Guild Wars 2

1000 hours is not much compared to some other highly skilled and knowledgeable players in this game, but I love(it’s my main ofc) the class and have tried to learn as much as I can about it.

In case someone doesn’t know: SS = Smokescale, BB = Bristleback (Pets)

All of what I say here is obviously my opinion, but this opinion has been honed by 1000 ours of play in PvP, PvE(Though I have not really done Raids yet) and WvW.

So here is my look at the class in 4 subsections: Pets, weapon abilities (1-5), Utilities (6-10) and Traits. Look for the bold stuff to find the sections.

Lets go for our main feature first: PETS! <3

I will not be talking much about drakes or Moas, because I just don’t like them, maybe someone can add to that in the comments

We Rangers love our pets to death(most of us anyway). They tank for us, they can bodyblock for us, they help us up when we are downed. Especially when downed they feel like a lot of help. We can still use F2 while downed, CCing or killing an enemy and “Lick wounds”(downed Nr.3) is awesome for PvE and not overpowerd in PvP or WvW because we can still be finished of while our pets help us.

That being said, this is where they stop shining and we come to the more mediocre parts of pets. They have some nice buffs(Fernhound regen, Tiger frenzy, etc.) and some good condis(Lynx bleeds, Eagle bleeds, Spider poisons, etc.) and some ok damage in general(BB feels a little underwhelming now though, same for SS).

Now here are the annoying/bad/underwhelming parts about pets:

Birds AI casting swiftness: Dafaq, I don’t give a kitten about swiftness in fights, I want it out of combat. You could be doing damage, burd, I don’t need your swiftness right now!
We don’t have any pets that cast swiftness on F2, but I think a bird would be a gread canidate, but those bleeds in the AI casts! They’d be fine there!

Close combat pets: Not really too much of a problem in PvE, but in WvW and PvP a good enemy never stands still, which makes many pets useless. now and then dogs and cats have their jump attacks, those do hit. Auto-attacks and stuff like that? Nah!

Random CC castings: Yes, I’m looking at you dogs! though some other have it to, it’s mostly dogs. I’d like to be able to control it.

And here I have an awesome Idea that would make all rangers SQUEEE if it was implemented, but (I think) it wouldn’t be overpowered: While our pet is already attacking, make F1 switch to a second cast command where we can have for example the dog leaps, and give us a check-box in our pet panel that sets this ability to autocast/AI-cast(so it would essentially work just like before if it was checked).

Other than this, please rework old pets so they are on par with the new ones again, PLEASE!

Part 2: Weapons:

We have a lot to choose from, that’s all fine. I don’t think we need more, but I want to go over a few things that don’t feel alright to me:

Horn:

• 4: I can’t really put a finger on it, but for some reason this ability just feels weird and out of place.
• 5: It’s a cool ability, it would be awesome though if we had a mainhand weapon that focuses on buffing(or maybe healing) allies too, so it works well together(Maybe next expansion… hey, one can hope alright?)

Sword:

• 2: The evade on this ability doesn’t feel good, sword 3 and dagger 4 feel way better. I think the problem is that the evade doesn’t start right when we cast it, but only when the backwards motion begins.
• 3: Not really necesarry, but can we have 1 more poison on this? I guess it’s a psychological thing. I’d rather see a 3 there than a 2 ^^

Longbow:
In generally longbow doesn’t autoattack even though the 1500 range shots would still be able to hit, can we finally change that please? Or is there a good reason for this?

• 3: You missed! No stealth for you! … Really? The only bit of stealth(beside trapper rune) and we HAVE to hit it otherwise we don’t get it? It’s only 3 seconds, please just give me that stealth… I actually never use this ability ever, it’s useless like this. at this range before I know if it hits I might have already autocasted another shot so I’m revealed directly. Cool, that was about .5 seconds of stealth! While I was 1200 or more away, they didn’t even care about me at this point…

Dagger:

• 5: You need some serious throwing knife skills for this one. It says 1200 range, but as if it would ever his someone at this range. It’s a slow projectile and it’s not homing. I’m not even sure if that should be changed. Would be cool if it were a little more reliable though.

