Guild Wars 2

The problem with longbow is that it doesn’t pierce baseline. This means that in order for it to be viable in large scale WvW fights, we almost always have to take Marksmanship for Lead the Wind.

• Making the arrows pierce 5 targets without having to trait for it would be an absolutely fantastic QoL change!

Lead the Wind could then be changed to have an interesting effect like “Critical hits reduce all active cooldowns by 1/4 second. ICD: 1 second.”

Ya know, I may get some salt for agreeing with you but you’re right on the money here. The only time I even use Marksmanship is when doing PvE group events or running a larger group in WvW. Otherwise, the whole skill tree is useless for how I play my LB build. Having pierce should be baseline for the weapon itself.

Funny, it’s already way better than it used to be.

You used to go into 2 trait lines to get your Longbow traits (Marksmanship and Skirmishing) and get 3 different traits for it Eagle Eye (1500 range), Piercing Arrows (piercing) and Quick Draw (20% cooldown reduction).

And when you did all that it couldn’t even hit a target that was moving sideways.

But, I would be happy to see piercing become baseline. I just wanted you to know how terrible it used to be and maybe appreciate having Lead the Wind a bit more. They made 1500 range baseline, as well as like 100%+ projectile speed, and put both piercing and 20% cooldown reduction in a single trait.

Holland.9351:

Funny, it’s already way better than it used to be.

You used to go into 2 trait lines to get your Longbow traits (Marksmanship and Skirmishing) and get 3 different traits for it Eagle Eye (1500 range), Piercing Arrows (piercing) and Quick Draw (20% cooldown reduction).

And when you did all that it couldn’t even hit a target that was moving sideways.

But, I would be happy to see piercing become baseline. I just wanted you to know how terrible it used to be and maybe appreciate having Lead the Wind a bit more. They made 1500 range baseline, as well as like 100%+ projectile speed, and put both piercing and 20% cooldown reduction in a single trait.

I’ve been a ranger main since release, I remember how bad longbow used to be, yet I still played it against the top PvPers at the time and made it work. I do appreciate Lead the Wind, but I would still like to have longbow pierce be baseline because it would free up our trait choices in large scale WvW. :P

Oh man ranger was putrid when the game came out.

terrorshard.3854:

Oh man ranger was putrid when the game came out.

Pretty much. Another fun one is how Signet actives used to only affect the pet. You had to get a GM trait (Signet of the Beastmaster) to have signets affect the Ranger as well. And if you did you had to choose between 1500 range or piercing arrows, because you could no longer have both.

The only success I ever had with early release ranger was throwing traps at everyone.

You guys ‘member when Rapid Fire wasn’t the machine gun type skill it is now?

Remember how all these terrible thigns were true but for some reason Ranger used to get nerfed with every patch.

If the implication is that LB still needs something, then I’m in total agreement.

I’d rather Ranger core weapons be brought into the “modern” version of the game though.

LB specifically, I don’t mind traiting for piercing. I don’t really understand the 10% attack speed anymore though, I’d much rather extra damage or crit chance against moving targets, or another distance based boost of the same general theme.

Besides that, I really, really, really think 3 and 5 need a rework. 3 could be just a straight up stealth for yourself and the pet, no need to shoot an arrow. Either that or an unconditional superspeed on skill use, with a stealth on top of it if the arrow lands.

5, I really don’t have good suggestions for. It’s just impractical in everything that isn’t a stationary PvE target.

Anyhow, back to the OP’s suggestion, I mean, yeah, I’d take piercing without traiting. But I would rather the performance be improved in a different way lol.

Dispite it’s flaws, my little hybrid Ranger is my favorite class in the game. I actually do better on her than any other of my characters. Sometimes it’s not the class, just the player behind the class that matters. For me, it just “feels” right and so that’s why I stick with it.

Not sure how much sense that makes…

SeranusGaming.7362:

Dispite it’s flaws, my little hybrid Ranger is my favorite class in the game. I actually do better on her than any other of my characters. Sometimes it’s not the class, just the player behind the class that matters. For me, it just “feels” right and so that’s why I stick with it.

