Guild Wars 2

SynfulChaot.3169:

jubskie.3152:

People have this preconceived vision of what a ranger should be, and it doesn’t align with ANet’s vision. That’s the main problem. Just look all of the “RANGE”-r threads. Until people can perma-stow their pet or their longbow does 20k rapid fires people will never stop QQing.

Not all of us, or even most of us, are demanding this. We want more viability. People are proposing some things as those are all they can think of to offer. We all simply want a viable ranger class.

Yes, people want ranged ranger. That’s how the class was advertised and honestly there should not be a problem with a class specializing in ranged. Note that I said ‘specializing’ and not ‘does range only’. That is a trap that too many threads fall to. People are not saying ‘ranger must only do ranged damage’. We are saying that ‘ranger should to adequate ranged damage’. Because right now we do not.

Perma-stowing? Some are crying for that, yes. Most of us just want pets to be fixed one way or another, whether it is fixing their AI, granting them AoE detection or partial immunity, or just removing them. They are part of the reason rangers are kneecapped and do need to be remedied, but as a group I think that we just want them fixed and not necessarily removed.

And yes, some will complain regardless. But if we always keep shutting down even the smallest complaints, ANet will take that the ranger community agrees with all the changes and we will never see the love that the ranger class deserves.

I agree with the first part of your post completely. As for perma-stowing (or my idea for unkillable, noncombatant buffing pets), I think that may be the only way to make rangers completely viable in all areas of the game. Even if they fix the pet AI (which they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to do for at least 3 years, probably longer), and the fact that pets can’t attack while moving and frequently miss moving targets, there’s the fact that pets rely primarily on health, defense and healing to survive, when the combat system in this games forces you not to. Even as a defense-oriented warrior or guardian, blocking, evasion, cc, and conditions are just as important to your survival as your health and armor. Basically, pets are trying to use GW1 combat in GW2, and that doesn’t work when every champion can take off half of its health or more in a single hit.

people use BM/Trapper builds because they’re better solo, you can do berserker builds..But they blow solo..

Prysin.8542:

well one problem with the devs, and this forum, is that the majority of rangers are quite, bad. Not as persons, but as players. They whine about a class that is “UP” and all this and that, while completely denying the fact that it IS quite ok.

Sure the class itself has tonns of problems, many related to pets, and makitten ues (like the illogical “obstructed” while on a flat surface bug).
Another issue of the class is that people think there is only 2-3 viable builds at all. Fact is, there is many. Some are more efficient then others, in different areas of the game.

You got my personal favorite – crit tanker, and you got the trapper build, the BM build, glasscannon, power-tank and condition-crit. All of these are good, in their own respect, however the blatantly naive and constant focus on BM and trapper build has rendered the evolution of any other build nearly impossible. People only think that BM and trapper is what you got. YOU DONT. You can use the others too, but they require you to be way more interactive with the game then per say, BM.

My favorite, the crit tanker build does not give you the outright nightmarish tenacity of a BM build, however it gives you massive damage, and a reasonable amount of survivability too.

To improve this class, and to make the devs listen, we, the rangers, must first realize that the class is more then going BM/trapper and facerolling over idiots who can’t combat it.

That being said – most of you guys are way too negative. Sure we get a nerf every patch, but that nerf usually opens new doors, doors you might not know of.

sry but just lol man…
i have 2,5k pvp games and 1,7k tournament games with my ranger in teams now and just found not any build works well enough to make me “the bad ranger player” useful for a team. at end there was always the same problem, the teams whants me to do guardian. so i have 1,3k tournys with guardian now and ranger stay at lionsarch afk…

you are just totaly wrong. there is no real working build for rangers atm.
the only one is beastmaster ranger because strong at 1vs1 and ~good homepoint bunker… or good far point assault (but only when ninja back cap)
and thats last choose for a team after guardian, mesmer, elem, necromancer, engin, thief, 2. elem and and and.
ranger is just last choose after warrior!
trapper ranger is not a real viable build as long trapper traits are in skirmishing.
engin and necro can do a much more well condi job, because rly much more usefull skills and self skill use, oh and no random pet fun…

every class can be a more interesting damage dealer, tank and teamsupporter.
its more interesting to play an elem for me atm, just because after long time playing tournament, its go totaly sad how less self controll i have about what skills i whant to use with ranger (random condi remove, random stun breaker, random invis, random random random). but sad, its not easy to play a new class now and face players in a ~high rank… so i stay bunker guardian. or better play more smite then gw2 now.

maybe you post some serious games with your nice “crit tank” here.
i have try so much time to create nice builds and there is always the same problem.
the pet feels like ~30% of my dmg. (oh and i dont whant to go tank as “ranger”…)
and there is fast to see the limit about create builds for a strong ranger.

