Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing some sPvP today with my ranger using a build that in WvW I’m fairly happy with, though in both places the damage just does not measure up to any other class in full berserker gear. Yes, this is yet another post about Ranger’s absolutely terrible damage coefficients on weapon skills because this problem deserves full attention until it is no longer a problem.

The reason playing a full glass longbow ranger in WvW works is that while your damage isn’t as amazing as other classes at range, you have more range and can abuse cliffs and high ground, and in general damage is much higher than defense in WvW. Once you can kill someone before they are a threat to you, it no longer matters so much that another class in the same gear could kill them three times faster than you can.

In sPvP, the gearing is different. You can’t get above that threshold where your rapid fire kills glass thieves anymore. Against a true glass thief, if I burn all of my cooldowns I can still kill them but then I’m a sitting duck for longer than it takes them to run back to the same spot from their spawn with all of their own cooldowns already up again. Today, however, I repeatedly faced the most effective illustration of ranger’s ineffectiveness…

Barrage is supposed to be our ultimate weapon skill, isn’kitten It’s the hardest-hitting single skill damage ability that we have, assuming someone is dumb enough to stand in all twelve ticks of it. Today, I had two different warriors both running a berserker hammer build literally stand in my barrage without dodging and not give a kitten . They did not use endure pain. They did not have protection. It was base armor vs full glass ranger barrage AND rapid fire together with pet up, Signet of the Wild with mastery trait and Rampage as One, and the hammer warriors using only weapon skills, For Great Justice and Berserker Stance.

Both of these warriors on separate occaisions did more than twice the damage to me in a 1v1 melee situation than I could deal to them when eating barrage, rapid fire and my wolf’s damage, with neither of us suffering any crowd control because we both had stability. Yes, we are talking about a longbow in melee—but notice that longbow’s only range-dependent damage is on auto attack which was not used. I swap to greatsword for maul after the longbow’s skill burst, which coupled with signet of the hunt should be a killing blow. Both warriors survived through it all and killed me, even through the protection buff that my spec gives me and my healing spring.

I understand if weapon coefficients are lower because the pet makes up for the damage lost, but that is not the case. The pet was not even having trouble hitting these warriors. Every hit was landing. Berserker heavy versus berserker medium armor, but my ranger uses signet of stone which along with the protection buff should move the defensive odds in my favor.

A ranger burning every damage cooldown should wipe the floor with a warrior burning every damage cooldown simply because the ranger has longer cooldowns in their damage-boosting utilities and elites. That’s called balance. Longer cooldowns should mean more power when activated, and warriors are more than capable of running away or behind a rock until the ranger burns out.

No player except for the tankiest of bunkers should be able to stand in barrage and pet damage for the full effect and live through it without pushing buttons to live, let alone rapid fire. Ranger must stand still to cast barrage, much like elementalist must stand still to cast meteor shower and both have similar range and cooldowns. The difference is that meteor shower kills people. And no, the cripple on barrage does not offset the severe lack of relative damage. If nobody has to even move out of it, why should they care if they’re crippled?

Please upvote this post if you’re tired of ranger’s weapon skills taking back-seat to every other class simply because of the pet class mechanic that doesn’t even measure up when the AI DOES work.

I wouldn’t necessarily agree that a full barrage and pet should kill anyone dumb enough to stand in it and take the full effect, the general point behind your post being how awful this class is can’t be stated enough.

With so little burst and AE available to this class you would expect what little it does have to pull their weight and that simply isn’t the case. From terrible trait design to ineffective weapon options there’s little reason to play this class. ESPECIALLY after the short sighted and ignorant responses from Mr. Peters in the other thread on this class.

I am currently trying out Berserker set, except I decided to stay with some Soldier Trinkets rather than going full glass, this is so that I don’t die instantly, you should try it out, it does reduce some damage, but you can always manage.

Lukyromero.6780:

I am currently trying out Berserker set, except I decided to stay with some Soldier Trinkets rather than going full glass, this is so that I don’t die instantly, you should try it out, it does reduce some damage, but you can always manage.

You are correct that tank stats are effective on a ranger where pure power fails. That is because tank stats are not reduced to ineffective status in order to balance our ineffective pet. If you cannot be killed but the other person can be, you will eventually win. That is why most rangers I’ve seen playing on par with other classes are condition-based tank builds because conditions are not nerfed for "balance" with our pet.

I appreciate your thoughtful suggestion, but this thread was not supposed to be a place for playstyle advice. I would not claim I have nothing left to learn, but this isn’t about individual skill or play choice. I am fairly confident that the statement that ranger’s laughable berserker damage hits like a wet noodle compared to other classes would still hold true about the lesser damage of a soldier’s build, regardless of the skill of the player pushing the weapon skill buttons. It’s math and nothing more.

The point of this thread is to draw attention to the fact that a power-based ranger is not only inferior in its weapon skill damage output to other classes, but that the pet is unable to make up the difference in damage because it does not scale with ranger stats.