Axe(offhand):

• 4: Oh, It pulls! The tooltip didn’t mention that… cool!

Staff:

• 1: Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping, Ping :| I know it was already changed once, but can we have a “softer” version if this sound. Tone down? the high frequencies in the second part maybe. It’s not really too bad, but it could be less annoying.
• 2: Feels useless, I know it heals some, but it’s so insignificant, I almost never cast it, because it takes 3/4 of a seconds. maybe with 1/4 or 1/2 I’d cast it, but like this it feels like wasted time.

Greatsword/Axe(main hand)/Torch/Shortbow
There is not really anything wrong here. IMO

Ok, On to Utilities!
The things I do not talk about are in a good place I think.

Heals:
All really cool, just 2 things:

• Why can’t Glyph of Rejuvenation not just heal my pet too T_T The poor thing!
• Troll Unguent feels lame. I know some builds use it, I don’t. Maybe I just can’t see it’s value though.

Now going through 7-9 skills by categories:

Glyphs:
They are all kinda cool but:

• None of them have a finisher, I feel like Tides could use a blast-finisher
• Empowerment: Normal one already feels lame, avatar one… o.O? Increase outgoing healing? Should I gather a dedicated healer group around me and buff them up to heal even more? I don’t see any value in this one.

Shouts:

• Sic ’Em : Make our pets great again! Maybe it will be useful then.
• Search and Rescue: Everyone knows this was overnerfed. You have to go into the dangerzone to cast it. Many classes (especially thieves) can already shadowstep/blink to targets so much, it’s no good with 600 range. Maybe 900 would be a nice balance?

Spirits:
In general annoying because they are stationary, the game is too mobile for them. Stone could use a stunnbreak on cast maybe? Not really necessary though.

Survival:

• Sharpening Stone: feel lame. I’m pretty sure it’s not just “feel” but generally bad.
• Muddy Terrain: When does this pulse? I guess once a second? I know it’s good to kite, but there are so few situations where it can actually be used well.
• Quickening Zephyr: Cooldown is too long I think, compared to other stunnbreaks (glyph, protect me, Lightning Reflexes). Yes, Signet of renewal has the same CD, but the signet is better in my opinion. With 40 or 45 seconds I would use Zephyr.

Signets:

• Signet of the Hunt: Common, especially since Natural Stride this is only used for getting the 300k damage achievement, if you don’t have it already.

Traps:
Nothing wrong here I think. The fact that they are all unblockable makes them very useful, but at the same time you have to get into the fray to effectively use them, so it’s balanced! Cool!

Elites:

• Can we have a trap here?
• Glyph of Unity is just lame. (would maybe be cool if it applied condis or something like that.
• Rest is awesome.

At this point a few notes about Celestial Avatar(F5):
Since the nerf “Seed of Life” doesn’t feel worth casting anymore. You have to stand it it till it blossoms for the condi clear. Almost impossible with the mobility needed in this game. The druid who casts seed of life will probably not be able to Projectile finish it, unless it was casted with Verdant Etching, but Celestial Shadow is probably the better option here, and Druidic Clarity as condi remove.
Healing is still bad for participation, especially in WvW zerk fights, because only when targets are tagged(enough attacks on them to trigger participation) do you get participation. The only ability in avatar form that makes damage is Nr.5 and that is close range, has to be cast while standing still and casts for quite some time.
The daze from Lunar Impact(this ability does no damage) apparently doesn’t count towards tagging. I will still go on to heal my team as much as I can, even without loot, but it would be cool to get some.
Other than this. Even here Glyph of Unity still feels lame, I can’t heal my mates past 100% hp, and I’m getting there without it.

Traits:

Skirmishing: Much synergy with many things the Ranger can do. I love it!

Nature Magic: It’s great. If spirits were not so stationary/useles I would even use Nature’s Vengeance.

