Guild Wars 2

Let’s look at SB’s base DPS:
cross fire base power = 97, atk speed = 0.52 sec, base DPS = 186.5
LB range shot, even at max distance, base power = 219, atk speed=1.25 sec, base power = 175.2
Even with rapid fire, base power = 910, atk speed= 5 sec, DPS = 182.
It’s very clear there is no way longbow can over damage SB.
That’s inside ranger class.

Look at warrior:
volly base power = 840, atk speed = 2.5 sec, so DPS = 336 !!! (yes 336!!!!!)

Look at thief:
unload base power =73×8=584, atk speed = 1.75 sec, DPS = 333!!!!

look at engi:
Dart volly base power = 97×5=485, atk speed = 1.75 sec, DPS = 277 !!! (and it’s AOE!)

Data tells the truth, so when other class using range weapon doing ~300 DPS, ranger can only do 180? Oh, I forget about pet, but does it ever hit moving target at all?

So as a trade-off, how about this way —- once range switch off pet, give us 50% more damage on weapons to make us DPS equal to other classes ?

all ranger weapons are slightly underpowered because our pets are supposed to be dealing a large portion of the damage, so rather than buff the weapons and take away our class’s unique mechanic, buff the pets to deal damage more consistently.

I agree about the pets being fixed. But it’s not just pets, it’s the way all animals in the world fight.

In PvE, if you’re fighting a bear or moa etc, they will stop to attack and they are easily circle kited to make them miss because of this.

So it’s a game wide mechanic that needs fixing and not something only affecting our pets.

But on track with your analysis of the bows comparative dps, I think the main problem is the animation/travel time of the longbows #1.

Speeding that up even just a bit would be a great improvement in dps, making it haarder to dodge the attack, and general liveliness of the weapon.

Gotta agree with you on this one. 50% would be to much I think. The layered damage of a 5,3,2 would be awesome however;)….

I came around this corner and all of a sudden arrows were falling aorund me and I was dead before I even saw the ranger, nerf rangers plz kthks…..

But it would be fun for a few days…

50% would be crazy over powered. Fix the pets so they can attack and move at the same time and increase missle speed OR have less obstructured errors when shooting and I would be a happy ranger.

@Tracker – I agree with you on pets. We’re probably going to need an animation fix to get those beasts moving in the right direction. Although I could easily live with wonky animations if they just want to push out a mechanics fix.

@Arekai – sigh.

@OP – With all of our damage avoidance and control skills, a 50% raw damage increase would make us severely overpowered. All of the ranger QQ lately makes it sound like everyone just wants a class where you can put it on autopilot and win. I want to work for my kills, not just faceroll newbs. Plus, just think how humiliating it must be for people when they get thrashed by a good ranger…

I know it’s not a popular point of view in these forums, but maybe the ranger’s LB isn’t all about DPS. There are effects that each LB skill brings to the table that are really useful for shutting people down and/or providing burst damage. I mean, it has a max range AoE cripple for kitten’s sake – that’s actually a big deal.

I’ve said it before, and I maintain that I don’t think the LB’s problem is raw damage. The problem is that it’s way too easy to simply sidestep the LB shots without ever needing to exhaust a drop of endurance – especially at long range where the LB should shine. That, and you can’t quite rely on your pet like you ought to be able to, which I’m betting will get improved sooner rather than later.

So, for my money, it just needs an arrow speed increase, or a skill cd reduction so you have more of an opportunity to actually land shots, and/or use the amazing utility in the skills. Once that frustration has been removed, I think we’ll all have more of an opportunity to learn to use the LB well.

My point is — even if +50% damage to longbow, its DPS is still lower than other class same style burst skills.
In fact, I would rather to see the range shot atk speed change to 0.75 sec (which is most other classes’s range atk speed), and rapid fire speed change to 3 sec. If that happens, the damage never change, but the DPS changes significantly, which will make LB a good weapon.

And where does it say ranger is or has to be a burst class? Ranger DPS is fine and certainly not lower than other classes, i believe you are mixing up DPS and BURST terms.

If they increased the damage on the longbow by a huge amount (and 50% is a ridiculously huge amount) they’d have to remove all utility from the weapon, which would make it just about useless.

The longbow could use a small increase to damage, I agree. Saying it’s a bad weapon just shows that you don’t understand the role it plays in the Ranger’s arsenal.

According to ANET, our pets account for 45% of our damage. Or at least, we do 45% less damage than any other class and the excuse is our pets make up for it (which they don’t).

Double my pet’s movement speed, allow it to hit moving targets, and perfect the responsiveness of its f2 ability and then you might be able to say pet’s account for 1/3 of ranger’s damage.

If the target is on a higher or lower platform (such as castle walls or cliff edges) pets are completely useless. If the target is moving, pets are completely useless. If the target is in stealth or invisibility, pets are often completely useless.