Guardians have a class mechanic that causes burning every five hits. That burning does about as much damage per tick as our pet’s non-critical hits, and with burst skills that hit multiple times guardians can proc the burning more often than our pets hit even if they can stay on-target. Similarly to our pets, guardians can buff this effect with traits in their profession-mechanic trait line (Virtues). They can also "command" their "pet" by pushing their virtue buttons to gain effects that are more powerful than ranger pet abilities if they trait for them, such as a massive aoe heal for their team, area protection, or with the help of a team applying all of their burning all at once along with might stacks.

Following the logic that ArenaNet has used with ranger, Guardian weapon skill damage should be heavily nerfed in order to compensate for their class mechanic adding damage when they attack. Doesn’t that sound like a crazy idea?

Edited for inexplicable kittens.

Well I don’t think that barrage is meant to kill a single enemy. The dmg is AoE, if it causes massive dmg then you could kill the entire enemy team stacked on one place with a single skill, which would be totally broken. However I agree that barrage, as it’s now, is awful skill. Half the ticks with double the dmg from each tick would for example make this skill much more beneficial.

I think it has no sence to comment glass cannon ranger as nobody is listening anyway. Further more, the upcomming updates shows that they have perfectly no clue what to do with rangers. Balance across all the builds is just a myth, don’t even think it’s their intention tbh.

Miyu.8137:

Well I don’t think that barrage is meant to kill a single enemy. The dmg is AoE, if it causes massive dmg then you could kill the entire enemy team stacked on one place with a single skill, which would be totally broken. However I agree that barrage, as it’s now, is awful skill. Half the ticks with double the dmg from each tick would for example make this skill much more beneficial.

I think it has no sence to comment glass cannon ranger as nobody is listening anyway. Further more, the upcomming updates shows that they have perfectly no clue what to do with rangers. Balance across all the builds is just a myth, don’t even think it’s their intention tbh.

Warrior has hundred blades. Necromancer has wells. Guardian has whirling wrath (if they go glass) or smite for a ranged option. Thief has pistol whip. Elementalist has meteor shower. Mesmer has clone shatter combos.

If you stand in any of these AOE effects as a single target, you will die. Why should ranger not also get to kill targets that cannot be bothered to move or dodge roll?

Edited for yet more random kittens. Please fix forum censorship.

I disagree that a single barrage should kill when a player takes full effect.

This will make Barrage too overpowered. There is too many small corridors, barrage is big enough to cover a capture point, this will wipe groups that tries to res players.

If Barrage is to be improved, it should not root the player while casting.

runeblade.7514:

I disagree that a single barrage should kill when a player takes full effect.

This will make Barrage too overpowered. There is too many small corridors, barrage is big enough to cover a capture point, this will wipe groups that tries to res players.

If Barrage is to be improved, it should not root the player while casting.

I would agree that using barrage while moving would be preferred if a bit strange to watch animation-wise. That said, why if we do have to stand still does it not have the impact of Elementalist’s similar Meteor Shower? A player that dodge rolls will take one tick of barrage with minimal damage and the cripple will wear out at the end of the dodge roll. A player that dodge rolls after one hit of Meteor Shower may have had a third of their health taken from them in that one hit.

Why can necromancer AOE be cast while moving and also kill anyone who stands in it?

If your problem is solely with buffing barrage, please note that this post is not about only barrage. It is a general post about the inferior weapon skill coefficients that rangers have even though their pet does not make up for the difference between the damage of their weapons and the damage of weapons used by other classes.

Orion.3812:

Miyu.8137:

Well I don’t think that barrage is meant to kill a single enemy. The dmg is AoE, if it causes massive dmg then you could kill the entire enemy team stacked on one place with a single skill, which would be totally broken. However I agree that barrage, as it’s now, is awful skill. Half the ticks with double the dmg from each tick would for example make this skill much more beneficial.

I think it has no sence to comment glass cannon ranger as nobody is listening anyway. Further more, the upcomming updates shows that they have perfectly no clue what to do with rangers. Balance across all the builds is just a myth, don’t even think it’s their intention tbh.

Warrior has hundred blades. Necromancer has wells. Guardian has whirling wrath (if they go glass) or smite for a ranged option. Thief has pistol whip. Elementalist has meteor shower. Mesmer has clone shatter combos.

If you stand in any of these AOE effects as a single target, you will die. Why should ranger not also get to kill targets that cannot be bothered to move or dodge roll?

Edited for yet more random kittens. Please fix forum censorship.

I don’t think that any class can stay still while you hitting them with barrage + rapid fire + having for example jaguar on them. You need to count all the advantages and disadvantages of each skills to compare them and not just look at the final dmg.

Please don’t get me wrong, I really wish rangers could get some love when it comes to direct dmg, but lets make fair changes and don’t make skills OP. I already said what change barrage could take.

Miyu.8137:

I don’t think that any class can stay still while you hitting them with barrage + rapid fire + having for example jaguar on them. You need to count all the advantages and disadvantages of each skills to compare them and not just look at the final dmg.

I created this thread because multiple warriors (and other classes, but I was not watching them as carefully) did exactly to me what you just said you could not believe in sPvP hot join, with the only notable exception being that I was using wolf instead of jaguar. They were at about half health after the fights, so I seriously doubt the change in pet would have killed them.

