Why are Rangers a melee profession? -.-

[Sparetent.9756]

Let me start by explaining a common thought process when you look at a game, and the professions (classes) it offers. When you think about playing a game, you might first look at the game website, and read up a little bit about it, see what it has to offer. Most games have a similar theme, melee, tank, support, archer/ranged, stealth play style choices etc. When looking at the GW2 site, and review Ranger you read a page with information about this profession. The name "Ranger" itself already suggests a "ranged" or "archer" play style. The page even shows a picture of a character wielding a bow!

So why is it, that our beloved "archer" is a melee profession?!?!

Why do you call it a melee profession, when it can clearly use a Longbow AND a Shortbow? You might ask me. Because neither of those weapons does enough damage to make it viable to play sadly! Furthermore, EVERY single expansion that has been released has added a MELEE weapon to the Ranger profession! Yes yes, I can already hear the screams that Staff is not melee and is in fact ranged, it's also a HEALER setup! -.- You are very quickly losing sight of the fact that a Ranger (Archer) keeps getting issued melee weapons! Hammer? Dagger?

What about allowing Ranger to use Rifles? or Pistols? Or actually improving the Longbow and making it viable damage? A Warrior (typically a melee class) has access to Rifle, Pistol, Longbow.

 

All I want, is to play an Archer at RANGE with good damage! Ranger has not seen a good RANGED weapon since release!

[Randulf.7614]

Where does it say it's a melee profession? There's no such things as a ranged or melee profession because you can be either on anything. And that's what makes GW2 different from cookie cutter fantasy games

The idea is to not stick on one weapon, but switch between your sets through a fight which should be harmonised to your build or playstyle

Edited December 31, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[Sigmoid.7082]

The name ranger suggests a ranger not an archer. Rangers use a variety of weapons, melee and ranged 

Edited January 1 by Sigmoid.7082

[MrGarlic.1834]

I thought Rangers were more like park rangers and look after the flora and fauna, not because they use ranged weapons sometimes..

 

Edited for typo.

Edited December 31, 2023 by MrGarlic.1834

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

as others have pointed out, ranger doesn't mean ranged; it means more like "park ranger", or "one who ranges" (roams a range). furthermore, the shortbow and long bow are heavily used in the competitive game modes, especially the longbow as a siege weapon in wvw.

 

the bows aren't used in pve because of a focus on efficiency (which i think has hurt the game alot), but they can still wield ranged axes and staves.

Edited January 1 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[BlueJin.4127]

5 hours ago, MrGarlic.1834 said:

I thought Rangers were more like park rangers and look after the flora and fauna, not because they use ranged weapons sometimes..

 

Edited for typo.

And here I was, putting power gears and dino pets on my soulbeast ranger, screaming, "it's morping time!" and thinking I was getting my class fantasy right.

Edited January 1 by BlueJin.4127

[Randulf.7614]

1 minute ago, BlueJin.4127 said:

And here I was, putting power gears and dino pets on my ranger, screaming, "it's morping time!" and thinking I was getting my class fantasy right.

Depends what colour you chose

[Teknomancer.4895]

The type specimen for the Ranger profession in fantasy settings is LOTR's Aragorn, a Dunedain Ranger of the North. He used basically whatever weapon would work for the situation. Sword, dagger, bow, torch, whatever worked was what he used (and he was depicted in the movies wielding all of these).

[Linken.6345]

You do know that Aragorn is a ranger right? and what do he use mainly a sword.

[Kelly.7019]

tldr: They weren't really at the start but if you look at and ranger/ hunter/ bowmen in any game /story/real life all use melee weapons at some point. Mostly daggers i'd imagine maybe swords, but not as their prime weapon clearly. but to diversify melee weapons have become a thing on ranged classes in gw2. So really it's more about finding a suitable spec or elite spec that flows well with the ranger class and finding weapons (that haven't been used yet- sorta) that can work. imo

I still play LB/ GS ranger as an alt and the damage is fine. Maybe you wanna be top tier raid dps.... but raids in the beginning didn't exist in gw2. That kind of thinking wasn't the point of the game.