Beastmastery: I feel like Nature Magic works better together with pets at the moment that this does, which is sad, because the problem is that my pet is at the moment mostly a thingy that I copy my buffs from with “We heal as one!”. If pets were not so useless atm, Beastmastery would be useful I think.

Marksmanship:
*I really love the synergy between “Clarion Bond” and “Windborne Notes”(NatMagic). It would probably be more used in general if Longbow were a bit better.
*"Predator’s Instinct" Only good for kiting, but weird with 30 seconds cooldown, that cripple will be cleared quite fast in most cases. Can We have 5 seconds cripple with 15 seconds cooldown?

*Wilderness Survival:

• “Soften the fall” is really weird. The other classes at least hat something useful with their fall-damage reductions, but this one just traps the enemies near you, while you are stunned for a moment from the fall, so you basically force them to attack you.
• “Emphatic Bond” Would be cooler if we had 3.5 seconds interval with 1 condition removed. 10 and 3 feels almost random in fights, because we can’t see/know when it will come up. (same with the passive of signet of renewal actually)

Druid:

• “Cultivated Synergy” I really really hope it heals the pet itself aswell! I don’t actually know, and I can’t test it very well. But it wouldn’t even be needed if Glyph of Rejuvenation would heal the pet(at least a bit)
• I think it’s a bit lame that T1 and T2 choosable traits feel way stronger than T3. I know T3 is strong, they just don’t feel like they are.
• I CANT DECIDE WHAT TO TAKE AND WHAT NOT TO TAKE T_T!!!!

Aaaaaand I’m done! Nope, this will not have a TL;DR! Read it! If you like Ranger, I’m sure you will actually learn something from it!

Didn’t proofread, may miss some words or letters here and there… if it’s too bad, please say so and I will have a look

What do you guys think? Anything to add?

Thanks for reading! -Ranys

So this is more of a complaint thread? Anyway, interesting points in there, my thoughts (with a similar number of hours)

Weapons:
I agree about sword 2 evade feelimg strange, but disagree completely on horn and dagger. Horn is a perfect fit to theme, and functions great (rnger warhorn us my favorite warhorn). Dagger is a close range (<900 range)weapon for hitting those people just out of range, so mine rarely misses. Speaking of closerange, I consider hunters shot to lso be a attack.

Shouts:
Search and rescue:. yeah, they nerfed too hard. I hated carying it even when it was op because it is otherwise useless in a fight…now back to the trashbin it goes.

wvw:
my guild hs been forcing me on my guardian latley, but I never had major issues getting bags playing healer druid. Staff 1 pierces crazy, take advantage of that while you fill your CA bar. Otherwise, cant commanders set you to get a percent of loot now if it is serious issue? Thought they were saying sonething like that.

Beastmastery:
I take beastmastery purley for traited shouts :-/ that perma party swiftness…

Then again, I don’t claim to be a good ranger…

Some nice good points there.

There’s definitely more to talk about … But everything has been mentioned so many times already that I don’t find worth ever getting back to it.

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

So this is more of a complaint thread? Anyway, interesting points in there, my thoughts (with a similar number of hours)

Weapons:
I agree about sword 2 evade feelimg strange, but disagree completely on horn and dagger. Horn is a perfect fit to theme, and functions great (rnger warhorn us my favorite warhorn). Dagger is a close range (<900 range)weapon for hitting those people just out of range, so mine rarely misses. Speaking of closerange, I consider hunters shot to lso be a attack.

Shouts:
Search and rescue:. yeah, they nerfed too hard. I hated carying it even when it was op because it is otherwise useless in a fight…now back to the trashbin it goes.

wvw:
my guild hs been forcing me on my guardian latley, but I never had major issues getting bags playing healer druid. Staff 1 pierces crazy, take advantage of that while you fill your CA bar. Otherwise, cant commanders set you to get a percent of loot now if it is serious issue? Thought they were saying sonething like that.