Thank you for recognizing that we’re talking about more than just barrage, but if we are not going to get a barrage that kills people then we need more than just barrage for 5-target AOE direct damage.

expecting any single attack to put down a target is just wishful thinking. Rangers need to drag the fight out. Using k9s for kd followed by path of scar then your lb#4 then barrage can help you control the fight ,but stability will mess all that up. At the same time stability can help you vs that hammer warrior.

Some say using rapid fire first is a waste because of the lower dps but at the same time barrage after rapid fire makes a big difference.

Barrage was a joke when the game launched and it’s still laughed at by everyone now; it just isn’t a threatening enough skill for most players to worry about (even when combined with a rapid fire, all it takes is like one dodge roll to pretty much avoid all of it).

I would just add that the current state of barrage is rather against the ranger. Try to put barrage on retaliation buffed enemy. You will end up recieve more dmg from retaliation then you actually do with barrage itself, which is ridiculous. Small dmg but long duration (12 waves) is just horrible mechanic.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

expecting any single attack to put down a target is just wishful thinking. Rangers need to drag the fight out. Using k9s for kd followed by path of scar then your lb#4 then barrage can help you control the fight ,but stability will mess all that up. At the same time stability can help you vs that hammer warrior.

Some say using rapid fire first is a waste because of the lower dps but at the same time barrage after rapid fire makes a big difference.

Please go back and read my post. Barrage, rapid fire followed by a buffed maul from a berserker ranger all during pet damage failed to down berserker hammer warriors in sPvP that ate the whole thing using no defensive cooldowns and no dodge rolls.

I can pull off an 18k maul crit in WvW with the same build and literally one-shot someone if they’re also glass, but that’s not because of ranger skills being amazing. It’s because of the way multipliers in my traits work so well with the stats available in WvW. In sPvP where the power numbers are lower, ranger scaling is horrible—as is ranger damage scaling wearing anything less than full berserker gear for WvW.

Maul can one-shot under the right circumstances in WvW. Thief can two-shot someone with cloak and backstab in WvW too, and they don’t have to wait for minute-long cooldowns to do it like ranger’s buffed maul requires. Thief can do more damage than a buffed maul crit using two skills back to back, which is less cast time than ranger’s Signet of the Wild followed by maul (and signet of the hunt’s instant) and thief can use their abilities every four seconds. In sPvP, however, thief can still kill you in a few seconds. Ranger can’t, because of the horrible relative power scaling that becomes apparent when using balanced sPvP stats instead of WvW stats.

Miyu.8137:

I would just add that the current state of barrage is rather against the ranger. Try to put barrage on retaliation buffed enemy. You will end up recieve more dmg from retaliation then you actually do with barrage itself, which is ridiculous. Small dmg but long duration (12 waves) is just horrible mechanic.

I lose, on average, about 9-10k health using barrage on an enemy zerg of 40+ just from the fact that every tick wither hits a guardian or hits his buddy that’s guaranteed to be buffed with retal.

Substance E.4852:

I lose, on average, about 9-10k health using barrage on an enemy zerg of 40+ just from the fact that every tick wither hits a guardian or hits his buddy that’s guaranteed to be buffed with retal.

This is definitely a problem as well, but it’s a slightly different problem than the ranger’s damage coefficients on weapon skills.

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

Substance E.4852:

Miyu.8137:

I would just add that the current state of barrage is rather against the ranger. Try to put barrage on retaliation buffed enemy. You will end up recieve more dmg from retaliation then you actually do with barrage itself, which is ridiculous. Small dmg but long duration (12 waves) is just horrible mechanic.

I lose, on average, about 9-10k health using barrage on an enemy zerg of 40+ just from the fact that every tick wither hits a guardian or hits his buddy that’s guaranteed to be buffed with retal.

That just shows how broken retaliation itself is. It should deal back a certain % of dmg instead of preset amount. That way it would be useful against heavy hitters and not horribly overpowered against weapons that hit faster.

Taku.6352:

Substance E.4852:

Miyu.8137:

I would just add that the current state of barrage is rather against the ranger. Try to put barrage on retaliation buffed enemy. You will end up recieve more dmg from retaliation then you actually do with barrage itself, which is ridiculous. Small dmg but long duration (12 waves) is just horrible mechanic.

I lose, on average, about 9-10k health using barrage on an enemy zerg of 40+ just from the fact that every tick wither hits a guardian or hits his buddy that’s guaranteed to be buffed with retal.

That just shows how broken retaliation itself is. It should deal back a certain % of dmg instead of preset amount. That way it would be useful against heavy hitters and not horribly overpowered against weapons that hit faster.

More like it needs to have a built in cool down on the effect to prevent channeled skills, especially aoe, from disproportionally being effected. If you make it scale it will either be too weak vs channeled skills to matter or will be too high vs large damage packets to the point of being OP against spike damage. The thief class would die overnight if they took a % of a backstab hit rather than a couple hundred damage per stab.