-first of all 30 in wildness surivival is nearly a must have… (condi remove)
-30 in wildness survival bring me to think about go condi build…
-no points in beastmastery is fast dying pets and bye bye ~30% of my dmg
-dps ranger is just not able to do, because the dmg is to low for less survive.
when ppls start to target you, you can just start running maybe surviving with s/d, but in this time you dont do dmg. there is a condi trap build rly more interesting, because as damge ranger you become fast target.
so thief, ele and and and are better choose for a damge dealer then ranger who need to have luck for good nice pet combos he cant do himself (wolf knock down)
-spirits are just a troll, see some running around 2 days ago, but im sure that was only rangers whant to play and dont take engi or necro,
because for well spirit dmg you and the spirits have to stay on point where is not much aoe spam and hope after use the spirits effects the player you whant to hit dont run out of range when the spirits start there long time skill cast…

jubskie.3152:

People have this preconceived vision of what a ranger should be, and it doesn’t align with ANet’s vision. That’s the main problem.

The problem is nobody knows what that vision is. The one that players are going on is the one that ANet hyped and published, but clearly that isn’t it.

Until ANet come out and tell us what the heck they are trying to do here then that problem just isn’t get solved. Once we know, we can decide to stay or go on that basis.

stale.9785:

Anyone who believes pets aren’t broken are flat out wrong. Bad pathing, inability to hit mobile targets, can’t avoid AoE/high damage attacks, and there’s one whole build where they’re viable. Pets are BAD.

Inevitably, someone is going to tell me to cripple my target so my pet can hit. That’s great and all, but it shouldn’t be required for the other half of my damage to hit. Imagine if a warrior only dealt full damage to crippled foes? People would be screaming. Same with any class, aside from us.

For the pet survivability issue, your choices are to either build entirely around your pet, or accept it’s going to die, all the time. Again, if any other class faces losing half their damage whenever there were lots of AoE around, or a single high target attack, there’d be screaming. For rangers, it’s par for the course.

Solution? Lots of people (I count 1824 separate posters in the last 4 months) calling for pet removal. Outright perma-stow and fix rangers skill coefficients so we deal normal damage (normal as in not 40% weaker than everyone else, because: pet.)

Or they could add some AoE damage reduction, and extend the pet’s range of attack. (If they’re not going to allow perma-stowing, this makes the most sense)

Being forced into melee or being forced to cripple the target are temporary solutions to the problem. Not long term. I think we can all agree that having to do so just for the pet to hit is kinda bad design. This is the pet downside that plagues PvP and WvW as players move too fast for the pet AI to be able to track and hit. I would think that speeding up the pet’s attack animations and triggering would be viable. After all, enemy mob AI is smart enough to hit us when we’re moving. Why shouldn’t the pet be able to?

For pet survivability you don’t necessarily need to build around your pet. But for the pet to survive in melee with PvE bosses or survive in boss AoE fields that it is too stupid to avoid, there does need to be a fix. This is the pet downside that plagues PvE players, and to a lesser extent WvW players. AoE damage reduction (not immunity) or giving the pet the ability to recognize those deadly AoEs and run out of them would go far to remedy this issue. I think we’re all tired of seeing our pet just stand in the middle of an AoE and take it all, not even bothering to move out. >.<

Many are crying for outright removal of the pet. I don’t think that is necessary. There are many fixes without removing a cornerstone of the class. Right now ranger does equal beastmaster. That can stay, but they do need to make it so our mechanic isn’t the weakest mechanic out of bad design.

stale.9785:

Second issue is group utility. Right now, that’s limited to Healing Spring and Muddy Ground. There’s nothing else rangers bring to a fight that someone else can’t do better. The ideal solution? Fix spirits.

You have forgotten the one last great ranger utility, Signet of Renewal. So long as your pet is alive, which is most places if you micro it well, it is a full team full party condition clear. It is true that those are the only real utilities that are not selfish. Even a warrior can contribute more to group utility. More group-oriented utilities would definitely be nice.

stale.9785:

Spirits should be invulnerable, like warrior banners. That leaves a trait that can be remade into something else (hopefully not pet related, since we have 49 pet traits already) and allow for spirit based builds. That’s it – one change, and spirits become reasonably useful. The internal cool down needs to be addressed, but I’m not even sure Anet is aware that’s an issue.

