Guild Wars 2

Bosses have internal cooldowns and internal endurance, do they not? Zenith I demand proof.

Sebrent.3625:

Zenith.7301:

Sebrent.3625:

Ranger has burning:

• Flame trap
• Torch

Done :-)

Engineer has:

• OH Pistol
• Flamethrower
• Grenade
• Bomb

… but you don’t often see someone take all 3 of those weapon kits.

---

The only condition the Engineer has access to that the Ranger doesn’t is Confusion … and the Ranger could apply that using its Reef Drake.

---

Also, listing the # of 80s someone has isn’t a very good credential given how simple it is to level a character to 80.

Engineers don’t take OH pistol? that’s news to me, considering the standard HGH engineer build uses dual pistols and grenade. And their burning comes from the trait that procs burning on crit, of which their multihit abilities do plenty of.

I didn’t ever say Engineers don’t take OH pistol. Read and comprehend.

You mentioned “condition damage is only good on Engineer because it applies burning”, so I showed the ways the two different classes apply burning and mentioned that you don’t often see someone take all three kits … flamethrower, bomb, and grenade … since those were 3 of the 4 sources with the 4th being OH pistol.

Zenith.7301:

Listing number 80’s means you’ve some idea of how those classes play and what they have rather than looking at a wiki and speaking in the dark when you restrain yourself to playing one or two classes and theorize about others without experience on them.

I don’t care if you don’t trust my credentials. Those people who do 60+ fractals daily with me do. They trust me enough to bring a ranger when I don’t feel like being efficient and bringing a guardian or ele.

Having something and knowing how to use it well are two different things.

Without video of you doing it, it’s not a credential. I could say I have an 80 of everything as well and do 60+ fractals with all of them … but it’d be a lie. Neither of us has presented proof though, so both claims currently have the same amount of credit.

Fritz.5026:

I don’t understand why fire and poison stack duration and only bleed stacks magnitude.

I mean for instance you have a sword/dagger/viper trap … its completely pointless. you have 3 poisons and you can keep it up indefinitely with the dagger alone.

Poison trap does that in an AOE while sword and dagger do not.

You don’t NEED all those kits to keep burning up on the engineer. That’s a pretty quick way to quash your credentials, btw.

With pistol/pistol, the trait, and grenade kit and the high crit rate of an HGH build, you will keep up poison, burning, and bleeding up most of the time.

And I’ll leave it at that. This whole “neither of us have proof” tangent you’re hung up on doesn’t interest me.

And you can easily keep it up with torch and flame trap. Again, that was my primary point.

The only condition Engineer has reliable access to that the Ranger can only get via a pet is Confusion … which sucks in PvE.

Wow, so much of topic.

On topic, I’ve stopped holding out. I’ve pretty much accepted that we are were we will be…I won’t believe anything the devs say untill I see it live!

Sebrent.3625:

And you can easily keep it up with torch and flame trap. Again, that was my primary point.

The only condition Engineer has reliable access to that the Ranger can only get via a pet is Confusion … which sucks in PvE.

Throw torch has a 6 sec duration and 15 sec cd, and is only single target. Flame trap at best is 2 secs burning per pulse, for 3 pulses, and is stationary.

You still don’t seem to understand that the engineer can apply it at much higher rates, with every attack he does in addition to piling other conditions.

If you want to bring a torch condition build, you’ll probably pair it with axe. Axe does absolutely garbage damage and application outside splitblade and throw torch. Splitblade also decreases in bleed stacks the more opponents you want to hit — engineer condition application is AOE. The stacks of conditions applied for the engineer do not decrease per mob it is spread to.

More importantly, if you want poison in addition to axe/torch, you’ll have to bring sword mainhand and dagger or warhorn. Which means your ranged sustained is crap, and you have crap burst.

The HGH engineer doesn’t give anything of this up. He can keep 25 stacks of might permanently by himself, with high fury uptime, and his grenades pack a punch besides the amount of condition damage he brings, all aoe. And the pistols give him aoe cc and a bouncing blind. It doesn’t matter that confusion sucks — it’s built in and it’s extra damage to his attacks that you do not have.