The biggest problem with barrage isn’t that it’s channeled vs retal, its that I will likely proc retal 50-60 times from 12 waves of five hits each.

Fluffball.8307:

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

One-handed sword does not have maul. Maul is essential to have anything even remotely similar to direct burst damage available to other classes, and the one-handed sword also takes control away from you during autoattack. Greatsword, on the other hand, is actually not all that much weaker on its autoattack chain and provides good evade uptime if you keep swinging, not to mention an interrupt ability that is essential to Moment of Clarity, which has its highest damage potential in Maul. The build that I use is centered around the synergy of longbow/greatsword working together, and in many situations is quite effective and significantly more active than mindless one-handed sword auto-tracking-auto-attack that stops your dodge roll.

Longbow deals more damage than one-handed sword auto attack during the skill burst of barrage + rapid fire.

On to the next topic: crowd control. You will note that in my original post I mentioned that both myself and these warriors as well as other classes I fought did not suffer from crowd control as we had stability.

However, if you want to compare crowd control, consider that warrior has access to more crowd control than ranger does. Purely from a crowd-control standpoint, warrior is better at rooting or crippling their opponent on a regular basis, not to mention their stuns that last three times longer than ranger stuns on multiple separate cooldowns anywhere from 8 seconds to 60 seconds depending on whether they come from weapon skills or utilities. Ranger has at best a couple of 40-second cooldown knockdowns from dog pets, a 45-second cooldown fear if one of them is a wolf, and a short 2.5 second immobilize if they sacrifice a signet slot (which kills the power-signets build) in favor of muddy terrain. For weapon skills, my longbow/greatsword build has a knockback on a 10 second cooldown and a short stun from greatsword every 25 seconds. Oh, and we don’t get to control anything our pet does in a timely fashion while warrior gets to time all of their crowd control as they wish.

Stuns not convincing? Let’s look at immobilize. Longbow/sword warrior with bolas can root you in place on command more than twice for every minute of play. The immobilize is base 11 seconds before traits/gear/food and VERY easy to land, making their target a sitting duck.

Ranger can immobilize for 8 seconds using spider pet, if the spider pet actually decides to use web and not miss horribly. They can also root if they trade in their main source of stability (rampage as one) for Entangling Roots. Entangling roots has a potential for 20 seconds of immobilize, if someone is dumb enough to sit in it for 20 seconds without attacking the roots…. or, if they’re a warrior that’s traited for it they can just hit any movement skill on their bar and be free of everything a ranger could ever hope to do to them in terms of crowd control. Muddy terrain I’ve already mentioned. Due to its cast time and short duration it doesn’t give you any real potential for killing someone during the immobilize. Its only saving grace is that it can’t be blocked.

Warrior has superior direct damage compared to ranger.

Warrior has superior crowd control compared to ranger.

Warrior has superior defense and healing/condition management in a power build compared to ranger.

Next you’ll be telling me that after I take your suggestion to swap to one-handed sword, I should roll condition traits and shaman stats. You are entirely missing the point of this thread. This is about getting power-based rangers that can actually deal massive direct damage like other classes are capable of. In sPvP, we just can’t pull it off. This is about 30/30/0/10/0 Longbow/Greatsword ranger in full berserker stats burning all of their two-minute-long cooldowns at once for an inferior 6k damage on one hit from maul before they go back to barely tickling their opponent.

This is not a thread for advice on how to play ranger in the current state of the game. This is a thread for explaining why power-based ranger in the current state of the game is severely lacking and why the game, not the play style needs to change to support the power-based ranger play style.

Summary: Please buff my class because my single skill (barrage) can’t 1-hit kill anyone.

adam.8692:

Summary: Please buff my class because my single skill (barrage) can’t 1-hit kill anyone.

No. This is an incorrect summary. Please read the full post. Please buff my class because a combination of all of my highest skill-burst abilities is still incapable of killing someone that eats all of my damage with no defensive moves in sPvP.

adam.8692:

Summary: Please buff my class because my single skill (barrage) can’t 1-hit kill anyone.

Your reductio ad absurdum is beyond silly for several reasons.

Barrage damage is very weak, in only used it on downed players in a keep or tower to keep their health low so the ele next to me can wipe him.

“Big numbers impress small minds.”

Roll that Warrior you care so much and leave my profession alone!

I’m fed up and done to reason with you people. Yet i’ll say it again: Leave my profession be! Your inaptitude to play it does not constitute reason to change whatever you think you need to compete and screw the game for the rest of us.

Fluffball.8307:

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.
But please do note, play a ranger and see what others are saying about the one hand sword and then tell us we are all dreaming its us and we should L2P. I hardly think so :P
Come back when you have done your homework and can address on the forum in an articulate manner with as much evidence as you can to support your claim. If you really knew about the state of rangers and knew that the whole damage vs offense is really unbalanced, the statement you just made is really crazy.

mzt.3270:

Fluffball.8307:

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.

He’s referring to soft CC aka chill, cripple, immobilize and those we have in every weapon set and in many utilities. Main problem with soft CC is that they are rather weak and very easily nullified whereas only way to counter hard CC is with stability.

