Anet, firearms for ranger when?

[Artemis.8034]

Everybody is getting pistols and rifle even those than thematically make no sense. So when can ranger get a rifle or pistols? With all these crazy weapon /spec combos why not ranger, it makes more sense that a necro or guardian with them.  I dont mind those classes having them but it really is a slap in the face to rangers that they dont get a rifle. 

[Ashen.2907]

No it is not a slap in the face.

 

But I wouldn't mind seeing rifle for ranger some day....assuming that a niche can be found for it. We already have ranged power, condi, and support. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Here we go again.... 

1.The word ranger does not come from being ranged. 

2.Gw2's ranger is about being nature themed and rifles go against said theme. 

3. What's the difference between rifle and Longbow? Both would be just long range pew pew. 

4. Long range pew pew is bad for pve as you need to stack anyway and more long range pew pew is bad for pvp/wvw as it encourages toxic gameplay. 

5. How about an actual usefull weapon like a main hand support weapon for Druid instead of a weapon that's only good for looking good in screenshots? 

6. Don't add me. I won't answer. This post will be put into the ranger sub forum anyway and after 1000000 discussion about it, I don't care anymore. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by DanAlcedo.3281

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

The Rifle Ranger crowd continues to be... as a Willbender says... RELENTLESS lel

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

and I want a rifle for my necro.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

The role rifle would fulfill is already covered. It would essentially be a reskinned Longbow 2.0. Other weapons are able to give us new play styles and roles we wouldn’t have had before.

Sure we can probably get rifle eventually, but right now there’s other stuff that would be way more helpful and beneficial.

[bossdonut.1938]

i agree the texas RANGERS used rifles

 

and they still do.

[Shuzuru.3651]

Rifle and pistols are the 2 weapon that make the least sense both on the theme and gameplay. 

Ranger is basically a nature-based half fighter and mage, with a warden of nature touch, too. 

Weapons that would make more sense, in an eventual future :

scepter, focus, shield, maybe off hand sword

[Andy.5981]

Well as each Living story sorry "Expansion" gets released the pool of missing Ranger weapons is getting smaller and smaller, so I would say for definate that they will get Pistol or Rifle sometime before Allainces is released.

[kharmin.7683]

There are a bunch of threads already on this topic in the Ranger sub forum https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/forum/18-ranger/

[Sandzibar.5134]

There is a need for 10 target(lol), ranged aoe damage(double lol), and aoe boon strip(omega lol).

If that comes from a Rifle.. so be it.

(Unlikely that CMC would ever approve a weapon that useful to Ranger in a million year however)

Doesnt change the fact you should really be looking to fill missing performance areas as a priority with requests, not missing weapon shapes.

If youre looking for yet another another single target, projectile weapon?? I'd have to ask "Why?"

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

I'd rather they gave us a third elite spec because for whatever reason when I go check there's druid, soulbeast and a big pile of garbage.

[Dadnir.5038]

Do we have those threads every other week?

[Dadnir.5038]

36 minutes ago, Sandzibar.5134 said:

There is a need for 10 target(lol), ranged aoe damage(double lol), and aoe boon strip(omega lol).

If that comes from a Rifle.. so be it.

I wouldn't call something like that a rifle, sir. I'd call this a bazooka!

[draxynnic.3719]

When they don't have anything better to add.

That's not just being dismissive. Elite specialisations received weapons suitable to their themes. Maces seem to be covering a bit of extra support and durability, both things that have been asked for, while rifle has the 'just what exactly would distinguish it from longbow' question. (There are answers to this question, but they're also not as clear as finding distinct niches for some other weapons.)

I could see it being coupled with a more technological ranger elite specialisation sometime in the future. 

[kiwituatara.6053]

I'm already fed up with all the bubbles, reflect walls, deflect walls, thief ballerina spins, magnetic auras. I don't want another projectile weapon. NO RIFLES! NO PISTOLS!

 

Give us scepter instead.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

9 hours ago, bossdonut.1938 said:

i agree the texas RANGERS used rifles

 

and they still do.

No. The Texas Rangers use clubs. At least they did this year to win the World Series. 

 

I didn't see any rifles out on the diamond.

