Guild Wars 2

Just a fun little debate. Obviously it’s all opinion and perspective. Let’s be respectful of others view points.

My thoughts:

1) Guardian
2) Ranger (NOTE: Guardian and Ranger in my opinion both received generous updates, was hard to pick a 1 and 2
3) Mesmer (mostly cuz Torment Autos)
4) Thief
5) Engineer
6) Necromancer
7) Warrior
8) Elementalist (Elite skills harshly punished, but Glyphs may be more fun now)

Again, these are my opinions, so don’t flame me or call me stupid or discuss my mothers sex life because your opinion differs from mine.

Guardian changes are worthless. No idea why you put them on top.

1) Guardian, engi, ranger, mesmer. (Followed most of the feedbacks if not all)
2) Elementalist, thief, warrior (well deserved nerf)

We don’t care about your feedbacks: Necromancer.

Necromancer lost. say what you will about the harshiness of ele’s nerfs, but they are still viable in dungeons and vulnerability and might stackers. Also very much worthy of use in other gametypes such as WvW and TPvP

Necromancer still in the same hole they are in with very little compensation for the normalization and 33% duration decrease on Lich form.

The rest is too close to say, but I have to give it to ranger as being the top spot.

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it)
2. ranger (the longbow fetishists will be happy, and signets are now good, and axe opens up interesting new builds)
3. guardian (nothing bad happened, just Ai builds may become okay and medi builds will be stronger)
4. engineer
5. thief
6. Necromancer (the meta for them will be the same…)
7. Warrior (adrena nerf is huge, but arcing slice is interesting)
8. Ele (got nothing new useful for them, and lost “exploits” that made their elites worth using).

1) Ranger (many great things)
2) Engineer (great focus on builds other than condi, loved it mostly)
3) Mesmer (major QoL on some phantasms, condi buff for idk what reason)
4) Warrior (stronger attention on new GM traits, well deserved nerf to adrenaline)
5) guardian (nice things, that meditation renewed focus and stability on tomes epic)
6) Elementalist (didn’t really see a whole lot, but some nice control on elementals and nice glyph buff)
7) Necromancer (awesome approach to lich form, nice DS change. Not much else.)
8) Thief (buffs but in the wrong areas, questionable nerfs but nothing really bad.)

Mesmer easily. It’s not even disputable.

Torment on AA? I could care less about clone on-death effects or PU’s defensive bonuses/RNG. The fact that they put the single best condition in the game which has some of the lowest available access to it on auto for both a class AND all of its phantasms is just absurd. Ranger got a double-edged sword with RF, due to how easily it can be evaded now) and their uses (or rather, their lack thereof) will go unchanged in most formats of the game.

Ele got a pretty big buff to FGS. Not for PvE, but FGS 4 will on some builds hit harder than a glass thief backstab. With their incredibly high mobility and utility they’re be bumped even higher on the WvW spectrum.

Necro’s Edit: LF buff is absolutely bonkers. Expect necros to start one-shotting people in WvW with relative ease with their autoattacks while in LF. I’m expecting somewhere along the lines of 15-23k DPH autos.

The spirit bow active on guardian looks good but that’s about the only benefit I really saw out of that. I was hoping for some possible mobility fixes/cooldown issues on some of the weapons, but they really didn’t need much done.

Thief was changed, although only D/P got hit hard but I really couldn’t care less as D/P deserved it. The rest of the changes don’t seem very impactful, and the S/D change for LS was cool. I’m more curious than anything.

Engineer didn’t get a whole lot, but they didn’t really need a whole lot more.

War’s rework is good. Glad I can see more skilled play opportunities while not inherently reducing damage outputs.

NinjaEd.3946:

1) Ranger (many great things)
2) Engineer (great focus on builds other than condi, loved it mostly)
3) Mesmer (major QoL on some phantasms, condi buff for idk what reason)
4) Warrior (stronger attention on new GM traits, well deserved nerf to adrenaline)
5) guardian (nice things, that meditation renewed focus and stability on tomes epic)
6) Elementalist (didn’t really see a whole lot, but some nice control on elementals and nice glyph buff)
7) Necromancer (awesome approach to lich form, nice DS change. Not much else.)
8) Thief (buffs but in the wrong areas, questionable nerfs but nothing really bad.)

