Guild Wars 2

Do you feel like the Ranger Lacks Complexity?

I feel like that it is one of the major factors contributing to the staleness/competitiveness of the class. Without complexity our skills are either too powerful or weak. Complexity adds to the skill cap creating opportunity and “funness” to the class in pvp and pve. Our utility skills and/or weapon skills have few sequences. For example one cool combination (Necromancer) is the spectral wall and spectral grasp used together pulling someone through the wall adds the vulnerability. Our utilities are almost all 1 dimensional and need complexity for not only competitiveness but to make the class more FUN!

I’d like to see more pet combo skills. Hilt-Bash>Rending Pounce(Lynx)>Maul would make for a fun combo.
However, that’d require fixing pet AI and buffing greatswords, which to be honest, isn’t going to happen, at least anytime soon.

Its strange you say that, I find the ranger to be one of the most complex classes in spvp.

Other classes have their gimicky burst combos, but with ranger you have to be able to kite and position yourself well, while at the same time trying to coordinate your pet and utility skills or on weapon swap rune abilities to gradually wear down the enemy.

It would be even more fun if you could more easily pull off pet based combo’s like Chilly mentioned though.

Yasha.5963:

Its strange you say that, I find the ranger to be one of the most complex classes in spvp.

Other classes have their gimicky burst combos, but with ranger you have to be able to kite and position yourself well, while at the same time trying to coordinate your pet and utility skills or on weapon swap rune abilities to gradually wear down the enemy.

It would be even more fun if you could more easily pull off pet based combo’s like Chilly mentioned though.

Lol, if your idea of complex is finding a way to stay alive and wear down a badly played class with a mass of combos designed to make up for the ranger bugs eg. pet., and low burst dmg. Then yes I guess it is complex.

But I really don’t think complexity should be a function of how to make up for the shortcomings of an underpowerd class.

I was able to beat a lot of different builds 1vs1 before the SB nerf and it was fun doing it for the reasons I stated above. I don’t agree that the ranger had no viable builds pre-SB nerf.

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

The other viable build was the condition SB+ other weapon and toughness build.

I’m not sure if rangers were UP pre-SB nerf, I enjoyed the cat and mouse against the burst classes and there were only a few specific builds that I knew I could not beat.

Now, however, well I guess the warhorn is still pretty cool…..could it be next in line for the nerf bat?

Ranger is about quality not quantity.

The short bow was a situational weapon relying on its auto attack for its main source of power and the rest were to control the battlefield in terms of snaring, evading and interrupting.

much like the greatsword, however the greatsword is truely lackluster in the hands of the ranger, most of the times you just hit 3 to fast move to the next target and let the auto attack do the rest of the attacks.

The longbow on the other hand is about control, support and trust.
You wont be doing as much damage on it as you would a short bow, but you provide debuffs which if you’re in a good team will take advantage of.

Yasha.5963:

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

I disagree with this. The spirit boon-based build was good prior to the spirit nerf, but post-nerf became useless. You have to take 30 points in a trait line and dedicated 3 major traits to them just to use them, and their internal cooldown makes the boons they provide scarce.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

I disagree with this. The spirit boon-based build was good prior to the spirit nerf, but post-nerf became useless. You have to take 30 points in a trait line just to use them, and their internal cooldown makes the boons they provide scarce.

I sure do think those spirits could do with a buff in numerous ways, but by stacking plus-boon duration toughness and healing and mainly relying on condition damage the build held up better than most other options and was a pleasant change. Also its so nice to run around with all your friends, I was OP friend wise with that build unless a treb or ele spanked them all to oblivion.

Oh, I guess the spirits dying just as you entered combat half the time and the need for that 2 sec or whatever channel to get them up again was a bit of a pain, but perhaps that just added to the complexity of this wonderfully thought out class.

Yasha.5963:

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

I disagree with this. The spirit boon-based build was good prior to the spirit nerf, but post-nerf became useless. You have to take 30 points in a trait line just to use them, and their internal cooldown makes the boons they provide scarce.

I sure do think those spirits could do with a buff in numerous ways, but by stacking plus-boon duration toughness and healing and mainly relying on condition damage the build held up better than most other options and was a pleasant change. Also its so nice to run around with all your friends, I was OP friend wise with that build unless a treb or ele spanked them all to oblivion.