The engineer is a far superior condition character that the ranger will ever be.

Ranger and Engineer are basically the 2 classes I played 90% of the time in gw2. They both deal nice condition damage but while ranger condi options have still somewhat of a hybrid aspect (I actually believe all stats gear is second best on ranger after ele) engineer condi builds really can go all in on conditions. Engi just has all of them while ranger can stack more bleeds.

Ontopic I would reallylike to see:

• small changes to the least usable weapons to push them further into viability (overall weapons are at a decent spot though)
• massive rework of traits, removing/merging many of the bad pet traits
• rework of utility skills exspecially spirits and shouts but also polishing for the rest

If they make pets more reliable in both PvP and PvE i will be more then happy . Perhaps buff the longbow a bit .

Robert Hrouda.1327:

VitalSuit.1980:

Thieves as well? I hope this is only for pve and not pvp because thieves are the last thing that needs a buff.

Most thieves don’t make it out of the lower tiers because you can mitigate them very easily. As a ranger I shut thieves down all the time who don’t use venoms, especially if you have something like healing spring and Lightning reflexes. One fixes stun, one fixes immob/cripple, and then it’s just dodge rolls at the right moment and CC to shut them down. Also bring wolf for f2 and stay nearby when thieves start doing their stealthy bit, and then be ready to watch them flee in terror.
That of course means their build options are highly limited, and when that happens people can hard counter you more easily.

The changes for rangers coming in this next patch are a step in the right direction for them. I am not part of that team so I won’t be announcing any of the changes unless told otherwise.

Running for office?

Anyway to break it down, all this language and wording for you Vitalsuit, yes they will be getting buffs. Thieves will steamroll you so quick if you dont have the right build and utilities and if you do happen to counter them you might not even kill them half the time. So prepare your trap/tanky/regen/evade builds to weather the storm.

btw if they actually fix our pet and it does what we want, rangers will be op just saying.

Sebrent.3625:

And you can easily keep it up with torch and flame trap. Again, that was my primary point.

The only condition Engineer has reliable access to that the Ranger can only get via a pet is Confusion … which sucks in PvE.

How often do you do 60+ Fractals with your Ranger?

Chokolata.1870:

Thieves were not nerfed . In no game ever, especially RTS games would a fast mobile class or faction be given high damage . Usually the slowest option would do the most damage … because it is slow and avoidable .

Thieves have unparalleled mobility and damage , and an good escape mechanisms . Hence they are OP .

No, they don’t. Their mobility is slightly above average, their damage is on part with other classes, and their defense is atrocious. The reason why they seem to be OP is because Stealth (despite being horrible in PvE) synergizes well with a glass cannon build. This makes them harder to counter than other classes with glass cannon builds, but they still die immediately if you manage it. Moreover, there is little else they can do well. If anything, Thieves need some buffs to their other builds/sets at this point.

Einlanzer.1627:

Chokolata.1870:

Thieves were not nerfed . In no game ever, especially RTS games would a fast mobile class or faction be given high damage . Usually the slowest option would do the most damage … because it is slow and avoidable .

Thieves have unparalleled mobility and damage , and an good escape mechanisms . Hence they are OP .

No, they don’t. Their mobility is slightly above average, their damage is on part with other classes, and their defense is atrocious. The reason why they seem to be OP is because Stealth (despite being horrible in PvE) synergizes well with a glass cannon build. This makes them harder to counter than other classes with glass cannon builds, but they still die immediately if you manage it. Moreover, there is little else they can do well. If anything, Thieves need some buffs to their other builds/sets at this point.

Thieves do need some buffs, to some weapon sets. However they DO NOT have to have stealth. I have two builds I generally run on my Thief, based off how I feel, and what I want to play; The obvious stealth burst build, and the more potent bunker, little to no stealth build.

— A non-stealth, semi-bunker build I run, which works extremely well without stealth, and fully utilizes teleports, and evades.