Not sure how much sense that makes…

It makes sense, I’m just coming off of the beta weekend where I got to test the elite spec pretty in depth.

With Dagger essentially being the worst mainhand PvP weapon I’ve ever tried to use, and without the staff from Druid, the core Ranger weapons feel very clunky (inconsistent being the better word probably). The other elite specs had their flaws too, and other classes weapons haven’t aged well either.

I’m just throwing in my 2c that when I compare the core classes weapons to a lot of the elite specs, the weapon functionality doesn’t feel like it’s aged well.

But I’m not trying to change your opinion; just explaining the context of my own, because I’m incredibly happy with LB in its current form. I just don’t feel like it’s a “primary” pressure weapon the way staff feels, it functions much better as a swap weapon for a quick burst, and when combined with GS, the “OG” power ranger combo, classes just absorb all your burst or avoid or outheal it and you’re not left with any damage pressure, which is fine theoretically since it’s a burst based playstyle, but that does to me mean that it needs function, fluid mobility and avoidance options. Hunter’s Shot and Barrage definitely don’t contribute to that playstyle.

jcbroe.4329:

If the implication is that LB still needs something, then I’m in total agreement.

5, I really don’t have good suggestions for. It’s just impractical in everything that isn’t a stationary PvE target.

For skill 5 I’d say reduce the cast time and have it pulse boon rip would make it very useful for pvp team fights and wvw zergs, and you won’t die to retal -_- plus ranger could use a little bit of boon rip.

I’d say superspeed for lb 3 would be fair

To OP ya I’d really love piercing to be base line too

Eleazar.9478:

jcbroe.4329:

If the implication is that LB still needs something, then I’m in total agreement.

5, I really don’t have good suggestions for. It’s just impractical in everything that isn’t a stationary PvE target.

For skill 5 I’d say reduce the cast time and have it pulse boon rip would make it very useful for pvp team fights and wvw zergs, and you won’t die to retal -_- plus ranger could use a little bit of boon rip.

I’d say superspeed for lb 3 would be fair

To OP ya I’d really love piercing to be base line too

Ah, see, my best idea was to make Barrage 1 quick shot that would then leave a damage field behind that cripples and applies vulnerability, and condense the damage into ~5 pulses. A quick immobilize on the first hit wouldn’t be too shabby either.

jcbroe.4329:

Eleazar.9478:

jcbroe.4329:

If the implication is that LB still needs something, then I’m in total agreement.

5, I really don’t have good suggestions for. It’s just impractical in everything that isn’t a stationary PvE target.

For skill 5 I’d say reduce the cast time and have it pulse boon rip would make it very useful for pvp team fights and wvw zergs, and you won’t die to retal -_- plus ranger could use a little bit of boon rip.

I’d say superspeed for lb 3 would be fair

To OP ya I’d really love piercing to be base line too

Ah, see, my best idea was to make Barrage 1 quick shot that would then leave a damage field behind that cripples and applies vulnerability, and condense the damage into ~5 pulses. A quick immobilize on the first hit wouldn’t be too shabby either.

Ya I was thinking about the imbolb too but with resistance being so prevent its kinda questionable, but ya I see what your saying if you can lock em in that’d be nice

Eleazar.9478:

jcbroe.4329:

Eleazar.9478:

jcbroe.4329:

If the implication is that LB still needs something, then I’m in total agreement.

5, I really don’t have good suggestions for. It’s just impractical in everything that isn’t a stationary PvE target.

For skill 5 I’d say reduce the cast time and have it pulse boon rip would make it very useful for pvp team fights and wvw zergs, and you won’t die to retal -_- plus ranger could use a little bit of boon rip.

I’d say superspeed for lb 3 would be fair

To OP ya I’d really love piercing to be base line too

Ah, see, my best idea was to make Barrage 1 quick shot that would then leave a damage field behind that cripples and applies vulnerability, and condense the damage into ~5 pulses. A quick immobilize on the first hit wouldn’t be too shabby either.