I don’t know about invulnerable spirits. It is true that spirits are a much weaker version of warrior banners. The solution could also be as simple as it was in GW1. Increasing the range of the spirit effect by a large margin. They don’t need to be invulnerable if the ranger has the option of placing them down where they are likely to not get hit yet still be able to effect the party.

Also the internal cooldown on spirits should go. The warrior banners boost everyone all the time. Why, then, do the spirits only effect one person at a time on a percentage chance then go on cooldown and effect noone for 10 seconds. The spirit’s effects don’t even have full uptime on a single player.

Spirits have been buffed multiple times and they are still rarely run. The reason is that even after these buffs, they are still a weaker and killable warrior banner. This needs to be changed. They have tried to give us more reason to run spirits, and many of us rangers want to run them, but they are still not viable enough due to their extreme squishieness, their low range, and their purposefully kneecapped effect triggers, durations, and cooldowns. These issues get addressed and you’ll see spirit rangers again, like you did in the beta before they kneecapped them.

stale.9785:

Last issue, and it was mentioned above – our traits. Every class has 75 traits to choose from. For rangers, 49 of them revolve around the pet. Now, I figure there should be 15 pet traits (All in beastmaster line, obviously) and the rest should be related to US.

This is something that I didn’t realize until looking more at it. No other class needs to put a lot of trait points into only one tree just to make their mechanic viable. As rangers, if we don’t put points into beastmastery, our pets are quite weak. And by being forced to put many points into it, despite the lack of standout traits, we are more limited in what all we can run.

Prysin.8542:

Sure the class itself has tonns of problems, many related to pets, and makitten ues (like the illogical “obstructed” while on a flat surface bug).
Another issue of the class is that people think there is only 2-3 viable builds at all. Fact is, there is many. Some are more efficient then others, in different areas of the game.

-snip-

That being said – most of you guys are way too negative. Sure we get a nerf every patch, but that nerf usually opens new doors, doors you might not know of.

There are more than just 2-3 viable builds if you’re using a true dictionary definition, but there are only a small handful of useful builds that at least bring us close to the utility and power of most builds from other classes. And most of the really useful ones are only good in PvP or WvW. In PvE we are still at the bottom of the barrel and the class most likely to get kicked from PUGs before any words are exchanged.

Many of us either are not as negative as you think or have gotten there from seeing our favorite class fall from weak to weaker time and time again. Those of us that are still here are still rolling with the punches and trying to make the class work for us. That alone is a good thing, regardless of the tone in which we speak. It means that we still have people showing ArenaNet that we want the ranger and we want to see it restored to what it should be. A class that is not at/near the worst in all three aspects of the game.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I agree with the first part of your post completely. As for perma-stowing (or my idea for unkillable, noncombatant buffing pets), I think that may be the only way to make rangers completely viable in all areas of the game. Even if they fix the pet AI (which they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to do for at least 3 years, probably longer), and the fact that pets can’t attack while moving and frequently miss moving targets, there’s the fact that pets rely primarily on health, defense and healing to survive, when the combat system in this games forces you not to. Even as a defense-oriented warrior or guardian, blocking, evasion, cc, and conditions are just as important to your survival as your health and armor. Basically, pets are trying to use GW1 combat in GW2, and that doesn’t work when every champion can take off half of its health or more in a single hit.

The game has only been out for less than a year, not the three years you are speaking of. And if you’re referring to GW1, pets were pretty awesome there. I often ran a pure beastmaster ranger in GW1, and if you did it right you pet did pretty insane unblockable damage and was unkillable. Pets in GW1 also didn’t stand mindlessly in the middle of AoE fields all the time.

Removal of pets isn’t the answer. It is an answer, but not necessarily the one that is needed. We all know the pet needs to change. But outright removal is a step I feel is unnecessary, and seems to be a step that ArenaNet is unwilling to change. That being said, if they want to keep pets they need to focus on fixing their issues as we are partially crippled with them as they currently are.

Sandpit.3467:

The problem is nobody knows what that vision is. The one that players are going on is the one that ANet hyped and published, but clearly that isn’t it.

Until ANet come out and tell us what the heck they are trying to do here then that problem just isn’t get solved. Once we know, we can decide to stay or go on that basis.

Yes. All kinds of yes. We do need to know what their vision of the ranger is so we can help them bring the ranger in line with that vision. Right now that vision seems to be to play second fiddle to everything else in PvE and WvW and to play bunker in PvP. That just doesn’t seem right.

