Guild Wars 2

Its very painful. Very very painful to deal with. I literally have to run and hide now when dealing with Rampage as one, it was possible to remove the boon and deal with the Ranger but now, even if I strip it off, he’s got it for the next 20 seconds.

I just came out of a match where I could see how powerful this change has made Rangers. All I’d like to ask is for them to get 20 stacks for 20 seconds so that I can just rip them off. So we can get back to having counterplay and fun with Elites as we once did. This new RaO is no fun to fight AT ALL and it wasn’t fun to fight before the change in the first place!

Personally, I always thought it was sort of cheesy that you could steal a very long CD elite just like that from them. I consider it justice. These long CD decent duration elities are meant to be afraid of and create a moment of undeniable pressure. Thats literally their design. I don’t really see an issue with it. If its too strong, perhaps look at the other parts of it like duration or something, but as far as I’m concerned, working as intended finally.

I agree it never made much sense that some elites were countered so hard and so easily. Seems like now it’s more like it was always intended to be.

Elites now actually feel like elites

20s cooldown steal negating 120s elite was BS
10s mindwrack shatter negating a 180s elite was BS

I approve of this change

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

That’s why Lich only gives 1 stack per 3 seconds unlike some of the others. If anything, more people can take them down than before because it just takes 2 back to back ccs to get them at any given time, and no need for boon rip. Boon rip makes it only take 1. You can still do what you need, you just can’t steal it once and completely ruin an elite. If anything this leveled the playing field so it’s not such an IWin button versus more players.

All of those previous boon rips still allow you to CC them for a moment. Just play with your brain and you won’t die to those nasty OP Necromancers.

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

A lich without stability can still press 1111111

Projectile reflect/LoS might make him stop pressing 111111

Lich SHOULD be strong – just like crate or moa for example

The cooldown justifies the strength of the skill don’t you think?

Then again Power Necro is probably overpowered to you right!?

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

Except Elites are not auto win, you should learn to deal with them without having a single insta one button push skill that hard counters them.

I think we can all agree the stability portion of elites, prior to this change, were far too easy to counter.

Hopefully we can all also agree than 3 stacks of 3s stability every 3 seconds has swung too far in the opposite direction, making it far too hard to counter realistically.

I’m just guessing that WvW influenced this decision – I don’t WvW, but I’m assuming that in zerg v zerg, CC is flying around everywhere and it’s possible to eat through 3 stacks of stability in 3s. In PvP however, this doesn’t feel feasible – 3stacks of 3s stability every 3s feels uncounterable.

A good compromise might be lenghtening the duration/time between pulses – 3 stacks of 6s stability every 6s feels both powerful for the user, and counterable by coordinated players (IMO) in sPvP at least.

evilapprentice.6379:

I think we can all agree the stability portion of elites, prior to this change, were far too easy to counter.

Hopefully we can all also agree than 3 stacks of 3s stability every 3 seconds has swung too far in the opposite direction, making it far too hard to counter realistically.

I’m just guessing that WvW influenced this decision – I don’t WvW, but I’m assuming that in zerg v zerg, CC is flying around everywhere and it’s possible to eat through 3 stacks of stability in 3s. In PvP however, this doesn’t feel feasible – 3stacks of 3s stability every 3s feels uncounterable.

A good compromise might be lenghtening the duration/time between pulses – 3 stacks of 6s stability every 6s feels both powerful for the user, and counterable by coordinated players (IMO) in sPvP at least.

I see what you’re saying but at the same time Lich is counterable specifically it is only 1 stack every 3 seconds – it is an OFFENSIVE elite so it should be counterable

I do not feel like Plague/Rampage should be able to be tossed around – They are mostly defensive/CC oriented

RaO feels wrong to me too offensive/defensive at the same time this one feels like it should be 1 stack every 3 seconds

Either way 3 stacks every 6 seconds is a decent compromise IMO – Only coordinated team effort can counter it

I agree with Nar here, somewhat… Lich only gets 1, which feels right. The others get 3 that are less important to lock down and are more defense oriented. I think the way thinks are set up right now is perfectly acceptable given the various variables.

Boon rips still work, people need to realize all this means is you have to time your rips with your ccs rather than rip once and have a heyday. There’s more counter now than before (arguably) considering rips still work AND you can just outpace the stability with several CCs

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

If you don’t build for the least bit survive to escape a situation then you have been mislead on how to PvP.