Ya I was thinking about the imbolb too but with resistance being so prevent its kinda questionable, but ya I see what your saying if you can lock em in that’d be nice

I mean, if you think about it I’m just turning LB5 into a ranger themed Scrapper Hammer 5 lol, functionally your suggestion works better and it isn’t a “rip off” hahaha.

Holland.9351:

Funny, it’s already way better than it used to be.

You used to go into 2 trait lines to get your Longbow traits (Marksmanship and Skirmishing) and get 3 different traits for it Eagle Eye (1500 range), Piercing Arrows (piercing) and Quick Draw (20% cooldown reduction).

And when you did all that it couldn’t even hit a target that was moving sideways.

But, I would be happy to see piercing become baseline. I just wanted you to know how terrible it used to be and maybe appreciate having Lead the Wind a bit more. They made 1500 range baseline, as well as like 100%+ projectile speed, and put both piercing and 20% cooldown reduction in a single trait.

It’s still a horrendous weapon in zerg fight though.
It’s even more useless if you don’t grab Marksmanship.
Problem is if you grab Marksmanship, you literally give up most of your survival measure.
Ranger is a funny class where all the cleanse you need in wvw is tied to Wilderness Survival or nature magic or Soldier rune. You can’t find a ranger utility that’s functional against condition aside from healing spring and signet with huge cooldown.

I play a power LB ranger and a Power hammer Revneant, and Revenant is doing way better than the ranger ever could in a zerg fight with hammer 2 neglecting reflection and do huge BURST damage (not stupid channel that everyone can dodge it), hammer 4 block projectiles, hammer 3 evade to survive zerg fight and hammer 5 to do massive cc.

Ironically Revenant’s hammer doesn’t need any trait modifier to be good, it’s always an awesome weapon with high damage and alot of utility, and the arc of hammer 2 is way bigger than Ranger’s pierce too.

Just go check the Metabattle and you’d see Power Revenant is in top tier for wvw while LB ranger is nowhere to be found because everyone knows LB ranger is worthless in WVW, aside from some roaming 1 v 1 scenario, which Druid is still stronger.

Passive Signet of Stone isn’t giving up a lot of durability.

The problem with LB ranger in zergs is projectile hate, retal, and reflects. You barrage into an organized group and you melt from the retal damage. You RF into a WoR which gets covered in all the visual clutter of other skills and you accidentally kill some frontliner or yourself. The unblockable abilities help a lot to make the weapon usable, but it’s a far cry from being particularly good in large combats.

Idk it makes sense that to master the longbow you should take marksmanship.

shadowpass.4236:

The problem with longbow is that it doesn’t pierce baseline. This means that in order for it to be viable in large scale WvW fights, we almost always have to take Marksmanship for Lead the Wind.

• Making the arrows pierce 5 targets without having to trait for it would be an absolutely fantastic QoL change!

---

Lead the Wind could then be changed to have an interesting effect like “Critical hits reduce all active cooldowns by 1/4 second. ICD: 1 second.”

While baseline piercing would be nice, Ranger is not, and never really was, viable for zerging. Druid was the exception for a few months. Even so, it was barely popular, as most guilds preferred tempest.

5 man groups and roaming is a different story of course.

What format of play, or does it matter? I mean yeah, great – let’s do it!

WvW is in a wonky state due to the amount of conditions that are flying around and red circles of dog poo on the ground. Honestly I don’t know if I am playing WvW or a game of hopscotch /boggle. And I didn’t even mention the amount of reflects that everybody and their mother has now

yes, make it baseline pls

Maybe not in all modes at first, just implement this for WvW where the fact that Longbow just lightly caresses a few people completely breaks the weapon for any reasonable use.

This plus the suggestions on the marksmanship GM from woundrouswall.

I don’t think the longbow should pierce without having Lead the Wind trait-ed, but I think Lead the Wind should be slightly buffed as right now it’s always better to take Remorseless or Predator’s Onslaught.

Lead the Wind attack speed increase should go from 10% to 25% (or even 30%). With a 30% increase in attack speed Long Range Shot would have a cast time of almost ½sec. instead of ¾sec., and Rapid Fire cast time would go from 2½sec. to 1¾sec. It’d make the longbow an even more fast attacking weapon as it should be.