I don’t agree, though, that we need to know what the vision is to decide to stay with the class or leave it. I, like many of you fellow rangers, want to play a ranger regardless. We need to know what it’s supposed to be to help it grow, not to know whether or not to abandon it. If you’re going to abandon it, abandon it. If you’re going to stay, stay. Don’t leave it up to the vision to decide that.

Note: Sorry for the multi-post. Dang post length limits…

Point is, criticism, and changes need to be made, I for one will not support accompany that shuns feedback good or bad, the bad helps you build a basis for what needs to be changed. A company in their shoes should be looking at WHY these people are upset and addressing the balancing issues not closing threads because they are unhealthy?

What is the point in having a forum where you can’t post your opinion on the bad balancing changes?

Gotta love posts being modded by moderators. GG Anet, killing your own game inside the forum community.

Faithless.5810:

Point is, criticism, and changes need to be made, I for one will not support accompany that shuns feedback good or bad, the bad helps you build a basis for what needs to be changed. A company in their shoes should be looking at WHY these people are upset and addressing the balancing issues not closing threads because they are unhealthy?

What is the point in having a forum where you can’t post your opinion on the bad balancing changes?

Thank you for posting a non-trolling post this time. ^.^

They are right to close threads that do not elicit healthy dialogue. If we have problems with the class, as most all of us do, we can discuss them peacefully and constructively. As we are doing here.

If you haven’t noticed (just look up), noone here is saying that all the changes have been good. We are actively discussing the bad balancing changes. And as long as we stay civil about it and don’t call anyone out then we can continue to discuss it and help ANet bring our favored class back to where it should be.

i understand your hate faithless.

i think nearly every ranger feel same. its now nearly one yeahr where ranger players was rly bad on pve, not rly strong at wvw and also not rly strong at Tpvp.
beastmaster ranger is not op and was never op on tpvp, this forum qq was so bad joke and anet trust them. yes bm is nearly unbeatable at 1vs1, but thats make him not strong or op for the strategy which is need to win a tpvp match.

at least @faithless you should watch sotg tomorrow. battosai will join there and he is ranger player. maybe we can hear some interesting things.
but for sure if the ranger become nothing interesting with next patch i will leave till first add on release for gw2 and play smite in this time :P
i can play bunker guardian for the team. but it feels not fun to play a game where the balance team have less ideas about balance.

Oh, they have ideas for balance. But balance choices are being forced on PvE and WvW players for PvP reasons. Places in which those balance choices are flat-out inappropriate. All three modes of play have very different playstyles and strategies which require different responses. By treating all the same they are doing a disservice to the class, no, to all the classes.

We’re trying to point out where these balance choices are most problematic so ANet can clearly see where the rangers see the class in all environments: PvE, WvW, and PvP.

Remember at the end of the day, creating software is one part technical implementation and what part creative vision. When a creative vision just doesn’t work in a live setting, it can be harder to “get back on track”. I think the ranger was extremely well intentioned with a lot of factors that just fell flat. Now it needs a strategic vision or roadmap to get back THAT DOES NOT require excessive resources and re-engineering. The elegant proof is what has been elusive to the ranger community and ANET.

However we got here, my question is what is the SIMPLEST solution to getting rangers to relative parity, fun and having a role in all major game play styles? That would help developers I suspect.

AI improvement for the ranger’s pets, or at least changing implementation to minimize the obvious pet issues: fixing AoE obliviousness/susceptibility (PvE and WvW), their inability to dodge/block heavy hits (All game modes), and their ability to hit moving targets (PvP and WvW). Or simply move some of that damage back to the ranger. Having 40% of our damage from an unreliable source forces us to build around that broken mechanic. Shifting some of it back to us and from the pet would be a significant boon if no other ideas are found.

Also more attention to the ranged weapons, mostly the SB and the LB. The SB range nerf with no ability to mitigate it though traiting was a real kick, especially as even though the LB was buffed, it’s still lower DPS than the SB. A bit more power, or traits to make them more useful, would be a major boon.

And of course, the root on sword auto-attack. No other class needs to unset auto-attack on their #1 attack to survive. Ranger should not have to either.

a major problem with ranger is that you have new players playing as a ranger expecting it to be like WoW’s hunter. instead they get a mix between Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas. people’s problem with the class isn’kittens viability, it’s what they expected it to be. GW2 is more difficult than WoW as the classes aren’t totally defined in their roles. i am glad of this, because I always wanted to be a magic swordsman(mesmer) or a dark executioner(axe necro) you can’t do that with cookie cutter classes. The only classes that seemed to retain the cookie cutter idea of classes is: thief, warrior, and to a degree elementalist.
then you get ranger who can use almost all of the weapons a warrior and thief can use. as a ranger you can go full on condition, tank lots of enemies with a sword/dagger. and as a full condition ranger, i daresay you can pressure conditions almost as good as a necro(if only you had an epidemic right?) with longbow you can snipe and hit very hard, and this weapon was made for world vs. world.
point in fact, failing to understand the class usually creates a player that fails at playing it.(no offense to some of you) i play wvw every day and see maybe 1 good ranger out of 20. THAT is the problem.