Edited January 1 by Kelly.7019

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

Louder for the people in the back: Ranger does not mean ranged.

Aragorn is a Ranger.

Drizzt is a Ranger.

The page does not say it’s a melee class anywhere.

Classes in this game are more like “archetypes” or classes in the way that DnD classes are. They aren’t just played one way (ie, Ranger only uses bows and bows are only used by Ranger). You can play this class archetype in multiple different ways and play styles.

Probably just a post to bait rage or something. This idea has been refuted countless times in the Ranger forums.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

The type specimen for the Ranger profession in fantasy settings is LOTR's Aragorn, a Dunedain Ranger of the North. He used basically whatever weapon would work for the situation. Sword, dagger, bow, torch, whatever worked was what he used (and he was depicted in the movies wielding all of these).

I was going to use this example too. He's also way more proficient with the sword than with the bow.

[Kiki.9450]

My oven range can't even wield a bow at all! They should have called it something else...

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Ahh yes. Another lost soul who believes that the word ranger comes from range. 

 

[Super Hayes.6890]

Wait, hold up.... did you just reference pistol as a ranged option for warrior??? 🤨

[DanAlcedo.3281]

22 minutes ago, Super Hayes.6890 said:

Wait, hold up.... did you just reference pistol as a ranged option for warrior??? 🤨

And Longbow, a weapon that used mostly in melee range to fight in the fire field, make use of the blast finisher of skill 3 and shotgun effect of skill 2.

And rifle, which is only usefull on Berserker. 

A spec that's mostly forced into melee range to extend berserker uptime and to make use of riflebutt( rifle 5) to regain Ammo. 

 

Edited January 1 by DanAlcedo.3281

[River Valley.2396]

You haven't lived until you've gone hunting and snagged some prey by setting it on fire with a torch.

[LSD.4673]

Lots of fun posturing about what a real ranger is in here. Where do you reckon fantasy stuff of the last century based their concept of rangers on? Military rangers. Not the HOOH HAH MUHREEN CORN US military type, but the romanticised type from centuries of drafting game wardens and hunters into the army.

And how does a game warden keep himself fed? Hunting. Which you don't do with a longsword.

Checkmate, atheists.

[Sindust.7059]

To those saying that ranger doesn't mean ranged, but park ranger: park rangers have pistols and rifles. If that's what the profession is about, they should have gotten pistols and rifles before they had bows. They should also have a black belt in karate because Chuck Norris.

And to OP suggesting that bows don't work... 2x axe+longbow is a viable build which is mostly ranged save for a few skills, and it used to be meta not too long ago. So is 2x axe+war horn, because axes are actually mostly ranged on the ranger. And condi shortbow soulbeast is a fairly well known, very effective LI build.

So everyone is wrong. Ranger does work well ranged, but rifle and pistols would still fit the profession thematically, no matter your interpretation of the meaning of its name, so that discussion is serving no purpose other than to detail the conversation.

[Zenith.7301]

Even if you're using ranged weapons you're gonna stack in melee because that's how boons are shared and healing is done. Until they revamp boon range to be a lot larger and more easily targeted healing, everyone will move in a stack.

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, LSD.4673 said:

Where do you reckon fantasy stuff of the last century based their concept of rangers on

Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, from which Dungeons and Dragons took its inspiration for the Ranger class (a melee class), the first representation of the name in RPGs.

[Freya.9075]

Melee weapons are usually the most effective ones

 

Edited January 1 by Freya.9075

[Sobx.1758]

Here's another one on the pile of "ranger doesn't mean what you think it does and it has good ranged weapons anyways" posts.

[Kiki.9450]

9 hours ago, River Valley.2396 said:

You haven't lived until you've gone hunting and snagged some prey by setting it on fire with a torch.

Dead and pre-cooked! This must be how dragons feel.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

If Ranger was a melee profession Ranger wouldn't be hurling axes and torches while also having the longest range out of every profession with Longbows and Harpoon guns.

The only way to have the same range as a Ranger's longbow is by kneeling with a Rifle on Thief.

Just beause SnowCrows says that Hammer is higher DPS than longbow Ranger isn't a melee spec.