Alchimist.4738:

I don’t think the longbow should pierce without having Lead the Wind trait-ed, but I think Lead the Wind should be slightly buffed as right now it’s always better to take Remorseless or Predator’s Onslaught.

Lead the Wind attack speed increase should go from 10% to 25% (or even 30%). With a 30% increase in attack speed Long Range Shot would have a cast time of almost ½sec. instead of ¾sec., and Rapid Fire cast time would go from 2½sec. to 1¾sec. It’d make the longbow an even more fast attacking weapon as it should be.

Problem with that is the Rapid Fire and Barrage doesn’t really benefit from faster speeds in general. Having a longer channel allows you to swap targets in midcasting (you know you ca do that right? ) and also to follow stealthed targets.

what about this?
Lead the wind:
Piercing up 5 targets.
CD reduced 20%
Each hit from the LB gives 5 seconds might to the ranger (no ICD).

As such RF would give 10 might to the ranger, and Barrage could get up to 25 stacks for a short duration.

that with the change to Hunter’s shot to apply superspeed when cast and Barrage to apply chilled on hit would make the LB fantastic.

I agree, please make it baseline

The main problem with Longbow will always be the immense amount of cheap projectile blocks and reflects in the game.

Any good guild will roll with at least 30% guardians and even just 3-4 of them using wall of reflection is enough to make the weapon nearly worthless in the actual fight.

I can’t even spike down Ele’s in the middle of a fight because nearly all of them run magnetic aura.

Longbow is basically only good for mopping up when you’ve already won the fight and the enemy is routed or picking people who strayed from the herd which isn’t often if you’re fighting a good group.

The only way for the bow to become as good as it was for the 2-3 weeks after they buffed rapid fire is for us to get cheap/perpetual “arrows can’t be reflected” which I doubt is even possible.

I have a feeling that the game treats all blocks the same and reflects are just blocks with an added effect. I can’t see anet going in and rewiring a major chunk of the game code just to make longbow work in zergs when they haven’t cared that Rangers suck in WvW for 5 years now.

I actually think Ranger longbow is nearly perfect where it is. I don’t think it needs pierce – it’s already better than pretty much every other ranged weapon in the game, in most cases by a significant margin.

If you want to do ranged badly – try a rifle warrior.

Einlanzer.1627:

it’s already better than pretty much every other ranged weapon in the game, in most cases by a significant margin.

Pretty sure this isn’t true in any game mode.

Einlanzer.1627:

I actually think Ranger longbow is nearly perfect where it is. I don’t think it needs pierce – it’s already better than pretty much every other ranged weapon in the game, in most cases by a significant margin.

If you want to do ranged badly – try a rifle warrior.

Revenant hammer is laughing at you literally.
A good high damage weapon with utilities and ignores projectile block.

Guardian Scepter very very high damage, much higher than LB.

Thief P/P higher damage than LB.

Necro Scepter very high long lasting condition damage, main dps for condition Necro rotation. (Way higher dps than power LB ranger rotation)

Warrior LB condition Berserker: Very high condition damage, way higher than that LB of ranger.

Ele Scepter: A much better PVP weapon than LB that’s for sure, with utility and ignore projectile reflection.

All of them are better weapons than LB by a large margin in PVE or PVP .
Ranger LB is only a selfish tagging weapon and nothing more.

PS: Without piercing the dps is even worse and it doesn’t even function as it’s primary goal: A selfish tagging weapon.

I would like to see no reflect added to the weapon (like the necro’s axe) with the trait. It would make sense to me that a ranger should be proficient enough with range that it could fire arrows with a LB in this way.

Substance E.4852:

The main problem with Longbow will always be the immense amount of cheap projectile blocks and reflects in the game.

Any good guild will roll with at least 30% guardians and even just 3-4 of them using wall of reflection is enough to make the weapon nearly worthless in the actual fight.

I can’t even spike down Ele’s in the middle of a fight because nearly all of them run magnetic aura.

Longbow is basically only good for mopping up when you’ve already won the fight and the enemy is routed or picking people who strayed from the herd which isn’t often if you’re fighting a good group.

