Guild Wars 2

The following conversation occurred in Tyria 01/06/2015:

A:“Why can rangers not fire arrows backwards when engineers can nade backwards and thieves have 4 sb skills that will work without targets and 3 of which are aoe and can be shot backwards?”

B: “Nades are ground target, so u can back cast them”

A: “So, you actually run around firing gnades with skill, or do you randomly spam 1-5 and run around in circles? Because I don’t know a single person who can throw 3 nades backwards and under their legs while running in circles and not blow themselves up. So why can’t I shoot arrows backwards through my stomach?”

Which raises a very good point:

When a target is stealthed and a ranger is using a bow, they’re basically rendered useless until the stealth wears off; or when a ranger is running forward and being chased, you cannot attack the chasing target without either: stopping to engage the target head on or standing still and spamming skills as they run around you. Because you can only attack 180 degrees in front of you while moving which means you can’t attack the 180 degrees behind you. Now, if the ranger was using a greatsword (their only fully target-less weapon), they’d whip that out and start slashing air; but greatsword isn’t their ‘main’ weapon, it’s their bow.

Engineers, using nade kit, don’t need a nade kit and randomly blast the area spamming 1-5 without thought and inflict tons more conditions than any ranger build could.
Warriors randomly slash air or use longbow to cast aoe attacks.
Guardians randomly slash the air or use staves to autoattack without a target.
Etc.

Do rangers lack target-less skills? Is the shear inability to attack foes behind you is awful? Should bows attack parallel to the ground without a target so they don’t require a target (although arrows would look weird moving with the contour of the ground)? Do your pet suffer the wrath of target-less free-casters while running around chasing them?
I think so.

Should we enable friendly fire and let everyone blow themselves up?
Eh, maybe not.

What do you think?
Do you share my frustration?

The only weapons that can attack a target behind you, afaik, are Warhorn (hunter’s call), Great Sword (crippling throw) and Shortbow (quick shot). I sure wouldn’t mind a few more options.

The issue is really that you run forwards a lot faster than you backpedal, so if you could attack while running away, people couldn’t catch you, it would be the ultimate kiting. Although, if it used up some endurance to do so, I can’t see a problem with it.

Okies you can use longbow without a target, its just much harder. That’s why there is target lock. Also while you may not be able to attack people directly behind you, you can strafe which allows you to attack foes almost completely behind you. Strafing is MUCH faster then back peddling and only slightly slower than in-combat forward movement. If they get into melee range for a cc, don’t dogeroll backwards, dodgeroll through them. I don’t know why but it gives me more time before they are on me again.
If you don’t have strafe left/right keybinding as a projectile user (or anyone I guess) you are not going to like pvping with projectile weapons.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_speed

http://youtu.be/QUoqXe8-iig

I believe the issue is simple.

Longbow – Strong weapon with huge range. It requires a counter-play in terms of easier kiting. Can you imagine a Ranger that keeps shooting at you from 1700 range? Without a single way for you to reach him?

Axe – no idea. I’d like your change on this weapon.

Shortbow – it’s difficult to make it work in terms of calculation. You see, I’ve already been exploiting this weapon just like half of the better rangers out there.
It’s “flank” restricted. But not really. That part is calculated through comparison of your and enemy’s angle. If you strafe and fire into your enemy’s face – you proc bleeds.
The same would happen if you could fire behind your back – the angle is 0 – which means you are basically shooting from behind (both of you are facing the same direction)

That is the main reason.

Ranger weapon such as axe and longbow should go parallel to the ground when there is no target. problem fixed

UnitedChaos.8364:

When a target is stealthed and a ranger is using a bow, they’re basically rendered useless until the stealth wears off;

True, all we have is “Sic ’em!” to prevent opponents from stealthing and Entangle to catch them during their escape attempt. Blindly throwing projectiles is unlikely to work, our pet will start playing with yarn and they’ll escape the sword chain by standing still. Stealth is a broken mechanic to begin with, I don’t think the problem lies entirely on the Ranger lacking the correct tools.

or when a ranger is running forward and being chased, you cannot attack the chasing target without either: stopping to engage the target head on or standing still and spamming skills as they run around you. Because you can only attack 180 degrees in front of you while moving which means you can’t attack the 180 degrees behind you.

Yes, but we also have other tools to help with chasers. Turning to attack is the cost we pay to land a point blank shot; ruin their dreams of becoming an adventurer and quickshot away or any of our other single target projectile cripples. If your objective is to fight and kite, we have plenty of methods of slowing the opponent which are far more useful to us than more mobility simply because a slowed opponent we can easily be forced to date Fluffy, Fuzz Meltface, Juvenile Raven or whatever you like to call your pet. If you want to escape without breaking pace, there’s nothing stopping you from dropping a Muddy Terrain or Entangle on would be chasers.

Now, if the ranger was using a greatsword (their only fully target-less weapon), they’d whip that out and start slashing air; but greatsword isn’t their ‘main’ weapon, it’s their bow.

Don’t lie, we start with an axe, obviously that must be our “main” weapon. Or based on skill requirement, the sword is our “main” weapon. This is Guildwars 2, a bow might be your main weapon, but the profession itself shouldn’t have a main weapon.

Engineers, using nade kit, don’t need a nade kit and randomly blast the area spamming 1-5 without thought and inflict tons more conditions than any ranger build could.

Yet we can hit double the bleed cap using only 3 low cooldown, quick animation skills. Claiming a well thought out and played build cannot compete with a player using only one utility skill is ridiculous.

Do rangers lack target-less skills? Is the shear inability to attack foes behind you is awful? Should bows attack parallel to the ground without a target so they don’t require a target (although arrows would look weird moving with the contour of the ground)? Do your pet suffer the wrath of target-less free-casters while running around chasing them?
I think so.

Better manual aim for projectiles is certainly something I’d like to have. But a Ranger Longbow shouldn’t just be an Ele or Guardian staff. I feel the ranger would certainly benefit from having skillshots, rather than leaving so much to AIs.

What do you think?
Do you share my frustration?

If every profession had no weaknesses and solved their problems in the same way, the choice of profession would be meaningless or just an aesthetic choice. If every build didn’t have weaknesses or strengths, then making a build would be meaningless. With Drakes, traps, muddy terrain, entangle, axe/dagger & sword/warhorn, dogs and spiders and probably several other tools I’m not mentioning, I don’t really get your problem.