^ this

DeceiverX.8361:

Necro’s DS buff is absolutely bonkers. Expect necros to start one-shotting people in WvW with relative ease with their autoattacks while in LF. I’m expecting somewhere along the lines of 15-23k DPH autos.

I cant tell if you are serious or just pulling a cruel joke.

Loyo.8526:

DeceiverX.8361:

Necro’s DS buff is absolutely bonkers. Expect necros to start one-shotting people in WvW with relative ease with their autoattacks while in LF. I’m expecting somewhere along the lines of 15-23k DPH autos.

I cant tell if you are serious or just pulling a cruel joke.

The opposite will happen Deciever as they changed the scaling so that the fire/air chill of death procs wouldn’t be scaled up with the additional power.

So the autos will be doing about the same as they are now, but the procs from sigils and chill of death will NOT be.

nearlight.3064:

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it).

As someone who enjoys Mantra mesmer, I welcomed that change. The change to Triumphant Distortion was a solid one too. Clones receiving 1 second of Distortion upon creation is nice.

Warcry.1596:

nearlight.3064:

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it).

As someone who enjoys Mantra mesmer, I welcomed that change. The change to Triumphant Distortion was a solid one too. Clones receiving 1 second of Distortion upon creation is nice.

Yeah, its honestly the perfect patch for mesmer and solves so many of their core issues. Not totally, but it seems like they made great progress.

As a necromancer main, I am disappointed beyond belief with their changes. None of them solve the actual issues. Yes lowering spectral armor’s CD and making SoV last a seconds longer (a kittening joke) is a step in the right direction, but their meta builds will not change one bit. Necromancers will still be a great condition class for 1v1s, and will still contribute well to team fights, but they won’t be able to fulfill a sutain role, only a burst/pressure role like they always have been. Thats not attrition.What we have is trying to chain 3 fears, torment, bleeds, and poison together in a few seconds so that we can kill our enemy before they can kill us.

NinjaEd.3946:

1) Ranger (many great things)
2) Engineer (great focus on builds other than condi, loved it mostly)
3) Mesmer (major QoL on some phantasms, condi buff for idk what reason)
4) Warrior (stronger attention on new GM traits, well deserved nerf to adrenaline)
5) guardian (nice things, that meditation renewed focus and stability on tomes epic)
6) Elementalist (didn’t really see a whole lot, but some nice control on elementals and nice glyph buff)
7) Necromancer (awesome approach to lich form, nice DS change. Not much else.)
8) Thief (buffs but in the wrong areas, questionable nerfs but nothing really bad.)

^
another vote for this as the way it turned out.

1) Guardian
2) Mesmer
3) Ranger
4) Engineer
5) Warrior
6) Elementalist
7) Thief
8) Necro

I can’t really say who won, but Thieves definitely lost without a doubt.

There is two ways to look at this, who got the best buffs and how strong the classes will be relative to each other after this patch. My list is based on the latter.

1. Ele: Top tier in every single game mode be it pve, pvp, wvw roaming or zerging. Nothing except fgs and tornado got nerfed and people need to stop acting like those skills where carrying them in any game mode.
2. Guardian: Will be top tier in every single game mode except maybe wvw roaming. Might see 2 run on pvp teams because of mediation builds getting a big buff
3. Warrior: Despite the nerfs they will still be strong in every game mode, but they might fall off some pvp teams.
4. Mesmer: every build got buffed, I think they will be much stronger in zergs, and be meta in pvp.
5. Thief: realistically they didn’t recieve that bad of nerfs and will still do the same things in all game modes, but the added reveal skills will affect them.
6. Engineer: got some good buffs, but not much will really change for them.
7. Ranger: They got buffs, but they aren’t suddenly gonna dominate everything. Maybe I’m underestimating the changes, but I don’t think sniper builds will suddenly be on every pvp team, and thieves will still be better roamers.
8. Necromancer: Worst class in pve since day one by far cause of no group buffs, one of the worst classes in pvp due to lack of sustain against multiple enemies only being carried for one month by stupid amounts of damage. Necros have needed real sustain since day one and haven’t gotten it (SOV is still the worst heal in the game, and siphons are still 20 trait investment for 120ish hps). Terribly designed class that needs major changes to be balanced in this game (looking at you DS).