With this build, I had to discover the need to use Tactical Strike at its fullest, this means increasing the stun/daze duration as far as I could get it. This used with Flanking Strike makes it hard to do any sustainable damage to me, even in a 2v1 situation. This is further strengthened when you’re chasing me around while using Infiltrators Strike, which gives us our best stun break, once we trigger our Shadow Return.

You really can’t get better survivability with any weapons set for any class, than you can with the Sword/Dagger. You can get 3x the evades of any class with Flanking Strike, which synergizes awesomely with Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew, whcih gives 40% endurance regen (this doesn’t stack with the Rangers “Natural Vigor”), but stacks with the Theives “Feline Grace”, which by the way gives endurance back, per dodge, and get this… With both the food, and and the Power of Inertia trait, the Thief will get 2 stacks of might per dodge.

The awesome thing about Sword/Dagger is how well it synergizes with the Shortbow mobility as well, with Infiltrator’s Arrow, and Choking Gas works very well with the utility Caltrops, a utility the Thief can put down with not only the utility skill, but also dodge rolls.

That one dodge from the Thief not only negates damage, but places a Caltrops on the ground, gains Swiftness, gains 2 stacks of Might, cures Cripple + Weakness (Fleet of Foot) and your dodge gives back Endurance. That’s pretty darn good for a defensive ability, Don’t you think? Wait, you’re not that kind of Thief who still hangs on the misconception that you need stealth, now are you?

Oh, wait, I got off subject with that last paragraph. Sorry. The second utility you take is Shadow Step, to add to your insane amount of mobility you already have with Sword and Shortbow.

Your heal is Withdraw, which adds to your lovely amount of evades you already have. This heal also cures Immobilize, Chill, and Cripple Now throw in 6x Superior Rune of the Adventurer, and this 15s heal gives you a TON OF ENDURANCE to keep dodging.

All of that, and I still get stealth with CnD.

What was it you were saying again? <scratches head>

Einlanzer.1627:

Chokolata.1870:

Thieves were not nerfed . In no game ever, especially RTS games would a fast mobile class or faction be given high damage . Usually the slowest option would do the most damage … because it is slow and avoidable .

Thieves have unparalleled mobility and damage , and an good escape mechanisms . Hence they are OP .

No, they don’t. Their mobility is slightly above average, their damage is on part with other classes, and their defense is atrocious. The reason why they seem to be OP is because Stealth (despite being horrible in PvE) synergizes well with a glass cannon build. This makes them harder to counter than other classes with glass cannon builds, but they still die immediately if you manage it. Moreover, there is little else they can do well. If anything, Thieves need some buffs to their other builds/sets at this point.

LOLOLOLOL “stealth is bad in PvE”. Tell that to people doing high lv dredge fractals or any amount of skipping in explorables, especially Arah.

@ above, why take withdraw over Hide in Shadows? A condition clear is more important when shadow return and infiltrator’s arrow already get you our of immobilize. Hide In Shadows also overrides poison, so it can never be decreased in health return.

Zenith.7301:

Einlanzer.1627:

Chokolata.1870:

Thieves were not nerfed . In no game ever, especially RTS games would a fast mobile class or faction be given high damage . Usually the slowest option would do the most damage … because it is slow and avoidable .

Thieves have unparalleled mobility and damage , and an good escape mechanisms . Hence they are OP .

No, they don’t. Their mobility is slightly above average, their damage is on part with other classes, and their defense is atrocious. The reason why they seem to be OP is because Stealth (despite being horrible in PvE) synergizes well with a glass cannon build. This makes them harder to counter than other classes with glass cannon builds, but they still die immediately if you manage it. Moreover, there is little else they can do well. If anything, Thieves need some buffs to their other builds/sets at this point.

LOLOLOLOL “stealth is bad in PvE”. Tell that to people doing high lv dredge fractals or any amount of skipping in explorables, especially Arah.

@ above, why take withdraw over Hide in Shadows? A condition clear is more important when shadow return and infiltrator’s arrow already get you our of immobilize. Hide In Shadows also overrides poison, so it can never be decreased in health return.

