Guns ?

[Kastagir.2146]

I just don't get why Rangers don't use guns. Why are the devs so hung up on giving the range class in the game the best range weapon.? Have the devs ever said why Rangers won't get guns? I feel like they are sitting back laughing about this.

[Zyreva.1078]

Ranger isn't the "range class". It's the "nature class". And guns aren't very "nature-y" i guess ...

[Beddo.1907]

3 hours ago, Kastagir.2146 said:

I just don't get why Rangers don't use guns. Why are the devs so hung up on giving the range class in the game the best range weapon.? Have the devs ever said why Rangers won't get guns? I feel like they are sitting back laughing about this.

Ranger doesn't mean range. It's not a range class, never was and I doubt it will even be.

[Trejgon.9367]

12 years in and we still have people claiming rangers are range class because of the name, and people correcting that premise. I guess some things never change.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Kastagir.2146 said:

Have the devs ever said why Rangers won't get guns? 

They have, actually. It was stated sometime before Guild Wars 2 was released that rangers held back from adopting the newly developed weapons as a symbol of choosing nature over industry. "Nature versus technology" is also a repeating theme you might notice ingame, particularly in Draconis Mons and Echovald Wilds.

It's not a hard-and-fast rule, as technology is also sometimes used for conservation purposes, but personally I'd prefer that if rangers do get them, it's be something more like a portable sylvari mortar or Tyranid-esque biogun rather than a conventional gunpowder weapon.

[Frozey.8513]

8 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Ranger doesn't mean range. It's not a range class, never was and I doubt it will even be.

On Guild Wars it very much was. In GW2 however they've been taking Ranger away from Archer type and slowly more towards Druid or Shaman.

[Dadnir.5038]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They have, actually. It was stated sometime before Guild Wars 2 was released that rangers held back from adopting the newly developed weapons as a symbol of choosing nature over industry. "Nature versus technology" is also a repeating theme you might notice ingame, particularly in Draconis Mons and Echovald Wilds.

It's not a hard-and-fast rule, as technology is also sometimes used for conservation purposes, but personally I'd prefer that if rangers do get them, it's be something more like a portable sylvari mortar or Tyranid-esque biogun rather than a conventional gunpowder weapon.

I think their most recent stance to give "no comment" on the ranger x gun subject mean that they are more open to the possibility than they once were.

However, unless they specifically say "For this x-pac ranger get gun!", it's better to assume that ranger won't get gun anywhere close in the futur.

[Frozey.8513]

5 hours ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

12 years in and we still have people claiming rangers are range class because of the name, and people correcting that premise. I guess some things never change.

The issue is that people see the original GW2 art for each class, and Ranger is always seen posing with the bow making players to assume this is the physical ranged class of this MMO. And while it would have been correct assumption, since the launch of GW2 the Ranger has been steadily been taken away from the Archer archetype, leaving a void for physical ranged gameplay that hasn't been filled.

Can't we just pick up a bow on another class then and call it a day? No, not really since none of the classes really cater right now to full on Archer. On PvE due to existence of weapon swap bows have been left as a sidearm, rather than something you would meaningfully camp on. And while you technically could equip both short- and longbow, for the only class being able to do this one of the bows is condi while other is power. As cherry on the top last time a new class got Longbow was HoT, which is nearly 10 years ago by now, so it's very much understandable why people keep asking more physical ranged weaponry to the class that at least initially seems most Archer-like to them.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

9 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Ranger isn't the "range class". It's the "nature class". And guns aren't very "nature-y" i guess ...

Yeah, hammers and swords, harpoon guns... very natury.

8 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Ranger doesn't mean range. It's not a range class, never was and I doubt it will even be.

 

5 hours ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

12 years in and we still have people claiming rangers are range class because of the name, and people correcting that premise. I guess some things never change.

Marksmanship — Focuses on strike damage and starting fights with burst damage. May enhance longbow and harpoon gun, and signet skills.

