Guild Wars 2

Be a burden to your group.

Last time rangers got an animation fix one of their weapon got one of the most significant damage nerfs in the game. Despite it not being one of the most powerful weapons in the game it got yet another significant nerf in the most recent patch.

Don’t ask for animation fixes.

FrouFrou.4958:

Be a burden to your group.

Roger that.
If it wasn’t clear to people so far, Anet balances only spvp in mind no matter how horribly it breaks things in pve and wvw.

I believed the leaked notes, several days ago, so left already…

Really, really I am not kidding around or going to slink back in days, weeks or months from now, this patch was the last straw for me:-

MY RANGER IS DEAD TO ME!

I SURRENDER ANET!

YOU WIN, I WILL NEVER PLAY RANGER AGAIN IN GW2.

the question is what to do now? My in game name is bowsome, aint so awesome now lol. never was anyway

Zurchin.8479:

My ranger is now permanently retired from WvW you cannot dps properly with a 900 range shortbow which is my main weapon of choice and for many in WvW, you have just effectively nerfed the ranger for alote of people to the point of no use, I just absolutely fail to understand what is going through your heads.

sad day indeed, The class description by Anet states:

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.

Why should this class be penalized for using any sort of range weapons? Anet just fails at getting the logic correctly in balancing classes. Why play ranger over thief? It doesnt make any sense.

I am totally dismayed, an see no point is putting any more effort into my WvW Ranger.

It just looks hopeless.

Which class, Warrior or Guardian, did the best with this batch of patches? I am ready to switch to one or the other, I am tired of trying to swim against the current here.

long bow gets buffed at the expense of short bow, what is wrong with Anet’s developers?

I like these changes and think overall its in the Rangers best interests.

Good job Anet

Jinks.2057:

I like these changes and think overall its in the Rangers best interests.

Good job Anet

Says the Thief

Jinks.2057:

I like these changes and think overall its in the Rangers best interests.

Good job Anet

I’ll be frank, you don’t know anything if you think we needed this across the board nerf for pets, Jinks. Before the patch, the following is how we were:

General PvE: Good
Dungeons: Average
PvP: Amazing
WvW: Average

Here’s how we look now.

General PvE: Above Average
Dungeons: Below Average
PvP: Good
WvW: Below Average

We needed buffs for Dungeons and WvW, and this across the board patch hit us hard in those two areas we were already just average in.

Says Jinks.

/15char

was cat auto attack damage nerfed?? If so, why was it not in the patch notes???

Yeah, the hell is up with that?

Bran.7425:

Remember Anet is taking baby step I expect that they will not be happy with ranger performance in sPvP/tPvP and further nerf the pet, and which ever build shuffle into those modes of play.

You call the across the board nerfs on ranger pet DPS, a 25% decrease in range on a weapon that wasn’t OP in any format (nor was it even the primary high end PvP weapon) and the DPS nerf on crossfire baby steps?

The worst part about most of these updates is that these steps are moving away from good PvE ranger builds. Ranged weapons are increasingly becoming worse (they already perform worse than melee weapons) and pet survivability in dungeons has never been solved and only once have they done anything to it (which didn’t make them durable enough in PvE, made them too durable in PvP and resulted in a DPS nerf in both – kittening clueless these guys are).

They have no kittening clue what they are doing with the ranger class. They made a class centred around an AI companion without building an AI capable of handling PvE (combat oriented around dodge, pets which don’t dodge and don’t account for the inability to dodge) or building a class which interacts with the companion. As it stands, the pet is a giant balance resource leech on the ranger with very little interplay for the ranger to use.

At this rate I expect them to admit within three years time that an AI companion class was a mistake with their vision for GW2 and preventing it from hurting their vision resulted in killing the class in the process.

Even patches like this one, which look at a weapon that is very unpopular (the longbow) don’t solve the problem by making that weapon better and fixing its problem, it does it by making the alternative (the shortbow) worse, despite the shortbow not being overpowered in any way. The topic is right, the class is broken and has no direction, the devs made a mistake by making an AI component a core part of it because they are clearly unwilling to invest the time and resources into making it work and the end result is the class suffering.

