Guild Wars 2

Chrispy.5641:

Can we wait for what exactly the patch notes say atleast?

You’re not serious are you?

If they had said changes ready, they would have been touting them ages ago. This is just another case of ANet dangling a nonexistent carrot.

Flytrap.8075:

Chrispy.5641:

Can we wait for what exactly the patch notes say atleast?

You’re not serious are you?

If they had said changes ready, they would have been touting them ages ago. This is just another case of ANet dangling a nonexistent carrot.

Thank goodness for that, since I’m not really a fan of carrots! Now, if that was a double fudge chocolate chip cookie they were dangling, then I’d be a little mad!

Durzlla.6295:

You’ve gotta be joking…. The 3 skill on axe alone maintains perma weakness on a target, which hurts direct damage quite significantly, not to mention it also applies 3s of chill making it very easy to get in and out of Melee range to land split blades, AND it increases their CDs by 66%, this also affects mobs in PvE but I’d doubt you’d know that cause damage is all that matters.

Also, that word Kiting, I don’t think you know what it means, by definition Melee weapons wouldn’t be good at, nor would they WANT to kite, they’d wanna have a snare or a leap or both so they can keep up with the guy kiting them sure, but they wouldn’t want to actually kite.

And? You wont win a fight with applying weakness. Most weapons will still deal more damage, even with weakness applied. And 3 secs. chill? So their cooldown will be at 5 secs instead of 3? Yeah, looks pretty OP… not. This is the one and only condition you would want to remove if you’re playing vs. a MH axe ranger.
There is just the bleed as damaging condition, which you probably wont apply all 5 bleeds onto an enemy. Also, the damage isn’t high enugh whatsoever to use offensive sigils. And yeah, damage is all that matters for a weapon who is neither defensive nor supportive.
It’s not like I want to say MH axe is unusable, I’ve seen some rangers killing opponents with the axe. But it’s by far the weakest weapon aviable to the ranger

No notes about them beefing up pets or anything at all to help them survive against heavy aoe whether it be WvW or PVE bosses.

The only “super awesome” pet change was the F2 ability and the pet not standing around upon summoning.

That’s really it. Did I miss it some where? I’ll be stoked if I did or if they revamped them some other way that’s not in the notes?

Loxsus.3841:

No notes about them beefing up pets or anything at all to help them survive against heavy aoe whether it be WvW or PVE bosses.

The only “super awesome” pet change was the F2 ability and the pet not standing around upon summoning.

That’s really it. Did I miss it some where? I’ll be stoked if I did or if they revamped them some other way that’s not in the notes?

All pet things seem more responsive. I press F1, it attacks, instead of stupidly staying there, I press F2, it launches, I press F3, the pet comes back instead of staying in that AoE…
I still wish for a trigger to attack / attack new target / come back on F1 and aoe targetting on F3 for positionning, but I love being able to get the pet to do somewhat I want, when I want.
Big and welcomed change.

Been able to keep the pet alive in most 25 people’s bus encounters that our side won, which was impossible before.

I also have the impression that (at least the drakes) are less wandering around than they used to (stay closer to me), except in one or two occasions.
Still not making us great for teamplay, but it opens up some interesting possibilities.

Pets are def more responsive, and it’s pretty kitten fun. I ran a bunch of spvp matches tonight with guildies and that wolf fear was poppin off in a second or less instead of 2-10. I’m sure I was annoying ppl by clearing points, grabbin the cap, and saving myself and others from spikes. It just works, and it felt great.

Jaysin X.6740:

Pets are def more responsive, and it’s pretty kitten fun. I ran a bunch of spvp matches tonight with guildies and that wolf fear was poppin off in a second or less instead of 2-10. I’m sure I was annoying ppl by clearing points, grabbin the cap, and saving myself and others from spikes. It just works, and it felt great.

haha i’m doing worse than i normally am because i keep firing off my F2’s expecting a 10s delay, gonna take some getting used to, but my god is this going to allow for some clutch plays to take place!! I know early i feared a warrior mid earth shaker, and immobed a thief mid heart seeker, it was absolutely GLORIOUS!!

Yup, this made a lot of difference. I think if ANet could find a way to make AE in WvW a little more manageable we’d finally have a real, functional class mechanic.

Hopefully down the road they’ll do a pass to improve some of the lackluster ones and reconsider our ability to control the secondary skills, but the F2 responsiveness change has certainly made a huge improvement overall.

wow, amazing patch

i’m going mad

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

Flytrap.8075:

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

That is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

That is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.

I agree. Left the game to play Titanfall and cameback yesterday and the pets are “working” now. If ANet manages to make pets hit moving targets better and improve weapons/utilities by the end of the year Rangers would be perfect.

Prysin.8542:

The ranger is now in a very good spot.

We must not be playing the same game.

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

That is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.

Pets still don’t scale with your armor or wepons. Pets still eat up your damage.
They just fixed the utility part about the pets. However, their main prupose, to deal damage, is still flawed.
And the ferocity change hit. We’re now at a disadvantage to all classes who have strong conditions. And I think it was stated often enough that 3/5 new traits are simply garbage.
So yes, we must be at a very good spot… /sarcasm

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

That is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.

Pets still don’t scale with your armor or wepons. Pets still eat up your damage.
They just fixed the utility part about the pets. However, their main prupose, to deal damage, is still flawed.
And the ferocity change hit. We’re now at a disadvantage to all classes who have strong conditions. And I think it was stated often enough that 3/5 new traits are simply garbage.
So yes, we must be at a very good spot… /sarcasm

The more you post the more I realize you have very little grasp on this game, pets “main purpose” isn’t damage, if you want a zerker geared pet to match your armor take a cat, grab companions might and 30 in BM and you’ve got an absolute killing machine.

Also, we’ve always been one of the best condi classes in the game so cut the crap, we can apply every condi in the game minus torment and confusion with ease and excess not to mention if you’re going for raw damage we’re your man because we have the strongest poison in the game which will put us ahead of necros in damage easy since we can bleed just as well as they can and apply a lot more burning than them, sure they’ll beat us in damage briefly when terror is ticking, but that’s not a very common occurrence.

Also, the advantage of pets is the fact that they don’t scale with our weapons and armor, sure it’d be nice to have, say a zerker bear or a tankier Moa, but so what? If you want a glass cannon pet we have 2, if you want a tankier AoE damage “bruiser” pet we’ve got one, if you want control pets we’ve got them, condi? Got it, sustained damage? Got it, etc.

So quit your kittening about non existent problems and learn the game, you’re contributing nothing to this thread but the spreading of false and misinformed information and there’s enough of that as is.

Durzlla.6295:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever change

That is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.