AI in this game is a joke, that’s why the invulnerable mechanic kicks in if you shoot at an NPC from where they cannot reach you and that’s why most NPCs can be kited in a circle. It sucks that rangers are designed to be so reliable on their pets when AI will never be able to substitute for a real player.

45% sounds about right if you’re Beastmastery specced. Maybe more.

Deleven.7508:

all ranger weapons are slightly underpowered because our pets are supposed to be dealing a large portion of the damage, so rather than buff the weapons and take away our class’s unique mechanic, buff the pets to deal damage more consistently.

I do not agree, I feel that rangers should hit hard with their longbow, its not hard CCing or kiting a pet therefor lowering rangers damage by half. Pets should be comrades, battle companions, not liabilities. They should be utility based not damage based honestly. Unless you go BM your pet should do medium damage while being focused on its skilled like CC or conditions over damage.

I also agree with the OP, longbow needs a buff, it should be hitting like a rifle.

If in your title by ‘dmg’ you mean ‘projectile speed’.
Then yeah that’d do wonders.

The weapon could use a lil buff to dmg still too though.

Thieves are fine, once we get a viable panic button they will be alot easier to deal with. Thieves are meant to be the gank class, they come in when you least expect it and kill you. When you see them coming you can prepare and combat them.

Garethh, I think longbow needs bullet like projectile speed and more damage added too it. My engineers hipshot is so fast, and it curves in mid air, its insane.

Sad that there’s some truth in this. As a Ranger, if someone sees me poitning my LB at them, their initial reaction be stopping themselves from activating their Elite skill. I’m a kitten Ranger for kitten’s sake! My LB should be making people think twice about taking me on in a straight on fight! Instead, they just laugh, take out their bow and I’m dead within a few seconds.

Being that bows (in particular LB) are the weapon most associated with the Ranger, it should be where my damage capability is supposed to shine! If you see a Samurai coming at you with a Katana, or a Jedi pulling out their lightsaber, you should have a “Oh Kitten, I just kittened in my pants” moment. Same should be for a Ranger and a bow.

And as for pets – because most of them are nothing but a warm up for my target – once they’re gone, about 1/3 of my damage out gone!

50% is not OP, we allready has the OP factor in the game and it is accepted, thief, guardian and warrior are all accepted for this.

So playing a ranger, its actually normal to get loads of raw dmg output when using bows, everyone complaining its to much and counter it by ‘just a little more and its ok’, ‘pet this and that’, ‘roll another class’ etc… why should we do that when Anet is not working for a balance but just the role for your class.

I’m all in for more DMG output, its about fun as for a thief 1-2 shot ppl easy or missed the kill and do a few normal hits and ure still dead anytime.

Buffing longbow by 50% would be OP?

Yes, yes, you’ve never actually looked at the numbers that came up when you shot an equally geared enemy from maximum distance, have you? And you haven’t measured how much their rifle damaged your health in comparison after four quick shots in the timespan it took you to make two?

read a little bit carefully, guys.
My Point is —-— give ranger (LB) a 50% damage buff as a trade-off of not using (turn it off) pet.
Since the pet is not useful in pvp (in pve it’s ok), and since it can be turned off, so why not just give us an option of doing something viable by not carrying pet during pvp ?

A lot of threads are calling 50% extreme, severe, ridiculous, and words to describe how disproportionate of an increase it would be. Assuming the Op’s data is fairly correct for this argument, 50% is not that exaggerated. If SB dps is 186 then plus 50% would be 279. On par with engineer. LB’s dps of 182 buffed by 50% is 273. Still on par with engineer. So, what’s so exaggerated about being on par with other professions? I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the OP, just that 50% isn’t as crazy as it appears.

@caKez.3219

If you are talking about me, you are obviously new to ranger forums. I think rangers need every buff they can get and the kitchen sink. What I was saying is thieves are fine, they are easily countered except for their evasion, which needs to be nerfed since they can spam evasion for days. Yes I know ranger class is weak, and thieves gank us in 2 seconds, I get that. But most are backstabbers atm so all you gotta do is bring lightning reflexes, or a well timed evade, and they are screwed on the opening burst. Then its fair game. Honestly a panic button messes thieves up but they are made to excell at 1v1.

I die to thieves alot via ganking but when I catch them off guard roles are usually reveresed, he tends to die or stealth and get away, but even if a thief kills me, my pet usually kills him from the downed state. Remember you can swap pets out and use their f2 even when downed.

@CRrabbit.1284

Yo, I made a post about this in several threads. This exact thing, its more about if they went about it how I think it would be perfect. Let us stow in combat and make it permanent, so we choose when pet comes out, and when pet is stowed we get a 30-50% damage buff depending on the pet, so if we have a bear or tanky pet out, 30% more damage, wolf o4 CC/medium damage pet, 40%, birds or cats 50%. I think its a great ideal personally, lets use choose when to tactically call out pets such as when an enemy CCs you and runs across the map, you can sick your pet on him.