Lightsbane.9012:

a major problem with ranger is that you have new players playing as a ranger expecting it to be like WoW’s hunter.

I don’t think this is true at all. I don’t think a majority of rangers are stuck in that mentality. Most of us are playing the ranger as we want to play the GW2 ranger, not WoW’s hunter. The problem is that many of our core and required mechanics has large glaring flaws that we need to openly build around just to mitigate as much of the broken mechanic as we can (read: pet AI).

Lightsbane.9012:

and as a full condition ranger, i daresay you can pressure conditions almost as good as a necro(if only you had an epidemic right?) with longbow you can snipe and hit very hard, and this weapon was made for world vs. world.
point in fact, failing to understand the class usually creates a player that fails at playing it.(no offense to some of you) i play wvw every day and see maybe 1 good ranger out of 20. THAT is the problem.

Even a condition ranger falls far short on condition pressure than a necro or an engy, or even a sword warrior. And our longbow is actually a lower DPS weapon than our SB. They had to nerf SB distance to force us to actually use the LB.

It’s not that all of us rangers don’t understand the class. Most of us run builds to mitigate as much as we can. It’s that it seems even ArenaNet does not understand, or at least they don’t seem to understand what they want the ranger to be.

All this typing.. words words words.. all of them meaningless because A-Net’s not gonna listen one way or the other.

swiftpaw.6397:

All this typing.. words words words.. all of them meaningless because A-Net’s not gonna listen one way or the other.

Some of us believe otherwise and we will continue to try to contribute to the good fight. I think even ArenaNet wants the class to be viable. They just don’t seem sure how. So let’s help them by giving them our constructive feedback.

No destructive feedback, please. That’ll just get these good threads shut down and ignored.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Lightsbane.9012:

a major problem with ranger is that you have new players playing as a ranger expecting it to be like WoW’s hunter.

I don’t think this is true at all. I don’t think a majority of rangers are stuck in that mentality. Most of us are playing the ranger as we want to play the GW2 ranger, not WoW’s hunter. The problem is that many of our core and required mechanics has large glaring flaws that we need to openly build around just to mitigate as much of the broken mechanic as we can (read: pet AI).

Lightsbane.9012:

and as a full condition ranger, i daresay you can pressure conditions almost as good as a necro(if only you had an epidemic right?) with longbow you can snipe and hit very hard, and this weapon was made for world vs. world.
point in fact, failing to understand the class usually creates a player that fails at playing it.(no offense to some of you) i play wvw every day and see maybe 1 good ranger out of 20. THAT is the problem.

Even a condition ranger falls far short on condition pressure than a necro or an engy, or even a sword warrior. And our longbow is actually a lower DPS weapon than our SB. They had to nerf SB distance to force us to actually use the LB.

It’s not that all of us rangers don’t understand the class. Most of us run builds to mitigate as much as we can. It’s that it seems even ArenaNet does not understand, or at least they don’t seem to understand what they want the ranger to be.

you should play wvw on GoM. odds of finding a good ranger is roughly 1 in 20(especially if they’re friendly rangers for some reason) i can’t even count how many times i’ve seen rangers spam 1 with a SB on me without moving. that said, i’ve also met some incredibly good rangers. i’ll end the rantquote by saying this: ranger is indeed a class that’s deeper than half of the guild wars 2 classes. knowing it can make you, not knowing it can and will break you.

Lightsbane.9012:

you should play wvw on GoM. odds of finding a good ranger is roughly 1 in 20(especially if they’re friendly rangers for some reason) i can’t even count how many times i’ve seen rangers spam 1 with a SB on me without moving. that said, i’ve also met some incredibly good rangers. i’ll end the rantquote by saying this: ranger is indeed a class that’s deeper than half of the guild wars 2 classes. knowing it can make you, not knowing it can and will break you.

I don’t WvW much (I dislike most all forms of PvP) and I will never leave my beloved Tarnished Coast. When I do WvW I take my ele, thief, or mes as they are all far more useful with the same effort applied.

