Ranger viable in zergs

[Lobtech.8741]

Please, just after all these years, we need some ranger build that can be used in zergs.

[Venport.3925]

core ranger? no, never

druid is seeing some more play now though

(also this is probably should be in the main wvw category, not restructuring feedback :p)

Edited July 24, 2023 by Venport.3925

[Custodio.6134]

yep. completely wrong category aside: 

Especially guilds are slowly, but steadily adapting Druid into their comps. From what i´ve seen so far, it´s not completely on the same level as the other off-supports (especially tempest), but it´s getting close. Especially in more organized play (Guilds/GvG) it is quite impactful, and guilds are already noticing that. maybe a few tweaks here and there, and it could become a fully viable support on the level of tempest&Co.

[hugeboss.5432]

Every profession has at least 1 viable "useful" role they can use in zergs. But there's alot of guilds that just try to follow the standard meta comp info (even tho it's a bad tactical choice). Prolly coz they don't want to spend time designing comps themselves, or have poor global profession understanding how to implement working synergies "on the fly".

[Stand The Wall.6987]

all 3 ranger specs can be used

[Widebody.5071]

I've been using untamed and I'm having a blast with it manning the back line overwatch positions.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

all 3 ranger specs can be used

Anything can be used--it doesn't mean you should.  

[subversiontwo.7501]

6 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Anything can be used--it doesn't mean you should.  

Anything can be used--it doesn't mean you should... is perhaps a more accurate presentation.

The OP is asking about viability, not preference or suitability. People confuse those things.

• If you want to join a tag and they ask you to play 1 of 5 choices for a 5-man party they put together for you, that is their preference, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger and the tag does not know you, has not prepared parties for you and expect you to be relatively new, that is suitability, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger, you have befriended the tag, proved your mettle on it, communicate how you intend to use it effectively or offer to lead a party on it - things may look entirely different

The Druid came out in 2015 and ever since Rangers have been viable in larger-scale content. They may not just always be preferrable or suitable depending on the tag and you. The question is rather if we think that every class needs to have more simple beginner builds and that we need to try to cram all 9 classes into 5 simple spots. Me, I don't think the game (mode) needs that. I think it cheapens the depth of actual viability. The same goes for the relation between viability and meta, they are different things and I don't think you can balance people out of complaints about what is regarded the best for 5 out of 9, especially when that notion of what's best is more so a question of the best way to make beginners useful. I think it is perfectly fair to expect beginning players to limit their choices to a couple of builds that other people are prepared to ease them in on and provide for - if they want to be provided for. That just goes back to suitability.

There is much more to say about optimisation (and the casual reality of comps and their holes), viability and meta, but I'm keeping this relatively short and to the point. If you befriend tags and learn to navigate/negotiate what's preferrable and suitable for situations a group finds itself in, you'll get much more of the viability out of your Ranger. These threads mostly tend to appear when people are not prepared to do that or have yet to learn it. The Thief is in a similar spot and like I said in some other recent thread here, I'm spending most of my time this week on that so I am putting these things to practise every day now - I've not been kept from, kicked out of, told off or even asked to play something more preferrable or suitable once yet; and there has certainly been situations where something else has been preferrable or more suitable and groups have been more-or-less able to provide for me (support, full parties etc.).

Edited July 26, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[psizone.8437]

Rangers' more viable in zergs than it used to be. Not meta and some commanders can be strict with class requirements but they're still workable.

 

• Support druid works great for heals and condi cleanse
• Stance-share soulbeast works decently with extra damage, boons, stab and condi removal
• Untamed works alright but is trickier, it has great CC and projectile hate with enveloping haze but you need tanky pets like brown bear or turtle and micromanaging them a lot

Edited July 26, 2023 by psizone.8437
typo

[Leo.5829]

Picking ranger for wvw zerging is griefing. Please don't do it. It's not viable.

[Soilder.3607]

Druid is a meta healer.

Untamed and Soulbeast are off-meta DPS'ers. That's it.

[Chaba.5410]

30 minutes ago, Leo.5829 said:

Picking ranger for wvw zerging is griefing. Please don't do it. It's not viable.

Why do you say this?  There's a druid support build that's a contender in meta currently.

[Leo.5829]

21 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Why do you say this?  There's a druid support build that's a contender in meta currently.

Cleanse tempest, heal vindicator and even the nerfed scrapper are better off-supporters than druid.