Menorah, you need to help me, I’m crying so hard and I’m not sure I’m going to be entering WvW anymore with my main. The nerf to our pets is heavy enough to where my poor devourer may be permanently in its pen. T_T

Why were you running devourer to begin with? .-. It spends half its time running away lol.

I kept him out because he tanks aggro more than me and most of the party. Besides…condition spec, anything that helps with the conditions is good for me.

rchu.8945:

long bow gets buffed at the expense of short bow, what is wrong with Anet’s developers?

Incompetent.

You know it really looks like the devs looked through the forums, found the things rangers liked about the class (like the river drake’s lightning breath) and nerfed them. I can understand the jaguar’s nerf, but the lightning drake one baffles me. It was insanely easy to avoid in PvE and the class is far from OP, and at this rate competitive, in PvE so it makes no sense to me why they did a DPS nerf on that skill.

Patches like this are why so many people hate nerfs, a lot of these changes don’t even make sense. They didn’t remove imbalanced things or nerf them, they took things that weren’t problems and made them worse.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Chopps.5047:

Ryan.8367:

Chopps.5047:

@Ryan

Re-read the patch notes, beastmaster’s might for ranger might stacking, just got 3 times better. Also, in dungeons, frost spirit is an adept 7% group dps increase and spotter is 150 precision now to party, which is nice for people who aren’t running signets. Also, leaps for flame aura and rampage as one still exist, as they were the default might stacking mechanisms before (as well as stalker). No one took beastmaster’s might before.

If you seriously think 2 extra might every 60-120 seconds is gonna make a game changing difference, not to mention the fact you’re going 20 into Marksman which is horrid for any 1on1 spec, then you are really selling yourself short. Power has such a bad diminishing return for ranger it’s not even funny. Just go 0/30/30/10/0 w/ knights and you’ll have more sustained damage and tank across the board than any power based build spec.

Are we playig the same game? Signet cooldowns aren’t 120 seconds. Besides, I was talking wvw and dungeons there. You didn’t read the notes and you didn’t read my message I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t pay attention to anything about rangers over the last year.

First of all, I never mentioned 1v1 because it’s not a standard gametype. There are only a couple kinds of real 1v1 in this game:

• 1v1 on point
• 1v1 off point

The gvg and all the wvw 1v1 videos (sorry, Xsorsus, I do feel this way) are not really that interesting from a competitive point of view. So to me, your ideal 1v1 deathmatch is irrelevent. But let’s make it relevant for a moment. How many of you lost 1v1 fights in wvw before using regen/apothecary? Almost never? And would you all consider yourselves to be great players? I certainly wouldn’t call myself that and I won those fights too. Shouldn’t a 1v1 be skill dependent as opposed to build dependent? Yes! But it’s a team game built around capturing objectives so the 1v1 isn’t balanced and tested like a Halo or a Starcraft. Those are 1v1 games. This is a 5v5 game. Where’s the 5v5 guild vs guild battles? Why is it 1v1 or 20v20? And then, without satisfactory answers to these questions, we wonder why tpvp’ers make fun of us pve’ers. I’m just saying—1v1 and 20v20 require less skill than 5v5 which itself requires less skill than 5v5 plus objectives.

This is all very clear and we’ve known it since day 1.

This is actually one of the reasons I stopped making WvW videos. I stopped running my own build almost three weeks ago as well. Teamwork is much more difficult and skill-oriented than running around with a bunch of random red names who like to wear bag tonics.

The teamwork stuff is where the real interesting elements of GW2 are. Hopefully, despite all the bad things this patch did, it will allow us to be of more use in a group. I’ve already got a build that’s been accepted into my guild’s zerg-busting unit which was unthinkable before. So while a lot of rangers are angry at what has happened as a result to the “range” element of our class, we at least got one worth-while build (hopefully more will emerge as well) that can be used with a group.

