This skill gave the pet and the Ranger another purpose. It allowed the Ranger to attack enemies on walls in WvW with full damage, as the Rangers damage is balanced with the pet. And it allowed us to send the pet to unreachable locations in fractals, to help allies. Like reviving fallen allies on Cliffside Fractal, instead of having to suicide and start over.
It was already balanced by these facts:
You removed a very important tool from the Ranger here ArenaNet. It puzzles me that a skill like Cloak and Dagger can exist in the game, which is the primary tool that allows the Thief to be permanently in stealth, which is very annoying to play against for a large population of your players. Yet the pet can not be send on top of walls in WvW? Hell, even the Mesmer can send illusions on top of walls and shatter them, with an auto attack. So why was “Guard” changed?
(edited by Kasama.8941)
mainly because..
dead mesmer inside keep.. use guard to get pet on wall.. use search and rescue to revive dead mesmer.. mesmer then makes a protal into keep so others can gain access and attack the boss…
I think this was the sole reason.. not the legitimate use of just using on walls
mainly because..
dead mesmer inside keep.. use guard to get pet on wall.. use search and rescue to revive dead mesmer.. mesmer then makes a protal into keep so others can gain access and attack the boss…
I think this was the sole reason.. not the legitimate use of just using on walls
Not guarding a defeated Mesmer is just a mistake. A Thief could hide inside the keep and just go revive him.
But why shouldn’t the Ranger be allowed some utility? As mentioned, you would need to spend two utility skills on doing this, while being close to a wall where foes can hit you. And if you fail, you would need to wait 30-85 seconds before you could do it again. Next to that, anyone can see the Mesmer being revived, and just spam AoE on the location to kill the pet, or kill the Mesmer again after rallying.
It really was the only way I enjoyed playing my Ranger in large scale WvW.
It was obviously not meant to work that way,i’m surprised that people didn’t expect this to happen,especially after they did the same thing to mesmers with their illusions.
i disagree. i don’t think it was ever intended to be so effective. it was similar to perm invis for thieves on walls. i don’t mind the change, but i do facepalm the other nerfs we got, especially when thieves got buffed AGAIN.
Actually, what is Guard used for now? I can effectively accomplish the same thing with F1 spam.
I never notice any stat increase, and the stealth is a minimal bonus.
I have loved playing a Ranger for a while now but making my pet ineffective in siege situations is a huge let down. I can’t even get my pet to go outside and guard when I’m standing on a wall with an outside port right below me… REALLY??? Anet, why no love for Rangers in your game?
I have to say it was a big mistake to remove this. It was great going to a location before the zerg got there and removing a lot of defensive seige on the walls.
1. It was a strategic option.
2. Easily counterable (Kill pet or Ranger)
3. Promoted the opposing team keeping a lookout at forts/towers.
4. Took an adequate amount of time for siege to be killed using this method. Definately not a 1-2 hit kind of thing.
5. Funny watching a bear run up a wall.
Yes #5 is not realistic (even in a fantasy game) but why can’t ravens/eagles/hawks or owls do this?
Maybe it is time to give Ranger a pet specific ability in WvW.
Birds can fight on walls (when attacking) / down on ground (when defending).
Bears do extra damage to doors.
Spiders protect gates, slowing enemies.
Etc.
Yes other classes do not have special abilities during sieges but at the same time they don’t have 40% of their damage sit there, it isn’t really fair.
Yes #5 is not realistic (even in a fantasy game) but why can’t ravens/eagles/hawks or owls do this?
Same reason why cats can’t jump a fence
It was obviously not meant to work that way,i’m surprised that people didn’t expect this to happen,especially after they did the same thing to mesmers with their illusions.