Oh, I guess the spirits dying just as you entered combat half the time and the need for that 2 sec or whatever channel to get them up again was a bit of a pain, but perhaps that just added to the complexity of this wonderfully thought out class.

Except they don’t help all your friends. Their proccing ability only effects a single person (whoever swings first, including yourself) in range with the spirit’s internal cooldown. Our healing spirit is the only viable spirit right now and it isn’t worth 30 trait points in a line and 3 major traits to use it.

Are you sure? i ask my team when i play spirit if they are getting the buffs and they say they are, but if what you say is true then that is just hilarious, please tell me you are just trolling.

Yasha.5963:

Are you sure? i ask my team when i play spirit if they are getting the buffs and they say they are, but if what you say is true then that is just hilarious, please tell me you are just trolling.

Definitely not trolling. It is like a 3 second internal cooldown.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

Are you sure? i ask my team when i play spirit if they are getting the buffs and they say they are, but if what you say is true then that is just hilarious, please tell me you are just trolling.

Definitely not trolling. It is like a 3 second internal cooldown.

Oh kitten it can’t be true that’s the most absurd thing I have ever heard (not directed at you arcane!). What’s the kitten kitten kitten, use of such a kitten, kitten, kitten, piece of kitten.

That’s the biggest litter of kittens I’ve ever heard, surely surely there is some misunderstanding as to what the internal cd on this does, otherwise what is the kitten point?

We are basically a half-profession. There’s a lot of things we never got that we were originally going to get like tracking and camouflage. Instead we have a lot of our skills stretched out far too much to make it look like we have more than we have. The main example are the spirit pets that need 30 points in a trait line and 3 major traits to use them.

Hang on, does it not in fact work like this: every time I attack there is a % chance for the buff on each spirit to go off. When the buff procs it affects everyone in range and then goes on a 3sec cd. Also length of the buffs are dependant on my buff duration stats (I know this is so for me at least, but i assume this applies to everyone who gets the buff).

I probably seem ignorant here arcane, its just that I cannot believe that what you say is true (I believe you, but I just can’t believe it if you know what I mean). I can’t believe that any dev would put in a skill like that, I mean the game has been in development for years.

Yasha.5963:

Hang on, does it not in fact work like this: every time I attack there is a % chance for the buff on each spirit to go off. When the buff procs it affects everyone in range and then goes on a 3sec cd. Also length of the buffs are dependant on my buff duration stats (I know this is so for me at least, but i assume this applies to everyone who gets the buff).

I probably seem ignorant here arcane, its just that I cannot believe that what you say is true (I believe you, but I just can’t believe it if you know what I mean). I can’t believe that any dev would put in a skill like that, I mean the game has been in development for years.

Test it out yourself among your friends. I used to run a spirit pet build in BWE2 and quit after BWE3.

Between buffs on weapon/pet swap, use of combo fields ( fire, water ), and pet abilities ( if they actually hit ) I think we have a fairly complex class. Not everybody spams shortbow 1 and warhorn buffs. That’s very effective ( maybe not so much now with bugged QZ ) but boring.

I see a couple people discussing the use of many skills and positioning as complexity and I disagree.

Using a variety of skills doesn’t mean the class is complex. I believe almost all the classes have a large variety of skills but that doesnt mean all the classes have complex gameplay.

Positioning also doesnt necessarily mean this class is “more or less” complex then any of the other professions. Every class in the game deals with positioning and/or kiting and those factors contribute to every classes successes.

I challenge you as the readers and writers on this forum to come up with complex skill squences you can use as a ranger. This will help us come up with combos and share these sequences with other rangers to help us become more competitive in spvp and tpvp (which is my biggest concern).

One good sequence I use currently when experimenting was using laying a flame trap and when it is triggered use the greatsword block → knockback to knock the enemy back then leap with the 3 to the enemy adding the flame shield then switching to axe/torch and using the 2 and spike trap to add a lot of big damage conditions quickly.

This is a cool sequence but unfortunately its damage is easily mitigated or negated with any small condition removal because you are only applying bleed, burn, and cripple.

andybmcc.8751:

Between buffs on weapon/pet swap, use of combo fields ( fire, water ), and pet abilities ( if they actually hit ) I think we have a fairly complex class. Not everybody spams shortbow 1 and warhorn buffs. That’s very effective ( maybe not so much now with bugged QZ ) but boring.