The only elite you cant escape from is Moa form, nuff said.

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

Counters: strafing, LoS, reflects, blinds

I always just LOS the lich. He doesn’t hit me.

The only exception is Legacy at mid point. Not much LOS available there. Then its dodge, dodge, blind my way safely towards some terrain.

It’s not a smart move to stand on the point and let Lich kill you. GTFO even if it loses the cap. Unless you’re ticking like 495 and its your only point or some special circumstance.

LIch with 1 stab everyu 3 sec is ok. But RaO 3 boons (inc 3 stacks of stab) every 3 sec? Prefer evillapprenice idea. 6sec boons every 6s

I like the pulsing stability for elites. It both means that CC heavy builds (Like Hambow and Engineer) have the option to blow all their stuns and such to CC someone, even briefly, and that those elites aren’t hard-countered just because a Necro, Mes or Thief managed to strip the stability.

Mak.2657:

LIch with 1 stab everyu 3 sec is ok. But RaO 3 boons (inc stab) every 3 sec? Prefer evillapprenice idea. 6sec boons every 6s

It’s the same 3 boons the Ranger got before with RaO, the other two just pulse with Stability now.

I know. But that pulsing ability (with that rate and number of stacks) devaluate boon ripping. Used 3 clone shatter to remove all boons and 3 s later all boons are back. mb not even 3 sec later – it could be 2, 1, 0.1 sec later because mesmer need to start shatter perfectly to fit that reapplying boon window. Clones need time to run, etc. Most often it would ~1-2 s before reapplying all boons again. 5-6 sec time to pulse seems ok

Welcome to the world of classes that cannot strip boons. When players use a transform skill they lose they utilities and healing skills. That means that they have no access to stun breaker. Stability is here to prevent CC and let them make full use of their elites. Tomes, lich form, rampage, etc were almost useless after a player steal your stab. You were almost forced to leave the elite form after that. Now they are better.

Thats why I m not saying dev that should revert stability changes (no pulsing at all). Just make that abilities subjects to counterplay

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

It is silly. Not pressing 5 on Lich, to be clear.

I think a 6 second duration pulse every 6 seconds would be a good compromise. As it stands, boon removal is ineffective, especially when it costs large cooldowns (such as Corrupt Boon) to remove those boons.

Wait… quick question. Probably a dumb one but:

The stability pulses are not stun breaks, right? So if you strip stability and then hit the lich with a 3 second knockback RIGHT before his next stability pulses, he will still stay knocked down the full 3 seconds right?

Solstice.1097:

Wait… quick question. Probably a dumb one but:

The stability pulses are not stun breaks, right? So if you strip stability and then hit the lich with a 3 second knockback RIGHT before his next stability pulses, he will still stay knocked down the full 3 seconds right?

Correct, Stability only prevents CC, it doesn’t remove it. I run a Guardian shout build in PvE, and I know firsthand that using Stand your Ground won’t end an ally’s stun or fear just because you applied stability.

Solstice.1097:

Wait… quick question. Probably a dumb one but:

The stability pulses are not stun breaks, right? So if you strip stability and then hit the lich with a 3 second knockback RIGHT before his next stability pulses, he will still stay knocked down the full 3 seconds right?

No, stability itself doesn’t break CCs, it just stops them from happening.

Solstice.1097:

Wait… quick question. Probably a dumb one but:

The stability pulses are not stun breaks, right? So if you strip stability and then hit the lich with a 3 second knockback RIGHT before his next stability pulses, he will still stay knocked down the full 3 seconds right?

Yes probably just a boon. They did’t say anything about stun break on the notes, so you probably have a 3s windown after removing it to use cc. But after 3s they get their stab back. Before the change after stab was removed the elite would stay the rest of its duration weak against ccs. One is not going to remove the boon every 3s.

Solstice.1097:

Wait… quick question. Probably a dumb one but:

The stability pulses are not stun breaks, right? So if you strip stability and then hit the lich with a 3 second knockback RIGHT before his next stability pulses, he will still stay knocked down the full 3 seconds right?

Correct. The stability comes up but they remain CC’d.

Yea, this change makes Rampage an absolute killing machine: resistant to soft cc, practically immune to hard cc’s and boon strip, high damage, incredible mobility. I am sure some more specs will start taking this and destroying people in fights.