Pets still don’t scale with your armor or wepons. Pets still eat up your damage.
They just fixed the utility part about the pets. However, their main prupose, to deal damage, is still flawed.
And the ferocity change hit. We’re now at a disadvantage to all classes who have strong conditions. And I think it was stated often enough that 3/5 new traits are simply garbage.
So yes, we must be at a very good spot… /sarcasm

The more you post the more I realize you have very little grasp on this game, pets “main purpose” isn’t damage, if you want a zerker geared pet to match your armor take a cat, grab companions might and 30 in BM and you’ve got an absolute killing machine.

Also, we’ve always been one of the best condi classes in the game so cut the crap, we can apply every condi in the game minus torment and confusion with ease and excess not to mention if you’re going for raw damage we’re your man because we have the strongest poison in the game which will put us ahead of necros in damage easy since we can bleed just as well as they can and apply a lot more burning than them, sure they’ll beat us in damage briefly when terror is ticking, but that’s not a very common occurrence.

Also, the advantage of pets is the fact that they don’t scale with our weapons and armor, sure it’d be nice to have, say a zerker bear or a tankier Moa, but so what? If you want a glass cannon pet we have 2, if you want a tankier AoE damage “bruiser” pet we’ve got one, if you want control pets we’ve got them, condi? Got it, sustained damage? Got it, etc.

So quit your kittening about non existent problems and learn the game, you’re contributing nothing to this thread but the spreading of false and misinformed information and there’s enough of that as is.

Simply lol. All you’ve mentioned got discussed before. So if it’s not the main purpose of the pet to deal damage, what is it then? The F2 skill? Why do we get a damagepenalty if our pet isn’t primary supposed to deal damage? Your arguments are obsolete by any means.
The armorscaling is indeed a problem. You can run a cat all day, but if it dies within 2 seconds, your whole damage is gone. Period.
And did the pets got a damagebuff when ascended stats were introduced? No they didn’t. So since all run with ascended stats now, we lose even more damage.
Ah yes, the great “invest points in BM” argument again. Why do I have to invest points into something to get it work?
And yes, we have now the strongest poison in game. Sadly, we can’t utilize it. The trait you require has no place in the current builds. Furthermore, the ranger has 18 differnet sources of poison, yes. But 14 of them are bound to pets.
And yes, you’re right again, we got nearly all conditions. But why do I never see a condi ranger? Ah, I remember, we suck at stacking conditions. Seriously, I see more condi warriors than condi rangers.

So all in all, you should read the forums more before you start to argue with things which has been discussed long ago. I know what the ranger can do and what he can’t. He can do what you’ve said he can do. But he can’t be effective with that. Period.

I often don’t know what’s worse… the sky is falling crowd or the everything is fine crowd?

One of the best condi classes? I certainly wouldn’t rank Ranger above Necro or Engi. At the condi game, we’re better than Warriors, but at a class level a condi Warrior is more valuable than the Ranger. So 4th place isn’t ‘one of the best’. My opinion only of course.

I do somewhat agree with you on the pet issue and scaling though. Non scaling pets have the advantage of being more flexible because we can use any pet we want regardless of the spec we use. The downside is the lack of verticle progression and the fact that pets never really improve beyond their base level either. So it’s really a matter of opinion which you would prefer. I’d argue scaling pets would be more valuable to the class and game overall though.

And this class has a very obvious defficiency when it comes to power builds and ranged combat overall. When you consider the overwhelming majority of Rangers probably made the class to be a power oriented bow user, you can see why the vast majority of feedback this class receives from the player community is negative overall.

There’s also the simple fact that this class is universally despised by pretty much every non-ranger player in WvW. I certainly don’t buy into it being a grand conspiracy theory or that the Ranger class attracted all the baddies. Someone would have been able to theorycraft a viable role for the class to fill that was meaningful and valuable to the group if it existed.

The sky isn’t falling, no. But the class isn’t ‘ok’ either.

Atherakhia.4086:

I often don’t know what’s worse… the sky is falling crowd or the everything is fine crowd?

There’s also the simple fact that this class is universally despised by pretty much every non-ranger player in WvW. I certainly don’t buy into it being a grand conspiracy theory or that the Ranger class attracted all the baddies. Someone would have been able to theorycraft a viable role for the class to fill that was meaningful and valuable to the group if it existed.

In the beginning the ranger hate was surely just. No argument there. I mean, before we got a blast finisher, regen on shouts and better spirits, our group utility in WvW was the worst ever. Thing is, the ranger stayed “horrible in zergs” for so long that people simply haven’t paid it any attention in any patches. More and more often, i hear players say “i used to play a ranger, but after they nerfed X thing i rolled something else. How are they doing now?”. And when i tell them what has been changed, what has been nerfed, what has been buffed, most of them decides to relog their ranger and try it again.. So far, this month, i have had over 25 cases where iv’e talked to random people and they go “What? rangers can do that now?”.
People are NOT AWARE of what we can or cannot do. People have grown accustomed to ignoring the whole class to the point where they do not even bother to theorycraft it anymore, they simply do not see the point.

There is also another aspect of this problem. Many of the most vocal players here on the forums play in NA, after spending 2 months in NA iv’e noticed a few things, biggest of all is the complete inability to accept change. The NA WvW meta will not change anytime soon unless there is cataclysmic changes in balance. This further puts the ranger in a bad light, as it has gotten most of its buffs extremely slowly. A piece here, and some months later another piece there. Slowly the ranger has been built up to where it is now.

The ranger we got today, is more then capable of competing with most classes, GRANTED, that you know how to play the ranger. Some classes is easier, that is for sure, and ranger is very hard to play at max capacity. There is no biggie playing a ranger and just tagging/killing stuff in a zerg. It is perhaps the easiest class for that job as you can just mindlessly sit back and press “protect me” whenever puppies hit the fan and let your bear take the punishment.

You must distinguish what the class is able to and what YOU are able to before you say it sucks. If you are bad at dodging/reading animations, then that does not translate to “the class is squishy”. It translates to L2P. Just because you, the player, are not skilled enough to pull it off, does not mean the class does not have potential.

Also, when it comes to situational utilities, ranger is king. Sure you can swap your traits for free out of combat, and if you’re like me who have perma bank access you can swap builds on the fly with any class, but that is tedious. A ranger can, and with the nearly perfectly working pets, just change the pet to something else to get the utility you or your group desire.

Need condi cleanse? Grab a brown bear. Need AOE damage? grab a murwellow or lightning drake. Need boons? get a moa. Need conditions? Lynx, Devourers, Spiders, Drakes.

The rangers performance changes a lot depending on pet, using the correct one is key and matters a lot more then having just a solid build.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

- snip -

seriously? Is that how you see it?

Excuse me for asking, but do you play on Vabbi or Underworld??

Prysin.8542:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

- snip -

seriously? Is that how you see it?

Excuse me for asking, but do you play on Vabbi or Underworld??