I do feel that to play ranger well it has the highest skill floor, not due to mechanics working as intended but due to the core class mechanic being borked.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Now when I look to our ranger forum here I see contention everywhere. Any time I see anyone talking about the real problems with our class, it is rare that someone else doesn’t come by and try to tell them that it is not a problem. By doing this each and every time we are telling ArenaNet that the class is fine as is. And by our excessively low standing in all game modes, I feel confident in saying that it is not.

There’s contention because many of us found our rangers MORE powerful after the patch, or found new builds that were more powerful or close in power to where they were before.

Others blinded by the rage of losing power where they imagined it was lost, have not tried to look for new builds (my harsh words might make you mad, but read theirs: several flat out refusing the idea of even trying to make a new build. Just a “shelving the class, no builds possible” fiat declaration that gets no one anywhere).

The only nerf in the patch was to pet damage for about 3/4ths of the pets and shortbow range.
- one of these is trivial because pets were already only a small part of damage (*). The other is a playstyle change: telling rangers on the shortbow that their weapon is meant for medium distance, and the other bow is for long distance.

EVERY OTHER CHANGE was a buff or neutral.

- Which meant people looking to find ways to get around the two nerfs with other builds, or people who’s builds did not use shortbow or a pet on the list… those people all came out ahead.

And shortbow itself came out ahead if you liked standing closer in – which most dungeons and sPvP maps require because of walls anyway… Only in WvW is it a significant change, and for that: adapt or use longbow. The 14% damage boost to 3 shortbow skills was a MAJOR buff because unlike pet damage that’s a core damage buff, and it made 3 skills equal to the auto-attack, but with different conditions: opening up a lot more options in play.

I’m going to tell ArenaNet that the class is fine because my experience playing it post patch on my new build tells it is more than fine. Of my 6 80s, I think its my number 2 in damage while still being my number 3 in tankyness.

It is NOT the same as it was before, but what it has become is a class with a clear direction that is quite potent. Its a skirmisher – like a special forces soldier. Be that ranged, melee, or ideally both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirmisher

The legitimate cry of frustration would be that this is NOT a hunter, not a ranged from safety DPS. In that role, a lot of its abilities would seem like wasted space.

(*) Pet damage is a bit of a skirmish itself now: it pressures the enemy with enough that it cannot be ignored, but not enough to the primary threat. The ranger as a class is this: in and out of the fray, skirmishing alongside the main force applying pressure to open up the weaknesses and keep the enemy from being able to focus.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Lightsbane.9012:

a major problem with ranger is that you have new players playing as a ranger expecting it to be like WoW’s hunter.

I don’t think this is true at all. I don’t think a majority of rangers are stuck in that mentality. Most of us are playing the ranger as we want to play the GW2 ranger, not WoW’s hunter. The problem is that many of our core and required mechanics has large glaring flaws that we need to openly build around just to mitigate as much of the broken mechanic as we can (read: pet AI).

I actually get incredibly good use out of my pets in PvE as a distraction and condition pressure. Note that I write pets, not pet.
- If I see a ranger using the same pet for a whole battle, I feel that’s someone not maximizing their potential.
I constantly swap pets as a way to draw out adds or draw in a boss to where I want them, or to take pressure off of teammates, and of course, if I get low I will pull my pet in in case I go down for a quick self revive.

You just can’t throw the pet out there and have it fight battles for you. You need to keep two of them active – swapping them around often. I prefer two ranged devourers… and this is actually a FLAW of mine. I should be using two very different pets and swapping to get specific effects. But it is easier to have two similar pets and swapping to control enemy position. Both are effective tactics and I go for the second easier one even knowing that were I to master the first I’d be better.

(My issue with the first is that you NEED to be swaping dozens of times in a fight, and if my pets were very different, I’d want to time my swaps more carefully – very easy to poorly time that. Swapping often for position, a mistake is easier to factor into things.)

Kichwas.7152:

There’s contention because many of us found our rangers MORE powerful after the patch, or found new builds that were more powerful or close in power to where they were before.

Others blinded by the rage of losing power where they imagined it was lost, have not tried to look for new builds (my harsh words might make you mad, but read theirs: several flat out refusing the idea of even trying to make a new build. Just a “shelving the class, no builds possible” fiat declaration that gets no one anywhere).

Some have, yes. Not a majority. Many are still looking for a decent build. Especially PvEers, who seem to be the biggest casualty of the patch.

Kichwas.7152:

The only nerf in the patch was to pet damage for about 3/4ths of the pets and shortbow range.
- one of these is trivial because pets were already only a small part of damage (*). The other is a playstyle change: telling rangers on the shortbow that their weapon is meant for medium distance, and the other bow is for long distance.