To those wondering about WvW effect on RaO.

3 stacks is removed in 0.4 seconds at the slowest. People chain spam CC. Mostly unlimited CC like static field, Line of Warding, Ring of Warding and Fear Wall.

Perhaps reduce RaO to 2 stacks every 4 seconds in PvP only.

Rangers are very weak to CC in the first place, this is their only real counter to CC. Their stunbreakers are usually on much longer CD’s then most other professions, they got no teleport skills, no invuln that stops stun/condispam (yes you can stunlock a Signet of Stone ranger until he no longer has direct damage invuln. It is not hard) making them unable to deal with stunspam.

20 seconds Steal = instant cast, not hard to land
40 seconds Corrupt Boon = ranged and easy to land

While z-axis tele didn’t get nerfed properly this patch, this change may as well be kittenous change to mirror that braindead z-axis teleport abuse.

honestly speaking as a ranger here. This is the FIRST time since the entangle buff that I fealt that taking RAO was more than a horrible idea. Before popping RAO as one was a death sentance. BEST case scenario it got stolen by a nearby thief with a SINGLE button press. Worst case scenario it got corrupted. Which pretty much meant GG.

As far as it goes right now. id say wait a bit longer. Keep in mind that these skills arnt ones people are used to actually having to deal with. Most of these elites could be stopped by certain builds with a simply button press. So many of the people having issues are ones that havn thad to fight them head to head for awhile now.

When you think about what the elites actually provide. There current values seem to make sense.

Rampage grantz a LARGE number of resistances as well as very hard hitting attacks.

Plague grants a really nice blind spam. One thats been effective in WvW and Tpvp alike.

Lich provides some of the hardest hitting single attacks in the game.

RAO on its own however doesnt do anything. It acts as an amplifier instead. Making the OTHER aspects of the ranger more effective. Through stability to buy time against its current hard counter. Fury to augment its damage a small amount (usefulness is relative to your build). And swiftness to provide some much needed mobility when someone has closed with you on there terms.) Its pretty much the only long term solution we have to fighting certain builds.

I dont want to see it prematurely nerfed (returning it to a less than entangle state) until we give players a chance to adjust to it.

Prysin.8542:

To those wondering about WvW effect on RaO.

3 stacks is removed in 0.4 seconds at the slowest. People chain spam CC. Mostly unlimited CC like static field, Line of Warding, Ring of Warding and Fear Wall.

Perhaps reduce RaO to 2 stacks every 4 seconds in PvP only.

Rangers are very weak to CC in the first place, this is their only real counter to CC. Their stunbreakers are usually on much longer CD’s then most other professions, they got no teleport skills, no invuln that stops stun/condispam (yes you can stunlock a Signet of Stone ranger until he no longer has direct damage invuln. It is not hard) making them unable to deal with stunspam.

agree 100%.

It just seems outside of the Ranger, Mesmer and Necro classes, everyone just want to retain their advantage over these 3 classes. As soon as something good happen to these 3 classes, they kitten and moan as loud as they can to Anet to nerf or revert a positive change to those classes.

RaO is good for rangers, it give them a chance in sPvP.

ronpierce.2760:

SobeSoul.6910:

Pressing 111111111111111 on Lich without it being able to be countered with boon rip is silly.

Elites shouldn’t be autowins like the above 3 posters think.

That’s why Lich only gives 1 stack per 3 seconds unlike some of the others. If anything, more people can take them down than before because it just takes 2 back to back ccs to get them at any given time, and no need for boon rip. Boon rip makes it only take 1. You can still do what you need, you just can’t steal it once and completely ruin an elite. If anything this leveled the playing field so it’s not such an IWin button versus more players.

All of those previous boon rips still allow you to CC them for a moment. Just play with your brain and you won’t die to those nasty OP Necromancers.

This ^.

Also given how slow lich attacks you can easily blind & avoid much of the damage it does as a thief with offhand pistol.

heck even on my guard I can use blind to avoid much of the damage it does if I time them properly.

Rome.7124:

Prysin.8542:

To those wondering about WvW effect on RaO.

3 stacks is removed in 0.4 seconds at the slowest. People chain spam CC. Mostly unlimited CC like static field, Line of Warding, Ring of Warding and Fear Wall.

Perhaps reduce RaO to 2 stacks every 4 seconds in PvP only.