Yes, that’s how I see the ranger. I know that the ranger can be a good 1v1 class and there are many videos proving this. Most of those videos however are just kiting the enemies to death. There is no great “making plays” like you can with the thief.
I’m pretty sure that a well played ranger would lose to almost all other well played classes (eles excluded).
The ranger suffers from inconsistency. The pet as whole is a inconsistent factor.
Just because you can kill someone with your pet doesn’t make it good.
ANet can buff the pet until you can compete with other classes damagewise, even if the pet doesn’t hit all the time. Then however the pet becomes OP if you can snare your enemy. The pet will never be “intelligent”. I just saw my Moa screaming at an Arrow Cart, trying to stack vulnerability.
The arrows are the next big inconsistency, they can be kited very easily. You can now trait those arrows to fly faster, but this only leads to the next inconsistency. The trais the ranger has are a mess. You have 6 traits for 2 slots you would want to take as LB ranger. Also, most traits who either apply to the LB or the SB should apply to both bows. There is no point why you have an “Eagle Eye” while using a LB, but when you’re using a SB. Furthermore, we have many traits who either strengthen us or our pet but, for the most part, not us both.
The shortbow has to hit from behind to apply bleed stacks. That’s another inconsistency. The MH axe is only “strong” if you can hit 3 enemies. That’s also an inconsistency. The sword is good but suffers from the AA chain. Yet another inconsistency.
All in all, the ranger would be good, if not too good if he wouldn’t suffer from his poor mechanics.

Okay, some misconceptions, Rangers, with the right weaponset, can easily maintain Poison and bleeding better than Engis, and against necros, we can apply more stacks at a time and maintain a more consistently high stack of bleeds against a target with cleanses than a necro, and maintain poison easier.

Necros can achieve higher bleed stacks than us and their bleeds to stack “better,” but nowhere near the time frame (meaning that we hit more stacks faster, but that the necro eventually passes our stacking abilities).

Engis maintain better burning than us. Period. But can’t poison or bleed anywhere near the amount that we can. They have a heavy reliance on confusion to even balance out their condition damaging abilities.

We are limited to Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch for all these comparisons though, so that is the one thing to keep in mind, but we definitely do better on a single target than either engis or necros. I wouldn’t even consider them top tier condition damage builds anymore, they just AoE spam better. If anything, condi thieves and condi mesmers are the 2 classes that either equal or surpass us at conditions. Warriors are very much like their 100b counter part, extremely one trick pony and predictable on their condi builds.

I can turn this into an actual number comparison calculation if I need to. But I’m only going to do it on request.

Anyhow, next point.

@HHR;

Weapons were never intended to be designed in this game so that one set could provide every functionality you possibly need. The game was intentionally designed in a way that forces you to compliment one weapon set with another weapon set in order to be as effective as possible. Axe is actually an incredible condition damage weapon. It is better than the shortbow in every single way as far as condition application is concerned, and when combined with a dagger or torch, and then with another weapon set that also provides in combat mobility and enemy CC, you end up with a weaponset that isn’t “ranged” or “melee,” but a skirmishing set.

Take Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch again. You literally control the flow of combat. You have a strong amount of enemy CC, and can dance in and out of combat doing damage on a whim. I know you’re anecdotal experience suggests otherwise, but if need be, I will find some examples of how powerful the weapon can be in the right players hands.

jcbroe.4329:

Okay, some misconceptions, Rangers, with the right weaponset, can easily maintain Poison and bleeding better than Engis, and against necros, we can apply more stacks at a time and maintain a more consistently high stack of bleeds against a target with cleanses than a necro, and maintain poison easier.

Necros can achieve higher bleed stacks than us and their bleeds to stack “better,” but nowhere near the time frame (meaning that we hit more stacks faster, but that the necro eventually passes our stacking abilities).

Take Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch again. You literally control the flow of combat. You have a strong amount of enemy CC, and can dance in and out of combat doing damage on a whim. I know you’re anecdotal experience suggests otherwise, but if need be, I will find some examples of how powerful the weapon can be in the right players hands.

Poison however doesn’t deal much damage. A few stacks of bleeding or burning in general will out-damage even our “strongest” poison. So the new trait we got, which strengthen our poison doesn’t has that much of an impact. Apart from that I can’t really talk about the condition capability of the ranger since I rarely run those setups.
What I can say, however, is that the axe serves a very specific purpose and this purpose alone. It can be compared with the warrior MH mace, which offers a lot of CC’s but not much more. The difference between the warrior and the ranger is that the warrior can use a much larger variety of weapons. The ranger however gets cut pretty harsh. The SB is betwixt and between being a power or a conditionweapon. It’s not even a good hybrid weapon. The SB however has a very clear kit and I think it would take only small adjustments to realy make it a viable weapon.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

Okay, some misconceptions, Rangers, with the right weaponset, can easily maintain Poison and bleeding better than Engis, and against necros, we can apply more stacks at a time and maintain a more consistently high stack of bleeds against a target with cleanses than a necro, and maintain poison easier.

Necros can achieve higher bleed stacks than us and their bleeds to stack “better,” but nowhere near the time frame (meaning that we hit more stacks faster, but that the necro eventually passes our stacking abilities).

Take Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch again. You literally control the flow of combat. You have a strong amount of enemy CC, and can dance in and out of combat doing damage on a whim. I know you’re anecdotal experience suggests otherwise, but if need be, I will find some examples of how powerful the weapon can be in the right players hands.

Poison however doesn’t deal much damage. A few stacks of bleeding or burning in general will out-damage even our “strongest” poison. So the new trait we got, which strengthen our poison doesn’t has that much of an impact. Apart from that I can’t really talk about the condition capability of the ranger since I rarely run those setups.
What I can say, however, is that the axe serves a very specific purpose and this purpose alone. It can be compared with the warrior MH mace, which offers a lot of CC’s but not much more. The difference between the warrior and the ranger is that the warrior can use a much larger variety of weapons. The ranger however gets cut pretty harsh. The SB is betwixt and between being a power or a conditionweapon. It’s not even a good hybrid weapon. The SB however has a very clear kit and I think it would take only small adjustments to realy make it a viable weapon.

Poison’s purpose isn’t necessarily to do damage as much as it is to suppress healing though, and that’s where you see it’s biggest impact. A well timed poison or an uncleansed poison can easily through a fight in your favor. Most classes base heals don’t cleanse, and only heal for around 5-6.5k base. Take 33% percent of that and it can swing fights in your favor or further steamroll ones you were already winning.

I respect your opinion though, and understand where you’re coming from. It certainly isn’t the most ideal design I can come up with either.

jcbroe.4329:

Poison’s purpose isn’t necessarily to do damage as much as it is to suppress healing though, and that’s where you see it’s biggest impact. A well timed poison or an uncleansed poison can easily through a fight in your favor. Most classes base heals don’t cleanse, and only heal for around 5-6.5k base. Take 33% percent of that and it can swing fights in your favor or further steamroll ones you were already winning.