I want to think of it as a starting point. It’s been 9 months, and this is our first chance. Build on this ANet, don’t leave us alone again without any viable alternatives to run. Stagnation is death.

We know about teamwork as we destroyed GH/GF when they roamed with 30+ constantly with SWaG and we were running all but 10-15 people in the group. When you get past 10+ in vs in WvW it becomes more aoe damage and CC on the spot moreso than any individual skill utility. It’s pointless as you’re just spamming at that point.

I’m talking about 1on1 situations though and the ranger took a huge hit if we even decide to go roam in WvW.

Well I guess that I need to play my GW1 ranger for a bit longer now.

Those “balance” changes as expected /facepalm
Mr. Sharp, why did you ever say “we know ranger is one of the weakest classes” (Back in january)? Obviously you do not.

Cuchullain.3104:

The notes were “leaked” for a reason: for the developers to get feedback. We can thank the fanboys and trolls for giving them positive feedback while attacking everyone who criticized the changes for “whining” or being “paranoid.”

You are correct. And as you can see from this thread, that has not changed and never will.

Xsorus.2507:

Rofl….at people who think losing 300 range on shortbow is made up by increasing the damage of 3 abilities by 15%, that all hit for less then crossfire in the first place.

Lets clear something up here…

People who are trying to pretend that kitten sandwich you’re eating is chicken are kidding themselves…

There is nothing positive about these nerfs, There is nothing is going to make up for them in this patch, You’re going to be doing less damage and with less range… The Ranger as a whole is collectively worse then it was before.

Quit pretending that everything is puppy dogs and rainbows.

This. This so hard it hurts. Hurts so bad….

Winters chill got buffed since it still applies 10 seconds of weakness on a 10 second cooldown. Weakness is very strong in pvp now, 50% endurance regen and 50% fumble on ALL attacks.

SilverShadow.3021:

Well I guess that I need to play my GW1 ranger for a bit longer now.

Those “balance” changes as expected /facepalm
Mr. Sharp, why did you ever say “we know ranger is one of the weakest classes” (Back in january)? Obviously you do not.

It’s is so painfully obvious that Jon Sharp hates the ranger class and knows nothing about it…

I believe I can sum up this patch fairly easily

•Moa: Peck: Reduced the damage by 7%.
•Pig: Jab: Reduced the damage by 25%.

I mean really…that sums up the entire patch right there

ANET: “Alright, now that you’ve spent 9 months rolling SB because LB is broken…we’re gonna go ahead and ruin the SB so you have to go back to LB. Also, eff your cats. Sorry if you’ve busted your humps and bank accounts to get a Dreamer SB. Shame we don’t let you unsoulbind. Your Legendary has more uses on the BLTP than it does on a WvW/PvP Ranger. /laff”

Look I’m happy that the LB finally got fixed, but I don’t think the continued SB changes are justified. If I see a Ranger running LB in WvW…he’s going to die. Everyone knows that. Unless they’re defending a keep. Open field LB is BAD compared to pre-patch SB.

The coveted Phantom Catmaster builds are dead now. Rangers are no fun in WvW anymore, at least we can still trap in PvP though.

When the notes “leaked” I power leveled my Necro to 80. Thank the Six. I still have a reason to play WvW without hating changes made to my main class.

Ryan.8367:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Chopps.5047:

Ryan.8367:

Chopps.5047:

@Ryan

Re-read the patch notes, beastmaster’s might for ranger might stacking, just got 3 times better. Also, in dungeons, frost spirit is an adept 7% group dps increase and spotter is 150 precision now to party, which is nice for people who aren’t running signets. Also, leaps for flame aura and rampage as one still exist, as they were the default might stacking mechanisms before (as well as stalker). No one took beastmaster’s might before.

If you seriously think 2 extra might every 60-120 seconds is gonna make a game changing difference, not to mention the fact you’re going 20 into Marksman which is horrid for any 1on1 spec, then you are really selling yourself short. Power has such a bad diminishing return for ranger it’s not even funny. Just go 0/30/30/10/0 w/ knights and you’ll have more sustained damage and tank across the board than any power based build spec.