Withdraw gives almost double the hps that Hide in Shadows does, it doesn’t make it so you can’t cap a point in sPvP, you evade while using it making it so you take 0 damage while they try to kill you where Hide in Shadows just puts you in stealth can still be badly injured/killed in stealth), it has better synergy with X happens when you heal skills, like Adventurer Runes and Hastened Replenishment, it provides with a way to escape immobilizes, etc.

The condi removal is nice sure, but if you’re a bunker thief it’s not needed and is usually better to just go for EVADE EVERYTHING! than to try to dance in and out of stealth.

<—- played stealthless thief for a while, got bored of lack of pet, went back to ranger.

@JK, i think we may have been using the same thief build xD

Stealth stunlockwing with a sword/dagger build thief is very fun though. Only works on classes without much stability like necro and engineer, however.

Biggest change they could do for rangers is to make them the other class with group stability/retal. Stand Your Ground is so disgustingly good — it’s pretty much what makes guardians a staple of any teamfight with an OP 30 sec cd whereas other classes need to pay 60+ seconds of cooldown for a single user stability.

Whether anet likes it or not boons and boon stripping are the meta of the game. Nothing comes close to the utility of boons and the ability to remove them. Hard cc like stuns from engineer or hammer warriors comes close, but it’s less apparent due to the preponderance of guardians.

/blink
Not that this isn’t fascinating, guys. But a weeeeeee bit offtopic?

Well, It’s nice to hear them talking about ranger pet so frankly.
And ‘steps in the right direction’ are always welcome. But this sounds like it might be a bit of a drawn out process. It’s not like I don’t have alts to play in the interim, but it’s still a bit of a bummer.

Oh not this thread again.
We get it every month, and every month i get hyped up and then crushed at the patch note

Yeah, just sit and be patient. We’ll see what happens with it does and adapt from there. That’s all you can do.

Robert and Jon seem to be at opposites on this topic.

Jon “that’s a good idea, but we are not working on it” seems to think Rangers are just fine and all that is needed is some PR spin in the form of an Anet sponsored ‘stream’ featuring a ninja ranger with a full lets support the ranger team. This is so far, so deeply dug into the bubble he lives in, it is not funny. Earth to Jon, there is no audience for GW2 streams, periodomisimo. It could be the lead on the homepage for a while and would simply whitewash the issue officially, and while giving the ever shrinking fan boy chorus some talking points.

Robert ‘I actually play a ranger’ claims there is something in the next patch for rangers. Given the past history on ranger PVE nerfs, I expect this something to be a cosmetic consolation prize buff to soften yet another general PVE nerf that destroys yet another ranger skill or mechanic.

When Anet has significantly buffed a class in the past they have proclaimed it from the rooftops complete with videos and lead up blog posts etc. so it does not look like this is what is in store for rangers in the next patch.

Jalad, when have they proclaimed buffs like that before patch notes were released?

Zenith.7301:

Stealth stunlockwing with a sword/dagger build thief is very fun though. Only works on classes without much stability like necro and engineer, however.

Biggest change they could do for rangers is to make them the other class with group stability/retal. Stand Your Ground is so disgustingly good — it’s pretty much what makes guardians a staple of any teamfight with an OP 30 sec cd whereas other classes need to pay 60+ seconds of cooldown for a single user stability.

Whether anet likes it or not boons and boon stripping are the meta of the game. Nothing comes close to the utility of boons and the ability to remove them. Hard cc like stuns from engineer or hammer warriors comes close, but it’s less apparent due to the preponderance of guardians.

We had that in beta, stability training used to give group wide when you use bear (and I belive canine) F2, then it got scrapped away with the traits revamp. Who the hell throws stuns at bears, their damage is not even worth the cc!

Krugan.7901:

Zenith.7301:

Stealth stunlockwing with a sword/dagger build thief is very fun though. Only works on classes without much stability like necro and engineer, however.

Biggest change they could do for rangers is to make them the other class with group stability/retal. Stand Your Ground is so disgustingly good — it’s pretty much what makes guardians a staple of any teamfight with an OP 30 sec cd whereas other classes need to pay 60+ seconds of cooldown for a single user stability.