Rangers are very weak to CC in the first place, this is their only real counter to CC. Their stunbreakers are usually on much longer CD’s then most other professions, they got no teleport skills, no invuln that stops stun/condispam (yes you can stunlock a Signet of Stone ranger until he no longer has direct damage invuln. It is not hard) making them unable to deal with stunspam.

agree 100%.

It just seems outside of the Ranger, Mesmer and Necro classes, everyone just want to retain their advantage over these 3 classes. As soon as something good happen to these 3 classes, they kitten and moan as loud as they can to Anet to nerf or revert a positive change to those classes.

RaO is good for rangers, it give them a chance in sPvP.

Eh personally I know the ranger needs something but having it reliant on just a few very powerful abilities is bad design.

If they were to make a few other abilities more viable then bring a few of the very powerful ones in line it would be better in the end for balance.

So can we get pulsing stability on Time Warp please?

The only thing that annoys me about form elites is the Lich form’s massive autoattack damage.

It makes sense for a form elite that disables so many skills to get something to compensate, though. And stability seems like a good choice.

I would even buff some of them a bit more.

For example, with Plague, once HoT’s new effects are added:

• Change skill type to corruption.
• Each pulse also extends the duration of conditions on self by 1s.
• Each pulse sucks in one condition from up to 5 allies. For each condition absorbed this way, plague also grants 1 second of Resistance and causes 3stacks of of bleeding for 3s to the necromancer.
• When it ends, up to 5 conditions the necromancer had on are transferred to up to 5 nearby foes, and the remaining conditions are cured.

@MithranArkanere.8957 You forgot laser beams from eyes

About RaO, it needed buff for certain, but now seems ltl OP. Mb ppl will adapt to counter new RaO. But anyway pulsing reapplying makes shattered concetration trait and boon ripping in general much more uselles and less counter play (with current rate). At this moment seems need bigger delay before reapplying 3 stacks of stab.

I agree with most of the above. I think the 3 second interval is too short and the 1 stack of stability too few.

If things were changed to be 6 stacks every 6 seconds for the defensive oriented elites like plague form and 3 stacks every 6 seconds for the offensive oriented forms like RaO and Liche, things would ‘feel’ much better. This simple change keeps the relative power the same, but allows these forms to be more useful as emergency type cooldowns as opposed to strictly pre-planned, offensive cooldowns.

In addition to that, the longer interval also ensures the overall value of boon removal tools to be very effective.

Now as for Rampage as One in particular, I’m curious what class the OP plays. The Ranger as a whole has a very distinct advantage against Necromancers in particular so I could see the change being especially frustrating if you’re a Necro.

It’s a good change. At least those LONNNG CD “Elite Skill” wont be shut down completely by one boom removal and go in waste. They’re Elite skills with super long CD, they suppose to do this much of impact!

If you have anything to fear about, you should fear more about lich form because now you cant just break him with one boom strip.

So now people are complaining about a 120 CD no cd reduction, and main purpose is just stability and fury elite skill now… (Looking at War who got 10 stacks 10 secs stability with 48 sec CD, looking at Ele who got 2 armor of earth 12 secs on 60 sec CD)

Hypocrisy is true…
This forum really hates ranger so much and want it be the old good ranger who’re useless…

All warrior 10 stacks of stability can be removed with right using of boon stripping.
I personally prefer even RaO with 10 stacks every 10 sec, but not 3 stack every 3 sec.

Mak.2657:

All warrior 10 stacks of stability can be removed with right using of boon stripping.
I personally prefer even RaO with 10 stacks every 10 sec, but not 3 stack every 3 sec.

You do not get my point. It is an Elite skill and it suppose to function exactly as it is : giving powerful ability for a short period of time with a long cool down.

Just because some of the Elite form is sucker doesn’t mean RaO has to be bad too. You should instead ask for improvement for the other Elite form! (Also Warrior’s Rampage is not as bad as many people claimed. High damage, good mobility, damage reduction and with the same stability function as RaO)

If you want RaO to be easily countered, I propose they also half the CD of RaO so you can have a more easily countered version of RaO.

Overall you guys just don’t want ranger to be a threat or as competitive as par Guardian, Warrior, Thief, Ele ane Engi right? You guys just want the old good useless ranger out of competitive scene and other 5 meta classes can live happily ever after right? It’s not like ranger can shake these “meta classes” with just RaO.

