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Don't Rangers and Thieves ever feel bad when commanders say "No Thieves. No Rangers, Please."


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i mean, ranger and thieves also don't feel bad when they get oneshot by some not even aimed dmg that downs them and rallies the enemies, bc they are obviously never on voice, run random builds and rally the enemies. others fire their longbow2 in some reflect, hurting at least themselves, sometimes also others.

they can also interfer with stealthing, giving away position of the group, especially if the pet isn't in stealth (yes that happens even in group). since they don't tend to groupplay, there's active mini's additionally to be found now and then. [yes, even on thieves]

besides... most if not all serious Wvw players are multiclassing. the good guilds have this as average requirement, bc if someone loses connection, has to log off or cannot join a guildraid for personal reasons , you have a messed up composition. sometimes u even need to adapt on one class (if there is a Q), like dps guard swaps to firebrand. that's acutally the reason why dps guardian became more common in the end. Q's are the real problem of Wvw, not the crybaby classes that demand to be carried lol.

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IMO, a good commander can use anything you bring to him. Rangers and thieves have their place, even in a zerg. Pin sniping, harrasing backlines, flipping soft targets to prevent supply buildup, scouting.

If a tag won't use you due to your class, it's not a tag you want to run with as the best commanders are adaptable.

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@"corwin.8356" said:IMO, a good commander can use anything you bring to him. Rangers and thieves have their place, even in a zerg. Pin sniping, harrasing backlines, flipping soft targets to prevent supply buildup, scouting.

If a tag won't use you due to your class, it's not a tag you want to run with as the best commanders are adaptable.

Let's break that down, though:

  1. "pin sniping" — There is a ton of projectile denial in the current meta (part of why Hammer Herald and Wells Scourge became the favored DPS classes for ranged DPS), and commanders are running around in full Minstrel or Nomad with Stability, Protection, and personal Invuln. To the point that it's honestly not clear to me whether rangers+thieves would even make the best pin-sniping crew. (Also: when I was doing this stuff in 2013, we mostly weren't in squad and had our own comms set to listen-only with the main group: you wanted to hear their orders to time your movement but didn't want your burst coordination or chatter to get in the way of their comms.)
  2. "harassing backlines" — The hard frontline / soft backline thing isn't nearly as true as it was during the old "hammertrain" meta. "Clouding" shows us that this tactic isn't worthless, but honestly if your group is mostly boonball comp and their group is mostly boonball comp, half the time the only thing you're "harassing" is the random ranger on the other team.
  3. "flipping soft targets to prevent supply buildup" — If you're off on the other side of the map, there is no reason to have you in the squad. When the two groups coordinate with each other in map chat, that's cool and all, but it's no different from scouts and roamers feeding each other callouts. (Note that, on queued maps, bringing your 10-20 to "flip soft targets" may well be causing all your buds a world of frustration as they get rolled by a bigger or tighter-comped group. That's not so much a class problem as a strategy problem, though.)
  4. "scouting" — This is like 2 people on the whole map.

I love to kitten around the map as a thief but I think it's important to understand that coordination and tactics are a two-way street, not just something where I do whatever I want and some PUG blob driver who's trying to manage 40 people needs to figure out how to use me effectively, too.

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@"PrinceValentine.9320" said:I play ranger myself and I don't feel bad, maybe because I play Firebrand too. But I feel like, anet should do something about these classes so they get to be welcomed to squads too. What do you guys think?

Move to another server. I'm at Ruins of Surmia and I see messages like "Open tag on GBL, All welcome" every day.Usually commanders here are just happy to get players to cap and fight with them and bring supps to build sieges.

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Rangers do have a place in zergs.

Immobilize Soulbeast is strong in organized comps. DPS is good but its power really comes from its ability to immobilize multiple foes. When combined with a well organized group it performs well.

Heal Druid can match scrapper cleanse and healing but has less utility. It may not be quite as strong as Scrapper, but it's not as bad as many make it out to be. Glyph of the Stars can be clutch. Celestial Avatar recharge time is also 10 seconds in WvW; many seem to still think it's still 15 like PvP.

If you actually get on comms with your commander and actually listen and explain that you're playing Immob Beast or Heal Druid, you'll probably get accepted. I play those two builds on occasion with my servers commanders and I get placed into a subsquad like the other meta comps because they know what I'm using.

Overall, Rangers still hold some negative connotations and to me this seems to be due to the inability of the average pug ranger to actually play something useful in a zerg. The majority of them run around pew pewing with the Longbow which mostly gets reflected. The pet also being useless and interfering with stealthed pushes (when in combat) is a downside.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don’t really have an issue with it. I do think the hate towards these classes and the amount of verbal abuse they get on some servers is absurd. It doesn’t really happen on my server but I’ve been on other servers with my alt where it did happen, and that pisses me off. But just the fact that I’m not allowed to be in a squad as a thief doesn’t get to me, good chance I didn’t want to be in the squad to begin with. I only join squads with commanders I know and like, usually only with befriended commanders in a squad with a lot of people I know, and only so I can keep up with squad chat and the banter. When the squad is full I usually leave so someone else can have the spot. I’m usually either away from the tag and informing them on what’s happening on the border, or around the fight picking off loose targets. There’s no need for me to be in the squad. If I wanted to live the zergling life I would’ve chosen another class to main anyway.

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@"Teratus.2859" said:Not at all.

I actually feel more bad when I constantly reject squad or party invites because I would rather not take up a slot that someone who actually wants to be in a squad/party would take.I'm perfectly content running around on my own or following a Zerg and doing my own thing while they do theirs.

I will never be a high level competitive player, I don't enjoy that content enough to work for that so I'll not put myself in a position where I am constantly a hinderance on a group.So it's better I stay out of squads, do not actively take on a defined competitive role and just help them get kills and take out siege etc, and they don't have to worry about me if I fall behind or get downed either.

This. Plus, the few times I've joined a commanded group recently I've found the experience to be... very underwhelming, to say the least.

Back in 2012/2013 it wasn't easy to round up 300 gold to get the Commander tag, so people who had it either really liked the game mode, or were designated by their guilds as the "WvW leader". Regardless, if you ran the tag you usually knew what you were doing.

Nowadays, everyone seems to have hundreds (or thousands) of gold laying around, so any idiot who farms the trade post can buy a Commander tag (or that "Catmander" version, which is weirdly more common). Most Commanders on my server (that I've seen, at least) seem to have all of the tactical acumen of a five year-old playing hide and seek.

So yeah. I'm happy to hang on the fringe and just do my thing on my Ranger. And when I finish unlocking Scourge on my Necro I'll do the same thing (except I'll also hand out free barriers or buffs to anyone who happens to be standing near me).

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