I respect your opinion though, and understand where you’re coming from. It certainly isn’t the most ideal design I can come up with either.

That’s indeed true, I’ve nothing to add exept that this proves how bad the new “poison master” trait is.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

Okay, some misconceptions, Rangers, with the right weaponset, can easily maintain Poison and bleeding better than Engis, and against necros, we can apply more stacks at a time and maintain a more consistently high stack of bleeds against a target with cleanses than a necro, and maintain poison easier.

Necros can achieve higher bleed stacks than us and their bleeds to stack “better,” but nowhere near the time frame (meaning that we hit more stacks faster, but that the necro eventually passes our stacking abilities).

Take Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch again. You literally control the flow of combat. You have a strong amount of enemy CC, and can dance in and out of combat doing damage on a whim. I know you’re anecdotal experience suggests otherwise, but if need be, I will find some examples of how powerful the weapon can be in the right players hands.

Poison however doesn’t deal much damage. A few stacks of bleeding or burning in general will out-damage even our “strongest” poison. So the new trait we got, which strengthen our poison doesn’t has that much of an impact. Apart from that I can’t really talk about the condition capability of the ranger since I rarely run those setups.
What I can say, however, is that the axe serves a very specific purpose and this purpose alone. It can be compared with the warrior MH mace, which offers a lot of CC’s but not much more. The difference between the warrior and the ranger is that the warrior can use a much larger variety of weapons. The ranger however gets cut pretty harsh. The SB is betwixt and between being a power or a conditionweapon. It’s not even a good hybrid weapon. The SB however has a very clear kit and I think it would take only small adjustments to realy make it a viable weapon.

Warrior can use more weapons, but are not neccessarily exceptionally good with any of em.

Prysin.8542:

Warrior can use more weapons, but are not neccessarily exceptionally good with any of em.

Neither is the ranger. The warrior atleast can fulfill nearly every purpose you need him to fulfill.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

[…]

I will just repost my suggestion regarding axe and torch. I don’t try to lower the condition part of the weapons but I want to give them some use outside of that.

Axe

So here are my suggestions:

Axe #1:
Change the autoattack to melee with higher damage output
Axe #2:
Combine old Axe #2 and #4, so you got an AoE pull which pulls all enemies hit.
Axe #3:
I’m kinda ok with this attack.
Axe #4:
This will be the old axe #1. So you can choose between melee and ranged attacks.
Axe #5:
It’s ok, but it could be stronger. The reflected damage could be doubled, the cooldown lowered or the range increased.

If you don’t like the suggestion of the mainhand melee axe, you could switch axe #1 and axe #4.

Torch

Make the torch to a mainhand weapon.
Torch #1:
Simply like every other autoattackchain.
It could inflict burning, though.
Torch #2:
I’ve got two ideas so far:
Either you hit one enemy which will cause him to stack burning like warrior sword #4 stacks tornment and leave a firetrail
or this attack will be an explofinisher.
Torch #3:
This one will be a firefield wich either stacks burning or deals a flat amount of damage to enemies within the radius.

So, a quick post patch analysis. As I predicted ahead and bought runes of rage for the anticipation of Survival of the Fittest, I can honestly say that a longbow 30/0/10/30/0 build as a long range single target DPS with air/fire sigils works incredibly beyond what I could have imagined for it. I might get a more consistent damage output with runes of the ranger though, so I’ll see.

Ultimately, I am very happy with Survival of the fittest and I think that it has opened the possibility to a few builds that would not have worked otherwise prepatch.

I especially enjoy invigorating bond. I mean, until I playtest it more, I won’t have a perfect grasp on how well the trait is truly performing, but in a particular perma-chill build I successfully theorycrafted in anticipation to the patch with great results, I’d have to say that particular DPS melee pets that had trouble keeping up with speed boosted opponents have now become melt machines because of the chill, in a build that I have had people message me in game telling me I’m “hacking” and “unkillable.”

So overall, I’m quite happy with those results hahaha. Obviously, the more disappointing trait is Strider’s Defense, but hey, we can’t all be winners I guess. The last thing the Skirmishing traitline needed was another trait that makes me scratch my head and wonder why I would invest points into Skirmishing for it, but the other changes allow to me to overlook the many, many flaws of the Skirmishing traitline at this moment.

The other one I’m becoming more and more disappointed by is Poison Master. I stand by everything I said in other threads about the GM and it’s effect being as strong as I stated it was. However, it has extremely unfortunate placement that almost demands in certain game modes that it be paired with Survival of the Fittest. Now, I’ve played a few different versions of the build I’m suggesting (x/x/30/30/x), but I’m just not in love with it mostly because it feels like there are far better, or more active things I can combine with Survival of the Fittest than it. I can run a Longbow build to great effect, I can put 30 into beastmastery and make a monster of a condi tank build with a highly damaging pet, or I can even continue to run the same trait spread and pick up Empathic Bond as well, making myself almost immune to conditions.

So it isn’t that it’s lackluster at all. Actually, I just don’t find it to be all that interesting in the line up of all the other shiny nice things. It definitely has it’s place though. I watched a particular ranger during a post patch tournament running a 20/0/20/30/0 build, opting to go for Piercing Arrows on a Carrion/Forge build, and the entire time I was bugged by the selecting thinking about how much more useful Poison Master would have been on the build and to their team instead of being able to pierce in games where there weren’t even that many spirit ranger builds, so that there actually wasn’t much body blocking to speak of.

It also works decently in a 0/0/30/30/10 build because you pet swap and get might from mighty swap and then further boost up your poison and condi output all around.

Oh, for all you theorycrafters out there, Sigil of Battle + Mighty Swap + Runes of Strength.

So those are some of my thoughts so far.

jcbroe.4329:

So, a quick post patch analysis. As I predicted ahead and bought runes of rage for the anticipation of Survival of the Fittest, I can honestly say that a longbow 30/0/10/30/0 build as a long range single target DPS with air/fire sigils works incredibly beyond what I could have imagined for it. I might get a more consistent damage output with runes of the ranger though, so I’ll see.

I’ve played a 30/30/10 LB/GS zerker build and your tactic didn’t worked out for me. Yes, both sigils will burst a good amount but they trigger far too rarely to make up for the 1k critdamage I deal less now.

I actually had the feeling prepatch that I could kill people with my LB if they don’t instagib me. Now it’s like “hey I’m shooting at you, did you notice?” again…

So, have all the doomsday prophets gone back in the shadows from whence they came? Is it safe to come out and talk about how awesome the Ranger is again?

jcbroe.4329:

So, a quick post patch analysis. As I predicted ahead and bought runes of rage for the anticipation of Survival of the Fittest, I can honestly say that a longbow 30/0/10/30/0 build as a long range single target DPS with air/fire sigils works incredibly beyond what I could have imagined for it. I might get a more consistent damage output with runes of the ranger though, so I’ll see.

