Guild Wars 2

Was just watching the state of the game and Jon Sharp says, ranger pets dps will be coming down and that pets do to much damage right now.
Didnt say when, they did say there is an upcoming balance patch.

Source:
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2359016

About 53:39 into video.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This will be just dandy for PvE rangers who already were competing for group spots against warriors and thieves.

Hahahaha , aw kitten

thats a terrible idea imo..It will be good with a dmg boost in Rangers but i highly doubt it

Hopefully he means they’ll swing the balance of power more into the ranger, and that we’ll have more control over our pet attributes.

…sigh.

If they’re doing an actual comprehensive balance patch that takes a look at all aspects of the class, then good. But I’m not going to get too excited one way or another until I can actually read a list of changes, not just one out of what will presumably be many.

Pets already die too fast too often in pve/dungeons in most cases…and this on top of it?

Unless they compensate with some sort of huge aoe damage reduction (lol)

In pvp i wouldnt mind that much..If we can have some changes in weapons,more access in might stacks so we can bring out some occasionally dmg.But in pve this will be devastating.Pets die a lot and we are losing a huge part of our gameplay..

Did this all come to light because of bunkers?

Yup, BM bunker QQ.

Nevermind that that build and to a lesser extent trapper were our only viable builds.

So when my conditions keep getting cleared by guardians or eles or engineers on a team fight my pressure can drop literally to 0 after a nerf to a pet that can only hit one target at a time and struggles to hit a target while being kited or mindlessly walking over a frost field.

“In pvp i wouldnt mind that much..If we can have some changes in weapons,more access in might stacks so we can bring out some occasionally dmg.But in pve this will be devastating.Pets die a lot and we are losing a huge part of our gameplay..”

This will be devastating to alot of areas, WvW , PvE , and all non-bm AND bm builds suffer from this even if they don’t go bunker which is the main issue. The problem is, when you nerf pet dmg ,you’re not just penalizing bunker builds, you’re penalizing ALL ranger builds. If they do nerf pet damage, they have to compensate it with some damage on the ranger’s end. Simply nerfing pet damage without even working on the pet ai/pathing will be nothing but a smack in the face to all rangers, we’ll definitely have to see how this plays out.

I don’t think we will se more power added to the ranger. They said that since pets are now more reliable their damage will be nerfed.

Reliable? Since when? With the melee archetype change my pet actually hits less now in wvw since it tries to get behind an opponent before hitting many times.

I want some of what they are smoking….seriously.

No way this is the dumbest kitten I ever heard so now I’m supposed to have a pet that can’t hit his target (if he knows how to move) wich was only justified since you could have such burst in the pet to now having a pet that can’t burst or hit his target? really?

I don’t think I’m the only one feeling this but I never asked to have a pet that bursts twice as good as myself I would love to tone their damage down somewhat IF you allow me to do more of it and give me the ability to control damage output better instead of have it hijacked by an NPC I am forced to have, they already nerfed Jaguar burst several times too.

PsionicDingo.2065:

Did this all come to light because of bunkers?

This is what I assumed as well. I wouldn’t be against the change if they take the damage away from the pet and invest it directly in the ranger, otherwise they’re just reducing our DPS. The bunker build is admittedly overbearingly strong on account of how much DPS the pets represent in the class equation. I’m sorry guys, but you shouldn’t be able to spec for pure bunker survival, enjoy our wealth of evasions and insane mobility, and still get massive player-finishing DPS in the same package. However, if that is a problem with the ranger, then it’s only on account of how much is fundamentally wrong with the pets themselves. They account for 50% and quite likely more of our total potential DPS in spite of the fact that in PvE they’re worthless half the time due to aggressive and overwhelming AoE. They’re dead for an entire minute and a few of our class functions such as condition pulling put the pets in harm as well. But who cares about dungeons, right??? I’m being sarcastic but truthfully it only makes us terrible situational DPS and nothing more. These problems aren’t an issue in SPvP or roaming in W3, however. Pets in this element are formidable opponents who are often hard to counter, especially when the ranger is stacking control conditions. Basically, there has never been a good reason outside of dungeons or W3 zerging to invest in the ranger itself for direct damage output – especially when the developers themselves stated that as rangers we’re forced to play around our class mechanic. “Bonding with our pets” and all that sort of nonsense. But it means that the ranger itself suffers with insignificance in gameplay.