People often forget about all the damage our pets dish out. It’s a double-edged sword at times. We get blinded, our pets still deal dmg. We get confused or crippled or chilled out of range? Our pets still deal dmg. But….our pet dies and our damage suffers greatly. Keeping an eye on our pets and swapping them when they ht 25%hp is imperative. Unfortunately, when they get 2-shotted you just can’t swap and then we’re hosed with no pet damage & no F2 skill.

My vote: increase LB #1 arrow speed and get rid of the increased pet swap CD when pets die.

If we’re factoring in pet damage then they need to be a whole heck of a lot harder to kill. With the way the pet works, it’s like having a weapon that you can’t control and you might not have it for the whole fight. I haven’t played other professions but that’d be like them dropping their weapon halfway through a fight and having to duke it out for the rest of it. This is a mechanic that should be addressed. Like many have said, if the pet dies give a boon to the ranger to supplement the loss of damage. Automatic too, it doesn’t need to be some trait because after all, you’d still be on par with other professions. What would be OP about being on the same playing field as the others?

Yea, actually I believe I said that. However I think the idea of perma stowing your pet for a damage buff would be better, and allowing us to stow in combat would let us call pet back when people decide to aoe it, then poof, we become ranged beasts. I do agree tho that pets need more survivability and better AI and ditch some of the animations.

Seras, no1 here forgets that our damage is tethered to a pet, but its the fact that pets arent as amazing as they could be that gets us. I would still like to be able to sick pet on someone and dps someone else down without tickling them with my bow. I want more damage on the bow but honestly Id settle for faster projectile arrows.

Lets be honest here, 50% is NOT overpowered at all. They have already stated that our pets account for 45% of our damage. We all know that pets are not dealing the damage because of various reasons, ledges, moving targets, etc. I personally believe too many people are going about this in the wrong way. The Ideal thing to do in order to get the class up and running in the shortest amount of time is by removing the damage from the pets. Let the pet account for 5% of the damage, or whatever small percentage, I don’t care the number. Just make pets more as a utility tool to apply effects on targets or buffs for the group. Allow the ranger to take control over his/her own damage like all other classes. You can still have your pet tanking for you, he’ll just be tickling the mob instead.

By doing this the ranger can then have 100% control over their own damage output instead of relying on a horrible AI to do half of their damage for them.

Pets will still be in the game, capable of tanking, buffing, and applying whatever they apply according to the pet your using, whether it’s blind, knockdown, bleed, whatever. They just will not be hitting for much at all, they will have to have aggro adjusted properly so the tanking pets can tank for some duration of time before your damage pulls agro from them.

The only other way to fix it is by fixing the AI in the entire game, which we all know that will NEVER happen. Give the damage to the ranger, and let the ranger be the true master of the bow as it should be. For those who say why should the ranger be the master of the bow, easy, because Anet said we are, here is what they have written under profession ranger:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

We are unparalleled, we are unmatched with the bow, yet the numbers above are proving otherwise. It also says that with our bows we can take down our foes from a distance, it doesn’t say that with help from our pets we take down our foes. It does say that with the help of our pets, traps, and spirits, we can adapt to any situation, but it doesn’t say they are needed in order to fill the gap for 45% of our missing damage.

But then again, that’s just my take on the class. Buff our damage with the bow, we should do more damage with the bow then any other class. And remove the damage from the pets. simple fix and we can be up and playing happily in a week or two.

Akisame.9508:

Lets be honest here, 50% is NOT overpowered at all. They have already stated that our pets account for 45% of our damage. We all know that pets are not dealing the damage because of various reasons, ledges, moving targets, etc. I personally believe too many people are going about this in the wrong way. The Ideal thing to do in order to get the class up and running in the shortest amount of time is by removing the damage from the pets. Let the pet account for 5% of the damage, or whatever small percentage, I don’t care the number. Just make pets more as a utility tool to apply effects on targets or buffs for the group. Allow the ranger to take control over his/her own damage like all other classes. You can still have your pet tanking for you, he’ll just be tickling the mob instead.

By doing this the ranger can then have 100% control over their own damage output instead of relying on a horrible AI to do half of their damage for them.

Pets will still be in the game, capable of tanking, buffing, and applying whatever they apply according to the pet your using, whether it’s blind, knockdown, bleed, whatever. They just will not be hitting for much at all, they will have to have aggro adjusted properly so the tanking pets can tank for some duration of time before your damage pulls agro from them.