Whether anet likes it or not boons and boon stripping are the meta of the game. Nothing comes close to the utility of boons and the ability to remove them. Hard cc like stuns from engineer or hammer warriors comes close, but it’s less apparent due to the preponderance of guardians.

We had that in beta, stability training used to give group wide when you use bear (and I belive canine) F2, then it got scrapped away with the traits revamp. Who the hell throws stuns at bears, their damage is not even worth the cc!

You do? Shared Anguish throws them under the bus for you, people trying to get them to stop interrupting you do, people using AoE CC do.

It’s a very nice trait if you’re using Ursine pets, makes Beary a pretty amazing meat shield in PvP and gives him near 100% uptime. Does he hit as hard as a cat? No, but he’s a tenacious little kitten!

VitalSuit.1980:

Thieves as well? I hope this is only for pve and not pvp because thieves are the last thing that needs a buff.

Just let you know:
PvE is WvW.

PvE is not WvW. They recently mentioned in an interview that they were working to further separate how skills work (mainly numbers I believe) in PvE, WvW, and sPvP. They listed each as a separate arena.

I think the point is that while they may separate pve, wvw, and pvp, at the moment pve and wvw have the same skill effects.

So we cannot know if they plan to change how skills work in wvw in the next patch Jon talked about, or in some subsequent patch.

At this point I think its safer to assume that they aren’t going to separate wvw and pve until we know when its going to happen.

I agree with that, Semil … unless they’ve been quietly working on this for a while without our knowing … they are rather tight-lipped :-p

We really ought to take Robert drinking ;-)

Not going to help Rangers at all if he dies of alcohol poisoning.

“No, here, have another shot…and what were you saying about rebalancing mainhand axe?”

Lol. I said, “take him drinking”, not “tie him to a chair and funnel it down his throat” or “take him to a frat party” :-p

I figure by the time we get to the point of asking about axes he might be too drunk to drink himself, so we’d need to help him.

And also have a stomach pump and an iv. And its merely coincidence that alcohol can also cause amnesia. Really.

Semil, I’m starting to get concerned that you have some experience with this, lol.

writes note: “never be alone with Semil”

“Tribute” to Semil ;-)

Now Robert is going to quit ANet and change his name, maybe move to Bangladesh or Mongolia.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Semil.8279:

Now Robert is going to quit ANet and change his name, maybe move to Bangladesh or Mongolia.

Being that my namesake is Czech, I think I’d give them a shot first

While I wish we could make pets super awesome ASAP, this patch will be a good step in the right direction. Will it solve all the problems? No, but it’s going to put rangers and their pets in a much better place.
I realize you all may have heard this song and dance before, and it’s okay to be doubtful about the upcoming patch – folks have been burned before, and its just going to take experiencing the changes and playing them to soften that. As a ranger player I am excited about the changes, and I hope once you all get a chance to play what the balance team has worked on, you’ll be happier too

Honestly I don’t understand why it cant be done in one patch. Plenty of time to get it done, the issue has been their since release so plenty of time to have known about it. If things go wrong and it makes an aspect op hot fix it. Really no reason that it should take more than one patch.

And when can we expect this patch and the details?

EDIT:
And thank you for being here, it is appreciated.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Semil.8279:

Now Robert is going to quit ANet and change his name, maybe move to Bangladesh or Mongolia.

Being that my namesake is Czech, I think I’d give them a shot first

While I wish we could make pets super awesome ASAP, this patch will be a good step in the right direction. Will it solve all the problems? No, but it’s going to put rangers and their pets in a much better place.
I realize you all may have heard this song and dance before, and it’s okay to be doubtful about the upcoming patch – folks have been burned before, and its just going to take experiencing the changes and playing them to soften that. As a ranger player I am excited about the changes, and I hope once you all get a chance to play what the balance team has worked on, you’ll be happier too

*cough*Some spoilers, please? :P*cough*

Bailey.6892:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Semil.8279:

Now Robert is going to quit ANet and change his name, maybe move to Bangladesh or Mongolia.