That pet DPS was taken without giving anything back to the ranger in return. And as pets are calculated at 40% of all ranger damage, by your own percentage (3/4) rangers received a 10% DPS nerf. You may call pets a small part of the damage, but us rangers are already taking a big hit just for having a pet.

And for the SB range reduction? For us rangers running the Piercing Arrows trait, that hit our DPS as even when we are closer to the enemy than 900, the arrows could still pierce enemies on the far side. The way to get us to use a weapon is by giving us a reason to, not by taking away any other option. The SB is still a more damaging weapon than the LB, even after the LB buff. That still seems wrong as in reality a LB is a much deadlier weapon.

Kichwas.7152:

And shortbow itself came out ahead if you liked standing closer in – which most dungeons and sPvP maps require because of walls anyway… Only in WvW is it a significant change, and for that: adapt or use longbow. The 14% damage boost to 3 shortbow skills was a MAJOR buff because unlike pet damage that’s a core damage buff, and it made 3 skills equal to the auto-attack, but with different conditions: opening up a lot more options in play.

The SB damage increases are so minimal so to be practically unnoticable in combat (in PvE, at least). The potential damage loss of 300ft of Piercing Arrows is quite noticable.

As for the LB? Not even counting the bleeds, the SB does more damage than the LB. Yes, we can still use the LB at 1200. No, the LB still does less damage than the SB would have at that range. That didn’t open options. That removed options and forced LB use despite it being an inferior weapon.

Kichwas.7152:

I’m going to tell ArenaNet that the class is fine because my experience playing it post patch on my new build tells it is more than fine. Of my 6 80s, I think its my number 2 in damage while still being my number 3 in tankyness.

By telling ANet that you think the class is fine despite it very obvious and noted shortcomings you are holding us back from improving. We are still the least wanted class in PvE, and near the bottom in PvP and WvW. If you want us to stay on bottom, then speak up all you want. If you want us to be more competetive and more viable then let us speak on how we can improve the class.

SynfulChaot.3169:

stale.9785:

Second issue is group utility. Right now, that’s limited to Healing Spring and Muddy Ground. There’s nothing else rangers bring to a fight that someone else can’t do better. The ideal solution? Fix spirits.

You have forgotten the one last great ranger utility, Signet of Renewal. So long as your pet is alive, which is most places if you micro it well, it is a full team full party condition clear.

Spotter: 150 precision to you and your team.
- That’s handing out a ‘free crits’ card to your side, and is pretty potent.

And all of the spirits give potential group buffs. People might not like them, but they are there.

SynfulChaot.3169:

By telling ANet that you think the class is fine despite it very obvious and noted shortcomings you are holding us back from improving. We are still the least wanted class in PvE, and near the bottom in PvP and WvW. If you want us to stay on bottom, then speak up all you want. If you want us to be more competetive and more viable then let us speak on how we can improve the class.

I disagree with you. I find it just fine, and my numbers back me up in my experience. And the rangers I speak with in game tend to agree with me to varying degrees. On most blogs I frequent, I also find agreement.

Only here and on ‘gw guru’ do I find the complaints.

You can call that holding back all you want. I see nothing to hold back, and nothing but short-sightedness in ‘have to have a hunter build or highway’ thinking.

If people choose not to take rangers, that’s their own fault. Ancient armies used to dismiss skirmishers all the time until they got their butts handed to them by the ‘rabble peasants’ of the enemy. And the British dismissed Colonial skirmishing tactics all the way back to getting sent home to King George…

If your pet was doing 40% of your damage, well, I just don’t know what to say to that… /sigh

If your pet’s attack was 40% as strong as yours – fine. So lets say you did 100 damage. Pet then did 40. Now it does 32 with the one of its attacks that was nerfed. Its other attacks remain where they were pre-patch.
- This is more than offset by your bow now doing 100 not just with autoattack, but with that and 3 other skills…
Plus countless buffs to traits here and there.
Heck the bonus I got to spotter alone, let alone my axe skills, more than makes up for what I lost in my devourers. Unlike you shortbow folks, I didn’t ALSO get the 14%, and I still came out ahead.

Kichwas.7152:

I actually get incredibly good use out of my pets in PvE as a distraction and condition pressure. Note that I write pets, not pet.
- If I see a ranger using the same pet for a whole battle, I feel that’s someone not maximizing their potential.
I constantly swap pets as a way to draw out adds or draw in a boss to where I want them, or to take pressure off of teammates, and of course, if I get low I will pull my pet in in case I go down for a quick self revive.