The only other way to fix it is by fixing the AI in the entire game, which we all know that will NEVER happen. Give the damage to the ranger, and let the ranger be the true master of the bow as it should be. For those who say why should the ranger be the master of the bow, easy, because Anet said we are, here is what they have written under profession ranger:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

We are unparalleled, we are unmatched with the bow, yet the numbers above are proving otherwise. It also says that with our bows we can take down our foes from a distance, it doesn’t say that with help from our pets we take down our foes. It does say that with the help of our pets, traps, and spirits, we can adapt to any situation, but it doesn’t say they are needed in order to fill the gap for 45% of our missing damage.

But then again, that’s just my take on the class. Buff our damage with the bow, we should do more damage with the bow then any other class. And remove the damage from the pets. simple fix and we can be up and playing happily in a week or two.

I agree. I do not believe that they can fix the problems with pet per 1 patch. And a class with pet, half of which is a pet, when the pet dumb as a heel and just useless in half the situations – it is half of the class, is not it? But our problem a little deeper. Sad. Removing pet damage does 80% of our traits absolutly useless. Like half of the utility skills (By the way, we are the only class which is so strongly attached to his mechanics. Compare.). Almost all of our abilities and traits are working towards on our pet, either in full or more than on us (omg.. i hate this idea). Pet damage reduction will completely kill the class, if not completely redo all abilities and traits.

Well, here’s the thing. You can continue to say 50% isn’t OP all you want, but it’s simply not true, and saying it more doesn’t make it any more true. And no, I don’t want my pet neutered so the LB can do more damage. I have learned how to use my pet, and as it turns out it’s about as effective as you play it.

Yes the lack of attacking while on the move thing can be frustrating, and I think it will end up being changed. However, try crippling or chilling your target and see if your pet hits don’t improve. Trait for improved pet speed and see if it doesn’t suddenly catch your target more often. Try using your stuns and control skills and let me know how many misses you see. If all they do in the next patch is to make it so that pets can hit while on the move, your ranger will suddenly feel very powerful.

Which brings us back to the underlying issue…

Raw damage simply isn’t the whole picture, and treating it as such is flat out wrong. This is a games of skill, and control is king. Hell, it’s emperor. As it turns out rangers have control skills in spades. We have tons of options to avoid or to mitigate damage, to interrupt or to shutdown, to make and to close gaps, and to otherwise control the pace of the battle. That means that the warrior that is normally pumping out a million Ds per S isn’t pumping out very many Ds at all if he can’t hit you or use his skills. Therein lies the strength of the ranger class. Control and adaptability.

If you are the only one doing any damage in a fight, your DPS is higher than your opponent’s. Period.

What you are asking for is severely OP. You just can’t see it yet.

Think about how you can play within the confines of the class instead of trying to fight against them. The tools are there, and all you have to do is learn to use them properly. Don’t try to force the ranger to be something it’s not, and I’ll bet that your outlook will change. Mine sure did.

RummyTheMad.7290:

Well, here’s the thing. You can continue to say 50% isn’t OP all you want, but it’s simply not true, and saying it more doesn’t make it any more true. And no, I don’t want my pet neutered so the LB can do more damage. I have learned how to use my pet, and as it turns out it’s about as effective as you play it.

Yes the lack of attacking while on the move thing can be frustrating, and I think it will end up being changed. However, try crippling or chilling your target and see if your pet hits don’t improve. Trait for improved pet speed and see if it doesn’t suddenly catch your target more often. Try using your stuns and control skills and let me know how many misses you see. If all they do in the next patch is to make it so that pets can hit while on the move, your ranger will suddenly feel very powerful.

Which brings us back to the underlying issue…

Raw damage simply isn’t the whole picture, and treating it as such is flat out wrong. This is a games of skill, and control is king. Hell, it’s emperor. As it turns out rangers have control skills in spades. We have tons of options to avoid or to mitigate damage, to interrupt or to shutdown, to make and to close gaps, and to otherwise control the pace of the battle. That means that the warrior that is normally pumping out a million Ds per S isn’t pumping out very many Ds at all if he can’t hit you or use his skills. Therein lies the strength of the ranger class. Control and adaptability.

If you are the only one doing any damage in a fight, your DPS is higher than your opponent’s. Period.

What you are asking for is severely OP. You just can’t see it yet.

Think about how you can play within the confines of the class instead of trying to fight against them. The tools are there, and all you have to do is learn to use them properly. Don’t try to force the ranger to be something it’s not, and I’ll bet that your outlook will change. Mine sure did.

Pfft .. yet another philosophical post on theme "I learned to play a ranger so cool that I do not care about the actual numbers and adequate arguments driven by hundreds of people. They are nothing. I am the master. This class is not about damage. This class does not need all the skills, I learned to play with five which works and i’m ok. Two working builds is completle enough to me. blah blag blag. "Already sick of this pompous nonsense. Do you believe that 100500 people sitting here just because they do not know how to play as well as you? Isn’t it funny for yourself?