I tested it. I prefer Ranger runes because the damage is overall higher. If you’re not investing in Skirmishing at all, then Rage runes are better because of the fury and extra duration.

Chrispy.5641:

So, have all the doomsday prophets gone back in the shadows from whence they came? Is it safe to come out and talk about how awesome the Ranger is again?

I would still say that the pet is messed up, and I will continue to say so as long as the pet is meant to deal damage or the AI ain’t godlike.
As for the condition part, I would say it has been stated often enough that the ranger is on par with other classes. We are even indirectly called as “unbeatable 1v1 conditionbunker”, along with engies and eles.
As for the power part, I’m still not convinced that the new traits will help us much there. As I have said already, RTW is highly situational and can be made useless by simply closing up to the ranger.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Chrispy.5641:

So, have all the doomsday prophets gone back in the shadows from whence they came? Is it safe to come out and talk about how awesome the Ranger is again?

I would still say that the pet is messed up, and I will continue to say so as long as the pet is meant to deal damage or the AI ain’t godlike.
As for the condition part, I would say it has been stated often enough that the ranger is on par with other classes. We are even indirectly called as “unbeatable 1v1 conditionbunker”, along with engies and eles.
As for the power part, I’m still not convinced that the new traits will help us much there. As I have said already, RTW is highly situational and can be made useless by simply closing up to the ranger.

All good points, but

I would actually thank the pet for having seperate stats than we do, because the critical damage nerf affected us the least out of any class. When you actually invest in the pet, its damage output can go from 30% of our total to 50% of our total (and sometimes more), and since its damage wasn’t nerfed, we suffered only half as bad as everyone else.

Its also their seperate stats that makes us so powerful with Condition builds, and while their seperate stats makes us suffer when it comes to power builds, its because most Rangers feel that they don’t need to invest in the pet, and it should automatically mean that they be dealing the same damage as a Warrior….(and to that I will always say…“Lol…what?”)

As far as the new traits go, Here’s my thoughts and opinions….

Read the Wind is awesome in WvW when shooting enemies at longer ranges, which is the entire point of the trait, to have supreme accuracy at long range, which we do over any other profession with this trait.

Strider’s Defense is kind of useless in almost every single situation, because of RNG, and its entirely passive, which is never good for defensive traits. I haven’t finished testing it yet to see if it actually has a use at all.

• It would have been more interesting (and more synergetic) if, for example, Strider’s Defense gives us (and possibly Allies) Protection at the same time we grant Swiftness, which has immediate combo potential (for us atleast) with our Tail Wind Trait. It would also work with Storm Spirit, Call of the Wild, Nature’s Voice, etc.

Poison Master, doesn’t seem very powerful (the extra damage is equal to about 1 stack of bleed, no matter what your condition damage is). I use it because any amount of damage (especially from easy access to poison) is more than enough for me, and I like investing in damage more than survival anyways.

Survival of the Fittest…..yeah, other people have said it better already, but I don’t like saying those 2 words. I suggest that people stop saying that phrase so openly before Anet catches on, and decides to nerf it with an internal cooldown or something of that type!

Invigorating Bond has its uses. I just haven’t found them yet. I have experimented with the healing amounts, and I have seen it top out near 2500 healing at 2000 healing power. If I ever dust off my support build, I might see how it works in group/zerg situations.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I would still say that the pet is messed up, and I will continue to say so as long as the pet is meant to deal damage or the AI ain’t godlike.

As I have said already, RTW is highly situational and can be made useless by simply closing up to the ranger.

your opinions do not match my experiences. i would say pets are very effective. their cc and applied dps are much better and f2’s activate reliably all of the time (so far). you simply cant ignore the pet any more. for example, my raven’s f2 downed some poor hambow with a 3.5k crit because he was completely ignoring it. the bird was on him constantly. if the enemy focuses the pet, i will continue unloading from a safe distance.

RTW is game-changing for LB rangers. it’s useful for every situation if youre using LB properly (i.e. from max distance), therefore not situational. RTW increases applied dps of the LB, which is laser-accurate with the trait.

anyway, Poison Master looks very interesting to me because you can keep applying poison to a target over and over again. so if your team wants someone dead, you will keep it perma poisoned with this trait. the damage bonus isnt what’s important. it comes down to the frequency of application because everyone cleanses. i tested it briefly and i see it as an interesting Mortal Strike mechanic (referring to WoW). it can work with power and condi specs.

the only GM that was a complete blunder is Strider’s Defense. not sure what they were thinking with that one, or maybe im just missing something. it looks so bad on paper that i havent even bothered to test it.

jcbroe.4329:

Survival of the Fittest, I can honestly say that a longbow 30/0/10/30/0 build as a long range single target DPS with air/fire sigils works incredibly beyond what I could have imagined for it.

Now, I’ve played a few different versions of the build I’m suggesting (x/x/30/30/x),

It also works decently in a 0/0/30/30/10 build because you pet swap and get might
Oh, for all you theorycrafters out there, Sigil of Battle + Mighty Swap + Runes of Strength.

yes to all of the above. lots of new toys to play with. ive been so busy wrecking people with 30/0/10/30/0 that i havent had the time to properly test some of the interesting BM and Poison Master builds. I agree that SOTF creates many new opportunities for us. im very excited about BM though, as pets are very deadly now, at least in spvp.

i would also like to add that for once, i finally feel we have enough tools to work with, and the only thing holding me back is my level of skill. i never felt this way about the ranger before.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

jcbroe.4329:

So, a quick post patch analysis. As I predicted ahead and bought runes of rage for the anticipation of Survival of the Fittest, I can honestly say that a longbow 30/0/10/30/0 build as a long range single target DPS with air/fire sigils works incredibly beyond what I could have imagined for it. I might get a more consistent damage output with runes of the ranger though, so I’ll see.

I’ve played a 30/30/10 LB/GS zerker build and your tactic didn’t worked out for me. Yes, both sigils will burst a good amount but they trigger far too rarely to make up for the 1k critdamage I deal less now.

I actually had the feeling prepatch that I could kill people with my LB if they don’t instagib me. Now it’s like “hey I’m shooting at you, did you notice?” again…

Both of mine proc at the same time literally about once every 12 seconds, and they proc separately 2-3 times each within that time frame. I mean, I run with a build that isn’t nearly a glass build and the dual proc nets me a 4-5k autoattack. On a glass PvP build (the only glass build I can speak for) the dual proc hits for 4.5k-6k total on an autoattack.

I mean, on a near unavoidable 1500 range weapon, that’s as powerful as it gets I think, outside of maybe killshot, which is NOT an autoattack.

Granted that the longbow functions nowhere near how a “true” burst weapon would function in that the cooldown skills don’t really net much more DPS than the autoattack, I’d say that I don’t think I can achieve the consistently high damage output at 1500 range on any of my other 80s that my ranger achieves now, and I honestly don’t think I could make any other classes hit as hard with as little effort.