Being that my namesake is Czech, I think I’d give them a shot first

While I wish we could make pets super awesome ASAP, this patch will be a good step in the right direction. Will it solve all the problems? No, but it’s going to put rangers and their pets in a much better place.
I realize you all may have heard this song and dance before, and it’s okay to be doubtful about the upcoming patch – folks have been burned before, and its just going to take experiencing the changes and playing them to soften that. As a ranger player I am excited about the changes, and I hope once you all get a chance to play what the balance team has worked on, you’ll be happier too

Honestly I don’t understand why it cant be done in one patch. Plenty of time to get it done, the issue has been their since release so plenty of time to have known about it. If things go wrong and it makes an aspect op hot fix it. Really no reason that it should take more than one patch.

And when can we expect this patch and the details?

EDIT:
And thank you for being here, it is appreciated.

I imagine that it’ll take steps because the extent of later changes will very much depend on how the initial changes work once it hits the general public. Very very few MMO devs can accurately predict how players will react and utilize any change they make.

You can even see it in the forums. Several people will claim to know what is wrong with the ranger (or <insert profession here>) and what needs to be done to fix it…but I can guarantee that there are many players that wouldn’t find those things to be a problem at all, and may even be a strength for them in particular, and those supposed fixes may not actually fix the problem because those people may not actually have a good idea of what’s wrong (they just believe they do).

Assuming they could actually implement all their ideas for changes in one patch (a lofty assumption, IMO), it still may not actually fix the problem, and may actually cause other problems as players get their hands on it and find it didn’t do anything to fix what they see wrong with the profession, or even removed something that worked really well for them. Then the devs would need to do further changes anyway.

Edit: Ninja’d by Robert

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Bailey.6892:

Honestly I don’t understand why it cant be done in one patch. Plenty of time to get it done, the issue has been their since release so plenty of time to have known about it. If things go wrong and it makes an aspect op hot fix it. Really no reason that it should take more than one patch.

And when can we expect this patch and the details?

Mainly because there are other classes who also need balance, and these things need to be planned, built, tested, and analyzed. It’s not just a large workload, but also in a step-by-step process that has game-wide consequences that must be considered during all phases of development. Mix that with all the other classes and their changes, and it’s a pretty big task that has to be ready for the next patch.

Edit:
I’ve gotten in some trouble before about giving hints and releasing info early… so I’m going to leave that up to the people in charge if they want to do those things :x

I don’t understand though, why aren’t there any temporary buffs to help keep a class in edge.

Like, if you know pets are squishy, give them a temporary toughness boost until you find a better solution. That was just an example, but stuff like that could be done.

AlexRD.7914:

Like, if you know pets are squishy, give them a temporary toughness boost until you find a better solution. That was just an example, but stuff like that could be done.

Because those temporary buffs have game-wide ramifications that must be tested and analyzed just like the permanent buffs do. It is not as easy as slapping 500 toughness on all pets and pretending like that has zero impact on the rest of the game when it absolutely does.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’ve gotten in some trouble before about giving hints and releasing info early… so I’m going to leave that up to the people in charge if they want to do those things :x

You should suggest to them to actually post in these forums, then, because as of now you’re the only one who ever does.

Rising Dusk.2408:

You should suggest to them to actually post in these forums, then, because as of now you’re the only one who ever does.

This a million times! You are the only one actually communicating with us at all and you get into trouble over it? I mean clearly something is wrong there.

Glad to hear from you Robert. Since you said it’ll help Rangers and pets, then I’m assuming it’s a damage ratio change or the AI has been revamped, either of which is okay with me. I’ll be waiting for this patch to see what you guys have come up with.

Yes, people like communication. The other folks don’t do enough of it.

You know what would be really good. A spvp session with the balance testers. Maybe it will open our eyes to how the Ranger can be played by proper experienced testers.

It will open a lot if eyes and minds.

Any chance we can organise this? They wont even have to speak to people. Let the actionspeak for itself

KensaiZen.3740:

You know what would be really good. A spvp session with the balance testers. Maybe it will open our eyes to how the Ranger can be played by proper experienced testers.

It will open a lot if eyes and minds.