Overall, I thought it was a good patch, a lot of different builds got buffed on multiple classes, but I feel thieves and necros didn’t get anything that will allow them to run any new builds.

ranger won, as they got the most/biggest changes, and entire new playstyles will come out of it.

necro and thief got the most underwhelming changes (if you can call them that).

i see my necro bros have their happy hats on.

Necro changes didn’t affect me, I run Siphon/Well Traits (gasp!)

Who won: Ranger and Engi.
Who lost: the rest.

zapv.8051:

5. Thief: realistically they didn’t recieve that bad of nerfs and will still do the same things in all game modes, but the added reveal skills will affect them.

I think you missed the point here, no one thief complaints about the nerfs, they were well thought of and implemented.

The problem is that ALL other professions got nice buffs to them to spice up things and gained build diversity in the process, some more than others but in general every one ELSE will have new builds available to mess around with.

Thieves got “buffs” (if you can call them that) in areas that need to be reworked or even replaced, the so called buffs will be implemented in vain because the traits and abilities being “buffed” will not change anything at all, they are bad in design and nothing they can do will make them remotely appealing. So what I’m saying here is thieves are they ONLY profession that will remain the same after the patch with the aggravated fact that the only 2 viable builds to play competitively got nerfed (deservingly tbh), rangers and engis can now apply long lasting reveled, and no other spec was opened for us to play… so in sum, we are stuck with the same builds but less effective.

A-net keeps insisting on the venom share, trying to force us into it but it will never happen because by specing venome share the thief becomes completely useless, vulnerable and helpless in combat… we become venom dispensers, go in, share the venoms and gtfo asap because we have no stealth, no surivavility and poor dmg output. BUT still A-net insists on this nonsense… aw well , what else can I say…

8 months from now well have another “buff” to venom share and more nerfs to the <insert meta spec at that time>.

/rant

ranger………LB is actually good now. this makes them….rangers.
add axe buff…revamped beastmastery line…signet changes to make actives effect the ranger as well.

so good…without being OP
can’t wait to get back on my mule ranger…and make her a main

Rangers get a big love, but they stil not touched the pet problem.

#1: Ranger (Signet of Beastmaster, major GS/LB/Axe buffs)
#2: Mesmer (GS/Sword/Scepter/Staff buffs)
#3: Engineer (gave them more options for condi removal)
#4: Guardian (med guard buff, tome buffs)
#5: Thief (D/P got buffed, or was it P/D i forget)
#6 Necro (interaction with death shroud, about it)
#7 Warrior (losing adrenaline on burst could potential hurt warrior quite a bit in more ways than 1)
#8 Elementalist (nothing really meaningful tbh)

Lol you kidding me, you can easily make a stupidly hard hitting p/d build with venom share pretty easily. 5000 damage in bleeds bouncing around out of stealth attack sounds pretty nice especially now at 1050 range.

Volrath.1473:

zapv.8051:

5. Thief: realistically they didn’t recieve that bad of nerfs and will still do the same things in all game modes, but the added reveal skills will affect them.

I think you missed the point here, no one thief complaints about the nerfs, they were well thought of and implemented.

The problem is that ALL other professions got nice buffs to them to spice up things and gained build diversity in the process, some more than others but in general every one ELSE will have new builds available to mess around with.

Thieves got “buffs” (if you can call them that) in areas that need to be reworked or even replaced, the so called buffs will be implemented in vain because the traits and abilities being “buffed” will not change anything at all, they are bad in design and nothing they can do will make them remotely appealing. So what I’m saying here is thieves are they ONLY profession that will remain the same after the patch with the aggravated fact that the only 2 viable builds to play competitively got nerfed (deservingly tbh), rangers and engis can now apply long lasting reveled, and no other spec was opened for us to play… so in sum, we are stuck with the same builds but less effective.