Beastmastery:
I take beastmastery purley for traited shouts :-/ that perma party swiftness…

Then again, I don’t claim to be a good ranger…

Well. It could be called a complain poste, because I mostly point out problems, but I’m not unhappy with the class at all, I just thought I’d make a big list for all the stuff that is annoying/lame/to weak. I don’t expect all of what I said to be polished out now, but if I see some of it in the next few patches, there might be a chance this post was an influence

Any other things you’d like to see from an experienced ranger? I do have quite some time to write stuff down.

Ill post my reply in a game mode perspective if thats alright. Their are too many small issues ive found to really get into with the amount of time I have so I feel it would be easier this way.

PvE: Were buff bots. God I am tired of being a buff bot. I am REALLY hoping the next elite spec is one that encurages increasing your own personnel dps and sustain so we can compete dps wise.

I don’t mind slotting a couple spirits and grace of the land. But I have been forced to have them be a mandatory part of every possible PvE build I could make from the day people realized how broken they were. I would like to play something else for once and not be considered a joke class because I do half the damage as an ele in boss fights…maybe less even.

WvW: As a class were pretty unreliable here. Again were brought not for what we ourselves do but for a mechanic and a trait. Namely our act as a healer and damage buffer.

And heres the best part. We aren’t the best at ANY roll. Or even terribly reliable. Pretty much the top wvw build for rangers atm is full nomads druid….nomads. Thats so far into healer territory its sad. Unfortunately we aren’t really needed. A melee train can sustain itself just fine without us. And druids still have the issue of not being reliable in terms of its ability to stay alive when near the melee train. Druid gives some good escapes. But we are still very easily locked down by incidental aoes and CCs. The “healing” we put out can much more reliably be done by a frontline tempest. Who can actually push with the melee.

Meanwhile our dps or “pick” builds are incredibly squishy. Even if you use marauders or a tankier combination of gear (sacrificing your damage) you run a very real risk of getting 100-0d before you can hit signet of stone due to stealth bursts. When we CAN do our damage. Our primary pick weapon is projectile reliant. And HoT and the current meta added a MASSIVE amount of projectile destruction to the field.

If your arrows aren’t being destroyed or reflected the damage they do is still minor due to the fact that we are balanced around our pets dps as well. Pets which can’t fight in WvW. The pet with the highest WvW combat potential (the bristleback) has to get several hundred range closer to our targets putting him dangerously into the aoe heavy zone. Unless we go way left or right of the zerg fights in order to get clear LoS on our targets. Making us extremely vulnerable to any duo team of thieves,mesmers, or maybe just a bored revenant. All of which can either get close to use without us seeing them or close the gap faster than we can expand it.

In other words we just aren’t designed for the wvw environment. Even as healers. And I don’t see that changing any time soon except with an elite spec. So yay we get to buy another expansion that MIGHT address the issues we have there. And thats IF the issues get addressed at all.

As far as PvP goes its not as bad. Druid is still considered one of the “meta” builds. Thats bunker druid however. Our dps druid builds lack alot of the sustain they need to compete with condi mesmers and power revenants on point. We can fight them and even win. But the cards are stacked against us. And in team fights we have the same roll as the old necro builds used to have. The initial focus target.

FIghting a condi war as a dps druid while trying not to give up the point however is a pure nightmare

Like with WvW our damage is unreliable. We are heavily dependent on our pets to deal damage for us because our actual weapons are incredibly easy to counter.

Notice a pattern? In ALL THREE GAME MODES our only “viable” builds involves our roll as support. Supporting others damage because we can’t deal damage ourselves. Supporting others survival because we can’t survive ourselves. Supporting our pets and focusing on surviving because we can’t reliably build towards just killing the kitten.

Obviously this is from my own experience. And ill admit the last month has been more frustrating than many in attempting to adapt by playstyle to the metas of all 3 game modes. But I thought id put for the issues as I saw them.

Shadelang.3012:

Notice a pattern? In ALL THREE GAME MODES our only “viable” builds involves our roll as support. Supporting others damage because we can’t deal damage ourselves. Supporting others survival because we can’t survive ourselves. Supporting our pets and focusing on surviving because we can’t reliably build towards just killing the kitten.