Well no I cant accept that our weapon do less damage because we have a pet…especially if i spec power/precision….i don’t care about pet in fact i use them passively just for f2 and protect me…if u want to rely on pet then spec BM, that should be the rule, since u wont have a power/prec combo in that case.

But you know the thing that most bother me?
Warrior capable of doing 12k of damage with a rifle…single shot…we can do the same with a chain attack if every hit crits and our target is afk…
We need some one shot burst skill with that longbow, remove number 3(weakness) and put something like “sniper shot” with a mechanic similar to the catapult (charging bar) that does a fair amount of damage and will be awesome for snipers ranger, because that’s our role when we use a longbow.

Also the entangle skill…please change that thing animation/usage give us the ability to chose where to drop it…

Lol. I’m not saying I’m amazing. I don’t win every fight, but I win far more than I lose now that I better understand what I’m doing. I’m saying I was in the same boat with the rest of you, then I had an epiphany and saw what I was doing wrong. I took steps to correct it and now I can play competitively on my ranger. I’m not the only one that can do so.

I’m also not playing the two cookie cutter builds. I play a very balanced build so I’m not reliant on any one thing to make it work.

Do I believe that many people aren’t playing to the ranger’s strengths? Yep. I’m certain of it because I was doing the same thing up until a week or so ago.

What’s more likely: that ANet decided to make a class that simply can’t compete at all, or that not everybody who decided to play the ranger has had the opportunity to get good with it? The game is still young my friend.

I also didn’t say that there aren’t any improvements that can be made. I’ve voiced my opinion about spirits and signets. I too agree that there should be more viable build options. There could definitely be some positive changes, but I’m no longer expecting huge adjustments because we simply don’t need them as much as I originally thought we did.

For what it’s worth, my post isn’t meant to inflame or belittle (which is more than I can say for yours…). I’m trying to help some of you have fun with the class you want to play. Just keep experimenting a little bit and you will most likely find many of the same things I did.

My recommendation is to lighten up and stop taking forum posts so seriously. Meanwhile, I’ll be in game killing stuff…with my ranger.

This is not figure of ability, knowledge, and skill. As well as the skill and ability to play is not an indicator of knowledge about class. You may be able to play and not to see the problems that class have, because you have nothing to compare. I’m too lazy to tell how I’m cool and how much characters i have and how much time played on my ranger. I just say once again: in this game I can turn off all the utility skills, undress, reset traits, and in such kind to go win the match, or kill someone on the WvW. You think this is because the class is so good? I’m perfectly ranger. And I see well all of its shortcomings. Nevertheless, I do not come to the forum with shouts of “hey, I’ve learned to control my pet. Devs, do not need to fix it now! People just do not know how to play!” Do you want to teach people to play a ranger? First, learn to play a couple of other classes. Compare their features and limitations. And only then judge.

Incorrect. Longbow can barely get 10k rapid fires on the squishiest of glass cannons as a glass cannon. Warriors can get 15-20k 100blades on those same targets, thieves could get 16k backstabs now its closer to 12k. Eles get 11k dragon tooths, engineers grenade barrage can get 12k ect…Thats all in 1 attack that takes about 2 secs to cast, rapid fire takes 5 unless you have QZ, and even then arrows move so slow. Longbow did 30% more damage in beta and it still was underpowered. People thought it was over powered because they sucked and didnt dodge. It needs some love, Ill take anything at this point. Biggest buff they can give us is increased arrow flight speed to match rifle shots.

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

nldixon.8514:

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Who are you talking too? I personally do just fine on ranger, not because the class is great, it sucks, but I outplay people, and I only outpreform people because I stand on a cap point and farm points. In team fights there are far better ranged options, rifle warrior, shortbow thief, engineer, ect.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

nldixon.8514:

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Who are you talking too? I personally do just fine on ranger, not because the class is great, it sucks, but I outplay people, and I only outpreform people because I stand on a cap point and farm points. In team fights there are far better ranged options, rifle warrior, shortbow thief, engineer, ect.

Obviously not you since we posted at exactly the same time.

[Edit: I totally disagree with you that rifle Warriors and shortbow Thieves are better ranged combatants than Rangers. And Engineers are more of a short to mid-range class than a true ranged class, so they don’t really count. Past 1000 units a Ranger totally dominates an Engineer.]

The only reason someone would say a 50% increase is way overpowered, is if they have absolutely no idea about longbow damage numbers. He wrote those numbers down right there in the OP, so I guess these people simply didn’t read the OP at all and just responded to the topic title, which is not a mature way of engaging in a discussion.

Right now the longbow is literally the weakest weapon in the entire game, and not just by a bit. It cannot even be used for solo pve, for leveling, especially in storymode, because the damage is just so incredibly low. Against single opponents anything works I guess, but a longbow ranger entering any situation that’s slightly tougher and more dangerous and he will get downed. Longbow does incredibly low damage yes, but on top of that it only hits single targets.. making the weapon entirely useless as it is.