A-net keeps insisting on the venom share, trying to force us into it but it will never happen because by specing venome share the thief becomes completely useless, vulnerable and helpless in combat… we become venom dispensers, go in, share the venoms and gtfo asap because we have no stealth, no surivavility and poor dmg output. BUT still A-net insists on this nonsense… aw well , what else can I say…

8 months from now well have another “buff” to venom share and more nerfs to the <insert meta spec at that time>.

/rant

How can a single class “win” these balance changes, when the only upside for everyone is if all classes become more balanced?
Which they don’t IMO, due to once again this constant focus on sPvP changes prevailing. But in any case, either we all win or we all lose, independent of what we play.

Lightsbane.9012:

i see my necro bros have their happy hats on.

Idk who kittened in all the Necro’s cheerios, but geez people need to lighten up. The two nerfs were absolutely deserved, the buffs were small but nice, and if they don’t introduce any new bugs that’s frankly a pretty amazing patch for us.

1) Mesmer – AoE interrupts and Torment stacking
2) Ranger – Signets and bow spam
3) Ele – lightning bolt! lightning bolt! lightning bolt!
4) Guardian – Merciful intervention
5) Necro – DS regen
6) Engineer – Flamethrower Revival
7) Warrior – GS revival
8) Thief – Blackpowder/S/D nerf

Momekic.8603:

NinjaEd.3946:

1) Ranger (many great things)
2) Engineer (great focus on builds other than condi, loved it mostly)
3) Mesmer (major QoL on some phantasms, condi buff for idk what reason)
4) Warrior (stronger attention on new GM traits, well deserved nerf to adrenaline)
5) guardian (nice things, that meditation renewed focus and stability on tomes epic)
6) Elementalist (didn’t really see a whole lot, but some nice control on elementals and nice glyph buff)
7) Necromancer (awesome approach to lich form, nice DS change. Not much else.)
8) Thief (buffs but in the wrong areas, questionable nerfs but nothing really bad.)

^
another vote for this as the way it turned out.

If you look closely, it’s almost as if the order of Ready up episodes directly placed themselves in that list with the exception of thief and ele O.o

1) guards – the biggest problem for med guards were disengages. guards are slow and a teleport as disengage is a huge buff imo. the elite as meditation is really strong, invul with 2K HP back is quite good
2) rangers – when the community is smart enough to create good builds rangers could see a comeback to tpvp. bunker builds like BM will see a big buff in defensive as SoS is available without power traiting and offensive with might stacking on Axe. 25 stacks might on pet inc.
3) Mesmer – its rarely seen that classes gain a buff and the most are against it. the torment spam is broken and “only 5-6 stacks” like karl said is just…wow pls..karl…come on. Almost 100% uptime sword torment of war was too strong for balancing and they just moved the nerfed torment time to the mesmer to gain the REAL 100% uptime. against a class where movement is important. but the PU nerf was in an intellient way thats okay.

Rocketmist.5436:

Lol you kidding me, you can easily make a stupidly hard hitting p/d build with venom share pretty easily. 5000 damage in bleeds bouncing around out of stealth attack sounds pretty nice especially now at 1050 range.

sorry but you are wrong, condition dmg trait line for thieves is called Trickery, if you want to spec venom share you need to go 6 into Deadly Arts and 6 into Shadow Arts which leaves 2 points left. good luck spreading out 5k bleeding dmg with a POWER build…

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

i see my necro bros have their happy hats on.

Idk who kittened in all the Necro’s cheerios, but geez people need to lighten up. The two nerfs were absolutely deserved, the buffs were small but nice, and if they don’t introduce any new bugs that’s frankly a pretty amazing patch for us.

I understand that bhawb. I really do. But I was expecting more. Mesmers got everything they ever needed or wanted in this patch, while we got small improvements that won’t change us from being one of the worst classes in gw2.