I do have more time logged in PvP though, so maybe because the critical damage wasn’t really affected all that much in PvP, I don’t really notice the change as much as other people. Even then though, every class is feeling the change equally, not just rangers.

Still, I can only offer my perspective on it, I can’t factually state anything other than providing screenshots if need be to back the number range I used, which isn’t necessarily needed in order to form an opinion or perspective on what I’m stating.

While this is the first time I have been happy post patch as a Ranger and feel like I have a lot of new toys to play with and a couple of new viable builds (mostly thanks to SoTF as I am not sold on Poison master yet and haven’t tried Invigorating Bond) this has mostly benefited us in PvP and small scale WvW. Places where the changes were needed/appreciated but not exactly our weakest points. In dungeons and large scale WvW the pet is still a dead weight dragging us down.

Also sorry but rtw should not be a trait, no other weapon in the game needs a GM trait to actually be usable. At the very least it should be rolled into something like Eagle eye.

Still this is the first patch to fill me with hope as they have actually manged to do something that has helped fixed the pets and they didn’t hit us with any unneeded head scratching nerfs (RIP shortbow).

mistsim.2748:

your opinions do not match my experiences. i would say pets are very effective. their cc and applied dps are much better and f2’s activate reliably all of the time (so far). you simply cant ignore the pet any more. for example, my raven’s f2 downed some poor hambow with a 3.5k crit because he was completely ignoring it. the bird was on him constantly. if the enemy focuses the pet, i will continue unloading from a safe distance.

I can’t sign that. Ofcourse, pets are stronger after the fixes ANet was able to implement. But it’s a double-edged sword.
If Anet wants to keep the damage part of the pet, there are only two possible directions:
1) The pet deals all the madatory damage, even if it misses some hits. this has the sideeffect that if your pet doesn’t miss any hit, (e.g. if you’ve snared your enemy) the pet would deal too high damage.
2) The pet doesn’t miss any hits. Since they simply wont be able to implement an AI which could ensure that your pet hits every attack, they would have to use tricks.
This would end up in your pet being an unique dot. It wouldn’t match the actual purpose the pet was meant fulfill.

That’s the reasons why I don’t like the pet to deal damage. It should rather focus on setting the ranger up for fighting the enemy by CCing, debuffing or buffing allies or enemies.

mistsim.2748:

RTW is game-changing for LB rangers. it’s useful for every situation if youre using LB properly (i.e. from max distance), therefore not situational. RTW increases applied dps of the LB, which is laser-accurate with the trait.

RTW is doing what it was meant to do, yes. It is nearly impossible to kite the LB now, even at a 1,5k. range. That however doesn’t debilitate the obvious flaws.
1) I can think of just one other weapons which hit as awful as the LB did; the guardian scepter. However the scepter has no minimum range penalty. It is designed to be used in close to medium range. In my mind, it was a flawed design the LB suffered and still suffers.
2) RTW is neither the only trait in marksmanship, nor the best one. There are far too many supplementary traits for the LB in marksmanship already.
3) Like I said, RTW fulfills its purpose, but this purpose is far to situational.
This trait can be made useless by walking up to the ranger, by being tanky enough to ignore the damage or by simply giving the ranger no chance to hit.

jcbroe.4329:

Both of mine proc at the same time literally about once every 12 seconds, and they proc separately 2-3 times each within that time frame. I mean, I run with a build that isn’t nearly a glass build and the dual proc nets me a 4-5k autoattack. On a glass PvP build (the only glass build I can speak for) the dual proc hits for 4.5k-6k total on an autoattack.

I mean, on a near unavoidable 1500 range weapon, that’s as powerful as it gets I think, outside of maybe killshot, which is NOT an autoattack.

I can only talk about WvW, but as Orca already said, The ferocity change hit me pretty hard. Neither RTW, nor the double sigil can make up for that.
I stand no chance against the new flavors of the month, ele and engi. And I still have no chance against warriors. So I can’t get anything good out of RTW.
I think the problem is, that ANet knows the flaws the ranger has and tries to work against those flaws. There’s nothing wrong about that. But in the meantime, classes who hardly got any flaws, like warriors, are getting traits with the ulterior motive “How could we build on the strengths of this class, to make it even cooler”. That leeds to the ranger getting fixed and other classes getting buffed.

@HHR;

It did actually hit all my builds hard since I use hybrid builds (not full glass, not full tank), and I had to re-gear in order to be able to make up for the ferocity change. That being said, with my new gearing, I’m honestly doing more damage, and more reliable damage, than I’ve ever done.

Here’s what I ended up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLGsQ1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VMEp9B/q9A-TlyEABXqWRQ7PEwTAgHlGDcJAISZmH6CqRVFAM/RgSQA-w

jcbroe.4329:

@HHR;

It did actually hit all my builds hard since I use hybrid builds (not full glass, not full tank), and I had to re-gear in order to be able to make up for the ferocity change. That being said, with my new gearing, I’m honestly doing more damage, and more reliable damage, than I’ve ever done.

Here’s what I ended up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLGsQ1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VMEp9B/q9A-TlyEABXqWRQ7PEwTAgHlGDcJAISZmH6CqRVFAM/RgSQA-w

Hmm, my complete-ascended-full-berserker gear is rendered useless… I wonder where this “Give us refunds when ferocity hits” thread is, I want to express my support.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

@HHR;

It did actually hit all my builds hard since I use hybrid builds (not full glass, not full tank), and I had to re-gear in order to be able to make up for the ferocity change. That being said, with my new gearing, I’m honestly doing more damage, and more reliable damage, than I’ve ever done.

Here’s what I ended up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLGsQ1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VMEp9B/q9A-TlyEABXqWRQ7PEwTAgHlGDcJAISZmH6CqRVFAM/RgSQA-w

Hmm, my complete-ascended-full-berserker gear is rendered useless… I wonder where this “Give us refunds when ferocity hits” thread is, I want to express my support.

I mean, it is pretty crappy that they waited so long after launch to implement this change. I know I’m going to be out a lot of gold regearing all my characters that this affects. But all ANet really did was fix the stat ratios on gear so that critical damage on gear didn’t have a differing efficiency ratio.

However, I really don’t have any idea why the traitlines were changed on top of that. I mean, I get going for a full transition into ferocity and using a 30 point scaling system, but it hurt a lot more builds than it helped that only semi-invest into their critical damage line because the traits in that line aren’t worth it (Ranger Skirmishing, Mesmer Dueling Grandmasters, etc) for those builds.

AND, there is of course mention of future gearing options for Ferocity being the primary stat, but that’s going to a be a rage-filled transition as people are forced to regear just to make up for damage taken away from them in a different patch without the overall balance being affected in the slightest.

So yeah, in a sense, it’s going to be a cyclical balance process that keeps forcing players to spread their in game resources thin in order to keep up with the forced shift of their build effectiveness.