Taku.6352:

mzt.3270:

Fluffball.8307:

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.

He’s referring to soft CC aka chill, cripple, immobilize and those we have in every weapon set and in many utilities. Main problem with soft CC is that they are rather weak and very easily nullified whereas only way to counter hard CC is with stability.

Yes exactly so, I mean I know he has a point but as you very correctly stated, the damage and cc are just terribly weak and not worth even mentioning. People have to realize that wording on these forums are very important, some of us are trying to get Anet to look at these issues in an articulate light, so if a statement is being made then it has to be placed in such a way that you are also addressing the weak points of the class ( of which there are many).
That way we all have a better stance to make a case. As one person placed in another feed which was a brilliant piece of advice. “Imagine you are in the office with Jon stating the case for rangers”. Saying things are OP or that we have “loads of something” is pretty much asking for a nerf ,when what we do need is Anet to actually play this class during its R and D and harmonize what we have with a bump to damage, a better condition remover and a better fix to the broken Pet Ai we have (as well as the many other problems this class has).
Just now the atrocious response from Jon and his team is not akin to some punishment for Rangers.

It’s like at somepoint in their early teens while playing D&D, a group of 9 year olds playing Rangers swooped down on their group of Godmodded Warriors and Paladins on the board, kicked their butts and since then have some deep seated issue regarding Rangers stating everyday for years " One day I am gonna make my own game and I’m gonna teach those Rangers"
It’s time they grew up and actually addressed the issue properly, they have customers now and they are treading a very thin line creating a product that is not only NOT allowing for equal balance ( no matter what class you choose), but also withholding the information you need before investing the time (and more importantly your own hard earned money) to levelling up a character.

Edited because Kittens infested Anet’s dictionary

Ariete.6509:

“Big numbers impress small minds.”

Roll that Warrior you care so much and leave my profession alone!

I’m fed up and done to reason with you people. Yet i’ll say it again: Leave my profession be! Your inaptitude to play it does not constitute reason to change whatever you think you need to compete and screw the game for the rest of us.

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say here. You’re telling me to reroll warrior because you don’t want your ranger buffed?

Yes. You don’t want a “buff” to the ranger, you want big-hit-number abilities flashing in your screen. That’s what gives you satisfaction aparently… thankfully there’s options.

Bye Bye.

A lot of this is a l2p issue. We can go back and forth about damage and big numbers or how good the 1h sword is (for the record its working as intended).

Real problems like pets not scaling properly may manifest themselves in scenarios like in the OP. We all think we know the class fairly well but you don’t know what you don’t know.

We are Rangers and not any of the other classes. To complain about a zerker ranger vs zerker warrior seem to me to be a losing battle when you try to fight their fight and not yours. I mean warrior have higher armor and better burst skills, Ranger have high vitality and sustain damage. Skill level comes into play. The key for the ranger to win this fight is to avoid the big attacks and drag the fight out. The warrior wants to get in and end it quick. Not to mention we know that melee damage is superior to range in a general scene.

I mean do you really think we should change the ranger because one or some of us tried to burst down a higher armored target who is designed to burst and at one point switch to a low damage output weapon. No mystery to me why this resulted in a lose.

To say the OP is an example of how ineffective the class is simply show how unfamiliar you are with the class.

It is why those who know don’t want the ranger to change base on exchanges like this. It will result in a buff for a month and then a key skill nerf.

You’re aware stun warriors are getting a nerf on Dec 10th? The problem exists on both sides of the equation.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

A lot of this is a l2p issue. We can go back and forth about damage and big numbers or how good the 1h sword is (for the record its working as intended).

Real problems like pets not scaling properly may manifest themselves in scenarios like in the OP. We all think we know the class fairly well but you don’t know what you don’t know.

We are Rangers and not any of the other classes. To complain about a zerker ranger vs zerker warrior seem to me to be a losing battle when you try to fight their fight and not yours. I mean warrior have higher armor and better burst skills, Ranger have high vitality and sustain damage. Skill level comes into play. The key for the ranger to win this fight is to avoid the big attacks and drag the fight out. The warrior wants to get in and end it quick. Not to mention we know that melee damage is superior to range in a general scene.

I mean do you really think we should change the ranger because one or some of us tried to burst down a higher armored target who is designed to burst and at one point switch to a low damage output weapon. No mystery to me why this resulted in a lose.

To say the OP is an example of how ineffective the class is simply show how unfamiliar you are with the class.

It is why those who know don’t want the ranger to change base on exchanges like this. It will result in a buff for a month and then a key skill nerf.

You did not read. I have better defense in my spec than a berserker hammer warrior does in theirs for the exact type of fight that my original post talked about, and I did not rely on ranged auto attack. I used a buffed maul crit, which is a MELEE attack, and still it proved ineffective. Defense has nothing to do with why I lost those fights, it is entirely about how low ranger’s direct damage is because of the supposed balance for the pet.

Barrage had a stealth nerf 2-3 months ago (50% less damage)

Taku.6352:

mzt.3270:

Fluffball.8307:

The game isn’t only about damage numbers. Rangers have massive amounts of CC and massive amounts of evasion. That is worth an awful lot.