You just can’t throw the pet out there and have it fight battles for you. You need to keep two of them active – swapping them around often. I prefer two ranged devourers… and this is actually a FLAW of mine. I should be using two very different pets and swapping to get specific effects. But it is easier to have two similar pets and swapping to control enemy position. Both are effective tactics and I go for the second easier one even knowing that were I to master the first I’d be better.

(My issue with the first is that you NEED to be swaping dozens of times in a fight, and if my pets were very different, I’d want to time my swaps more carefully – very easy to poorly time that. Swapping often for position, a mistake is easier to factor into things.)

You assume that all of us rangers already don’t do that. Please don’t assume stupidity on everyone’s parts. We already do do that. That is a required if we want to be slightly useful.

Those of us that are ‘complaining’ are not people who refuse to change. It is us players that are trying to bring the class more in line with the power of others instead of letting it languish as the least desired class in more than one game mode. It’s those of us that tire of being kicked from parties before we can even say ‘hello’. It’s those of us that want ranger to not be the red-headed stepchild of the classes.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Lightsbane.9012:

you should play wvw on GoM. odds of finding a good ranger is roughly 1 in 20(especially if they’re friendly rangers for some reason) i can’t even count how many times i’ve seen rangers spam 1 with a SB on me without moving. that said, i’ve also met some incredibly good rangers. i’ll end the rantquote by saying this: ranger is indeed a class that’s deeper than half of the guild wars 2 classes. knowing it can make you, not knowing it can and will break you.

I don’t WvW much (I dislike most all forms of PvP) and I will never leave my beloved Tarnished Coast. When I do WvW I take my ele, thief, or mes as they are all far more useful with the same effort applied.

I do feel that to play ranger well it has the highest skill floor, not due to mechanics working as intended but due to the core class mechanic being borked.

someone saying that obviously hasn’t played a necromancer or engineer.

Kichwas.7152:

And all of the spirits give potential group buffs. People might not like them, but they are there.

Spirits are there, yes. But they are kitteningly weak version of banners that are inferior in every way.

Kichwas.7152:

I disagree with you. I find it just fine, and my numbers back me up in my experience. And the rangers I speak with in game tend to agree with me to varying degrees. On most blogs I frequent, I also find agreement.

Only here and on ‘gw guru’ do I find the complaints.

You can call that holding back all you want. I see nothing to hold back, and nothing but short-sightedness in ‘have to have a hunter build or highway’ thinking.

Rangers should not be forced into bunker melee as their only viable build. We should have options. We honestly have few. It’s good that you can get by. I can as well. Most of us that still play ranger can. We just want some improvement. Improvement that even the main balance dev has outright stated that we need.

Lightsbane.9012:

Someone saying that obviously hasn’t played a necromancer or engineer.

Have both. Played both. They condition better and faster than a ranger.

Kichwas.7152:

If your pet was doing 40% of your damage, well, I just don’t know what to say to that…

That’s not what I’m saying. Rangers were designed so as that 40% of the damage is supposed to come from our pet. That is why our own damage is lower as compared to other classes. So as rangers we are pre-nerfed to we don’t do too much damage when the pet is calculated in.

Just to clear the air here before yet more people trying to hold the class back with their comments.

Ok. We get it. You think the class is playable. You know what? It is. It is playable. It’s just not on par with any other class in PvE and it’s near the bottom in WvW as well. Only in PvP does the class have any real competitive viability. Play the other classes. Play their meta builds (or whatever builds you fancy). Then do the same with ranger. You will find that in all game modes, we are massively outshined by most other classes.

The problem is not that we are useless. The problem is that we are at the bottom of the stack. Yes, some of us have found viable enough builds. But with the same skill level and stats most other classes are superior.

That is the argument. That is what we are trying to get past. That is the dialogue here.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Lightsbane.9012:

Someone saying that obviously hasn’t played a necromancer or engineer.

Have both. Played both. They condition better and faster than a ranger.

i never said they didn’t. i wholeheartedly acknowledge ranger’s bugs and messed up mechanics. but i do recommend you take a look at the bug thread for both necro and engineer.

Lightsbane.9012:

SynfulChaot.3169:

Lightsbane.9012:

Someone saying that obviously hasn’t played a necromancer or engineer.

Have both. Played both. They condition better and faster than a ranger.

i never said they didn’t. i wholeheartedly acknowledge ranger’s bugs and messed up mechanics. but i do recommend you take a look at the bug thread for both necro and engineer.

I’ve checked them as, as I’ve previously stated, played all classes. But that is getting off-topic.