Any chance we can organise this? They wont even have to speak to people. Let the actionspeak for itself

Maybe I’m just really cynical, but I think this is a pretty disingenuous post.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Bailey.6892:

Honestly I don’t understand why it cant be done in one patch. Plenty of time to get it done, the issue has been their since release so plenty of time to have known about it. If things go wrong and it makes an aspect op hot fix it. Really no reason that it should take more than one patch.

And when can we expect this patch and the details?

Mainly because there are other classes who also need balance, and these things need to be planned, built, tested, and analyzed. It’s not just a large workload, but also in a step-by-step process that has game-wide consequences that must be considered during all phases of development. Mix that with all the other classes and their changes, and it’s a pretty big task that has to be ready for the next patch.

Edit:
I’ve gotten in some trouble before about giving hints and releasing info early… so I’m going to leave that up to the people in charge if they want to do those things :x

Thank you for the reply, defiantly do not want to get you in trouble as you are one of the few if not the only one who actually tends to care about the customer and is willing to come here and put up with all of us. Even when we (me) are not always the most friendly. Thank you for doing so!

When it comes to not just getting one big change that fixes things… if you look at the patch notes, they have largely moved to doing incremental changes. This allows them to edge closer and closer to that “sweet spot” where things are pretty darn balanced. I think this is much better than what you see in other MMOs, like WoW where one month you’ll see +75% damage to skill X and the next move reduced damage of skill X by 50% and reduced cast time by 0.25s. That gets old.

As usual, I appreciate Robert lending his voice to our posts. I’m sad that he’s a bit “leashed” in what he can tell us, but I can understand it. Perhaps once things get closer to that “sweet spot”, ArenaNet will loosen up a bit as the community might stop being such curmudgeons.

Honestly, I’m with those who have been saying that once our pet is reliable we may swing towards being somewhat OP. My pets hit hard, even when I have 0 in beastmastery. If they hit reliably, now my opponents need to devote damage to them and that is damage not on me. That has ramifications when you have good mobility and heals.

We’ll have to wait and see. I’m very curious about the spirits too. It’d be nice to have 4 more utilities to look at when playing around with builds.

Now you’ve made me worried.

If pets are made able to hit more reliably, our dps will increase on mobile targets.

Will ANet see this as a reason to decrease the damage the ranger does to compensate?

Semil.8279:

Now you’ve made me worried.

If pets are made able to hit more reliably, our dps will increase on mobile targets.

Will ANet see this as a reason to decrease the damage the ranger does to compensate?

Seeing as how a thief can burst down a tank, I doubt it.
Only the non-tanky pets are doing the mean damage and that’s only like 2k to 4k depending on traits, utilities, and your target’s toughness.

Sebrent.3625:

Honestly, I’m with those who have been saying that once our pet is reliable we may swing towards being somewhat OP. My pets hit hard, even when I have 0 in beastmastery. If they hit reliably, now my opponents need to devote damage to them and that is damage not on me. That has ramifications when you have good mobility and heals.

I’ve been thinking about this too. I wouldn’t mind if pet damage was to be reduced a bit, as long as they could actually apply it to moving targets reliably. Same goes to F2 abilities.

Sic ’em definitely needs to be tuned down if we really get a buff/fix to pets. Maybe drop the damage bonus to 15-20% and add a charge + stun or something to it.

@Noss:
I really don’t think more reliable pet damage would require our pets to have to do reduced damage. They are nowhere near the realm of other classes’ dps.

I also disagree about Sic’em.

Sick ’Em - Your pet runs faster and does more damage (40% more). 60s cd and 10s duration.

Assassin’s Signet - Passive: Grants increased power. Active: Deal 15% more damage on your next five attacks. 45s cd and 30s duration (or 5 attacks).

Now the assassin’s increases the thief’s damage by less, but the thief already does quite a bit more damage than our pet does. The signet also has passive bonuses and can be used more often (3 times for every 2 Sick’Em)

i wouldn’t keep my hopes up much guys, they been saying the same since november or before and rangers just get worse with every patch, i am even scare of patch days now. Earning so much gold to buy cultural armor, exotics, this that and all is a waste of time because the class doesn’t deliver.