Also get yourself a 1 handed sword and stop using barrage in 1 on 1 fights with a warrior.

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.

He’s referring to soft CC aka chill, cripple, immobilize and those we have in every weapon set and in many utilities. Main problem with soft CC is that they are rather weak and very easily nullified whereas only way to counter hard CC is with stability.

If this class had a fraction what the other poster implied kiting would be a real thing in this game. It isn’t. There is no way at all for a Ranger to maintain a ranged advantage on any melee class in this game. It’s so bad the idea of a Ranged advantage only really has any real impact when fighting on a wall. Why then should ranged weapons come with a built-in handicap over melee weapons when melee classes clearly have numerically more, if not more powerful, ways to stay in melee range?

@ Serraphin Storm.2369:] – quote
“A lot of this is a l2p issue. We can go back and forth about damage and big numbers or how good the 1h sword is (for the record its working as intended).

The key for the ranger to win this fight is to avoid the big attacks and drag the fight out. The warrior wants to get in and end it quick. Not to mention we know that melee damage is superior to range in a general scene. "

Answer

I disagree… I have to agree with Orion.3812 on his plight as he is not alone in his findings. I have masses of hours of Ranger, I would like to think that I at a fairly high level in WVW Dungeons and trying numerous builds, can safely say it is far beyond the L2P issue. Skill level only goes so far, the issue will always boil down to what Ranger is hit with and how it can best go on to survive and battle out of a fight if it can. The problem is that many classes are allowed to create builds that can hit for massive damage, both individual and AOE… far more than a ranger can allow itself even with so called high vitality and healing. The ranger cannot really get the full benefit of glass and zerker builds because the base damage is not there to begin with, so anything else would be far lower than another class speccing for a similar build etc.

Even to attempt for higher survivability comes at a cost – there are no good passive condition removals, condition applications also are lower than most other relative classes, they lack stability in a world where it is needed. They cannot convert conditions into boons etc… The only option open to Rangers is traiting into Vit and healing, for this it suffers a massive cost to damage output and basically prolonging your death a little longer. In PvE I would agree with you it is perhaps a L2P issue, but in the likes of WvW and PvP the differences of this class is now very apparent, the reason why it is 8th place in PvP, the reason why the class is unwelcome in dungeon parties. Is this all a figment of imaginations or are all these other people saying the same thing over and over wrong?

As for the melee option, well if you look at state of ranger and compare across the board, Ranger cannot even compete on damage range , melee or otherwise. Other classes simply allow for higher stats due to our handicap known as “the Pet”, the only viable option therefore is range, so they can at least keep some distance from the big hitting targets. Unfortunately longbow suffers for a variety of mobility issues and weak barrage, the shortbow suffers from a lack of punch, a skill one that only offers valuable bleeding from hitting from the side or behind (how does that even work other than spam one in a zerg and even then you need to trait into power to get piercing arrows??). In order to make healing and vitality viable , you need to trait into these lines fully, so if traits are all over the place and the ones that really matter in todays mob meta, where is the viability of the ranger when it is now little more than a sandbag?
All weapons suffer from incredibly short CCs which other classes seem to have in larger duration generosity, so even evading is not that great.

WvW is all big attacks now, there is no escape from them, therefore the ranger must change in order to adapt to the meta. The longbow offers little mobility, shortbow was nerfed to 900m which can be also now classed as close range and in reach of aoe, Melee offers no real damage to compensate for what you receive so you have a fighting chance for your healing and regen to recuperate… so No it is not so simple as L2P.

In all battles, even real ones there is a counter defence to larger tanks, the introduction of armor piercing shells for lighter more mobile recon etc… The problem with GW2 is the fact that they have placed all that in other classes and left the poor Ranger with the most basic of tools at its disposal and more or less told " to get on with it"
Survivability will always be a case of balance between survivability and offense, that’s how battles are won. Even in nature this is apparent, a tiger has no armor but very critical attacks, the armadillo cant fight its way out a paper bag, but has a really hard armor plating. In the rangers case I would understand if it had a high health pool to begin with, heavy armor to soak up the damage and poor damage. But it does not, it is low damage, medium armor, low vit pool and offers no more regen abilities than other classes. Ranger simply has a long way to go and only Anet can solve that by balancing the class. If they wish rangers to create more varied builds, they will have to increase the offense so it is viable for rangers to do so.
Also the fact that melee adds bigger number is just as crazy, ranged weapons are far superior to melee as battles are won on strategic placement. The irony in GW2 is that AOE can do more damage at range than a ranged weapon can, Anet really duffed that up royally.

urdriel.8496:

Barrage had a stealth nerf 2-3 months ago (50% less damage)

up everybody seemed to have missed that one, barrage just ain’t what it used to be…….

mzt.3270:

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.
But please do note, play a ranger and see what others are saying about the one hand sword and then tell us we are all dreaming its us and we should L2P. I hardly think so :P
Come back when you have done your homework and can address on the forum in an articulate manner with as much evidence as you can to support your claim. If you really knew about the state of rangers and knew that the whole damage vs offense is really unbalanced, the statement you just made is really crazy.