The only way for the bow to become as good as it was for the 2-3 weeks after they buffed rapid fire is for us to get cheap/perpetual “arrows can’t be reflected” which I doubt is even possible.

I have a feeling that the game treats all blocks the same and reflects are just blocks with an added effect. I can’t see anet going in and rewiring a major chunk of the game code just to make longbow work in zergs when they haven’t cared that Rangers suck in WvW for 5 years now.

You can currently build into 13 straight seconds of unblockable attacks every 40s…

DeceiverX.8361:

Substance E.4852:

The main problem with Longbow will always be the immense amount of cheap projectile blocks and reflects in the game.

Any good guild will roll with at least 30% guardians and even just 3-4 of them using wall of reflection is enough to make the weapon nearly worthless in the actual fight.

I can’t even spike down Ele’s in the middle of a fight because nearly all of them run magnetic aura.

Longbow is basically only good for mopping up when you’ve already won the fight and the enemy is routed or picking people who strayed from the herd which isn’t often if you’re fighting a good group.

The only way for the bow to become as good as it was for the 2-3 weeks after they buffed rapid fire is for us to get cheap/perpetual “arrows can’t be reflected” which I doubt is even possible.

I have a feeling that the game treats all blocks the same and reflects are just blocks with an added effect. I can’t see anet going in and rewiring a major chunk of the game code just to make longbow work in zergs when they haven’t cared that Rangers suck in WvW for 5 years now.

You can currently build into 13 straight seconds of unblockable attacks every 40s…

You can but you give up way too much survival/utility for what might end up being blown on a fake push.

I’m not wasting a slot on hunt signet nor bringing clarion bond over stone form.

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

A: Wanting to be able to not be completely shutdown by perpetual walls of reflection and feedback bubbles is not the same thing as “always unblockable”.

B: Go look at what kind of damage a frontline ele can crank out while being tanked up in minstrals. Hell, go see what a Rev can do in full zerk spamming CoR which isn’t a projectile.

Literally the only thing that will earn Soulbeast a slot is stab share and even that probably won’t be worth much with Scourge and Spellbreaker obliterating boons left and right.

I don’t want to be able to blow up people with no way for them to deal with it but I also don’t want ALL our ranged to be projectiles when classes that put out massively more damage than we do aren’t held back by this mechanic.

It’s why our damage is bottom tier in a zerg (probably only above mesmer) and nothing is going to change until the issue is addressed.

From a PvP pow, both the longbow AND the shortbow should pierce baseline, at least their autoattacks and Longbow 2. 1200 range for shortbow as well, it’s in need of some serious love.

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

Yep, the reason why Guardian and Revenants are meta in wvw right now is cuz they can tank AND spam high damage aoe at the same time.

CoR ignores all reflective walls and do high BURST damage, while having anti-burst in forms of Glint and Resistance spam in terms of Mallyx.

Revenant can also keep up perma fury and swiftness and high stack of might to their party members before even engaging too, which is a big help to many classes that lack those boons.

Guardian has more cleanse/ block and invulnerable too in frontline too while doing abnormal aoe damage.

Oh, and they’re both heavy armor.

Haha yeah I just realized that all we have are:

1. Reflectable attacks
2. Bad aoe damage
3. Minimal boonshare (only the common ones like might, fury, and swiftness, which everyone already has access to)
4. Time gated group support with CA that requires us to be in melee range (which we don’t have access to enough survivability mechanics to help us survive)
5. And a class mechanic that becomes useless in large scale WvW

Let me know if I missed any :P
__________________________________________________________________

Btw, this thread isn’t to ask for permanent unblockable on longbow. Its just for piercing to become baseline. Though, perma unblockable would be welcome as well haha

I think this will at least give some playability to rangers in zergs. At least they bring some AOE, not like their damage is wow anyway so i dont know why they dont pierce. No one takes marksmanship in wvw, is a waste of space.

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Substance E.4852:

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Doyak Stance is like a simple Guardian shout: Stand your Ground but lasts alot shorter.
(3 seconds for your party)

Negating chill/cripple is not a big deal in zerg fight, especially when enemies have lots of Guardians and Revenants.