They listened to the mesmer feedback and fixed nearly everything. For ours, they seemed to almost listen but propose solutions that won’t make a big enough difference overall. It was all QoL imo.

warrior had their CLASS MECHANIC heavily nerfed (both by losing it when missing and losing it exiting combat), signet of rage nerfed for no reason, a dps nerf to their most used weapon, a nerf to impale (one of the best condition based skills) and a nerf to zerker stance just out of my head.

to compensate they had a buff to GS burst (might be the only interesting bit), a LOL buff to signet of rage adrenaline generation (0.5 strikes every 3 second? that’s beyond worthless) and minor tweaks here and there.

how can anyone say warrior “won” this over, say, guardians who only received buffs?

except the warrior nerf were poorly done because they only marginally impact what everyone hates about warriors (hambow) but strongly hurt weapons which are subpar already (rifle, mace?)

the only weapon that gets rightly hurt by the nerf is probably axe, which has a really strong burst and deserved to at least lose adrenaline on a miss.

Loyo.8526:

DeceiverX.8361:

Necro’s DS buff is absolutely bonkers. Expect necros to start one-shotting people in WvW with relative ease with their autoattacks while in LF. I’m expecting somewhere along the lines of 15-23k DPH autos.

I cant tell if you are serious or just pulling a cruel joke.

Meant Lich form, lol. My bad :P

From a WvW perspective

Rangers, the changes are just plain op.
necro, stability stomp every 7 seconds … sure
mesmers, enough said already
guardians, thats alot of hard buffs.
thiefs, because they remain pure cheese
ele, useless except that glyph changes
engineers, mostly useless changes except that awesome 2 s cripple on TK…
Warriors, the only real nerfs in this update

What’s funny is the Ranger changes were probably the best overall but the changes made won’t suddenly make them viable. If anything, the condi builds for Rangers saw the more solid changes and the lack of group utility and useless minions/pets is still problem number 1, 2 years running.

Rocketmist.5436:

Lol you kidding me, you can easily make a stupidly hard hitting p/d build with venom share pretty easily. 5000 damage in bleeds bouncing around out of stealth attack sounds pretty nice especially now at 1050 range.

you really don’t play thief do you?

1- venom share builds force you to dump practically all your points on the power line and toughness line, and then instead of taking the traits that make P/D strong on shadow arts, you take venom share traits

2- only one venom actually deals condi damage.

3- venomous aura has a 360 radius, good luck applying venoms to allies when you’re far away from them

4- how do you plan to land CnD if you’re too far away to even use steal?

5- actually, steal will be on a 40s cooldown because you couldn’t trait for its reduction, meaning you can’t even reliably use it to get close to enemies.

6- heck, you can’t even take the 1050 range trait because it’s a master trait on trickery, and you already spent 12 points on venom traits

7- you also will have pretty much zero utility in stunbreaks/stealth because you’ll replace them with venoms, unless you just dumped 12 trait points for one utility skill.

i could actually go on, but i think i made my point.

I think this should be reserved for after the changes come into effect.

I assure you…things will not be as you thought….

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this update Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

nearlight.3064:

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it)

PU and Clone death traits were heavily nerfed as announced in the following Ready Up. So every build that used those, whethere PU condi or not, was nerfed.

Bryzy.2719:

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this update Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

buffs aren’t about giving advantages, buffs are about bringing underused playstyles into the meta.

ranger got a TON of positive changes that should open up just as many new playstyles. the fact they’re not suddenly OP is a mark of a good buff, not a bad one.

so they won.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this update Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

buffs aren’t about giving advantages, buffs are about bringing underused playstyles into the meta.

ranger got a TON of positive changes that should open up just as many new playstyles. the fact they’re not suddenly OP is a mark of a good buff, not a bad one.

so they won.

I agree with this. Longbow builds will be better, but not really pvp viable in tourneys imo. Axe could be, but likely it’ll just be shortbow spirit 1111111.

Necros on the other hand got no new builds significantly improved or opened up.

nearlight.3064:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this u pdate Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

buffs aren’t about giving advantages, buffs are about bringing underused playstyles into the meta.

ranger got a TON of positive changes that should open up just as many new playstyles. the fact they’re not suddenly OP is a mark of a good buff, not a bad one.

so they won.

/

I agree with this. Longbow builds will be better, but not really pvp viable in tourneys imo. Axe could be, but likely it’ll just be shortbow spirit 1111111.