What the game actually needs is a large balance pass on weapon and utility skills. Buffing up underused utility skills, nerfing down skills that over perform, and update the weapons in order for them to be more combat fluent and efficient, while perhaps introducing new weapon sets to all of the classes. While the balance team is at that, the content team can take a mechanics pass on PvE and update the enemies and AI and dungeon encounters to not be so DPS gated so that differing builds like support and conditions are actually better supported by the content and mechanics than just “damage it quickly enough and it will die.”

Don’t even know how to try to make my post ranger specific at this point lol. Sorry @Thread, for this offtopic rant/explanation/opinion.

jcbroe.4329:

What the game actually needs is a large balance pass on weapon and utility skills. Buffing up underused utility skills, nerfing down skills that over perform, and update the weapons in order for them to be more combat fluent and efficient, while perhaps introducing new weapon sets to all of the classes.

While I can’t give new ideas, I can enlarge upon my previous ideas, like the sword:

Why do I want the sword to be changed?
The sword is the strongest damage weapon the ranger has. Yet it is the weapon with the worst playstyle in the whole game. The leaps on the autoattack do not only prevent dodging but also moving. It requires exact timing to interrupt the attackchain, which forces the player to predict what the enemy is doing, to be able to react in time. The leaps Hornet Sting and Monarch’s Leap offer are also very clunky. They are neither instant nor is the direction predictable, in which you’re evading.
Serpent’s Strike is instant, if not chained after some more AA’s, but it’s as unpredictable as Hornet Sting is and the evade time does not match the animation time, which can be used to counterplay this skill, which is meant to be a counter itself.

My suggestion:
Sword AA: Remove the leaps.
This is the only way I can think of to not hinder the player from moving/evading as he pleases.

Hornet Sting, Monarch’s Leap: 2 forward leaps (600 ,300 units), and a third leap if an enemy got hit during the first two leaps (430 units). CD: 20 secs. Uptime: 10 secs. The target gets crippled.
These skills should replace the leaps on the AA. The balance is tricky because we don’t want to be a second bunny hopping warrior (SW/WH+GS), but we should still be able to travel a good distance, like we can do currently with the current skill.

Serpent’s Strike: Evade backwards (200 units?) and jump towards your target (300 units) immediately afterwards. If you haven’t targeted anyone, you’ll just evade backwards.
If you’re using the current Serpent’s Strike, you’ll propbably end up in weird places (atleast not behind your target). The second problem with Serpent’s Strike is, that the evade time doesn’t match the animation time, which leaves you vulnerable. I tried to work around those flaws. Note that the leap to your target should be larger than the evade, so you wont miss your target if it’s running away from you.

Anticipated impact:
The sword would be as sticky as it is now, but it would be way easier to control.
The smoother activation times should also help the weapon to feel less clunky.

Any response from the devs here who are responsible for ranger? I mean i looked into mesmer forums and the dev responded within a day from an idea posted in may 1. 21 pages and not a recent response?

AEFA.9035:

Any response from the devs here who are responsible for ranger? I mean i looked into mesmer forums and the dev responded within a day from an idea posted in may 1. 21 pages and not a recent response?

There’s a Dev responsible for the Ranger? I thought the Ranger was the red-headed stepchild of the family, and the only reason we get any attention is to keep the social workers away.

……Seriously though, what you are talking about was one of the Only dev response for any of the professions in quite a while.

Chrispy.5641:

AEFA.9035:

Any response from the devs here who are responsible for ranger? I mean i looked into mesmer forums and the dev responded within a day from an idea posted in may 1. 21 pages and not a recent response?

There’s a Dev responsible for the Ranger? I thought the Ranger was the red-headed stepchild of the family, and the only reason we get any attention is to keep the social workers away.

……Seriously though, what you are talking about was one of the Only dev response for any of the professions in quite a while.

21 pages with over 33,000 views and no post CDI response from the devs? a little bit of

“Hey my semi abandoned child!!! What do you think of LB being rooted to the ground when you auto attack? in return you do 5% more damage!!! me and the team have been playing around and we all think this would help the Ranger class Let us know what you think!!! very excited for Ranger beta”

AEFA.9035:

Chrispy.5641:

AEFA.9035:

Any response from the devs here who are responsible for ranger? I mean i looked into mesmer forums and the dev responded within a day from an idea posted in may 1. 21 pages and not a recent response?

There’s a Dev responsible for the Ranger? I thought the Ranger was the red-headed stepchild of the family, and the only reason we get any attention is to keep the social workers away.

……Seriously though, what you are talking about was one of the Only dev response for any of the professions in quite a while.

21 pages with over 33,000 views and no post CDI response from the devs? a little bit of

“Hey my semi abandoned child!!! What do you think of LB being rooted to the ground when you auto attack? in return you do 5% more damage!!! me and the team have been playing around and we all think this would help the Ranger class Let us know what you think!!! very excited for Ranger beta”

To be fair, this thread is way older than the Ranger CDI is, and Jcbroe changed the title of this thread several times. There is maybe 4 pages of post CDI discussion here.

still this doesnt explain why r devs so slow in progress & fixing their game.

ppl want to know when will their favorite class be on par with others & not the underdog

Sasajoe.1509:

still this doesnt explain why r devs so slow in progress & fixing their game.

ppl want to know when will their favorite class be on par with others & not the underdog

Yes sir. Am I crazy to ask for any progress from CDI? or any communication from the Devs would be nice regarding whats being considered and how it will affect PVE, WVW, and PVP for Rangers in game. Im sure Im not the only one.

I think the devs should talk abit more for the ranger class in the forums, I mean come on you made a CDI about it and suddenly you decide to be silent about it as if the CDI never happened. That’s the way I feel about it at least.

I’m sure ANet is working on the ranger but at least be more talkative about it. This silence only makes players who main rangers worried.

I wouldn’t expect a response any time too soon. Not because the devs don’t care, but if you guys didn’t hear, Allie recently decided to choose to transition to a job outside of ANet. As far as I’ve been able to tell, we don’t even have an official community coordinator at the moment, who would be the one that more than likely would be making any official statements regarding any notes taken from the ranger CDI.

That being said, we haven’t even done nearly enough discussion about the ranger class post CDI, and definitely not enough post April 15th. If the ToL or my opinion that I share during the Arrow to the Knee podcasts isn’t enough, I’ll say it again:

Ranger builds that were “meta” are no longer nearly as effective as they need to be to stay competitive. It’s a heavy burst, damage tank meta (this is all PvP by the way, not necessarily applicable to WvW or PvE) with a warrior/guardian/thief core, with teams usually opting to fill in the last 2 slots with roamers, or a mirror warrior and a condi tank or secondary support (like a clerics staff ele).