Even the CD is the same, except we don’t have a stance cd reduction trait, and we need to grab a grandmaster trait to even share this with the party. Guardian’s shout can even trait it for them to remove conditions for the party.

Way to go Anet! We’re an inferior Guardian now!

Substance E.4852:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

A: Wanting to be able to not be completely shutdown by perpetual walls of reflection and feedback bubbles is not the same thing as “always unblockable”.

B: Go look at what kind of damage a frontline ele can crank out while being tanked up in minstrals. Hell, go see what a Rev can do in full zerk spamming CoR which isn’t a projectile.

Literally the only thing that will earn Soulbeast a slot is stab share and even that probably won’t be worth much with Scourge and Spellbreaker obliterating boons left and right.

I don’t want to be able to blow up people with no way for them to deal with it but I also don’t want ALL our ranged to be projectiles when classes that put out massively more damage than we do aren’t held back by this mechanic.

It’s why our damage is bottom tier in a zerg (probably only above mesmer) and nothing is going to change until the issue is addressed.

Do you not realize that unblockable attacks ignore reflects? You can do 13s of unblockable attacks with massive damage and have 6s of all power damage negated with two solid condition removal skills every 40s or less, or split it 9/9 which is insane compared to what most other classes can do.

Comparing ranger to Guardian is ridiculous because the Guard is designed for this kind of play with a substantially lower viability in anything small-scale.

Aomine.5012:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

Yep, the reason why Guardian and Revenants are meta in wvw right now is cuz they can tank AND spam high damage aoe at the same time.

CoR ignores all reflective walls and do high BURST damage, while having anti-burst in forms of Glint and Resistance spam in terms of Mallyx.

Revenant can also keep up perma fury and swiftness and high stack of might to their party members before even engaging too, which is a big help to many classes that lack those boons.

Guardian has more cleanse/ block and invulnerable too in frontline too while doing abnormal aoe damage.

Oh, and they’re both heavy armor.

Guard can’t tank/block and attack against a ranger at the same time if it’s built like the above. Again, unblockable everything for many seconds is insane. The only true invuln they have would then be RF, but guard loses all ability to cast when doing so, so what you said just isn’t true.

Comparing ranger to power hammer rev is stupid because power hammer rev over-performs in WvW zergs. This isn’t anything new. Getting rangers on that level will immediately get them gutted because the rest of the ranger is way more robust on its own. Rev is a broken class in design made good in a few environments with a few blatantly overtuned abilties lke CoR in ZvZ’s. You don’t want ranger to be that way.

Guardian runs 2/3 of the base health of ranger and is tied for lowest in the game, which justifies the heavy armor. You have baseline 50% better condition durability than a guard. Ranger has better potential sustained mitigation and heals than guardian has as well, and reaches better time-based damage mitigation when it tries via GS than what Guard can do. In Druid, a ranger also has way better resilience against condi bombs than guards since it can remove all 13 at a time.

Outside of hammer, most of rev in terms of its zreg build is absolute trash, and even still, it lacks unblockable attacks, and this can only CoR through reflects, which while still overpowered, is completely different than being able to ignore all blocks and all reflects. Forcing a panic block early from an enemy commander into a response invuln which makes the blob unable to push can single-handedly win a fight.

Guard AoE damage isn’t abnormal. In WvW frontline builds it’s abysmally bad, actually. There’s a reason necromancers and eles have been brought historically in large raids.

Most boonsharing is done from replication effects on defensive boons from other classes like the mesmer, anyways. Nobody really cares too much about sustained fury/might/swiftness when it’s super easy to cap from a ton of different professions. The shared resistance from Mallyx was what made the boonshare meta OP and is what made boonsharing what it is even still.

Everything you’re arguing is either irrelevant or just downright untrue. Ranger’s in a way better spot than you think.

DeceiverX.8361:

Substance E.4852:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

A: Wanting to be able to not be completely shutdown by perpetual walls of reflection and feedback bubbles is not the same thing as “always unblockable”.