Necros on the other hand got no new builds significantly improved or opened up.

well, thieves got the 2 most used weapon sets nerfed and got a minor cleave on Dagger #1 as a buff which opens up a world of possibilities, I can see the potential there and especially the build diversity this cleave will apen for us, I JUST CANT WAIT FOR THE 9/9

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this update Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

buffs aren’t about giving advantages, buffs are about bringing underused playstyles into the meta.

ranger got a TON of positive changes that should open up just as many new playstyles. the fact they’re not suddenly OP is a mark of a good buff, not a bad one.

so they won.

- “Buffs” are changes to an aspect of a profession that give it an advantage over how it used to perform.

- Rangers did indeed get a “TON” of positive changes, however they most certainly will not open up just as many new playstyles, they will simply improve on metas that already exist, like the Longbow/Greatsword of WvW and PvE, and the axe-based condi metas of PvP. Shortbow and sword, two weapons that needed particular attention, received none.

- Rangers have always under-performed compared with every other profession game-wide. This update is going to bring Rangers’ power builds one step closer to being on a par with other professions, though it will still be a way off the likes of warrior, thief and elementalist. How other professions are performing now – Rangers will be one step closer to that. However, other professions have been buffed, pulling further ahead of Rangers and maintaining that gap even after the balance patch has arrived.

- The only way in which Rangers would have “won” is if Anet had spent a significantly longer amount of time completely revamping the terrible pet mechanic and thereby transforming the whole profession. Additionally, Rangers haven’t won because other professions received buffs to things which are seen as unnecessary, like torment stacks to mesmer’s scepter AA.

There is a huge array of aspects to the Ranger profession – not including pets -that are still incredibly sub-par. Until all these aspects are brought up to speed, Rangers will not be “winning” anything. And if anyone wants to be finnicky and be all like “hurr durr what aspects?” then here’s a few examples:

- Terrible set of utilities compared to other professions
- Terrible group support (spirits are mediocre and take up all your kitten utility slots, and forcing you to trait for them if you want that kind of support to be any good – though pretty much terrible regardless for use in zergs)
- Terrible Shortbow
- Poor options for survivability in power-based builds (though ultimately like with everything else it’s down to the player…)
- Poor traits in general, a whole trait line that belongs somewhere else – i.e. traps
- The most decent traits we have are all in one line – marksmanship – and you have to sacrifice so many of them.

On top of an abomination of a pet mechanic, it’s still going to be looking bleak for a long time to come. Rangers ain’t won kitten.

All that say that the DS change is a nice buff dont get it, you could do that since release.

Bryzy.2719:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bryzy.2719:

Anyone saying the Ranger “won” the balance changes couldn’t be more wrong.

Most of the changes to Rangers have been needed since day one. They should always have been an integral part of the profession. As a result, Rangers have been considered the worst whole-game profession. This isn’t a “buff” for Rangers in the sense that it’s giving them an an advantage, because it’s not. It’s an update to help bring-up-to-par the Ranger profession, and even then it doesn’t address the profession’s core problem mechanic. After this update Rangers might be on a more level playing field in the realm of power builds, however until the pet mechanic is seriously dealt with I doubt we’ll see much of a change.

buffs aren’t about giving advantages, buffs are about bringing underused playstyles into the meta.

ranger got a TON of positive changes that should open up just as many new playstyles. the fact they’re not suddenly OP is a mark of a good buff, not a bad one.

so they won.

- “Buffs” are changes to an aspect of a profession that give it an advantage over how it used to perform.

- Rangers did indeed get a “TON” of positive changes, however they most certainly will not open up just as many new playstyles, they will simply improve on metas that already exist, like the Longbow/Greatsword of WvW and PvE, and the axe-based condi metas of PvP. Shortbow and sword, two weapons that needed particular attention, received none.

- Rangers have always under-performed compared with every other profession game-wide. This update is going to bring Rangers’ power builds one step closer to being on a par with other professions, though it will still be a way off the likes of warrior, thief and elementalist. How other professions are performing now – Rangers will be one step closer to that. However, other professions have been buffed, pulling further ahead of Rangers and maintaining that gap even after the balance patch has arrived.

- The only way in which Rangers would have “won” is if Anet had spent a significantly longer amount of time completely revamping the terrible pet mechanic and thereby transforming the whole profession. Additionally, Rangers haven’t won because other professions received buffs to things which are seen as unnecessary, like torment stacks to mesmer’s scepter AA.