Increasing long range shot damage by 50% and reducing range penalties, is just a start to make longbow viable, it will still be a weak weapon then, because all it’ll do is normal damage against single targets, where as many classes can do higher damage against multiple targets. Rapid fire in comparison is even weaker than long range shot, so rapid fire damage would have to be increased by somethnig like 65% to be anywhere near viable.

And all that is considering pets actually hit their target.. if you want to counter them never hitting, you’d have to increase the damage of long range shot and rapid fire even more.

I don’t think people realize how incredibly weak the ranger longbow really is. It was very weak in first beta, it was underpowered, but then for some reason they decided to downgrade it even further, by something like -30%.. turning an underpowered weapon into a total trash weapon.

Aside from going totally crazy, there is no way to make the ranger longbow overpowered.. it fires slow moving projectiles at a very slow rate (longer than one second per shot), and it only hits single targets (barrage is only used for cripple effect, its damage is negligable).

The longbow doesn’t just have boring, straightforward, expected skills, its damage is so low that the weapon is simply trash.

Looking at total numbers of long range shot and rapid fire is pointless, if you don’t consider that long range shot has a firing rate of over one second, and rapid fire needs a staggering five seconds to complete. So seeing 6K appear at the end of your rapid fire, means your actual damage was very, very low.. as it took five seconds to get there, where as attacks like hip shot hit for 1800 every half second.. that’s 18K damage with an auto attack, against 6-7K damage from the highest damage longbow ability. Except that rapid fire is interrupted and avoided very easily, just use LOS or stun or daze or knockdown or knockback.

nldixon.8514:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

nldixon.8514:

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Who are you talking too? I personally do just fine on ranger, not because the class is great, it sucks, but I outplay people, and I only outpreform people because I stand on a cap point and farm points. In team fights there are far better ranged options, rifle warrior, shortbow thief, engineer, ect.

Obviously not you since we posted at exactly the same time.

[Edit: I totally disagree with you that rifle Warriors and shortbow Thieves are better ranged combatants than Rangers. And Engineers are more of a short to mid-range class than a true ranged class, so they don’t really count. Past 1000 units a Ranger totally dominates an Engineer.]

Engineer rifle auto attack (not using any other abilities), does over three times the damage a ranger can do by using both auto attack and rapid fire.. and it is VERY easy staying within 1000 range, it takes no effort at all.

Grenades at range past 1200.. will outdamage ranger dps even more, since grenade dps when traited is even higher than rifle dps.. PLUS it’s aoe.

Ranger right now, is a very, very broken class. Before the -30% shortbow nerf, at least they had one single weapon they could use for damage, but that got taken away for some undisclosed reason, and now rangers have nothing at all. There is nothing a ranger can do to match up to other professions, even elementalists are better now.

If shortbow #2 skill gets changed to make up for the damage nerf, then shortbow will be viable again, but that puts rangers back into the same situation of having one single viable weapon/build. There is no way longbow gets fixed, because the numbers needed to fix it are too huge, so there is very little hope I have for the ranger profession.

If they have some signets and spirits fixed, that will really change nothing at all, since ranger problems are the pet and the weapons, not the utilities. The weak utilities are just a minor problem that have little impact on ranger viability.

As long as the weapons don’t get upgraded (longbow needs to be made even stronger than it started out as in beta 1, since it started out underpowered not considering the trait bug), and the pet behaviour doesn’t get changed, by using a seperate AI pathing for ranger pets, nothing will change and rangers will never be viable. Even giving them the most powerful elite skills and utilities of all professions, will not make any difference.

I don’t know how much LB needs to be buffed. All I know is the ranger itself should be buffed and not the pet. If Anet actually thought a 55/45 split was a good idea, that’s their mistake and that needs to be fixed since it’s clearly not feasible.

People need to stop asking for pets to be “fixed”. They’re likely working as intended. You can’t expect a bot to play half your your class and have them be on auto pilot and hit on the run without giving your opponents more opportunities to dodge that secondary source of attack. That’s grossly overpowered in pvp and not really conducive to fair play for a game that’s destined for e-sport.

If they’ll fix the pathing, so pets can jump a few feet to go up or down low ledges and will make a beeline for the target instead of taking the scenic route and then buff some of the damage across the weapons, the class will be in a much better place.

I play Ranger Axe spec but when I did use LB it was good for pinning when in a group fight or the knockback was nice. What needs help is long range shot, which does not do damage fast enough is not practical in pvp combat unless your foe is far away and for some reason cannot move. I think the primary attack from LB should be the first of 2 maybe 3 tiers of attack for the weapon, 1 the distance shot, 2 maybe a stun or daze effect, or some other utility to buy you more time to do rapid fire and other abilities considering the weapon is too slow in a practical way. Otherwise people will just use
SB.

