Guild Wars 2

If you don’t want to read it all, at least read the bit in bold

So the March 26th update brought about dire consequences for anyone wanting to play Berserker/DPS/‘burst’ Ranger (not that burst Ranger was ever viable anyway!).

I’ll cut to the chase. The QZ nerf for Rangers was an outrage; you only need to read the Ranger section to see why.

Proposed implementation:

Increase the normal Rapid Fire (i.e. Longbow skill 2) skill speed by 25%.

Players wishing to proc QZ will then get +75% attack speed for 5 seconds (as opposed to the 4 seconds of 100% speed previously).

In itself this will not even come close to ‘overpowering’ Rangers. The Rapid Fire skill isn’t as powerful as it should be as things already stand.
Let’s face it, the primary reason Anet produced this nerf was to put a leash on the ridiculous bursts of Warriors, Thieves and Mesmers. This implementation would keep that much-needed leash, while not needlessly punishing Rangers.

This isn’t a PERFECT solution, but it’s one that’s really quite simple, fair and none-game-breaking. Any further suggestions are most welcome.

Is this a repost? Posting the same suggestion again isn’t going to make it more likely to be approved. Basically you’re asking for an across the board buff to Rapid Fire, which doesn’t seem likely to happen.

It’s been a while since I last posted this, so I’ve no idea how you remembered it. You obviously saw it and didn’t make a contribution, and, judging by that unhelpful answer I assume you don’t have much Ranger play experience. I think if you have a good, simple idea that has the potential to redeem a truly terrible nerf, then it deserves to be recognised. As far as I’m aware having stalked the Dev Tracker, the Devs have not even acknowledged the diabolical Ranger situation yet.

When you say ‘across the board buff’ you’re really blowing it out of context, which is what leads me to believe you don’t play Ranger much, if at all. It’s not an ‘across the board buff’; it’s a moderate buff to a single underpowered skill of one weapon type that was made even more useless after the April 26 update.

Each weapon tends to have at least 1 must-have skill, or else it would go unused. For the longbow that skill is Rapid Fire (and to a lesser extent, the AoE). Not only is the Longbow auto-attack appalling by itself, but the Rapid Fire skill was, pre-update, the only skill worth using if you wanted to play a berserker build. Pre-update that skill alone was relatively underpowered, yet if you had maxed out gear and good traits you had the potential to do some half-decent damage with it while using Quickening Zephyr.

That build has now been driven into the ground, but it needn’t be with my proposed update. My update ensures that they get to keep the QZ nerf, yet the Ranger class suffers slightly less because of it – let’s face it, Rangers must be last on Anet’s list of what needs to be nerfed.