How it was suppose to work is besides the point. The point is that it’s not game breaking in anyway, as it is balanced by several different factors. The Mesmers damage doesn’t rely on illusions, as much as the Ranger rely on his pet for damage. It is also still possible to attack with illusions on top of walls as a Mesmer, as long as your target is not obscured.
i disagree. i don’t think it was ever intended to be so effective. it was similar to perm invis for thieves on walls. i don’t mind the change, but i do facepalm the other nerfs we got, especially when thieves got buffed AGAIN.
But it’s not very effective at all. Quite the opposite. Whenever you are dealing damage to someone on top of a wall as a Ranger, you are always dealing lower damage, because your pet isn’t dealing damage with you. “Guard” not only gave some more utility to the pet in these situations, it also allowed the Ranger to deal full damage.
Actually, what is Guard used for now? I can effectively accomplish the same thing with F1 spam.
I never notice any stat increase, and the stealth is a minimal bonus.
“Guard” gives your pet a short duration of stealth and protection, while locking it down to the target area. It lasts for around 3 min, unless the pet/you are defeated, or you run too far away from the pet.
__
It’s kinda sad that this topic isn’t getting more replies. This was quite an important tool for the Ranger, but I guess not enough people know how to really use it.
What really gets me is that I used guard to take down siege during a breakout event that meant sending the pet to the ground IE going through a door not climbing up a wall something that makes sense, so now they just gave us another useless utility!
yeah i agree, “Guard” was something that gave the ranger an unique ability and one of the funniest things you could do with the ranger.. very sad it got nerfed.. and now it indeed is just another utility skill which does not really get used by anyone anymore.
dead mesmer inside keep.. use guard to get pet on wall.. use search and rescue to revive dead mesmer
as far as i know “search and rescue” only works on downed players, not dead ones.. so this does not apply(?).
It was obviously not meant to work that way,i’m surprised that people didn’t expect this to happen,especially after they did the same thing to mesmers with their illusions.
its actually not the same. mesmers have been able to summon their illusions trough walls without having a line of sight on the location. but with “search and rescue” you can only send your pet to locations you can actually see.
if the argument is that a pet cannot walk up walls.. then just change the animation and instead of sending the pet make it like a teleport. rangers can do magic and this would just be a magical spell.
I have to say it was a big mistake to remove this. It was great going to a location before the zerg got there and removing a lot of defensive seige on the walls.
Really??
In what world does that make sense or is fair in any way? So basically you want the ability to remove siege from a tower/keep from outside without drawing white swords or putting yourself in any danger whatsoever?
This was one of the most obvious skill abuses in the game.
Really??
In what world does that make sense or is fair in any way? So basically you want the ability to remove siege from a tower/keep from outside without drawing white swords or putting yourself in any danger whatsoever?
This was one of the most obvious skill abuses in the game.
This is the problem with why this skill was changed; you don’t think it through. If you did, you would realize that it is balanced by several different factors:
I don’t know how anyone can call it an abuse. The Ranger can’t deal full damage on top of a wall, because the pet can’t reach. The pet is part of the Ranger, and so it should be able to deal damage where the Ranger can deal damage. The fact that we had to use a utility in order to do so was a very fair balance, considering every other profession gets max damage for free!
(edited by Kasama.8941)
I have to say I loved it whilst it lasted, and used it a fair bit. But I really expected this fix. Being able to send your pet anywhere under the cover of stealth was always going to be way too good to be true.
The real shame is we yet again didn’t see any meaningful buffs to the class so the closing off of an exploit is felt far more. I wish the patch release had went more along the lines of: “Oh they fixed guard, ah well at least spirits are good now and they adjusted the traitlines finally!”… but no.
Kasama
I’ll address your points in order:
1) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
2) There aren’t always players running around a certain area, it’s very sporadic and depends on where the action is.
3) NPC’s on walls are few and far between, there are tons of places on towers/keeps that aren’t within aggro range of guards.
4) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
5) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
6) The range on this actually exceeds the AoE radius of Metor Shower(the largest AoE in the game) if you position yourself right. I know because I’ve placed siege specifically just out of Meteor Shower range and pets still get to it.