Obviously this is from my own experience. And ill admit the last month has been more frustrating than many in attempting to adapt by playstyle to the metas of all 3 game modes. But I thought id put for the issues as I saw them.

THIS. Exactly this. PVE wise I basically never play on my ranger anymore. So sick of being support/heal Druid, I only play on my ele now. In PVP I play DH now cuz they’re a way more viable longbow build than power ranger. Like really?! Guardians should not be better than rangers with a longbow.

Sad thing is pre-HOT I had just gotten full ascended zerk gear for my ranger and that’s literally useless now.

I want sword 2 to be a normal leap like warriors sword 2 so sword has a real mobility skill.

I want more pets like the tiger where it’s main damaging ability is it’s f2 skill and it’s on a low cooldown. More interaction with our pets please!

Shadelang.3012:

Notice a pattern? In ALL THREE GAME MODES our only “viable” builds involves our roll as support. Supporting others damage because we can’t deal damage ourselves. Supporting others survival because we can’t survive ourselves. Supporting our pets and focusing on surviving because we can’t reliably build towards just killing the kitten.

Obviously this is from my own experience. And ill admit the last month has been more frustrating than many in attempting to adapt by playstyle to the metas of all 3 game modes. But I thought id put for the issues as I saw them.

I too share the exact same experience. Our offensive options are either binary or easily counter able. When we have burst, we have no sustain, or when we have tones of sustain and no burst. There is no middle ground because damage per second is laugh able in any set up.

I’ve said this before ranger deprived compared to other classes; we have many of the same tools as other classes, just weaker versions of things on shorter cooldowns. Which does not allow us to stand out anywhere and it makes the class really frustrating to play as because it does not excel at anything.

Druid just pigeon holed the whole “were a support class” mindset.

Pre-HoT rangers weren’t brought into dungeons for DPS (well they were at one point, but that was a loong time ago). Now? Bringing a power ranger for DPS is even more laughable. Hopefully ANet realizes how one-sided this buff-bot class has been and does the exact opposite with the next elite spec

Matt Stacey.7415:

Hopefully ANet realizes how one-sided this buff-bot class has been and does the exact opposite with the next elite spec

2 patches in a row we got a damage nerf. One was on our main DPS weapon (sword) and second on our most used pets.
I wouldn’t bet my shoes on your statement.

They might be aware but their only reply is technically “We don’t know”. For all those years, only 2 matters have been addressed and that’s sword mechanic which was a stealth-nerf and shouts that were nerfed afterwards (They still have no idea that Ally’s Aid has a completely different cooldown than the actual ability, but don’t tell them).

The only thing I know is that I won’t risk my next elite spec. I had a great time here but that’s just how things go. Actions have consequences.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Hopefully ANet realizes how one-sided this buff-bot class has been and does the exact opposite with the next elite spec

2 patches in a row we got a damage nerf. One was on our main DPS weapon (sword) and second on our most used pets.
I wouldn’t bet my shoes on your statement.

Honestly I wouldn’t bet anything either, I’m just trying to have semblance of hope for the ranger class because at the moment it is just not fun for me. I’d like to think it will turn around soon…but it is not easy

Matt Stacey.7415:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Hopefully ANet realizes how one-sided this buff-bot class has been and does the exact opposite with the next elite spec

2 patches in a row we got a damage nerf. One was on our main DPS weapon (sword) and second on our most used pets.
I wouldn’t bet my shoes on your statement.

Honestly I wouldn’t bet anything either, I’m just trying to have semblance of hope for the ranger class because at the moment it is just not fun for me. I’d like to think it will turn around soon…but it is not easy

The issue is with elite specs themselves. They CAN’T buff anything in the core ranger without buffing druid in comparison. Because of how our trait system works any utility skill or trait they buff in order to give us back some of our pressure will just immediately be incorporated into the meta druid build.

Druid sustain is already strong if they gave us reliable damage too it would be OP. Our pets were nerfed because we had too much reliable damage relevant to our sustain and control.