Simply put, there are overwhelming diminishing returns and crappy coefficients with power that it makes it practically worthless for the ranger to spec into damage. It’s a losing battle to try and shift the damage output to the ranger side of the class. Believe me, I’ve tried. We can spec for condition damage and duration and stack cripples, poison, and bleeding while our pets go for the kill for us. It’s that or nothing. What else is there? Trapping? Just a variation of the same build except perhaps the only one where the ranger we play actually gets to command a larger portion of the damage in a fight. Anyways, it’s ridiculous but that’s how they wanted the game for us rangers… and yet now they’re finally nerfing the pet damage. Can you make up your minds, ANet?

Hopefully they do indeed review the overall balance of the class and adjust the perimeters and traits as necessary to bring more player-directed output to the ranger itself. The class sorely needs it and it would go a long way towards giving a sense of purpose and significance to the action behind the mechanics that the player gets to ACTUALLY CONTROL. We shouldn’t simply be forced into a build that sets up opponents for our pets to take down. However… this is Anet after all. Keep your fingers crossed but don’t get your hopes up either. They do good some of the time (greatsword balancing + lightning reflexes cooldown reduction) but it’s like Russian roulette. Who knows what is going to happen. :-[

Yes please, delete the pet altogether or just rename us beastmasters. Atleast profession name wouldn’t be so misleading. Just to save heartache and nerves of future potential ranger players.

Yeah right.

Pigs, Bears, Moas, Devourers, Spiders and Canines all did waaaay to much dmg.

I guess I’ll be hanging my Ranger back on the shelf then and go back to my Guardian.

Nerfing the damage my pet does? But… my whole build is centered around the damage my pet does. I’m just support for my pet at this point. And its not even that high anyway, I sure as heck am not outdamaging Warriors or really any other profession.

I really hope this is a PvP change and not an across-the-board nerf.

After playing some BM ranger, I find my pet still doesn’t do a huge percent of my damage in many cases. My pets hit hard, definitely out dpsing me by a good amount against stationary targets. Against moving targets, their dps is cut by something like 70%, which shifts the balance a lot. In general, I still do a fair amount more than my pet in most cases, though my pet provides most of my burst (it’s pretty pathetic burst by most standards, but awesome for the amount of survivability I have). If pet damage comes down 10% for BM builds, I wouldn’t mind. It should not come down globally though.

It will come down globally, or how do you propose pet damage be cut down only for BM bunkers but not for the rest?

Marksman is a garbage tree until 30 major trait, Skirmishing is only good up to 20, WS is pretty bad at 10 but starts getting great at 15+, and NM is only good for bunkers with 20 points at most.

BM is only there mostly for the shorter pet swap and the pet stats — the traits are uniformly bad — some less bad than others but still bad nonetheless with the exception of vigor for bird switch and bleeding for jaguars/drakes.

But somehow we got a single spec that is apex 1v1 and it upsets people. You never hear complaints about Guardians despite the fact that they are the most broken class in the game, being the backbone of any team in any format — they are second only in demand to warriors in PvE, the best WvW class by far, and the undisputed center bunker and team fight utility king.

But because they don’t dominate duels people don’t complain.

I really hope if they do this that they adjust our damage output. Lower the pet’s damage by 10% and give it to the Rangers. There, no more complaining about the pet, you’re complaining about the Ranger.

Zenith.7301:

It will come down globally, or how do you propose pet damage be cut down only for BM bunkers but not for the rest?

Marksman is a garbage tree until 30 major trait, Skirmishing is only good up to 20, WS is pretty bad at 10 but starts getting great at 15+, and NM is only good for bunkers with 20 points at most.

BM is only there mostly for the shorter pet swap and the pet stats — the traits are uniformly bad — some less bad than others but still bad nonetheless with the exception of vigor for bird switch and bleeding for jaguars/drakes.