Additionally, siege isn’t an inherent part of a structure, nor is it related to guards. So if your pet is attacking siege, white swords will not be drawn.
zeus
Search and Rescue does revive dead players
(edited by Obsidian.1328)
In memorial of Guard skill, R.I.P.
It shall forever be remembered by countless rangers, as it now humbly steps into the halls of other useless ranger utility skills. It’s departure is not without grief, as the grief of its loss can only be paired with the lack of improvements to actual ranger bugs in this latest update. Let’s take a moment of silence to also remember Signet of Stone, Frost Spirit, Storm Spirit, Stone Spirit, Sun Spirit; as they humbly served their purpose before being nerfed to their death. Now bow your heads and fall on your knees as we, the ranger community, recite in silence the ranger’s prayer: ‘A never ending plea to the devs’.
Now that that’s done, I hope that we as a community can come up with constructive ways of using guard efficiently. However, I know it’s guaranteed that I might never use this skill in WvW again, it really just serves no purpose any longer if you cannot use it the way it was used before. Speaking of ressing people via search and rescue on top of a wall… the easiest fix would have been for pets not being able to resurrect fully downed enemies, only those in downed state (this in WvW only).
(edited by awge.3852)
I have to say I loved it whilst it lasted, and used it a fair bit. But I really expected this fix. Being able to send your pet anywhere under the cover of stealth was always going to be way too good to be true.
The real shame is we yet again didn’t see any meaningful buffs to the class so the closing off of an exploit is felt far more. I wish the patch release had went more along the lines of: “Oh they fixed guard, ah well at least spirits are good now and they adjusted the traitlines finally!”… but no.
I disagree that it’s too good to be true. What advantage is it really that you get? Killing one player on top of a wall, where there’s usually a ton of other foes who can revive him easily? Sending the pet anywhere you want does sound very powerful on it’s own, but that’s only until you consider the fact that pets are really bad on their own. They have far less health then a player, and far less damage. In order to actually make the pet useful, you’d have to use “Search and Rescue” for reviving, or “Sick ’Em”/Quickening Zephyr for damage, on top of using “Guard”.
The only reason this looks like an exploit, is because it wasn’t how “Guard” was meant to be used. But it’s ridiculous to just remove an ability like this, without considering whether or not it’s balanced. I don’t think ArenaNet considered this before removing this ability from “Guard”. They just saw that the skill worked in a different way then how they intended it to, and then decided to “fix” it only based on that.
forget this anet? back when pets were actually useful? http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Strike_as_one
Kasama
I’ll address your points in order:
1) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
2) There aren’t always players running around a certain area, it’s very sporadic and depends on where the action is.
3) NPC’s on walls are few and far between, there are tons of places on towers/keeps that aren’t within aggro range of guards.
4) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
5) Irrelevant if there is no one around to stop it.
6) The range on this actually exceeds the AoE radius of Metor Shower(the largest AoE in the game) if you position yourself right. I know because I’ve placed siege specifically just out of Meteor Shower range and pets still get to it.Additionally, siege isn’t an inherent part of a structure, nor is it related to guards. So if your pet is attacking siege, white swords will not be drawn.
zeus
Search and Rescue does revive dead players
Your idea of answering my points is to call them irrelevant? Again, you aren’t thinking this through..
1: If it takes a long time for the pet to kill a siege weapon, then it means there’s a higher chance of you getting spotted.
2: There are always players near a siege, unless the siege weapon isn’t needed anymore, in which case killing it is irrelevant.
3: Yes, this is true, but if it is placed near an NPC, then would still kill it. It’s a drawback to doing this.
4: If someone stops it, you are at a disadvantage. It’s a drawback to doing this.
5: It’s a risk, therefor it’s a drawback.
6: And then you killed the pet and moved on, while the Ranger was at a disadvantage as “Guard” was then wasted.