Before Deadeye, Ranger was the only profession that could hit at 1,500 range.

"nOt A rAnGeD cLaSs"

[CETheLucid.3964]

13 hours ago, Kastagir.2146 said:

Guns ?

Meh. Prefer bows be powered up over getting guns. Spear is fixing to be a fun take (range + melee). Guns don't really work for ranger aesthetically. One of those be careful what you wish for things.

[Trejgon.9367]

24 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Before Deadeye, Ranger was the only profession that could hit at 1,500 range.

That is incorrect, there was a very long period when engineers could toss grenades out to 1500 range when traited for it 😛 long before deadeye mind you.

27 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Marksmanship — Focuses on strike damage and starting fights with burst damage. May enhance longbow and harpoon gun, and signet skills.

That is one traitline of the class, alongside skirmishing, wilderness survival, nature magic and beastmastery. Still better argument than "Ranger is supposed to be ranged because it has 'range' in the name".

[Liewec.2896]

i wouldn't be against rangers getting rifle, it'd be kinda like a Hunter 🙂

but i don't know what its purpose could be?

i see rifle as a natural choice for a power weapon, but we already have longbow.

and we have shortbow filling in the condi gap (albeit with a shorter range)

i'm feeling like most classes don't really have room for new weapons anymore.

[Pirogen.9561]

In GW2 unique part of class(profession) are those F1, F2, ... skills/perks.

Ranger gets Pets/Animals. Not "range", but "animal".

Why no Rifle? No idea. Does Ranger need a rifle? What would it do?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

11 hours ago, Pirogen.9561 said:

Why no Rifle? No idea. Does Ranger need a rifle? What would it do?

Shoot out animals, naturally.

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I think their most recent stance to give "no comment" on the ranger x gun subject mean that they are more open to the possibility than they once were.

However, unless they specifically say "For this x-pac ranger get gun!", it's better to assume that ranger won't get gun anywhere close in the futur.

Oh, yeah, it's definitely possible. Prerelease information just shows what the thinking was with the core weapons, although rangers still not having guns suggests that they've held to that concept. That said, I do think it would be more interesting for ranger use of... rifle and pistol skins to be something distinctly ranger, rather than another "I fire bullet" weapon. 

[zeyeti.8347]

For the ranger traduction the most you ll encounter is nature warden , or park ranger , but there is also the military ranger type , like airborne ranger who is mostly specialised in guns and warfare , so having a rifle as ranger does fit if you take the whole definition , but ppl often get the rifle = hunting , no anto poach patrols in Africa who are also a kind of rangers have guns ... for human trash , not for animals.

 

Edited June 13 by zeyeti.8347

[Beddo.1907]

Class wise, Ranger has no reason to not get a Rifle or Pistols, but it also has no reason to absolutely have it.

Use wise, Rifle and Pistols on ranger have a hard time to fit in into an option we don't have. Longbow, Shortbow cover all two hand range projectile dps roles already and Staff takes the ranged support. So the only way for them to be useful, would be to not be projectile, which is not easy for low technology and limited magic class.

[Ashen.2907]

Weird thing is that a rapier is more technologically advanced than is a blunderbuss or shotgun so the original no advanced tech/industry theme for ranger didn't even hold up at launch.

That said, I not sure what niche it would fit to add rifle to the Ranger arsenal other than purely aesthetic.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

For the ranger traduction the most you ll encounter is nature warden , or park ranger , but there is also the military ranger type , like airborne ranger who is mostly specialised in guns and warfare , so having a rifle as ranger does fit if you take the whole definition , but ppl often get the rifle = hunting , no anto poach patrols in Africa who are also a kind of rangers have guns ... for human trash , not for animals.

 

"Ranger" in the terms of modern military special forces or scouts would probably be more likely to be an engineer or deadeye. An anti-poach patrol would be pretty close, but the GW2 setting is one where, however they're doing it a ranger with a longbow can still outshoot the types of firearms that are generally present, so there's not the pressure to switch that there was in the real world.

