What is the purpose of a ranger in game play?

[Deftones_Korn_Unloco]

Hey :)

One of my friends suggested the ranger to me as the ranger is his favourite profession, and thought it might be an good idea for me to have a taste of what playing the ranger is like. I thought, why not?

So I've been playing my ranger, and I must admit the profession is not as bad as I had percieved it to be. To be honest, I'm more of the caster type and furthermore, I have more experience with how a caster should play about the game. More specifically, I play as a monk, necromancer and elementalist most of the time and my experience with any melee profession is inadequate. This is where I hope to get guidance from players who have more experience with this profession, such as yourself.

Of course I'll be getting experience of the ranger; skills, play style and the differentiation of bows as I progress through the game and continue to level up. However, I do know from personal experience that you learn something new everyday and there is always something for you to learn, no matter what level of expertise you are.
If I can give an example of my own personal understanding of one of my favoured professions to play, the necromancer. My understanding so far is that the necromancer, through hexes, conditions, minions and wells can give added pressure against the opposing party by reducing their offensive and defensive potential. Similar to that of a mesmer, a necromancer forces the opposing party to change tactics, and often is the case that opposing players must change to being defensive, not offensive. Henceforth, your party can have greater opportunity to attack and futhermore add more pressure. (This is just personal understanding and can be different to others. Nothing more, nothing less).

This brings me closer to my original question. I'm not looking for a list of builds in every response, as we all know that there is already a thread for that and plenty of other threads that contains builds. That is not my intention for this thread, neither the purpose.
I'm looking for written out responses of what you think the purpose of the ranger is in terms of offensive and defensive play, through the use of skills, preparations, stances, bow attacks as opposed to traps and/or vice versa, and whatever else I've missed.
I can always search on GuildWiki, the Guild Wars Official website or even the little books put in the game boxes that you get when you buy the game, to read about the purpose of the ranger. However this is often a general explanation, and I rather get opinionated explanations from people who have experience of the profession.

Please excuse my somewhat letter long thread post. I tend to write, or in this case type a lot. :o

Thank you in advance. :)

[Aris the Accurate]

to go off of your explination of what a neco is, a ranger is a midline character that deals the majority of its dmg not by the numbers that show up on a hit, but by degeneration off mass amounts of enemies and hindering the foe through interupting their actions. Rangers can also use block stances (usualy natural stride, escape, or lightning reflexes) to make them harder to kill. add that to spirits that can be game changing if the enemy ignores them and you have what a ranger is today.

[poobert]

Consider a modern army as your basic Guild Wars team. You have your main battle tanks (warriors) your fighter bombers (eles) snipers (assassins) chemical Ali (necro) etc etc. The ranger would be your basic attack helecopter.

It can (techincally) cover both offense, defense, body guarding and lone play but not all at once. Unlike for example a warrior that is confined to either attack or defense or both.

That seems to cover everything, and in a way, like an attack helecopter, it does. You have your Read the wind/punishing shot/dual shot combos which do lots of ranged damage. Stances like whirling defence, dodge etc for your defense, skills like apply poison, cripshot hunters shot for slowing a team down (and protecting targets) and a range of other stuff.

Your average ranger would be one of the above, or more usually a combination of two and sometimes 3.

[BDZeres]

A ranger has survivability, mobility (and possibly mobility denial), skill denial and decent damage (via degen)

Take, for example, the classic cripshot ranger.

Cripshot controls mobility, a key factor in PvP. Arguably the best ranger elite since it was re-balanced recently (last couple months?).

Savage and Distracting deny key skills such as rez sigs which turn battles in your favor. These are the two best non-elite skills in the ranger profession and every ranger should take these on his/her bar (imo) ++ they are great fun to use ^_^

Apply Poision gives a cover condition and good degen. A great skill that adds cheap damage.

Nat Stride gives mobility and defense.
Mend touch takes care of conditions
Troll to regenerate health

<Utility/Damage/Rez slot>

A cripshot ranger in GvG would be expected to:
1) Snare targets on demand, especially warriors, monks and flaggers.
2) Interrupt key skills (usually defensive skills or hexes) on the enemy midline and backline.
3) Be ready to respond to a gank on your base or help gank the enemy base
4) Be ready to run a flag
5) Be ready to mend touch your midline and backline if they are under heavy condition pressure.

A ranger is keenly aware of his own positioning, as well as that of the enemy and his teammates, and is always watching out for key skills to interrupt. A distracting shot on the right skill ( a pre-nerf LoD for example, or diversion, ward against melee, aegis, bsurge, searing flames, avatars etc) can quickly turn the tide of a battle. Because of your relatively high armor (compared to a caster such as a mesmer) and defensive skills like natty stride and MT, a ranger can push into the frontline along with melee characters to help snare and interrupt, or can choose to stick in the midline and spread degen and cripple or can assist is ganks. Basically you are a high armor combination of a water ele, interrupt mesmer and an assassin.

Jack of all Trades, master of none is the ranger's motto. That and "Got a problem? D-shot it!" ^_^

Hope this helps.

PS: Rangers have one of the best primary attributes, Expertise. Take advantage of it!

[Joker]

In my experience ranger has no specific role to fill, but rather it can fulfill nearly any role. You can tank through stances, become a full on interrupter, deal massive single target DPS with a pet, trap enemies, change several diferent aspects of the game world through spirits, deal massive degen. The possibilities are endless, this is why ranger is my favorite class to play.

[Aris the Accurate]

dont say the word tanking..it makes me wana cry

[Div]

Stuff

Pretty nicely stated. Rangers are the most versatile class and can do a wide variety of things. However, if you're looking for huge numbers, fire eles are the way to go :P

[Deftones_Korn_Unloco]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to say that I really, really appreciate the responses that I've read so far. Everyone one of them has been very helpful, and just what I wanted to read. I definitely have a much better understanding of where the ranger's role lies within the game, so thank you very much for helping me with my queries.
Of course if anyone has more to add to what has already been said, please do, the more the merrier.

The direction I feel these responses are leading to, give me reason to believe that this profession is one that I may find quite interesting and fun to play; it certainly sounds that way from what I've read so far.

Again, if anyone has more to add, please don't hesitate, but I am very much grateful for what I've read so far. Thank you! ^_^

[Lhim]

The wide variety of uses of rangers really makes this profession stand out for me. It's easy to adapt to almost any given situation and any given existing party. And(as stated before) they are hard to kill; they have an AL of 70 with +20 vs Elemental Dmg, and they can use stances to avoid melee attacks as well.
Not mentioned before; rangers are particularly useful against bosses with their abilities to daze.

[Severlator]

Rangers seem to have a bit of everything such as damage, interupting, setting traps, inflicting conditions, making spirits and theres all the pet stuff to.