[Levetty.1279]

They could literally just make the rifles shoot seeds that land and do aoe effects.

Ranged AoE is the main thing Ranger is missing now so it's either Rifle or Scepter and Focus.

[Fueki.4753]

If Ranger ever gets access to Rifle, it should be a melee bonk condition weapon, that deals confusion to the enemy and yourself.

The enemy gets confused, because they don't understand why the Ranger uses the Rifle in such a way.

The Rangers get confused, because the Ranger doesn't know how to use a Rifle.

[Artemis.8034]

1 hour ago, Levetty.1279 said:

They could literally just make the rifles shoot seeds that land and do aoe effects.

Ranged AoE is the main thing Ranger is missing now so it's either Rifle or Scepter and Focus.

no scepter on rangers is thematically awful , its basically a magic wand. The theme of this thread seems to be , rangers cant have pistols or rifles because it dont fit the theme of what a ranger is but a magic wand is okay. I say bullhockey , they have done broke that mold with giving pistols and swords to guards and necros. This game dont seem to keep to any theme just toss out w/e to keep people interested, even if it makes no sense lore wise. So why all the fuss about firearms, its hypocritical to say a HB , necro can use a pistol but a ranger cant. Obviously they can give any class anything they want. Too many defenders on here refuse to see the hypocrisy in their statements.

[Artemis.8034]

15 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Here we go again.... 

1.The word ranger does not come from being ranged. 

2.Gw2's ranger is about being nature themed and rifles go against said theme. 

3. What's the difference between rifle and Longbow? Both would be just long range pew pew. 

4. Long range pew pew is bad for pve as you need to stack anyway and more long range pew pew is bad for pvp/wvw as it encourages toxic gameplay. 

5. How about an actual usefull weapon like a main hand support weapon for Druid instead of a weapon that's only good for looking good in screenshots? 

6. Don't add me. I won't answer. This post will be put into the ranger sub forum anyway and after 1000000 discussion about it, I don't care anymore. 

I never said it came from being ranged, why would you assume that? The closest affiliation I think of with ranger is the wilderness hunter, the person like grizzly adams who lives off the land and interacts with its creatures. All weapons go against nature if you are so nature loving why are you using any weapon to kill it? Why are you hacking animals to death with axes and swords? I mean come on get real that makes no sense either. And for the record i hate the dogpile mechanic in this game, i get its an easy out for game development but it absolutely sucks in group content, and plenty do agree with that. But anet dont want to implement buff and heal target abilities and group wide buffing so here we are in the blinding clusterfark dogpile.

[cyberzombie.7348]

1 hour ago, Levetty.1279 said:

They could literally just make the rifles shoot seeds that land and do aoe effects.

Or tranquilizing darts, with low power damage but high-duration, single-target condis and/or status effects.

[Shuzuru.3651]

25 minutes ago, Artemis.8034 said:

no scepter on rangers is thematically awful , its basically a magic wand. The theme of this thread seems to be , rangers cant have pistols or rifles because it dont fit the theme of what a ranger is but a magic wand is okay. I say bullhockey , they have done broke that mold with giving pistols and swords to guards and necros. This game dont seem to keep to any theme just toss out w/e to keep people interested, even if it makes no sense lore wise. So why all the fuss about firearms, its hypocritical to say a HB , necro can use a pistol but a ranger cant. Obviously they can give any class anything they want. Too many defenders on here refuse to see the hypocrisy in their statements.

The only thing I agree there is pistol guard, as I don't really understand the theme. 

For the rest, sword necro is logical, sword is the typical weapon of the dark knight fantasy, which is using your own life to unleash powerful attacks, life sacrifice always has been a theme of the necro, so it fit pretty well. 

Pistol necro is basically the mad scientist, the one that will do morbid experiments, it also fit the necro as light classes are scholars, so potential scientific, since core, we had Oola mixing golemancy (so technology) and necromancy. So it fit too. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Shuzuru.3651

[Ehecatl.9172]

It's always interesting to see this convo come up because it invokes such intense responses from both sides. I find whether or not you're pro ranger rifle ultimately comes down to your personal views of what a rifle represents.

