bad that the only skill balance that specifically mentions WvW was epidemic. Everything else was PvP or PvE and WvW lumped in with PvE.

Squad wide cleansing on a relatively low CD in this day and age would probably do the trick, ability to go petless. The stance sharing was a good step in the right direction, it's just unfortunate that A) only 50% (ele aura share isn't limited % wise) and b) The stances are pretty lame and not worth a damn in anything over havoc squad size and even then I would debate there usefulness (stances not the class).

I was running frontline guards for months, with guilds, following builds guild and all homework.I get bored than, i did a druid, see no big deal in running out or not of a zerg.

Believe-me u you're not missing out on anything, being a blob frontline is the last "play as u want" option on WvW, they will expect you to follow certain builds and skills.also dont expect also fool the commanders playing with "right class", they keep eye on ppl are dying most.

If they are not running Signet of Renewal, kick them.