There is a huge array of aspects to the Ranger profession – not including pets -that are still incredibly sub-par. Until all these aspects are brought up to speed, Rangers will not be “winning” anything. And if anyone wants to be finnicky and be all like “hurr durr what aspects?” then here’s a few examples:

- Terrible set of utilities compared to other professions
- Terrible group support (spirits are mediocre and take up all your kitten utility slots, and forcing you to trait for them if you want that kind of support to be any good – though pretty much terrible regardless for use in zergs)
- Terrible Shortbow
- Poor options for survivability in power-based builds (though ultimately like with everything else it’s down to the player…)
- Poor traits in general, a whole trait line that belongs somewhere else – i.e. traps
- The most decent traits we have are all in one line – marksmanship – and you have to sacrifice so many of them.

On top of an abomination of a pet mechanic, it’s still going to be looking bleak for a long time to come. Rangers ain’t won kitten.

That’s the problem. They’ve publicly announced they’re never actually going to even try to fix the broken pet mechanic despite knowing how much people hate it. This was made apparent in the CDI.

Rangers will always and forever be a broken, border-line unusable class.

Frankly, I think the best thing possible is for more people to try and push for thief to get longbow to fulfill the ranged/archer DPS role. It’s an even glassier med-armor so ANet can’t really justify their “ranged advantage” theory here as it carries more risk, Thieves have one less weaponset than their competition (so there’s a hole to fill), and do not have a 1200 range attack in their entire kitten nal since the shortbow range reduction over a year and a half ago. The set could/should be focused on long-ranged DPS and combat mobility while providing limited/no stealth access.

To everyone claiming the DS stom is OP..
We could do this from day one, it is only altered to not have necromancers exploit the mechanic. nothing has changed in this perspective.. only the fact that:

1) We won’t immobilize ourselves with the “stuck bug” when interacting.
2)The stomp combination now works as it should, no more cancelling the stomp.
3)Nothing has changed for reviving.
4)Nothing has changed for stomping.

(unless they make DS break actions in wich cast US will be a useless GW trait.. but i doubt that would happen.

who won:
-mesmer. (rapid fire and .. sight.. you know)
-guardian (rapid fire, that AI buff minions should get)
-ranger (dem roots, rapid fire)
-engineer (rapid fire)
-warrior (just watch/rapid fire)
-elementalist (rapid fire)
-thief (rapid fire)
-necromancer

No more blinds when in a leaping animation? :P

1. Ranger (so many impactful buffs, especially to longbow)
2. Engineer (yay flamethrower buffs!)
3. Guardian
4. Mesmer
5-8. the rest

snow.8097:

1) guards – the biggest problem for med guards were disengages. guards are slow and a teleport as disengage is a huge buff imo. the elite as meditation is really strong, invul with 2K HP back is quite good
2) rangers – when the community is smart enough to create good builds rangers could see a comeback to tpvp. bunker builds like BM will see a big buff in defensive as SoS is available without power traiting and offensive with might stacking on Axe. 25 stacks might on pet inc.
3) Mesmer – its rarely seen that classes gain a buff and the most are against it. the torment spam is broken and “only 5-6 stacks” like karl said is just…wow pls..karl…come on. Almost 100% uptime sword torment of war was too strong for balancing and they just moved the nerfed torment time to the mesmer to gain the REAL 100% uptime. against a class where movement is important. but the PU nerf was in an intellient way thats okay.

I think you’ve misunderstood the “buff” to merciful intervention. It’s got to be within 180 (i think) of a teammate to work. Hardly anything has changed besides being able to choose who to port to. Even more so, it’s not going to replace any of the other three meditations on your skill bar. You’re still going to keep Smite Condition for damage/low cooldown, still going to choose judge’s intervention to get your burst in and for a gap closer/stun breaker, and you’re still going to take contemplation of purity for full cleanse/stun break.

There is no disengage there. You won’t be able to use it to get in or out of a fight. It’s going to have extremely niche uses.

Renewed Focus buff was nice though. It’s an appreciated 2k heal and 18s off cooldown. That’s about it though. Still no help on mobility or soft CC.