Guild Wars 2: The Ranger

[ETA new info x3; shoulda waited before posting, but, well, Ranger is usually my favorite profession, so...]

So, I'm a little surprised; the ranger doesn't have access to guns. However, they have access to more hand-to-hand and/or thrown weapons than I would've guessed. So there's that.

The article could use a bit more detail (it feels a little rushed, frankly) on how pets work, but it sounds as if basically by being a ranger, you can have a pet without compromising your other skills, having access to up to three pets and those pets having access to skills of their own. I hope that's truly the case; one of the more frustrating parts of playing a ranger in GW1 is trying to put together an effective skill bar that makes it worth taking the pet but still allows you personally to do much of anything except shoot things. I've got a bar I like with a couple variations on Xylia, especially now that I've got Heal as One (which gives a self+pet heal and lets the pet steal health with attacks for a while), but having more freedom is something I'm looking forward to.

I'm less happy about this:

"Hi, I'm a ranger, and these are my tits."

I seriously still cannot believe the lead character designer is a freakin' woman. Thanks, lady, for continuing to keep women's armor in games ridiculously revealing. Sheesh.

I do see a couple other versions of armor that aren't quite as boobtacular, although they all have some cleavage visible. But seriously, what does it take? Do I need to win the lottery and make my own game to have functional armor for women? Again: sheesh.

Anyhow, what else? Oh, they're keeping traps, and it looks like the torch might have some trap skills. And they get a really cool warhorn skill that summons birds to attack one's enemy, which I will definitely want to use sometimes. And they're keeping "nature spirits", which are highly underused in GW1 due to how long they take to cast and how easily they're killed. Hopefully they'll be more robust in GW2.

So, weapons: No rifles or pistols, but both longbow and shortbow, main hand sword and axe, off-hand axe and dagger (plus torch and warhorn), and, interestingly enough, the greatsword. Didn't expect that last one at all, as much as I was pretty sure they'd get a regular sword. The axe skills will definitely be throwing-axe related; the dagger may be as well judging from the available skill videos.

Confirmed by Anet: rangers get two weapon sets to swap between. The pet management is their equivalent of adrenaline or attunement as far as the place it occupies. Pets will be directable much like GW1's versions, although it looks as if they have a few more controls this time around to be a little more precise. No idea on whether or not their skills are triggerable or used automatically by the pet, though.

Pets actually have some actual differences, now. Pet-variant-specific skills, for instance. Moas get party buffs; polar bears get a different skill variant from regular brown bears. That's going to make it more important that we can store pets IMO, so I really do hope we hear some good news on that soon.

Overall I guess I'm satisfied with how they developed the GW2 version. I would've liked to see rangers have gun use, and I'm not sure how they can be called "masters of ranged combat" without it, but I like bows, so I'm not too disappointed. I feel I can safely remake Xylia as a GW2 character to be the inheritor of whatever I get into the GW1 Hall of Monuments, though, which is the important part.