But again due to the way this games build system works it isn’t possible for them to say “Okay were going to buff core ranger’s pressure without buffing druids” It isn’t likely atleast*.

The only possible method they have for doing so is in future elite specs that I can see*. Meaning that we have to buy another expansion. Which I will probably do because I love this game but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Its why there have been suggestions to make one of the core specs an “elite” spec for base ranger. Something that only rangers could take that druids lose access to. Like the beast mastery line so that anet has something they can use to balance our damage and our sustain independently. Anet could give us the pet damage back through the beast mastery line as long as druid couldn’t access it. Or they could give us reliable attacks through marksmanship (Like making opening strikes unblockable) as long as druid didn’t have access to it.

Unfortunately until either A: Druid gets nerfed to the ground. B: The next expansion hits. Or C: A core spec becomes unavailable to druid and RANGER is based around that core spec. We probably won’t be getting reliable damage oriented builds. Simply because druid is too kitten good at what it does.

Shadelang.3012:

Its why there have been suggestions to make one of the core specs an “elite” spec for base ranger. Something that only rangers could take that druids lose access to. Like the beast mastery line so that anet has something they can use to balance our damage and our sustain independently.

I’d be all for that if Anet did something as ballsy. Every class having that 5th traitline be an e-spec and give the profession something so core specs aren’t left in the dust. I’d take that over another e-spec power-creep infested traitline in the next xpac anyday.

Shadelang.3012:

Druid sustain is already strong if they gave us reliable damage too it would be OP. Our pets were nerfed because we had too much reliable damage relevant to our sustain and control.

We might have been playing a different game, the two of us.
Pets were many things but reliable damage was not one.

Buffing the core Ranger and nerfing druid would be fine by me.
But there hasn’t been a single buff, yet. Nerfs and Nerfs only. If we are talking about S&R that was still inferior to other classes saves – we got hammered again because we can’t have nice things.

If we have too much damage for our survival, I don’t want to know what do you think of elementalists and revenants. I don’t believe those are mistakes of the matrix. I think every class contributes with it’s presence and has a footing in the game.
Except the Rangers. We are there just because people feel more powerful when we are around. And that’s about it.

You could have been correct about our survival if we weren’t the game’s easiest class to be focused down. And you can’t prove me wrong about this point.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Shadelang.3012:

Its why there have been suggestions to make one of the core specs an “elite” spec for base ranger. Something that only rangers could take that druids lose access to. Like the beast mastery line so that anet has something they can use to balance our damage and our sustain independently.

I’d be all for that if Anet did something as ballsy. Every class having that 5th traitline be an e-spec and give the profession something so core specs aren’t left in the dust. I’d take that over another e-spec power-creep infested traitline in the next xpac anyday.

This wouldn’t have to be the case.
If we had things adjusted and our pets could benefit from all our buffs, that would have been just enough. (PvE wise)

I mean, let’s think about pet’s having all buffs from the ranger baseline and none from traits and such.
I also think that LoYF is a potential DPS increase. If we moved the damage and condi duration to 15% and made it proc on evades, not just dodges – this would be a nice way to promote damage increase in place of utility (which Quick Draw provides)

Beast Mastery’s Loud Whistle makes no sense with the HP restriction. If we made it passive, we’d suddenly have a pet with permanent quickness, 25 might, 10% from loud Whistle, 10% from Steady Focus, 10% crit when flanking, 150 preci from Spotter, 10%(15) from LoYF, Frost Spirit, banners and auras (150 power and fero), potentially 5% damage from sigil and another 7% from rune and potentially 10% from the glyph and 15% from GotL from another ranger.
And yes – our pets misses out on all of this in PvE environment.

Would that be OP in PvP? Impossible. Currently our biggest problem we have is that we can abuse might through WHaO and Fortifying Bond, other buffs are not available in PvP anyway. So if WHaO didn’t share buffs but pets had ours all the time – it would have solved absolutely everything. Except that silly fact that pets wouldn’t have hit moving targets regardless.