Increasing the damage of LB while the pet is temporarily off makes you question, why in the hell should you use a pet in the first place.

Better they fix the pets first, going back to the starting board and fixing the pet’s A.I. pathing and damage capabilities.

We can stay up all night arguing about how low the damage is for the longbow. Nothing will be done about it.

I do agree that it needs a slight increase in DPS but the pet needs more attention in my opinion.

@nldixon.8514

Disagree all you want but I play all 3 classes so I speak from experience. My rifle warrior can get 25k burst off on squishies in 3 seconds, my ranger cant. My thiefs cluster bombs hits for 5-6k, and is spamable, barrage does 8-10k at best on super squishies who stand in it. Thief shortbow has a spamable evade, Rifle warriors rifle has a aoe point blank knock back, a cripple, and an amazing bleed stack. Rifle warrior is sorta ranger shortbow + longbow mixed. As for engineers, Im willing to bet that with just hip shot and no ranger pet I can own most longbow rangers easily, even with them using all their skills. My rifle on engineer has 1200 range, it hits for 1500-1900 crits, and on the really squishy players, it hits for 2200. The bullets are near impossible to side step so you have to evade to not get hit, they have a chance to cause burning on crit, and oh yea, they turn mid air. My hipshot bullets make a L shape in mid air if target runs around a corner.

Lets not forget kill shot and grenades all have 1500 range ( grenades if traited ). So ranger longbow isnt really that long when other classes can get the same range with their non longbow weapons. I play a glass cannon longbow ranger, about 3400 attack, 52 crit% 68 % crit damage, 19k hp, and my rapid fire does 5k average, my warriors volley and kill shot double that, my engineers grenade barrage doubles that, add in surprise shot and static discharge and you get another 2500-3k damage all instantly, my thiefs cluster bombs hit 5 people for 5-6k back to back it lands, not to mention I can always swap to dags and hit for 12k backstabs easily.

So yea, ranger longbow is inferior to every other weapon I can think of atm.

YumCHA.8706:

Increasing the damage of LB while the pet is temporarily off makes you question, why in the hell should you use a pet in the first place.

Better they fix the pets first, going back to the starting board and fixing the pet’s A.I. pathing and damage capabilities.

We can stay up all night arguing about how low the damage is for the longbow. Nothing will be done about it.

I do agree that it needs a slight increase in DPS but the pet needs more attention in my opinion.

I dont think they need to scrap pets, I think they need to make it possible to dps without them. Its almost impossible to dps without a pet, because they are such a huge part of our class that when they die in 2 hits its like cutting the strings on our bows or giving us a rusty sword. And I feel longbow needs much more than a slight increase. I could be biased but rangers are not feared at all, especially at range, which is where they should be feared.

Aridia.3042:

I don’t know how much LB needs to be buffed. All I know is the ranger itself should be buffed and not the pet. If Anet actually thought a 55/45 split was a good idea, that’s their mistake and that needs to be fixed since it’s clearly not feasible.

People need to stop asking for pets to be “fixed”. They’re likely working as intended. You can’t expect a bot to play half your your class and have them be on auto pilot and hit on the run without giving your opponents more opportunities to dodge that secondary source of attack. That’s grossly overpowered in pvp and not really conducive to fair play for a game that’s destined for e-sport.

If they’ll fix the pathing, so pets can jump a few feet to go up or down low ledges and will make a beeline for the target instead of taking the scenic route and then buff some of the damage across the weapons, the class will be in a much better place.

Id be happy with more pet survivability but no pets arent acting as intended. Id rather have the option to have 80/20 split or even 90/10 over 50/50 which is how my ranger is atm.

nldixon.8514:

@MeGaZlo

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Uh! UH!! So much? Really?? Can u list??? I doubt it.
Some issues… For example no normal support builds? No social buffs? Half of abilites – sluggish buffs on pet, who manages to miss even on mobs sometimes. In tanks builds ranger is cotton. In glass builds can not overdamage even necro with power/c.damage equip. Ranger is not fine. If u think otherwise – you know nothing about it and abviosly live in your own rainbow world. Ranger now has ten times less options and variety than any other class. This makes him dull and boring.

@Extacy.6192

I agree with alot of it, I still think hunters shot needs a cripple. Also I dont agree that long ranged shots damage needs to be nerfed. It needs a buff, I should be doing 3k crits on heavily defensive built players, why? Because its attack is so slow, and every other class can do 6-8k with auto attack in the time it takes us to get 2 shots off. My guardians 1h sword auto attack does abotu 2k each hit and on the last hit sword wave it hits squishies for 4500+400 bleed. We need to be on par.