I have to say I loved it whilst it lasted, and used it a fair bit. But I really expected this fix. Being able to send your pet anywhere under the cover of stealth was always going to be way too good to be true.
The real shame is we yet again didn’t see any meaningful buffs to the class so the closing off of an exploit is felt far more. I wish the patch release had went more along the lines of: “Oh they fixed guard, ah well at least spirits are good now and they adjusted the traitlines finally!”… but no.
I disagree that it’s too good to be true. What advantage is it really that you get? Killing one player on top of a wall, where there’s usually a ton of other foes who can revive him easily? Sending the pet anywhere you want does sound very powerful on it’s own, but that’s only until you consider the fact that pets are really bad on their own. They have far less health then a player, and far less damage. In order to actually make the pet useful, you’d have to use “Search and Rescue” for reviving, or “Sick ’Em”/Quickening Zephyr for damage, on top of using “Guard”.
The only reason this looks like an exploit, is because it wasn’t how “Guard” was meant to be used. But it’s ridiculous to just remove an ability like this, without considering whether or not it’s balanced. I don’t think ArenaNet considered this before removing this ability from “Guard”. They just saw that the skill worked in a different way then how they intended it to, and then decided to “fix” it only based on that.
What can I say, I guess it was the whole pets being able to scale sheers cliffs etc. I just knew that wouldn’t last. It felt like a bug.
This is not to say that I think it was massively unbalanced, and I agree that with a few tweaks and changes that kind of functionality could be brought back. I just think Anet viewed it purely as an unintended bug and fixed it accordingly. I highly doubt they will revert their decision.
Like I mentioned before, this would have been far less of a bitter pill to swallow if they’d sweetened the deal with some meaningful buffs/fixes elsewhere.
Kasama
1) Perhaps, but that could be minutes or hours.
2) There are always players near siege?? Which game are you playing? Regular siege doesn’t time out like trebs and golems do, despite what the wiki says.
3) Well true, but good siege placement has little to do with proximity to guards.
4) True
5) Any risk has a drawback. But granting a free exploit to a “weaker” class to make up for that is just wrong. Two of those don’t make a right.
6) You don’t see it happen is the problem. Plenty of times I’ve come back to a tower to see a pet happily munching on the last piece of siege in a certain strategic spot. Guards not moving, no white swords. Enter 10-man team with sup rams…door gone in 1 minute because the only surviving ac was the one behind the door. Rangers know exactly which siege to take out to make a ninja attempt successful, I know this because I almost exclusively play ranger in W3. And you can only deter this so much with siege inside on the ground. If you do put all your siege on the tower grounds, they can simply catapult the walls with little resistance.
If they changed “Search and Rescue” then I will have to try that out tonight after work, because I used to rez dead players all the time with it. The tooltip was always wrong, I’ll get back to you on this one.
(edited by Obsidian.1328)
Guard was one of the few unique and fun things a Ranger could do in WvW; a way for a beast master to contribute during sieges, other than manning a siege weapon or standing watch on the flanks.
I consider myself a pretty patient and tolerant person, but this kind of treatment is getting really old. It baffles me that Thieves can fight in the midst of 5+ enemies, get kills, and survive, and that’s working as intended, yet now even my bird or spider can’t make it over a 10 foot wall and somehow contribute a little bit to the battle.
I agree that this was never intended and as such is an exploit, but I also agree with those saying that it wasn’t really all too bad of an exploit to begin with and to me I regarded it as something of a quirk such as the necro corpse teleport exploits in GW1 that were actually embraced by ANet in the elite dungeons and the 55 builds in the Bison cup from EotN.
I am already noticing other consequences of the fix, such as lick wounds being much less awesome. Not only are we still unable to use it on incline, but now we are also at the mercy of pet pathfinding AI if your pet is alive and on cooldown. Nerfed. They need to make it always port to your location or else let us use it immediately on down.
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.