By all means, continue using LB and barrage in PvP. I’ll continue using 1h sword because I’m not utterly incompetent. Funny how I’ve never, ever seen a top ranked ranger advocating using barrage in PvP.

You obviously are utterly incompetent when using lbow. If you are from EU server pm me so we can test who with what weapon is utterly incompetent, whether me with lbow or you with your 1h sword.

Fluffball.8307:

mzt.3270:

LOL…. that’s all I have to say is LOL. Do not even bother to answer this kid, its obvious he has never played a ranger and is too worked up that his any threat to toppling his guardian off the top spot means another underwear wash day for his mother.
But please do note, play a ranger and see what others are saying about the one hand sword and then tell us we are all dreaming its us and we should L2P. I hardly think so :P
Come back when you have done your homework and can address on the forum in an articulate manner with as much evidence as you can to support your claim. If you really knew about the state of rangers and knew that the whole damage vs offense is really unbalanced, the statement you just made is really crazy.

By all means, continue using LB and barrage in PvP. I’ll continue using 1h sword because I’m not utterly incompetent. Funny how I’ve never, ever seen a top ranked ranger advocating using barrage in PvP.

I don’t use barrage or LB cause its utterly kitten for me, I like mobility. I don’t use 1h sword either cause it roots you to the floor and evading out of that once your evades are on cool down leave you utterly defenceless. I don’t PvP because its not a true representation of class warfare, WvW is. Nobody ever stated the words barrage and PvP anyways.

Orion.3812:

Warrior has hundred blades. Necromancer has wells. Guardian has whirling wrath (if they go glass) or smite for a ranged option. Thief has pistol whip. Elementalist has meteor shower. Mesmer has clone shatter combos.

If you stand in any of these AOE effects as a single target, you will die. Why should ranger not also get to kill targets that cannot be bothered to move or dodge roll?

Edited for yet more random kittens. Please fix forum censorship.

You cant compare 100b and pistol whip to Barrage. they are melee skills with a much smaller cleave and do much more damage because of both of these factors. A more appropriate ranger parallel comparison would be to Maul, which when full glass and popping cooldowns, can easily 1 shot another glass cannon.

The staff ele’s meteor will out damage a longbows barrage, sure. But longbow puts out much more single target damage at greater range than fireball and can pierce if traited. Ask yourself how many times you’ve 100-0’d some glass cannon in wvw with a rapid fire from inside a tower. If you’re a beserker longbow ranger, thats a common occurance. If you’re a berserker staff ele, you have far less survivability than a ranger and you still cant do that to someone with staff unless they stay in your aoe.

You see, barrage used to be effective before they nerfed it’s damage. I could easily close in on 3000 damage per tick (in full berserker) before they nerfed it. Even then it isn’t really that deadly because it’s easy to avoid. Much like an arrowcart, they are extremely easy to avoid; see red circle, dodge out, simple as that.

What I don’t get is, if someone is in full Berserker gear.. why is it not doing more damage? Shouldn’t the armor to damage ratio be similar between the 2 between those who choose to go full berserker vs those who go full tank? A full zerker ranger will not take down a fully tanked target in 1v1.

Maybe it’s time either berserker gear gained a massive damage boost or tanky classes have their damage nerfed by like 90%.

Raven.9603:

Orion.3812:

Warrior has hundred blades. Necromancer has wells. Guardian has whirling wrath (if they go glass) or smite for a ranged option. Thief has pistol whip. Elementalist has meteor shower. Mesmer has clone shatter combos.

If you stand in any of these AOE effects as a single target, you will die. Why should ranger not also get to kill targets that cannot be bothered to move or dodge roll?

Edited for yet more random kittens. Please fix forum censorship.

You cant compare 100b and pistol whip to Barrage. they are melee skills with a much smaller cleave and do much more damage because of both of these factors. A more appropriate ranger parallel comparison would be to Maul, which when full glass and popping cooldowns, can easily 1 shot another glass cannon.

The staff ele’s meteor will out damage a longbows barrage, sure. But longbow puts out much more single target damage at greater range than fireball and can pierce if traited. Ask yourself how many times you’ve 100-0’d some glass cannon in wvw with a rapid fire from inside a tower. If you’re a beserker longbow ranger, thats a common occurance. If you’re a berserker staff ele, you have far less survivability than a ranger and you still cant do that to someone with staff unless they stay in your aoe.

You did not read the post.

You’re telling me to think about how many times I’ve killed someone in WvW, when I clearly made this thread using an example from sPvP. The build I use works in WvW. It doesn’t dominate the way a glass thief does, but it can kill people. As I said in my original post, if you kill someone in four seconds or you kill someone in two seconds they are still dead before they are a threat. It’s still better to kill them in two seconds instead of four, but you don’t notice how horrible the difference in damage is for the ranger in WvW because your targets actually die.

In sPvP, the damage difference is blatantly obvious because nobody dies. Where in WvW my long range shot can crit 5k fully buffed, it’s miserably underpowered even at max range in sPvP and barely makes any difference in someone’s health pool when it hits.