MeGaZlo.9516:

nldixon.8514:

@MeGaZlo

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Uh! UH!! So much? Really?? Can u list??? I doubt it.
Some issues… For example no normal support builds? No social buffs? Half of abilites – sluggish buffs on pet, who manages to miss even on mobs sometimes. In tanks builds ranger is cotton. In glass builds can not overdamage even necro with power/c.damage equip. Ranger is not fine. If u think otherwise – you know nothing about it and abviosly live in your own rainbow world. Ranger now has ten times less options and variety than any other class. This makes him dull and boring.

Yep. I want my ranger to be my main for every aspect of this game, atm while he is, I find myself finding reasons not to play him. Like engineer being alot of fun, or warriors being better at sniping, or thieves being better roamers, or guardians just being guardians.

The LB needs a buff. And some tweaks. Maybe even a overhaul. Right now its too slow and boring to use; not only that, it does very mediocre damage. Using a LB is just watching your ranger fire slowly and pressing 2 when its up.

The other pressing thing is the pet pathing and slow F2 response though. Against a moving target our dps effectively drops 30%. Unless you use ranged pets, but their dps is kinda suc­ky, so you’re losing out.

Too much damage with too much range is OP.

People are drawn to the longbow because its a low risk option.

Those seeking high dps need to throw in more risk and get up nice and close. I’m fine not doing heaps of damage with my longbow, because im chilling at the back of the fight feeling pretty safe.

MeGaZlo.9516:

nldixon.8514:

@MeGaZlo

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Uh! UH!! So much? Really?? Can u list??? I doubt it.
Some issues… For example no normal support builds? No social buffs? Half of abilites – sluggish buffs on pet, who manages to miss even on mobs sometimes. In tanks builds ranger is cotton. In glass builds can not overdamage even necro with power/c.damage equip. Ranger is not fine. If u think otherwise – you know nothing about it and abviosly live in your own rainbow world. Ranger now has ten times less options and variety than any other class. This makes him dull and boring.

Wow. Settle down there cowboy. It’s just a game, and it’s just a discussion.

I’m not sure what you are trying to argue here, but it sounds like you are saying that people that can’t play the class effectively are more knowledgeable than those that can. I think you may have that backward.

I do just fine with my ranger. I also have one of each other profession, so I’m at least familiar with all of them. I won’t claim to know much about eles and necros because I’ve played those the least, but I do know that I can play as effectively on my ranger as I can on any of the fotm classes. Except for mesmers. I haven’t quite learned how to play effectively against good ones with my ranger yet.

Again, nobody is saying that the ranger doesn’t have issues. Some of us just happen to know that the sky isn’t falling – it’s just a little rain. We’re going to get some tweaks, but I’m betting that they aren’t going to be as drastic as some of you seem to think are necessary.

Raw damage is just one part of the picture, so feel free to argue about how rangers suck on paper all you want. The truth is that there is more depth to the game than just damage numbers. So if that’s all you are looking at, you aren’t getting the whole picture.

RummyTheMad.7290:

MeGaZlo.9516:

nldixon.8514:

@MeGaZlo

If you do just fine on your Ranger, why are you always on the forums complaining about Rangers? Yes, Rangers have some issues. Rangers are also totally playable and there are some amazing builds and play styles that make them fun and effective.

I have yet to see any positive or constructive posts from you on the Ranger forums. So what’s worse: people coming to the forums trying to promote effective play styles and builds (and coming off as “cool” as you put it) or people coming to the forums and complaining incessantly and providing absolutely zero constructive feedback?

Uh! UH!! So much? Really?? Can u list??? I doubt it.
Some issues… For example no normal support builds? No social buffs? Half of abilites – sluggish buffs on pet, who manages to miss even on mobs sometimes. In tanks builds ranger is cotton. In glass builds can not overdamage even necro with power/c.damage equip. Ranger is not fine. If u think otherwise – you know nothing about it and abviosly live in your own rainbow world. Ranger now has ten times less options and variety than any other class. This makes him dull and boring.

Wow. Settle down there cowboy. It’s just a game, and it’s just a discussion.

I’m not sure what you are trying to argue here, but it sounds like you are saying that people that can’t play the class effectively are more knowledgeable than those that can. I think you may have that backward.

I do just fine with my ranger. I also have one of each other profession, so I’m at least familiar with all of them. I won’t claim to know much about eles and necros because I’ve played those the least, but I do know that I can play as effectively on my ranger as I can on any of the fotm classes. Except for mesmers. I haven’t quite learned how to play effectively against good ones with my ranger yet.

Again, nobody is saying that the ranger doesn’t have issues. Some of us just happen to know that the sky isn’t falling – it’s just a little rain. We’re going to get some tweaks, but I’m betting that they aren’t going to be as drastic as some of you seem to think are necessary.

Raw damage is just one part of the picture, so feel free to argue about how rangers suck on paper all you want. The truth is that there is more depth to the game than just damage numbers. So if that’s all you are looking at, you aren’t getting the whole picture.

I have write no word about damage.
But… If u started a conversation, tell me: what can rangers do that it compensates for low damage?