This people who just spam Crossfire with QZ are the ones who thinks it’s entirely broken, I want it fixed. But I still find no trouble getting kills in WvW or in Orr. Just became a little more strategy based then spam spam spam spam, Finisher, Win.

I feel that the SB (being the most popular weapon) is also the most boring. When I first unlocked QZ + SB i was giddy. Now it’s flavorless. I’ve since switched to anything-but-SB. Mostly melee because even LB is a little flavorless (and weak).

I’d like to see more synergy with the pets (as someone above mentioned). The shouts are…ok…but I never use them. Wish I could ride my black bear into battle. That’d be a great elite: Hop on your pet’s back and charge into battle like a medieval jouster, gaining swiftness, fury, & a big kitten lance.

Ranger looks shallow from a glance, it takes some exploring to really notice how deep and complex it actually is… after finding this out i have once again fallen in love with ranger.

To answer this thread’s question: No.

If anything – between the bugs, the glitches and the quality of life – the Ranger class is the more difficult profession to find ways to get it to work!

Its like a lemon of a car that you love and want to work, but it just keeps finding more ways to make you curse the Six Gods, the Pale Tree, the Eternal Alchemy, the Great Spirits or that other charr that looked at you funny.

(I threw a little RP in there for fun.)

Durzlla.6295:

Ranger looks shallow from a glance, it takes some exploring to really notice how deep and complex it actually is… after finding this out i have once again fallen in love with ranger.

How is it deep and complex?

deepwinter.9015:

To answer this thread’s question: No.

If anything – between the bugs, the glitches and the quality of life – the Ranger class is the more difficult profession to find ways to get it to work!

Its like a lemon of a car that you love and want to work, but it just keeps finding more ways to make you curse the Six Gods, the Pale Tree, the Eternal Alchemy, the Great Spirits or that other charr that looked at you funny.

(I threw a little RP in there for fun.)

Bugs aside (hopefully will all be fixed) are you saying that a simpler class would improve it more then making it complex? I believe the lack of complexity is what makes this class hard to balance. Without complex skill sequences the ranger becomes a low skill cap class which will be easily picked up and nerfed out of viability against the complex classes.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

Hang on, does it not in fact work like this: every time I attack there is a % chance for the buff on each spirit to go off. When the buff procs it affects everyone in range and then goes on a 3sec cd. Also length of the buffs are dependant on my buff duration stats (I know this is so for me at least, but i assume this applies to everyone who gets the buff).

I probably seem ignorant here arcane, its just that I cannot believe that what you say is true (I believe you, but I just can’t believe it if you know what I mean). I can’t believe that any dev would put in a skill like that, I mean the game has been in development for years.

Test it out yourself among your friends. I used to run a spirit pet build in BWE2 and quit after BWE3.

Ok just so I have this clear, the internal cooldown to proc the spirits is not calculated independently between players?

So if I hit something and get say the swiftness proc, then nobody else nearby will be able to get a buff from that spirit again for 3 seconds?

Levetty.1279:

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

Hang on, does it not in fact work like this: every time I attack there is a % chance for the buff on each spirit to go off. When the buff procs it affects everyone in range and then goes on a 3sec cd. Also length of the buffs are dependant on my buff duration stats (I know this is so for me at least, but i assume this applies to everyone who gets the buff).

I probably seem ignorant here arcane, its just that I cannot believe that what you say is true (I believe you, but I just can’t believe it if you know what I mean). I can’t believe that any dev would put in a skill like that, I mean the game has been in development for years.

Test it out yourself among your friends. I used to run a spirit pet build in BWE2 and quit after BWE3.

Ok just so I have this clear, the internal cooldown to proc the spirits is not calculated independently between players?

So if I hit something and get say the swiftness proc, then nobody else nearby will be able to get a buff from that spirit again for 3 seconds?

This is wrong, the forums swear up and down on this, but every single time i use a spirit in a dungeon (normally sun spirit where this becomes highly apparent especially while grouped with people who can not apply burning) it proves it wrong, the fact i’ve been able to get up to 2min (well 58 seconds, close enough) of burning on a boss by the end of the fight completely disproves this fictional 3 second internal CD per spirit.