The moral of the story is that by sacrificing our free 25 mighted pet we could get pets with increased damage from everything we have specced into and built around. So by going offensive your pet would hurt more, but defensive it would hurt less. Stats wouldn’t affect it so this would only be a question of traitlines and utilization that – you’d have to sacrifice.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Shadelang.3012:

Druid sustain is already strong if they gave us reliable damage too it would be OP. Our pets were nerfed because we had too much reliable damage relevant to our sustain and control.

We might have been playing a different game, the two of us.
Pets were many things but reliable damage was not one.

Buffing the core Ranger and nerfing druid would be fine by me.
But there hasn’t been a single buff, yet. Nerfs and Nerfs only. If we are talking about S&R that was still inferior to other classes saves – we got hammered again because we can’t have nice things.

If we have too much damage for our survival, I don’t want to know what do you think of elementalists and revenants. I don’t believe those are mistakes of the matrix. I think every class contributes with it’s presence and has a footing in the game.
Except the Rangers. We are there just because people feel more powerful when we are around. And that’s about it.

You could have been correct about our survival if we weren’t the game’s easiest class to be focused down. And you can’t prove me wrong about this point.

Smokescale and bristleback were pretty reliable in terms of actual combat. Smokescale could deal fairly high amounts of reliable damage in the right build (I used my old ranger build to get it to hit for 14k+ before its nerf. And with its built in tracking that was enough to deal at least 5-6k even on tanky/evade spammy targets. I used to use it to 1 round tempests when I prebuffed it correctly and hit them from stealth. Losing the ability to command the smoke assault was the biggest nerf for my core ranger build. And ultimately was what pushed me into running druid (The smoke field just didn’t do much for my play style).

Bristlebacks in their previous form with the duration of there old ability were very good at penetrating through dodges and blocks. The long duration of the skill spread the damage out but in doing so made it hard to negate with just one dodge or block unless you used quickness to speed up the animation. Its nature as a projectile hurt it more than most other forms of defense. Now that the attack occurs so kitten quickly. The damage is so much easier to have accidentally negated. Making the skill itself a less reliable form of burst.

Now both occur faster (Both consist of fewer hits causing the animation to end soon) Making them easier to dodge/block/negate. (This also reduces the survivability of smokescale as it has 2 less attacks worth of I-Frames to work with) Most of which now happens automatically as the normal flow of the fight. Our ONLY METHOD in the entire game of dealing with blocks (Smokescale takedown “bug”) is now gone making the REST of our damage even more unreliable.

Shadelang.3012:

The issue is with elite specs themselves. They CAN’T buff anything in the core ranger without buffing druid in comparison. Because of how our trait system works any utility skill or trait they buff in order to give us back some of our pressure will just immediately be incorporated into the meta druid build.

Druid sustain is already strong if they gave us reliable damage too it would be OP. Our pets were nerfed because we had too much reliable damage relevant to our sustain and control.

But again due to the way this games build system works it isn’t possible for them to say “Okay were going to buff core ranger’s pressure without buffing druids” It isn’t likely atleast*.

Going beastmastery + marks or something gives you as much self healing and sustain as a fire/air dagger/warhorn tempest, if not worse. Except you do 1/4th DPS of a tempest.

I play both classes and when both are specced purely for damage they have about equal healing, but tempest is allowed to do 4x the druids damage for some reason?

It doesn’t make any sense to me that if I equip full zerker on my druid and put zero points into any support trees, equip zero support utilities and just go pure damage, my damage is nowhere near a tempests, while having the same healing as a pure damage tempest. I. Don’t. Get. It.

Shadelang.3012:

Smokescale and bristleback were pretty reliable in terms of actual combat. Smokescale could deal fairly high amounts of reliable damage in the right build (I used my old ranger build to get it to hit for 14k+ before its nerf. And with its built in tracking that was enough to deal at least 5-6k even on tanky/evade spammy targets.

Well, yea, people used to get permaquickness by abusing the tonic in combat with Zephyr’s Speed, too. Until they nerfed it.
No point in saying what you could do in the past when you can’t do it today.

