Why are Rangers a melee profession? -.-

[Blude.6812]

Long Bow and double axes work for me!

[Danikat.8537]

I think enough people have covered the point that GW2 rangers are like DnD/general fantasy rangers and not specifically archers but the really important thing to know is that GW2 does not have ranged classes, or melee classes, or bow/sword/rifle etc. classes. All professions can fight at range or in melee and will need to do both at times, and all professions can use a variety of weapons and will need to switch between them sometimes.

It's fine to have a theme for your character which you favour in open-world PvE and other areas where you don't need to be at your best, but if you insist on sticking to just 1 weapon or range or whatever at all times you're going to be making things harder for yourself and sometimes for your entire group.

[Mell.4873]

I guess at launch they very much were Ranged but after 3 expansion with 2 new Melee weapons it no longer favors that play style.

The more the Devs have moved away from allowing the pet to have damage and instead letting the player be the damage dealer the more melee has had to fill the role. 

[LSD.4673]

7 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

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.

Like I said: last century. Tolkien based Aragorn on something that wasn't Aragorn.

Aragorn is a ranger, and a pretty exceptional one, being that hes a protagonist. But hes not the only ranger, nor is he only a ranger. Hes a Dunedain, and not every Dynedain is a ranger. They all share the same traits of living in the woods and in dangerous lands, being trackers who are hard to track, and wearing camouflage. Even the word "ranger" is derived from the word for warden. As in, game warden -- because no one in history designated wardens to protect the trees. Considering Tolkien's obsession with forests and those who protect and live amongst them, it's pretty clearly a romanticised mish mash of the concept. 

And how does a game warden survive the wilderness? By hunting with his...longsword?

 

Edited January 1 by LSD.4673

[Dadnir.5038]

21 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

And how does a game warden survive the wilderness? By hunting with his...longsword?

More likely by setting traps. Good thing that the ranger in GW2 have a set of traps.

[LSD.4673]

2 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

More likely by setting traps. Good thing that the ranger in GW2 have a set of traps.

Well, the GW2 classes are pretty clear derivatives of another major MMO, with contrived twists to make them seem unique. 

And therein lies the reason why GW2's ranger is largely melee focussed.

[Vilin.8056]

32 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

Like I said: last century. Tolkien based Aragorn on something that wasn't Aragorn.

Aragorn is a ranger, and a pretty exceptional one, being that hes a protagonist. But hes not the only ranger, nor is he only a ranger. Hes a Dunedain, and not every Dynedain is a ranger. They all share the same traits of living in the woods and in dangerous lands, being trackers who are hard to track, and wearing camouflage. Even the word "ranger" is derived from the word for warden. As in, game warden -- because no one in history designated wardens to protect the trees. Considering Tolkien's obsession with forests and those who protect and live amongst them, it's pretty clearly a romanticised mish mash of the concept. 

And how does a game warden survive the wilderness? By hunting with his...longsword?

 

Please spend 5 minutes google the ranger class in D&D instead of wasting us further time on your own fantasies, this has been a very defined class for decades across multiple major western RPGs, none of them defines the class exclusively as a range attacker.

The most popular ranger in the Baldur's Gate series, Minsc, for example, specializes with a greatsword.

[LSD.4673]

3 minutes ago, Vilin.8056 said:

Please spend 5 minutes google the ranger class in D&D instead of wasting us further time on your own fantasies, this has been a very defined class for decades across multiple major western RPGs, none of them defines the class exclusively as a range attacker.

The most popular ranger in the Baldur's Gate series, Minsc, for example, specializes with a greatsword.

Does DnD predate the last century? Didn't think so.

[Vilin.8056]

1 minute ago, LSD.4673 said:

Does DnD predate the last century? Didn't think so.

This is where you get it wrong, you're confusing fantasy world terminologies in a video game with your own personal views of real human history.

[LSD.4673]

5 minutes ago, Vilin.8056 said:

This is where you get it wrong, you're confusing fantasy world terminologies in a video game with your own personal views of real human history.

But the point is that fantasy is all derived from the real world. Where did GW2 get its ranger concept from? WoW; and they pretty obviously got it from DnD; and they quite clearly got it from Tolkien.

So where did a guy obsessed with history and nature get his inspiration? Hmm...

[InsaneQR.7412]

Can someone of the devs finally make a sticky note on this subforum with the definition of a ranger?

A ranger is someone who ranges. Not someone who fights at range.

You can look at other language veesions of Gw2 to get a clear picture.

German: Waldläufer (literally Forrestrunner, or someone who ranges in the forrests)

French: Rodeur (sorry for the mispelling, means prowler, someone that stalks their prey and pounces)

Spanish: Guardabosques (literally meaning Forrest Guardian, someone who guards the forrest).

All of these basically defines what a ranger is. A guardian of nature, a prowler that stalks the forrest and pounces your enemies with primal force. You are the nature guy basically. Not the bow guy.

Edited January 1 by InsaneQR.7412

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

33 minutes ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

Can someone of the devs finally make a sticky note on this subforum with the definition of a ranger?

A ranger is someone who ranges. Not someone who fights at range.

You can look at other language veesions of Gw2 to get a clear picture.

German: Waldläufer (literally Forrestrunner, or someone who ranges in the forrests)

French: Rodeur (sorry for the mispelling, means prowlea, someone that stalks their prey and pounces)

Spanish: Guardabosques (literally meaning Forrest Guardian, someone who guards the forrest).