A lot of people see firearms as emblems of technological progress. Tools that brought about the end of mankind's reliance on nature and began the process of industrialization. These people will generally dislike rifles or pistols as options for rangers as the ranger is fundamentally the nature class.

Those who are pro-firearm tend to see firearms as being entirely in line with other ranger weapons as tools for survival. You can hunt with a rifle just as you can hunt with a bow. Both weapons have their pros and cons compared to one another and tend to be a matter of preference when it comes to modern-day hunters. Arrows can be fashioned in the wild, but you can carry a loooot more bullets than you can arrows. There's a reason early colonial explorers of North America used rifles during their massive, cross-continental expeditions.

But of course, the ranger isn't a hunter class. They aren't meant to be big game hunters killing animals for sport. But even then, the best weapon for protecting nature from other humans is again the firearm. You see this with modern-day conservationists as well as the ranching cultures scattered around the world during the 1800s.

Rifles have historically been used by exactly the sort of wilderness survivalist explorers and defenders of animals that the ranger is meant to represent. Which is why threads like these keep happening. For a lot of people, the rifle is an iconic nature-warrior weapon.

And in my mind, it is at least more thematically appropriate than the greatsword, even though I love the greatsword and use it often.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Ehecatl.9172 said:

It's always interesting to see this convo come up because it invokes such intense responses from both sides. I find whether or not you're pro ranger rifle ultimately comes down to your personal views of what a rifle represents.

A lot of people see firearms as emblems of technological progress. Tools that brought about the end of mankind's reliance on nature and began the process of industrialization. These people will generally dislike rifles or pistols as options for rangers as the ranger is fundamentally the nature class.

Those who are pro-firearm tend to see firearms as being entirely in line with other ranger weapons as tools for survival. You can hunt with a rifle just as you can hunt with a bow. Both weapons have their pros and cons compared to one another and tend to be a matter of preference when it comes to modern-day hunters. Arrows can be fashioned in the wild, but you can carry a loooot more bullets than you can arrows. There's a reason early colonial explorers of North America used rifles during their massive, cross-continental expeditions.

But of course, the ranger isn't a hunter class. They aren't meant to be big game hunters killing animals for sport. But even then, the best weapon for protecting nature from other humans is again the firearm. You see this with modern-day conservationists as well as the ranching cultures scattered around the world during the 1800s.

Rifles have historically been used by exactly the sort of wilderness survivalist explorers and defenders of animals that the ranger is meant to represent. Which is why threads like these keep happening. For a lot of people, the rifle is an iconic nature-warrior weapon.

And in my mind, it is at least more thematically appropriate than the greatsword, even though I love the greatsword and use it often.

A couple of distinctions here:

The first is that statements by AreneNet established that the devs are in the first category. Those statements were somewhere around the time of GW2's initial release, so they may well have changed since then. But we do have an indication of what they thought at least at some point.

The second is that Tyria isn't the real world, and comparisons between effectiveness of bows and rifles that apply in the real world might not apply in Tyria. A bow made from magical wood where the arrows are augmented by the invocation of nature spirits (which might or might not refuse to augment a gun) could well be superior to a rifle from the perspective of a ranger. We see this in-game: ranger longbow outranges rifle except when the latter is used by a kneeling thief, and outside of special mechanics like warrior bursts or thief stealth attacks, ranger longbow feels like it hits harder too. In the real world, a bolt-action rifle is better than a bow in so many ways that you almost might as well shoot yourself if you took a bow to a gun fight (muzzle-loaders are a bit more nebulous). But from the perspective of Tyrian rangers, bows might (still) be genuinely better weapons for them.

I'm personally open to it with the right theme, but I feel that there are some people who seem to take it as a personal betrayal when ranger gets anything else. The weapons that ranger has received all have recognisable reasons for why they were chosen, while the most intuitive expectation for rifle is as an alternative set of skills to longbow while basically performing the same function. There are possible alternative options, but most advocates for ranger rifle seem to be starting from "I want rifle" and then trying to find a purpose for it, rather than thinking about what ranger could use from a new weapon and figuring out which weapon could fill that. (This is the thinking behind scepter - ranger is lacking a ranged damage-oriented weapon that can punch through projectile hate, and it's easier to see sceptre having a projectile-less skill set than rifle.)