You naturally could have made the pet deal 14K nuke once every 20 sec… If you went for 25 mighted build with Sick’Em – which made you specifically invest a lot into that specific pet.
Which is the same scenario as DPS specced ele that will blow 5 people if specced into it. And he’d still have 2 ways to survive (invulnerability).

Smokescale has 1 reliable nuke.
Bristle – okay, they made him reliable with last patch at a cost of 40% of it’s burst.
But none of the pets are reliable since you can’t make them stay alive and even Smokescale has troubles tracking it’s target. The thing is that’s 2 out of like 40 pets that are useful – and they are ceasing to be.

I’d just like to be able to have decent DPS. Spirits are useless aside from renewal’s revive in PVE. Just ditch the spirit and let us have revive.

vhiran xergo.7802:

I’d just like to be able to have decent DPS. Spirits are useless aside from renewal’s revive in PVE. Just ditch the spirit and let us have revive.

Unfortunately as long as frost spirit,spotter, and grace of the land exist, our 3 primary unique damage buffs (They will almost always be dps increases to the party to bring), I doubt we will get the kind of personal dps we want. Our roll atm is contributing to OTHER peoples dps. Not doing anything ourselves in that regard.

Believe me I hate that. But as it stands even if a dps oriented elite spec comes in the next expansion. Or even if one of the core lines DOES become a psuedo “elite” spec. We will probably be running the same builds we are now atleast as far as PvE and WvW go. In PvP we might get some other options.

But even if we COULD do ele level personal dps we still won’t be taking that line because our contribution through grace of the land and frost spirit will probably still be higher. Atleast in the eyes of the community around us. Anything that could boost us to the point where we deal enough damage to warrant not taking the group buffs will probably be at the level that makes us have broken levels of damage in PvP. OR will be designed in a way that it simply isn’t useful in PvP.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Wondrouswall.7169:

I’d be all for that if Anet did something as ballsy. Every class having that 5th traitline be an e-spec and give the profession something so core specs aren’t left in the dust. I’d take that over another e-spec power-creep infested traitline in the next xpac anyday.

-snip-

We’re on different pages here. I was more on the lines of that 5th trait line being an e-spec, then reworked to be unique when slotted (such as a new F5). Very broad when I state it, but it I’m not really game for expanding on what I meant other than agreeing with a core Ranger should offer something unique rather than obtaining that uniqueness from slotting Druid.

I just wih the devs would once and for all have stream where they talk about what their vision for all the classes are, where they want the classes to be compared to each other, and why they allow certain classes deal x4 times the damage of others.

As for rangers specifically, I would really love to hear their take on primarily pets – exactly HOW are rangers balanced with their pets, and in a typical one on one situation vs another class, exactly how much of the total damage dealt from ranger and pet should the pet be accounted for (how often should the pet be able to hit the opponent).

I would also love to hear what dps results the devs have throughout all the classes, and how they came up with those numbers.

Don’t have any hopes this will ever happen though, and the main reason for that is because I don’t think even the devs themselves actually are able to answer these questions.

this is just a post to cry about things you do not like or you think ranger/druid are bad at.there are plenty of youtube videos of rangers doing fantastic in WvW

trunks.5249:

this is just a post to cry about things you do not like or you think ranger/druid are bad at.there are plenty of youtube videos of rangers doing fantastic in WvW

And we all know that’s solely thanks to the class they play, not because of their own personal skill and vast outplaying by awareness. Plus none of that are highlights while fails are left out. [/s]
Yes – even I can tell this thread is mostly made a “cry” one. But for a bloody good reason. Having a profession with the same healing as we do but with much better pattern that can be used in real mobile combat, whilst also having 4x our damage is not okay (hello ele)

And that’s something you can’t ever compare with “I saw a guy doing fine”.
That was a guy doing fine. Not the class we are all addressing here.

It’s like saying that nuclear bomb is not as deadly as people think because you can go out there and stab people with pencils.
Efficiency, my brother in arms. Efficiency.