B: Go look at what kind of damage a frontline ele can crank out while being tanked up in minstrals. Hell, go see what a Rev can do in full zerk spamming CoR which isn’t a projectile.

Literally the only thing that will earn Soulbeast a slot is stab share and even that probably won’t be worth much with Scourge and Spellbreaker obliterating boons left and right.

I don’t want to be able to blow up people with no way for them to deal with it but I also don’t want ALL our ranged to be projectiles when classes that put out massively more damage than we do aren’t held back by this mechanic.

It’s why our damage is bottom tier in a zerg (probably only above mesmer) and nothing is going to change until the issue is addressed.

Do you not realize that unblockable attacks ignore reflects? You can do 13s of unblockable attacks with massive damage and have 6s of all power damage negated with two solid condition removal skills every 40s or less, or split it 9/9 which is insane compared to what most other classes can do.

Comparing ranger to Guardian is ridiculous because the Guard is designed for this kind of play with a substantially lower viability in anything small-scale.

Aomine.5012:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

Yep, the reason why Guardian and Revenants are meta in wvw right now is cuz they can tank AND spam high damage aoe at the same time.

CoR ignores all reflective walls and do high BURST damage, while having anti-burst in forms of Glint and Resistance spam in terms of Mallyx.

Revenant can also keep up perma fury and swiftness and high stack of might to their party members before even engaging too, which is a big help to many classes that lack those boons.

Guardian has more cleanse/ block and invulnerable too in frontline too while doing abnormal aoe damage.

Oh, and they’re both heavy armor.

Guard can’t tank/block and attack against a ranger at the same time if it’s built like the above. Again, unblockable everything for many seconds is insane. The only true invuln they have would then be RF, but guard loses all ability to cast when doing so, so what you said just isn’t true.

Comparing ranger to power hammer rev is stupid because power hammer rev over-performs in WvW zergs. This isn’t anything new. Getting rangers on that level will immediately get them gutted because the rest of the ranger is way more robust on its own. Rev is a broken class in design made good in a few environments with a few blatantly overtuned abilties lke CoR in ZvZ’s. You don’t want ranger to be that way.

Guardian runs 2/3 of the base health of ranger and is tied for lowest in the game, which justifies the heavy armor. You have baseline 50% better condition durability than a guard. Ranger has better potential sustained mitigation and heals than guardian has as well, and reaches better time-based damage mitigation when it tries via GS than what Guard can do. In Druid, a ranger also has way better resilience against condi bombs than guards since it can remove all 13 at a time.

Outside of hammer, most of rev in terms of its zreg build is absolute trash, and even still, it lacks unblockable attacks, and this can only CoR through reflects, which while still overpowered, is completely different than being able to ignore all blocks and all reflects. Forcing a panic block early from an enemy commander into a response invuln which makes the blob unable to push can single-handedly win a fight.

Guard AoE damage isn’t abnormal. In WvW frontline builds it’s abysmally bad, actually. There’s a reason necromancers and eles have been brought historically in large raids.

Most boonsharing is done from replication effects on defensive boons from other classes like the mesmer, anyways. Nobody really cares too much about sustained fury/might/swiftness when it’s super easy to cap from a ton of different professions. The shared resistance from Mallyx was what made the boonshare meta OP and is what made boonsharing what it is even still.

Everything you’re arguing is either irrelevant or just downright untrue. Ranger’s in a way better spot than you think.

Sure, keep thinking ranger is good in WvW.

Sure you can sustain, but you’re still a selfish leech class standing afar trying to self sustain yourself, which is all ranger can do in WvW. Worst case scenario many rangers are killing their own teammates by shooting their rapid fire against the 124125 reflective walls enemies throw at you.

Heck, Revenant can even help blocking projectiles and removing conditions from allies.

DeceiverX.8361:

Do you not realize that unblockable attacks ignore reflects? You can do 13s of unblockable attacks with massive damage and have 6s of all power damage negated with two solid condition removal skills every 40s or less, or split it 9/9 which is insane compared to what most other classes can do.

>Massive damage

Watching barrage crit for 600 damage on the backline is quite spectacular I must admit.