Are we playig the same game? Signet cooldowns aren’t 120 seconds. Besides, I was talking wvw and dungeons there. You didn’t read the notes and you didn’t read my message I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t pay attention to anything about rangers over the last year.

First of all, I never mentioned 1v1 because it’s not a standard gametype. There are only a couple kinds of real 1v1 in this game:

• 1v1 on point
• 1v1 off point

The gvg and all the wvw 1v1 videos (sorry, Xsorsus, I do feel this way) are not really that interesting from a competitive point of view. So to me, your ideal 1v1 deathmatch is irrelevent. But let’s make it relevant for a moment. How many of you lost 1v1 fights in wvw before using regen/apothecary? Almost never? And would you all consider yourselves to be great players? I certainly wouldn’t call myself that and I won those fights too. Shouldn’t a 1v1 be skill dependent as opposed to build dependent? Yes! But it’s a team game built around capturing objectives so the 1v1 isn’t balanced and tested like a Halo or a Starcraft. Those are 1v1 games. This is a 5v5 game. Where’s the 5v5 guild vs guild battles? Why is it 1v1 or 20v20? And then, without satisfactory answers to these questions, we wonder why tpvp’ers make fun of us pve’ers. I’m just saying—1v1 and 20v20 require less skill than 5v5 which itself requires less skill than 5v5 plus objectives.

This is all very clear and we’ve known it since day 1.

This is actually one of the reasons I stopped making WvW videos. I stopped running my own build almost three weeks ago as well. Teamwork is much more difficult and skill-oriented than running around with a bunch of random red names who like to wear bag tonics.

The teamwork stuff is where the real interesting elements of GW2 are. Hopefully, despite all the bad things this patch did, it will allow us to be of more use in a group. I’ve already got a build that’s been accepted into my guild’s zerg-busting unit which was unthinkable before. So while a lot of rangers are angry at what has happened as a result to the “range” element of our class, we at least got one worth-while build (hopefully more will emerge as well) that can be used with a group.

I want to think of it as a starting point. It’s been 9 months, and this is our first chance. Build on this ANet, don’t leave us alone again without any viable alternatives to run. Stagnation is death.

We know about teamwork as we destroyed GH/GF when they roamed with 30+ constantly with SWaG and we were running all but 10-15 people in the group. When you get past 10+ in vs in WvW it becomes more aoe damage and CC on the spot moreso than any individual skill utility. It’s pointless as you’re just spamming at that point.

I’m talking about 1on1 situations though and the ranger took a huge hit if we even decide to go roam in WvW.

Not sure why you felt it was relevant to mention wiping my guild and then turn around saying you’re talking about 1v1s. Your reply has literally nothing to do with the quoted material :/

Shiren.9532:

Patches like this are why so many people hate nerfs

Patches like this will straight up make me quit a game…same thing happened in Planetside 2…every patch they buffed one thing then nerfed like 3 things which basically rendered the buffs useless. I got fed up with all the up and down kitten so i quit playing. This game is not far off for me and i’ve only been playing for a few months

Hey everyone, Birds still work well they didn’t take much of a hit in terms of damage. So I can see people using the 0/0/30/10/30 build allot still or even 0/0/30/20/20.

SB ranger nerf, lets face fact’s who here really is ever past 900 range fighting someone with short bow we are always rather close tbh.

Guy’s there are some new build being able to come out now, E.g LB/Spirits would be viable is setup right, I can’t say 100%.

Also We can perma regen/swiftness now, the Axe #4 is a mass pull so throw that into zerg and pull yourself 5 people.

Protect Me is now a very good skill to take.

The 5 seconds of might on crit to pet has no internal CD, I can avg around 7 might stacks at all times on my pet while in combat. So add that with pet swap trait that’s a good 9-10 might stacks on your pet.

Also use drakes if your doing group PvP, they do AoE weakness and there F2 is Aoe and they have blast finishers, which in makes your stupid birds/cats before patch rather dumb in terms of team support.