All of these basically defines what a ranger is. A guardian of nature, a prowler that stalks the forrest and pounces your enemies with primal force. You are the nature guy basically. Not the bow guy.

You can even expand the languages and add Hungarian's word for it, Vadőr(Wilderness Guardian)

People's complaints that Ranger(or any profession similiar to it should be ranged is thrown out the window considering even WoW allows a Hunter to run around with a staff bashing people and in GW1 you could run around with a Hammer, Scythe or even DAGGERS and still be a "Ranger".

Edited January 1 by IAmNotMatthew.1058
typo

[Tiviana.2650]

Everything in this game is a melee profession lol, you have to be in the dog pile to benefit whether you are melee or not 

[evilcat.6817]

origin of ranger it to roam, operate at range from setlement. So they are generally among nature, possibly alone or small squad. Not a town folks.

So GW2 Rangers have a nature theme, and they are also good open world solo class due to pet. So they are ranger AF.

GW2 Ranger also has 2 bows and axe, so decent distance weapons selection.

[Sansar.1302]

21 hours ago, Sparetent.9756 said:

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!

Ranger aint the same as archer.

[Dayra.7405]

Meelee vs Range is not a feature of the class, but a result of the weapons you equip. All classes can go Meelee or Ranged or Mixed.

In group content it doesn't really matter, you have to stack with all the meellee chars to get bufs & heal.

Outside group content you can play it nicely with 1500 range as well, just a small irrelevant dps loss in current balance.

Edited January 2 by Dayra.7405

[Beddo.1907]

Ranger =/= ranged

Also: 4(+1 aquatic) fully ranged weapons (one of which has the highest range in the game) and 4 offhands with 50/50 range/melee and 4(+1 aquatic). That means the current melee to ranged weapon ratio is 50/50. (Till maces at least.)

As for viability, I see people using all of the ranged weapons.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

23 hours ago, Sparetent.9756 said:

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

This statement is just false though.

Every one of ranger's ranged options have been meta at various points in the game--with the exception of shortbow; can't remember that one in recent memory, would probably have to go back to when it was 1200.  

Anyway, Sic' Em Soulbeast dominated ranger competitive for the last 4-5 years or so and MH axe was/is meta in endgame PvE after they buffed the damage on it.  

Staff of course yes is meta for healing comps as that's pretty much its whole deal.  It still does surprising damage though if used on a power setup.

What you should be asking is why they changed ranger from a burst profession to a bruiser one.  

[Kiki.9450]

5 hours ago, LSD.4673 said:

But the point is that fantasy is all derived from the real world. Where did GW2 get its ranger concept from? WoW; and they pretty obviously got it from DnD; and they quite clearly got it from Tolkien.

So where did a guy obsessed with history and nature get his inspiration? Hmm...

I thought GW2 got its idea for the ranger from GW1?

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

1 hour ago, Beddo.1907 said:

(Till maces at least.)

I can see Anet change Mace to make it better for Ranger and just turn it into another thrown weapon. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Here we go again...

First, ranger is based on the concept of protecting and drawing power from nature, not simply using ranged weapons. You could argue that a ranger needs to hunt to survive, and that involves using a ranged weapon... but that doesn't mean that ranged weapons always have to be the primary weapon.

Second, despite that, ArenaNet DID prioritise ranged combat with ranger. There have been no new DPS-oriented ranged weapons because the original weapon set was already heavily slanted towards ranged combat. Ranged weapon styles have always been viable for ranger, even if they might not necessarily be optimal for raid DPS builds (hey, melee weapons need to get something in exchange for not having range). If you want to look at a profession that gets forced into melee despite people having a reasonable assumption that it should be ranged, look at elementalist, where ArenaNet has made it very hard to make a ranged elementalist without feeling like you're missing out on significant parts of your build.

On firearms specifically, ArenaNet has given pretty clear indications that this is a world where a tension exists between using technology and being close to nature. This is a tension that doesn't exist in the real world, since the real world does not have sapient nonhuman representatives of nature that can express an opinion on technology. By contrast, pretty much every time we've seen a conflict involving representatives of nature in GW2, the other side have represented unrestrained technology (druids versus asura in LS3E5, wardens versus Jade Brotherhood in EoD). That said, I do think it could be pretty cool if they could introduce something like a portable sylvari plant mortar and have a 'rifle' or 'pistol' that operates through biological rather than technological processes.

[Justine.6351]

RANGEr

[draxynnic.3719]

11 minutes ago, Justine.6351 said:

RANGEr

That word does not mean what you think it means.

[DarkFlopy.8197]

At this point I just hope both teams have fun.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

6 hours ago, Justine.6351 said:

RANGEr

"What is the full meaning of ranger?

ranger. /ˈreɪn·dʒər/ a person whose job is to care for or protect a forest, park, or public lands. (Definition of ranger from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)."

Took me 5 seconds to Google it. 

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Ranged weapon styles have always been viable for ranger, even if they might not necessarily be optimal for raid DPS builds (hey, melee weapons need to get something in exchange for not having range).

The best part about the Longbow or no Longbow problem with Ranger is that running Longbow instead of Hammer on Soulbeast is like 1k less damage only, in most cases that won't even be noticable.