I guess it’s just some gigantic conspiracy of irrational Ranger hate that prevents any serious guild from running longbow rangers in their squads.

You’re either someone LARP’ing as a WvW’er or in colossal denial fueled by the few times you did 10k to a zerk necro with rapidfire.

Aomine.5012:

Substance E.4852:

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Doyak Stance is like a simple Guardian shout: Stand your Ground but lasts alot shorter.
(3 seconds for your party)

Negating chill/cripple is not a big deal in zerg fight, especially when enemies have lots of Guardians and Revenants.

Even the CD is the same, except we don’t have a stance cd reduction trait, and we need to grab a grandmaster trait to even share this with the party. Guardian’s shout can even trait it for them to remove conditions for the party.

Way to go Anet! We’re an inferior Guardian now!

I think the GM trait should be 100% stance duration share to allies and is currently weak.

That being said, you are missing a prediction of how the meta will go and some decent “unintended effects”. Reapers/Necros are already pretty freaking good at aoe boon stripping. And soon there will be spell breakers, which will be used a LOT in WvW too. If your organized guild group relies predominantly on resistance instead of evolving with the meta, they will be slaughtered. Sure, while pirate shipping, resistance can kind of make due but if you try to melee ball, guardian boons won’t be enough.

Bear and dolyak stance, especially if it was 100% duration shared, would actually be awesome here. An unstrippable stance that clears 2 condi and heals per second helps a lot. What makes it even better is dolyak stance preventing 3 non-damaging conditions from being applied. That means that condi clears are much more likely to actually clear the conditions that are killing your team because they won’t be wasted on cripple, chill and immob. It should in theory prevent deathly chill from applying 3 bleeds/vuln (reaper) and the rev chill to torment trait. In and of itself, it won’t keep a zerg alive but those are a lot better than a shout that only provides boons that can instantly be ripped.

Really just need that 100% duration share to allies for it to hit a point which it could be meta to bring 1-2 soul beasts per melee ball group

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Aomine.5012:

Substance E.4852:

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Doyak Stance is like a simple Guardian shout: Stand your Ground but lasts alot shorter.
(3 seconds for your party)

Negating chill/cripple is not a big deal in zerg fight, especially when enemies have lots of Guardians and Revenants.

Even the CD is the same, except we don’t have a stance cd reduction trait, and we need to grab a grandmaster trait to even share this with the party. Guardian’s shout can even trait it for them to remove conditions for the party.

Way to go Anet! We’re an inferior Guardian now!

I think the GM trait should be 100% stance duration share to allies and is currently weak.

That being said, you are missing a prediction of how the meta will go and some decent “unintended effects”. Reapers/Necros are already pretty freaking good at aoe boon stripping. And soon there will be spell breakers, which will be used a LOT in WvW too. If your organized guild group relies predominantly on resistance instead of evolving with the meta, they will be slaughtered. Sure, while pirate shipping, resistance can kind of make due but if you try to melee ball, guardian boons won’t be enough.

Bear and dolyak stance, especially if it was 100% duration shared, would actually be awesome here. An unstrippable stance that clears 2 condi and heals per second helps a lot. What makes it even better is dolyak stance preventing 3 non-damaging conditions from being applied. That means that condi clears are much more likely to actually clear the conditions that are killing your team because they won’t be wasted on cripple, chill and immob. It should in theory prevent deathly chill from applying 3 bleeds/vuln (reaper) and the rev chill to torment trait. In and of itself, it won’t keep a zerg alive but those are a lot better than a shout that only provides boons that can instantly be ripped.

Really just need that 100% duration share to allies for it to hit a point which it could be meta to bring 1-2 soul beasts per melee ball group

In the end a skill that only lasts 3 seconds, can’t be buffed by boon duration, with a wooping 30 second CD won’t change anything in WvW.

Also you’re talking as if Doyak Stance won’t be boon corrupted too.
It actually will because it pulses stability and retaliation when cast, so they do get affected by all the boon denial kitten.

Don’t expect Anet to be generous and fix this trait for at least 2 more months cuz they’re ALWAYS very stingy when it comes to Ranger.