Axe chill skill has a 8 second weakness, so add that with duel drakes which might stack off fire fields, I don’t know do the maths its some power stuff.

Well I’m glad to see we now have another forums cleansing by ANet.
Quickly, delete all the threads about people expressing their unhappiness!

It’s so sad this has to happen again…

…not really. You brought it upon yourselves. Have fun forum mods.

Im honestly baffled… i cant express my disappointment right now… Is there someone at Anet listening to this?

The only ANet guy I know hasn’t even logged on for three months ;(

Personally, I am extremely unhappy with this patch. I have 4 lvl 80 classes, but I rarely have played anything but Ranger in the last 6 months. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I might try to rebuild around the longbow, but I could also quit the class. I was expecting a lot more to be done to actually help us. Nerfing pet damage doesn’t even register on my radar because the point still stands that a dead pet is completely worthless, and with the AI and lack of control we have over the pets it all just seems pointless. 50% increase or decrease of 0 still equals 0. Why would I keep battling a mechanic that takes so much of my damage and usefulness out of my hands?

Aden Celeste.3650:

Im honestly baffled… i cant express my disappointment right now… Is there someone at Anet listening to this?

Yes.

And laughing all the way to the bank. And they will continue to until we hit them where it hurts and force them to listen. We should all stop buying gems and spending money on thier store.

Shiren.9532:

Bran.7425:

Remember Anet is taking baby step I expect that they will not be happy with ranger performance in sPvP/tPvP and further nerf the pet, and which ever build shuffle into those modes of play.

You call the across the board nerfs on ranger pet DPS, a 25% decrease in range on a weapon that wasn’t OP in any format (nor was it even the primary high end PvP weapon) and the DPS nerf on crossfire baby steps?

The worst part about most of these updates is that these steps are moving away from good PvE ranger builds. Ranged weapons are increasingly becoming worse (they already perform worse than melee weapons) and pet survivability in dungeons has never been solved and only once have they done anything to it (which didn’t make them durable enough in PvE, made them too durable in PvP and resulted in a DPS nerf in both – kittening clueless these guys are).

They have no kittening clue what they are doing with the ranger class. They made a class centred around an AI companion without building an AI capable of handling PvE (combat oriented around dodge, pets which don’t dodge and don’t account for the inability to dodge) or building a class which interacts with the companion. As it stands, the pet is a giant balance resource leech on the ranger with very little interplay for the ranger to use.

At this rate I expect them to admit within three years time that an AI companion class was a mistake with their vision for GW2 and preventing it from hurting their vision resulted in killing the class in the process.

Even patches like this one, which look at a weapon that is very unpopular (the longbow) don’t solve the problem by making that weapon better and fixing its problem, it does it by making the alternative (the shortbow) worse, despite the shortbow not being overpowered in any way. The topic is right, the class is broken and has no direction, the devs made a mistake by making an AI component a core part of it because they are clearly unwilling to invest the time and resources into making it work and the end result is the class suffering.

Yes I do I think that the original plan was probably much worst and someone got them to step it back a bit. I stand by the idea that the pets are going to take another hit relatively soon, either directly to themselves or by adding an internal cool down that limits the might stacking on companion’s might.

Pedra.4381:

Aden Celeste.3650:

Im honestly baffled… i cant express my disappointment right now… Is there someone at Anet listening to this?

Yes.

And laughing all the way to the bank. And they will continue to until we hit them where it hurts and force them to listen. We should all stop buying gems and spending money on thier store.

We spent money on the gem store out of our free will. I seriously loved this game and I bought almost all their stuff (spent 700$ so far i think). But Im not sure if they are playing a ranger class…

Thats it… never mind, I will leave the game for a while, and play other things. There’s a world of games out there that I haven’t even played yet because GW2 took most of my time.

NemesiS.6749:

so what to do now with my shortbow? What to do now with the ranger in wvw?

It might salvage for a few ectos. To build yourself a longbow or an Axe. :p

My ranger’s always been sword/torch and axe/axe and used devourer pets because they stay and range and rarely get killed while adding in conditions.