DeadlySynz.3471:

What I don’t get is, if someone is in full Berserker gear.. why is it not doing more damage? Shouldn’t the armor to damage ratio be similar between the 2 between those who choose to go full berserker vs thos

Every class has some inherent form of damage avoidance.

Warrior: Max Health / Max Armor
Guardian: Max Armor / Block / Protection / Heals
Ele: Heals / Protection
Thief: Stealth
Mesmer: Stealth / Clones
Ranger: Evasion / Regen
Engineer: Heals / Protection
Necro: Max health / Deathshroud

If you dont play to your classes damage avoidance mechanic, you are going to have a hard time surviving. You can go berserker as a Warrior, mesmer or thief much more easily simply because the avoidance mechanics are easier to use. That doesnt make them better, but it does really limit who can use berserker gear effectively.

Orion.3812:

You did not read the post.

I did read your post; perhaps i lost you for a minute: my comment on WvW was related to your mention of meteor shower. Berserker ele meteor shower doesnt happen in sPvP and when it does it doesnt kill people, which is why i thought you had expanded your complaint.

I still disagree about your logic to compare barrage to pistol whip / 100b.

Raven.9603:

DeadlySynz.3471:

What I don’t get is, if someone is in full Berserker gear.. why is it not doing more damage? Shouldn’t the armor to damage ratio be similar between the 2 between those who choose to go full berserker vs thos

Every class has some inherent form of damage avoidance.

Warrior: Max Health / Max Armor
Guardian: Max Armor / Block / Protection / Heals
Ele: Heals / Protection
Thief: Stealth
Mesmer: Stealth / Clones
Ranger: Evasion / Regen
Engineer: Heals / Protection
Necro: Max health / Deathshroud

If you dont play to your classes damage avoidance mechanic, you are going to have a hard time surviving. You can go berserker as a Warrior, mesmer or thief much more easily simply because the avoidance mechanics are easier to use. That doesnt make them better, but it does really limit who can use berserker gear effectively.

It is just as easy to play a berserker ranger as it is the play a berserker warrior, mesmer or thief. It’s not that playing is difficult, it’s that when played at its most effective level it comes up short because it does not deal the same damage.

Raven.9603:

I still disagree about your logic to compare barrage to pistol whip / 100b.

The reason why melee generally does more damage than ranged weapons is because of the way Anet sees the risk/reward. Apparently, it’s riskier for a thief in sPvP to pistol whip in the middle of a circle and be immune for the duration of the sword attacks (on top of a potential black powder) than it is for a ranger who is forced to stand still in a small circular area with no immunity to cast barrage. Likewise, it makes no difference if you have 1500 range or melee range for an attack like hundred blades if the fight is constrained to an area where everyone is in melee range.

For anyone reading that and thinking I can’t play ranger because I’m using barrage in melee range, look at the damage on the barrage skill versus anything else ranger has with a similar cast time on any weapon. Look at the fact that it covers the entire capture ring. Barrage is the best single option we have for area denial and it simply isn’t effective at the stat levels available in sPvP. If I used longbow auto in melee range then sure, call me a moron and tell me to L2P but that’s not what I’m doing. I’m using the skill burst of one weapon that has an inferior auto attack and then switching to greatsword, our best berserker melee option if you enjoy staying alive.

My build is based around winning a head-on-collision with no dodge rolls, mitigation or anything else on either side. Like other berserker builds from other classes, it is supposed to win by brute force during burst from cooldowns while nature’s protection keeps me alive and not from drawing a fight out forever and giving up the capture point to get range on a target. If the enemy evades or blows defensive cooldowns, good for them. That means I have to change my strategy. But if they are going to roll their face across their keyboard against the highest attainable burst damage a ranger can achieve and still win, there’s a serious problem with the ranger class.

Orion.3812:

But if they are going to roll their face across their keyboard against the highest attainable burst damage a ranger can achieve and still win, there’s a serious problem with the ranger class.

But you said yourself you’re rolling your face across your keyboard and not using the evades that basically define what a melee ranger is. Your playing your ranger like a heavy and not understanding why it’s not working.

Compare and contrast to a s/d ranger not getting hit by this berserker warrior and winning the fight.

Fluffball.8307:

Orion.3812:

But if they are going to roll their face across their keyboard against the highest attainable burst damage a ranger can achieve and still win, there’s a serious problem with the ranger class.

But you said yourself you’re rolling your face across your keyboard and not using the evades that basically define what a melee ranger is. Your playing your ranger like a heavy and not understanding why it’s not working.

Compare and contrast to a s/d ranger not getting hit by this berserker warrior and winning the fight.

This is not about one handed sword. This is about longbow/greatsword, and traits provide better defense for me in the stand-and-fight scenario than just base armor for heavies. Greatsword auto evades too, but the fact remains that through it all the warrior using a control weapon deals more damage faster.

And you bring that up now? We’ve been posting about warriors since closed beta.

If warriors and guardians as master classes of the game haven’t been fixed in more than a year’s time the game has been released, what makes you think it’s gonna happen now?