I agree it needs time to play out a bit (I don’t play ranger or necro). Players and teams need to make better use of the new cc stack strip change in addition to ripping. Something like that should work decent on a lich.

Ok, RaO was easily countered and needed buff as I said. But right now RaO seems not (or vry hard counterd). I suggest to change to 3-6 stacks of stab every 5-6 sec.

Aomine.5012:

Mak.2657:

All warrior 10 stacks of stability can be removed with right using of boon stripping.
I personally prefer even RaO with 10 stacks every 10 sec, but not 3 stack every 3 sec.

You do not get my point. It is an Elite skill and it suppose to function exactly as it is : giving powerful ability for a short period of time with a long cool down.

Just because some of the Elite form is sucker doesn’t mean RaO has to be bad too. You should instead ask for improvement for the other Elite form! (Also Warrior’s Rampage is not as bad as many people claimed. High damage, good mobility, damage reduction and with the same stability function as RaO)

If you want RaO to be easily countered, I propose they also half the CD of RaO so you can have a more easily countered version of RaO.

Overall you guys just don’t want ranger to be a threat or as competitive as par Guardian, Warrior, Thief and Ele ane engineer right? But you guys just want the old good useless ranger out of competitive scene and other 5 meta classes can live happily ever after right? It’s not like ranger can shake these “meta classes” with just RaO.

yep, all the complainers of the patch are mostly from the 5 classes that are frequently used in the sPvP. They prefer to have the other 3 classes continue to be easy kills.

One question:

1. It seems pretty agreed on that skills like Rampage as One and Lich Lord should be every 6 seconds instead of every 3s, but what about less used elites like Tornado, Dagger Storm and Rampage? Do they deserve to be every 3s because they aren’t used as much?

The Gates Assassin.9827:

One question:

1. It seems pretty agreed on that skills like Rampage as One and Lich Lord should be every 6 seconds instead of every 3s, but what about less used elites like Tornado, Dagger Storm and Rampage? Do they deserve to be every 3s because they aren’t used as much?

They should all be on the same 6 second cycle to allow for sufficient counter play.

Divide them into 2 camps: offensive and defensive.

Offensive 3 stacks every 6 seconds.
Defensive 6 stacks every 6 seconds.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

One question:

1. It seems pretty agreed on that skills like Rampage as One and Lich Lord should be every 6 seconds instead of every 3s, but what about less used elites like Tornado, Dagger Storm and Rampage? Do they deserve to be every 3s because they aren’t used as much?

Lich doesn’t need to be 6 seconds. It’s already 1 per 3 unlike 3 per 3 for various other elities. Read the Necro forums, it’s pretty bad. 1 every 3 means you don’t even need a boom ripper anymore to pretty easily knock it down rather frequently. Its the 3/3 that people are having issues with. (Which sort of makes sense considering its harder to land 4 CCs in 3 seconds) Two however or a simple rip and a single CC is not unrealistic for an elite. Half the time Necromancers can’t afford to stay in lich for an extended period of time as it is if there is any amount of counter pressure.

Didn’t check how how Dagger storm works now. But if an interrupt (after stability ripping) cansels this elite – probably 3s pulse ok then. Seems Lich Form is ok too (cause only 1 stack every 3 sec), not sure though (UP?). But RaO and other pulsing multistack stability skills probably asks for change (after some adapt time?) from spvp standpoint imho.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

One question:

1. It seems pretty agreed on that skills like Rampage as One and Lich Lord should be every 6 seconds instead of every 3s, but what about less used elites like Tornado, Dagger Storm and Rampage? Do they deserve to be every 3s because they aren’t used as much?

I believe same treatment for all of them and even if Rampage is less used, it’s still a game changer in certain cases and more so with the stability change.

Atherakhia.4086:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

One question:

1. It seems pretty agreed on that skills like Rampage as One and Lich Lord should be every 6 seconds instead of every 3s, but what about less used elites like Tornado, Dagger Storm and Rampage? Do they deserve to be every 3s because they aren’t used as much?

They should all be on the same 6 second cycle to allow for sufficient counter play.

Divide them into 2 camps: offensive and defensive.

Offensive 3 stacks every 6 seconds.
Defensive 6 stacks every 6 seconds.

Good idea to ponder about.
.