Patch seems neutral to maybe a slight buff for me – need to go over my build tonight and see in detail.

The pet damage reduction seems to be designed to make the class need pets less. For bow users there is a compensating speed and damage boost. For others – all kinds of trait and skill changes that may or may not make up the difference… Need to examine it to find out.

I stacked 20 might on my dog in wvw a few minutes ago, with 20 in BM it hit for 850-900 with a crit. It hit so much without 20 might before. Or are Dolyaks just super tough?

They nerfed pretty much every pet’s normal attack.

Welcome to Ranger. Where half the buffs are in the form of nerfing the other options.

Quite frankly the people in charge of balancing should be fired. We have been waiting how long now since the original Shortbow nerf, sorry bug fix, for the promised buffs to come to our utilities and weapons? This was the patch where it should have happened. Trait changes, new traits, massive weapon rebalancing and new conditions across all classes with the aim in mind to bring about greater build diversity. This should have been the promised patch for Rangers but what do we get? Our damage is gutted across the board to stop one powerful build in sPvP. Range for shortbow is shortened for no reason then to make the crappy Longbow look better in comparison. none of the Spirits problems are addressed and the closest thing to added group support are two mediocre boons being applied by our shouts if we invest 30 points into it. And considering 2 out of the 3 shouts that would be usefull in a build utilizing that trait are focused on using your pet to attack enemies they got a massive nerf anyway. To top it off lots of other classes got buffs making the gap between Ranger and everybody else even wider.

Well thats it balancing team you had your chance. Rangers are in the worst state they have ever been and really a lot of the changes to other classes make no sense. You have officially proven you can’t do your job. Anet should do what every good company does and get rid of its inept employees that are dragging it down.

Rangers favor bows? That seems off says ArenaNet balancing staff; better nerf the range just to be sure.

Taking the range out of Ranger. ©

You thought it was hard to get in to groups for dungeons before? Well guess what now you’re presence wont even be acknowledge. I get people asking me about my class before letting me join and ignore me when i say im a ranger.

I loved the ranger even before i stepped into beta weekends but now i m just totally done with it. Even after nearly a year Anet still has no clue what to do or where to go with this proffesion.
And thus:

R.I.P.
Rosebank
L80 Ranger

Played this game to play Ranger. With these changes, that is pointless.
I’m gone and so is my money!

Tomek.2796:

I wish I rolled a different class more than ever. I only have a small amount of time to play games, and I unluckily picked a Ranger in this one. I’m not gonna redo content so I’m just gonna move onto the next game.

I just told a guildy by phone that I wish I didn’t do the legendary long bow kudzu on this character, or get the commander book, or all those ascended pieces with this character. I wont re-roll any class either.

Im done.

I seem to be one of the few who are happy with the patch in general for rangers. Sure, they still need to touch up weapons other than longbow, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. As for pets, I don’t see the big idea, since the AI is far from reasonably functional still – they’re going to have to keep looking at pets regardless. Better weapons and AI in the future in exchange for a bit of pet damage? I mean, when my raven died from falling damage yesterday, I stopped caring what this update would do for pets. It’s a step forward to creating a working ranger.

Disclaimer: I didn’t say pet AI was fixed YET (afaik it wasn’t touched). Only that the fact that it wasn’t makes pet damage irrelevant so far as yet.

Zaith.9132:

I seem to be one of the few who are happy with the patch in general for rangers. Sure, they still need to touch up weapons other than longbow, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. As for pets, I don’t see the big idea, since the AI is far from reasonably functional still – they’re going to have to keep looking at pets regardless. Better weapons and AI in the future in exchange for a bit of pet damage? I mean, when my raven died from falling damage yesterday, I stopped caring what this update would do for pets. It’s a step forward to creating a working ranger.

Disclaimer: I didn’t say pet AI was fixed YET (afaik it wasn’t touched). Only that the fact that it wasn’t makes pet damage irrelevant so far as yet.

lol…yea…I remember when my Bird died from falling damage from the first time..

Ahhh Anet…they sure know how to fail…