Guild Wars 2

Dear devs,

You’ve always said that you want to increase the number of valid build options within each profession, and in that respect the power/crit ranger has always trailed behind the more popular ranger setups in terms of usage adoption. It’s a setup that needs a little bit of love in order to gain popularity, yet it continues to receive what appear to be ‘contingent nerfs’, i.e. nerfs that were targeted at other setups but inadvertently (I assume) end up affecting the berserker ranger as well. The original quickness nerf and the loss of zephyr’s speed both hurt the berserker ranger’s DPS output, and I’m guessing this was unintended as I don’t see how this setup can be considered over-powered or over-utilized.

Zephyr’s Speed was a key trait for power/crit rangers, who stood to benefit most from it as they have the highest direct dps, and surely you must realize how much they needed it to compete. I can only assume that ZS was swapped with Instinctual Bond to take BM rangers down a notch, but in doing so you gravely hurt berserker rangers by making the trait totally inaccessible at the bottom of the Beastmastery line. Your balance team surely knows better than I do what’s best for the game, but in this occasion there may have been alternative options that might have better promoted ranger balance. Perhaps ZS could have been moved somewhere along the marksmanship line, for example? This would have kept it accessible to berserker rangers, while promoting build diversity.

I highly doubt I’ll ever see Zephyr’s Speed again on my berserker ranger, I just hope someone from the dev team reads this post as I can’t help but think that more thought could have been put into the swap with Instinctual Bond.

TLDR: Berserker rangers were in no way in need of a nerf, but were badly hurt by the loss of Zephyr’s Speed, which is now totally inaccessible as it requires 30 points in the BM line. Anet should consider moving this trait to a different trait line (marksmanship?) to promote build diversity.

You are right and I am sure some dev would gladly answer but this thread would become a flame thread if a dev posted here. People would go “Anet u suck why haven’t you fixed x” and “I hate you and you lieing idiots” etc etc…….

solrik.6028:

You are right and I am sure some dev would gladly answer but this thread would become a flame thread if a dev posted here. People would go “Anet u suck why haven’t you fixed x” and “I hate you and you lieing idiots” etc etc…….

Yeah, I definitely don’t expect any replies from Arenanet, nor do I expect to see any updates to Zephyr’s Speed as I know how reluctant game developers are to go back on their decisions. I just thought I’d point this out on the off chance that there are devs still lurking here.

Current Zephyr state would be good if a critical hit can make only quickness re-enable by a chance of ~10%. Anyway, speeds are better right now, but longbow’s damage is still low. Would work better if it has base of 1500 range, and restricted damage on closer targets also means faster ROF (Rate of Fire).

I’m an Archer myself IRL, learning from a champion every week.
Now that I know how bows really work, I know how far can we go ahead of reality – as mere fantasy elements that would fit GW2 lore. Video WIP… ETA: Thuesday.

+1 on OP.

Daemon.4295:

solrik.6028:

You are right and I am sure some dev would gladly answer but this thread would become a flame thread if a dev posted here. People would go “Anet u suck why haven’t you fixed x” and “I hate you and you lieing idiots” etc etc…….

Yeah, I definitely don’t expect any replies from Arenanet, nor do I expect to see any updates to Zephyr’s Speed as I know how reluctant game developers are to go back on their decisions. I just thought I’d point this out on the off chance that there are devs still lurking here.

Good post and I agree with most of what you said. dd builds for ranger still need help, especially in pvp. Don’t agree? Put together a dd build and fight in a wide variety of situations in Spvp and WvW. You can make it harder by using LB and GS. The slower attack speeds with those weapons coupled with how it is hard to reach good damage without being glassy make the task difficult. The changes they made to quickness along with the associated trait changes really hurt.

I am forcing my self to try quickness builds again with mixed results. I am going to try another variation hoping for better performance.

Blowing people away in WvW with longbow is currently the easiest possible thing you can do, since it’s 1800 range and the DPS is extremely high for an accurate ranged weapon. The only other weapon that deals comparable damage at 1200 range or more are grenades and guardian scepters, and scepter requires the target to stand in AOE. Not happening in WvW.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Blowing people away in WvW with longbow is currently the easiest possible thing you can do, since it’s 1800 range and the DPS is extremely high for an accurate ranged weapon. The only other weapon that deals comparable damage at 1200 range or more are grenades and guardian scepters, and scepter requires the target to stand in AOE. Not happening in WvW.

I agree LB 5 is awesome for a zerker build, especially in WvW… but it does not justify the low damage the weapon does overall, especially in PvE. In comparison, in PvE I can do at least (rough guess) 3-4 times the amount of aoe damage using Firestorm and Ice Bow 4 one after the other, and then I also have lava font, can chill and cripple. LB can’t come close that damage. Yes the range is not as long, but that doesn’t matter often in PvE.

*Note this takes into account no one stealing my ice bow :p

Instinctual Bond is so terrible lol

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Blowing people away in WvW with longbow is currently the easiest possible thing you can do, since it’s 1800 range and the DPS is extremely high for an accurate ranged weapon. The only other weapon that deals comparable damage at 1200 range or more are grenades and guardian scepters, and scepter requires the target to stand in AOE. Not happening in WvW.

Barrage requires your target to stand in AoE just as much as guardian scepter’s Smite does, only Smite is instacast, you can use it on the run, it has a 6 second cooldown, and there’s an immobilize on scepter 3. So unlike Smite, Barrage is pretty useless in any sort of small skirmish, and to be honest its damage isn’t all that great even when you do land it just cause its duration is so long. Quickness is really essential for this skill and for the longbow in general, particularly if you want it to be at all functional in smaller combat.

barrage is great for tagging people in zergs, and breaking up small groups attacking a tower… tbh unless one can move while shooting barrage idk if zs will help too much in small skirmishes