[Chaba.5410]

21 minutes ago, Leo.5829 said:

Cleanse tempest, heal vindicator and even the nerfed scrapper are better off-supporters than druid.

Doesn't seem like you've been following what guilds are running these days all that closely.  No one is using heal scrapper if they don't have to.  You'll find tempests and druids and heal vindis depending upon their comps and player capability.  Most vindicators have swapped to DPS.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Mauti.3520]

Druid is doing great. There is your zerg build.
Some WvWers appear to do their best to besmear the spec, because Ranger is bad in zergs is what they have been told already by their great grandfathers hailing from the Eternal Battlegrounds. And seem dedicated to die on that hill for real.

 

[Lucy.3728]

1 hour ago, Leo.5829 said:

Cleanse tempest, heal vindicator and even the nerfed scrapper are better off-supporters than druid.

Elona server community wvw guild suggests to drop the nerfed Scrapper for Vindi. But Druid is still valid.

So, it depends on the general acceptance of the server.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[Custodio.6134]

48 minutes ago, Leo.5829 said:

Cleanse tempest, heal vindicator and even the nerfed scrapper are better off-supporters than druid.

Heal-Scrapper is completely out of the pool, not even guilds are considering it at the moment on the support-position. It seems that you are trying to state your opinion as "facts", which is not the case. 

I personally raid in a WvW-guild. I have done a LOT of testing in guild-raids and public-zergs. And the conclusion is basically: Tempest is still currently the strongest off-support, with a close contender being Druid. Heal-Vindicator is currently struggling with cleanses, while Heal-Scrapper is struggling with both, healing AND cleanses. The latter is (in its current state) completely inferior to all the other options, especially against Heal-Tempest.

Additionally: some of the major reasons why heal-scrapper dominated the meta for years was not due to the healing- and cleansing-output, although they obviously played a big part too. It was picked for its other utility. Damage-mitigation (Bulwark gyro), Superspeed (pre-nerf), Mass-Stealth (pre-nerfs), Condition-conversion (pre-nerfs), ranged-CC (which really benefitted the pirate-ship meta), the list goes on. you may have noticed: there have been a ton of nerfs in the last ~year (MDF, Superspeed, Sneak-Gyro, PoP, Medkit etc). 

 (Just a small note: i´ve been a heal-scrapper-main for almost 90% of my total playtime in WvW, which is about 2000 hours of WvW on heal-scrapper alone. If there is any bias included in my judgement, it is pro-heal-scrapper!)

Scrapper in its current state ist an absolutely viable pick on the DPS-position. It can pull off a stupidly high amount of damage in a melee-push. But on the healing-position, ESPECIALLY compared to druid (which the original topic is about), it is currently objectively inferior. 

[Venport.3925]

4 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Doesn't seem like you've been following what guilds are running these days all that closely.  No one is using heal scrapper if they don't have to.  You'll find tempests and druids and heal vindis depending upon their comps and player capability.  Most vindicators have swapped to DPS.

In terms of raw healing I've actually seen druids sometimes put out bigger numbers than the tempets running with groups, which is pretty good for them and def helps compete where cleanse is already available or more cc could be preferred 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

7 hours ago, Custodio.6134 said:

I personally raid in a WvW-guild. I have done a LOT of testing in guild-raids and public-zergs. And the conclusion is basically: Tempest is still currently the strongest off-support, with a close contender being Druid. Heal-Vindicator is currently struggling with cleanses, while Heal-Scrapper is struggling with both, healing AND cleanses. The latter is (in its current state) completely inferior to all the other options, especially against Heal-Tempest.

why do you think heal vindi has inferior cleanses? the small radius?

[Custodio.6134]

6 hours ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

why do you think heal vindi has inferior cleanses? the small radius?

The dwarf variant is basically entirely dependant on the alliance stance, and you lose a good amount of cleanse (and healing too) if you're not on alliance stance.

 

The ventari variant pumps out a bit more, but tablet positioning is a massive task. It works, but doing the same on tempest is basically trivial.

 

Also, a lot of this is from basic observation in guild-raids and public-zergs, which basically means: observation across different Skill-Levels. And keep in mind: all those statements are not based on absolute numbers, but relative (to the other options).

[RisenHowl.2419]

22 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Anything can be used--it doesn't mean you should... is perhaps a more accurate presentation.