Does that mean that rangers don’t work? Not at all. But I wouldn’t be running Carrion/Forge against mostly direct damage teams with usually 1, if not multiple sources of boon steal/rip to deal with the protection on Carrion/Forge builds that make the build so tanky against both condis and direct damage.

Settler’s is the new ranger “meta” gearing option in PvP. We can run any number of builds with it, and I still wouldn’t recommend, at the highest levels of play, that people use anything other than Empathic Bond for condi clears. Not because SotF is bad, but because it locks your utilities into things that really don’t bring any benefit to your team.

With Settler’s, your best bets are to either run spirits, hybrid spirits with Nature’s Voice, or BM. Each one does something completely different, and the hybrid nature’s voice is probably the least optimal depending on what your team comp is (would work similarly to a banner warrior in a sense, and it doesn’t mean the build won’t succeed, it’s more of a team comp thing). Spirits are the condi tank build, BM is your damage option.

Our power builds are fine…. damage wise. The issue is that our glass builds don’t have the self sustain or the group utility that a thief or a mesmer does to be as an effective best in slot option that another classes glass build gives. However, building tanky and investing in BM is like taking our pets (gotta choose the right pet) and giving them a sword thiefs auto attack, but more consistently high numbers (this is with thinking of ravens).

So to summarize where I think this leaves us, it means that, particularly:

• Skirmishing Traits all need work
• It would be nice to see Opening Strikes revamped so that it is more of a thing that functions during combat without Remorseless than it is now
• Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Beastmaster are all in a good spot. We can nitpick about specific traits, but they have what they need to be competitive options and lend themselves to builds
• Utilities all, except for spirits, need some sort of tune up to make them less bland, and more effective options. Shouts and traps in particular
• Weapons could use a balance pass. Longbow is a clunky weapon that needs to see changes to Rapid Fire and Barrage to improve the pacing of combat. Greatsword is the only weapon that is functionally in a good spot, other than offhands excluding the warhorn.
• Strider’s Defense. Really? Change please (goes along with Skirmishing but still). I don’t think I need to actually describe what is wrong with it. I can’t even say anything positive about it, so that’s the feedback it gets

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t expect a response any time too soon. Not because the devs don’t care, but if you guys didn’t hear, Allie recently decided to choose to transition to a job outside of ANet. As far as I’ve been able to tell, we don’t even have an official community coordinator at the moment, who would be the one that more than likely would be making any official statements regarding any notes taken from the ranger CDI.

That being said, we haven’t even done nearly enough discussion about the ranger class post CDI, and definitely not enough post April 15th. If the ToL or my opinion that I share during the Arrow to the Knee podcasts isn’t enough, I’ll say it again:

Ranger builds that were “meta” are no longer nearly as effective as they need to be to stay competitive. It’s a heavy burst, damage tank meta (this is all PvP by the way, not necessarily applicable to WvW or PvE) with a warrior/guardian/thief core, with teams usually opting to fill in the last 2 slots with roamers, or a mirror warrior and a condi tank or secondary support (like a clerics staff ele).

Does that mean that rangers don’t work? Not at all. But I wouldn’t be running Carrion/Forge against mostly direct damage teams with usually 1, if not multiple sources of boon steal/rip to deal with the protection on Carrion/Forge builds that make the build so tanky against both condis and direct damage.

Settler’s is the new ranger “meta” gearing option in PvP. We can run any number of builds with it, and I still wouldn’t recommend, at the highest levels of play, that people use anything other than Empathic Bond for condi clears. Not because SotF is bad, but because it locks your utilities into things that really don’t bring any benefit to your team.

With Settler’s, your best bets are to either run spirits, hybrid spirits with Nature’s Voice, or BM. Each one does something completely different, and the hybrid nature’s voice is probably the least optimal depending on what your team comp is (would work similarly to a banner warrior in a sense, and it doesn’t mean the build won’t succeed, it’s more of a team comp thing). Spirits are the condi tank build, BM is your damage option.

Our power builds are fine…. damage wise. The issue is that our glass builds don’t have the self sustain or the group utility that a thief or a mesmer does to be as an effective best in slot option that another classes glass build gives. However, building tanky and investing in BM is like taking our pets (gotta choose the right pet) and giving them a sword thiefs auto attack, but more consistently high numbers (this is with thinking of ravens).

So to summarize where I think this leaves us, it means that, particularly:

• Skirmishing Traits all need work
• It would be nice to see Opening Strikes revamped so that it is more of a thing that functions during combat without Remorseless than it is now
• Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Beastmaster are all in a good spot. We can nitpick about specific traits, but they have what they need to be competitive options and lend themselves to builds
• Utilities all, except for spirits, need some sort of tune up to make them less bland, and more effective options. Shouts and traps in particular
• Weapons could use a balance pass. Longbow is a clunky weapon that needs to see changes to Rapid Fire and Barrage to improve the pacing of combat. Greatsword is the only weapon that is functionally in a good spot, other than offhands excluding the warhorn.
• Strider’s Defense. Really? Change please (goes along with Skirmishing but still). I don’t think I need to actually describe what is wrong with it. I can’t even say anything positive about it, so that’s the feedback it gets

Agree with you on Settler’s being the “meta” amulet right now, been running shout hybrid spirit with soldiers. I still don’t accept empathic bond aka RNJesus. Used that in the past before and I pray that it removes condis when I needed them remove but RNJesus is not with me during those times and I can’t say it will be with me whenever I equipped that thing.

Rest is on point, my favourite tree line: Skirmishing hoping we wouldve gotten a decent GM trait that would be active 100% of the time or couldve been more reliable but nope, again RNJesus baptized us with his Strider’s Defense. Can someone please for the love of RNJesus someone from ANet make a build out of this Strider’s Defense and I would like to know why Strider’s Defense as GM trait, cause I really can’t wrap my head around it.

I wanted to transport a post made by a fellow ranger I hold in high regards to this thread, because I am aware of how much experience this person has with a particular spec, and so their insight on it is very valued and should be visible in a place that isn’t a forum thread with lesser constructive potential:

Eurantien.4632:

I feel like longbow is viable. I feel like greatsword is not which by extension makes longbow not viable since you don’t have a reliable defensive weapon to swap to. The reason I say greatsword and not any other weapon set is because for a power ranger the DPS loss swapping to any other weapon set is just too great. When swapping to greatsword the issues are hilt bash range, and the block which is unable to save you from multiple targets (if one hits melee) because it forces you into a long animation (counter attack which can be sidestepped lol) which is essentially a self stun. I’ve used long bow a ton, played lb/gs 6/6/2 zerker ranger to the top 50 of both EU and NA leaderboards. I really don’t think lb is the problem (i’m generally in lb 75% of the time), but the greatsword which I only swap to If I know I can land the 3->5->2 burst combo or if I need to escape/reposition using swoop->block. Mainly, that is because the GS block (which ideally should keep you in a fight) I only use 1 v 1 or to try to block projectiles after I swoop away because its worthless for anything else.