1 hour ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Class wise, Ranger has no reason to not get a Rifle or Pistols, but it also has no reason to absolutely have it.

Use wise, Rifle and Pistols on ranger have a hard time to fit in into an option we don't have. Longbow, Shortbow cover all two hand range projectile dps roles already and Staff takes the ranged support. So the only way for them to be useful, would be to not be projectile, which is not easy for low technology and limited magic class.

Or to have more of an AoE feel (which the 'portably seed mortar' concept could possibly do) or just being a different set of options.

24 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Weird thing is that a rapier is more technologically advanced than is a blunderbuss or shotgun so the original no advanced tech/industry theme for ranger didn't even hold up at launch.

Rapiers are just a skin as far as the game is concerned, which I don't think they were available on release, and last I played ranger the animations didn't exactly feel as if they had rapiers in mind (mind you, I'm not sure any profession's sword animations do). More importantly, they're an iteration on swords, which predated handguns by more than four millennia. Rangers don't seem to be afraid of more advanced bows either. Guns, however, aren't just an iteration of old technology, but a completely new one, which shifts away from weapons that are ultimately muscle-powered (or muscle-and-magic powered in GW2) to ones that rely on chemical propellent to operate. That adoption of a completely new paradigm is probably the difference, not developing a slightly better forging technique that allows blades to be thinner and longer while still having acceptable durability. Consider that from the perspective of a nature spirit, a large amount of gunpowder is an explosive that could scar the land, while a large number of spare bowstrings isn't much of a concern. 

[Beddo.1907]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Or to have more of an AoE feel

I was going to say it's AoE specifically, but lost it somewhere in the middle of writing. AA can be projectile, but the rest has to be non projectile AoE.

Something like mortar sounds like an idea, but annoyingly, the Engi mortar is projectile activated.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 minute ago, Beddo.1907 said:

I was going to say it's AoE specifically, but lost it somewhere in the middle of writing. AA can be projectile, but the rest has to be non projectile AoE.

Something like mortar sounds like an idea, but annoyingly, the Engi mortar is projectile activated.

Projectile or non-projectile is primarily a WvW concern, but I think ranged AoE is something that ranger is lacking in general. Shortbow has a spread attack, axe has a single bounce, a spread and a small AoE with Winter's Bite, and longbow just has Barrage, but otherwise the DPS ranged weapons are pretty single-target-oriented. Staff has a bit of AoE on paper but that's not a damage weapon. So AoE with projectiles would still have a function in PvE (albeit possibly not raids/strikes) and for zoning areas in sPvP.

Mind you, I can think of ways to make the theme work with non-projectile attacks as well.

[frazazel.7501]

I want a tranqulizer rifle. Let me apply cripple, slow, and confusion to my targets.

[Ehecatl.9172]

Ranger is the Nature class, and different people have different ideas of what someone who is one with nature might look like. So far it looks like Anet is on the "a gun is not natural" side of things, which is fine. It's their game, even if myself and a lot of other people have no problem looking at an 1800s explorer or rancher and thinking "nature guy".

Personally, I'd love Pistol as an option. But that's because one of my rangers is an Iron legion rancher and another has a distinctly cowboy aesthetic with his little mushroom head and thorny mustache. I also just feel like pistols are a really exciting but kind of underused weapon type in GW2.

[Isopod.4156]

They use spearguns let them use real guns.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Isopod.4156 said:

They use spearguns let them use real guns.

Very different devices, despite "gun" being in the name. Elastic spearguns are pretty close to using the same principles as a crossbow, except that it uses rubber rather than wood or steel as the primary source of spring energy. Many existing harpoon gun skins are essentially underwater-adapted crossbows when you look closely at them. Pneumatic spearguns are a bit closer, but the pressure can come from a hand pump rather than chemical or electrical energy.