The OP is asking about viability, not preference or suitability. People confuse those things.

• If you want to join a tag and they ask you to play 1 of 5 choices for a 5-man party they put together for you, that is their preference, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger and the tag does not know you, has not prepared parties for you and expect you to be relatively new, that is suitability, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger, you have befriended the tag, proved your mettle on it, communicate how you intend to use it effectively or offer to lead a party on it - things may look entirely different

The Druid came out in 2015 and ever since Rangers have been viable in larger-scale content. They may not just always be preferrable or suitable depending on the tag and you. The question is rather if we think that every class needs to have more simple beginner builds and that we need to try to cram all 9 classes into 5 simple spots. Me, I don't think the game (mode) needs that. I think it cheapens the depth of actual viability. The same goes for the relation between viability and meta, they are different things and I don't think you can balance people out of complaints about what is regarded the best for 5 out of 9, especially when that notion of what's best is more so a question of the best way to make beginners useful. I think it is perfectly fair to expect beginning players to limit their choices to a couple of builds that other people are prepared to ease them in on and provide for - if they want to be provided for. That just goes back to suitability.

There is much more to say about optimisation (and the casual reality of comps and their holes), viability and meta, but I'm keeping this relatively short and to the point. If you befriend tags and learn to navigate/negotiate what's preferrable and suitable for situations a group finds itself in, you'll get much more of the viability out of your Ranger. These threads mostly tend to appear when people are not prepared to do that or have yet to learn it. The Thief is in a similar spot and like I said in some other recent thread here, I'm spending most of my time this week on that so I am putting these things to practise every day now - I've not been kept from, kicked out of, told off or even asked to play something more preferrable or suitable once yet; and there has certainly been situations where something else has been preferrable or more suitable and groups have been more-or-less able to provide for me (support, full parties etc.).

This is the real answer, druid has been a powerhouse for years but there weren't many people who knew how to use it effectively

[Gotejjeken.1267]

On 7/26/2023 at 8:29 AM, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Anything can be used--it doesn't mean you should... is perhaps a more accurate presentation.

The OP is asking about viability, not preference or suitability. People confuse those things.

• If you want to join a tag and they ask you to play 1 of 5 choices for a 5-man party they put together for you, that is their preference, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger and the tag does not know you, has not prepared parties for you and expect you to be relatively new, that is suitability, not viability.
• If you want to join a tag on a Ranger, you have befriended the tag, proved your mettle on it, communicate how you intend to use it effectively or offer to lead a party on it - things may look entirely different

We all know the first two just don't happen unless you fulfill the third--know the commander, be in a guild the commander knows, or be active enough a roamer in map/team to get invited.

Otherwise, for huge clashes a commander that is just picking out of hat is going to pick tempest every time or ask for boon supports like firebrand and run vindi for the healing portion.

I don't deny Druid's heal use in 15v15 GvGs or small havoc roaming.  It's very easy to even go offensive support there and keep groups alive--even ones like I run with that are mostly all DPS roamer who have never really tag stacked.  

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

  

On 7/26/2023 at 10:06 AM, Leo.5829 said:

Picking ranger for wvw zerging is griefing. Please don't do it. It's not viable.

 

Spreading misinformation like this is griefing.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[enkidu.5937]

23 hours ago, Mauti.3520 said:

Druid is doing great. There is your zerg build.
Some WvWers appear to do their best to besmear the spec, because Ranger is bad in zergs is what they have been told already by their great grandfathers hailing from the Eternal Battlegrounds. And seem dedicated to die on that hill for real.

remember when Druid, Dragonhunter and Vault thief came into the game

and we were told for 6 years to leave zerg cause they are all roaming specs? 🤣

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 7/26/2023 at 2:03 PM, Leo.5829 said:

Cleanse tempest, heal vindicator and even the nerfed scrapper are better off-supporters than druid.

Obligatory Druid Healer Gameplay

Mind you this is the 2nd time i've ever played ranger class (28 hours playtime). It's one reason why you'll see my pet constantly dead (i only have 1 pet, the default bear you get on character creation lmao) rendering signet of renewal effiictivly worthless (so i only have really 2 utilities instead of 3) on top of that, i have traited spirit enhancement (but no spirits on me equipped) so i was effectivly running with a kitten traitline. Despite the noobery, you can see it does...pretty swell regardless.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684