But somehow we got a single spec that is apex 1v1 and it upsets people. You never hear complaints about Guardians despite the fact that they are the most broken class in the game, being the backbone of any team in any format — they are second only in demand to warriors in PvE, the best WvW class by far, and the undisputed center bunker and team fight utility king.

But because they don’t dominate duels people don’t complain.

This.

Zenith.7301:

It will come down globally, or how do you propose pet damage be cut down only for BM bunkers but not for the rest?

They could actually change the BM bonus (currently +10 pet stats per point). I doubt it though. In general I would be fine with such a change. But I hate how they do this nerf but do nothing about the crappy pets nobody ever uses. Moas and pigs for example. Moas should add more vulnerability stacks and the heal should be more predictable to use for the player. Pig F2 is just horribly designed. It is not only random but also very awkward to use. Cast, hope it succeeds, pick up, cast. I mean wtf Arenanet … just add the random weapon to the player instantly or rework it completly.

The thing is, damage/berserker builds for rangers use BM because the pet is such a huge proportion of their damage, and outside the 10% with full endurance and flanking damage bonuses from the other lines, no other line gives the ranger as much a damage boost as investing into BM does.

Even in full berserker the pet is easily 40-50% my damage.

And all pets except jaguar and to a lesser extent raven do horrendous damage combined with the ranger relative to the warriors/thieves they’re competing against for dungeon spots.

Moas, pigs, dogs, and especially the ranged pets do really bad damage for how much damage we give up on our weapons.

Saw this Nerf Coming a mile away. Kitten good day Rangers

Hahaha wow……How is this even a kittening problem? I run into maybe 1 Ranger an hour in WvW and most of the time its running a power build and just dies…

I swear the guys are Anet all just run thieves and as soon as something looks like it may be able to contend with that class they nerf the absolute kitten out of it so they can still run around and press 2 buttons>Invis

Btw my pet hasn’t been hitting kitten lately because people know whats up…..So all this means is the class will be going back to how it was when the game came out

Outatime.5183:

Hahaha wow……How is this even a kittening problem? I run into maybe 1 Ranger an hour in WvW and most of the time its running a power build and just dies…

I swear the guys are Anet all just run thieves and as soon as something looks like it may be able to contend with that class they nerf the absolute kitten out of it so they can still run around and press 2 buttons>Invis

Btw my pet hasn’t been hitting kitten lately because people know whats up…..So all this means is the class will be going back to how it was when the game came out

I can see where this game is going to be in a year for now lol. Everybody ready for this:
Warriors: 2 shot class
Mesmers: 2 shot class
Thieves: 2 shot class
Engineers: AoE annoyance class
Elementalists: AoE annoyance with high evasion
Rangers: High evasion, no ability to kill
Necromancers: AoE annoyance, hard to kill
Guardians: Unkillable by solo players

With 20 BM, 30% crit dmg from pet prwoess, and Jag with 25 stacks of masters bond (which i do run in wvwvw) the pet hits hard. W/o I don’t see an issue.

Rofl….His answer the the question is frankly moronic..

A. They didn’t improve the BM Bunker Builds ability to stay in the fight in any of the past few patches, In fact the Ranger has been nerfed multiple times in that regard. The only builds that have gained in this are the Maul Signet Builds which aren’t actually BM Bunker.

B. I’ve been running this build since early November when I made it, and now magically pets are eatting people’s faces off? Despite the fact that Pet damage hasn’t increased? Please…Lets call this what it is, a nerf based on the fact a bunch of baddies in SPvP haven’t figured out what people in World vs World figured out month’s ago.

C. There is a reason rangers run these high dps pets..Because most of the other pets are god awful no matter what build you run. I’m not going to run a Pig/Moa/Devour/Bear because they don’t offer anything, What utility have is a pain in the kitten to use most of the time.. in Devour’s case its damage is so god awful that i’m better off with pretty much every other pet even if it has a chance of dying.

Exactly my point, viable builds have been around with no changes to the rangers pet damage or their bunker ability in any recent patches. But now, just because some spvp esport nerds wanna have a kitten and can cap points and be a little strudier than some other guys, it’s a serious problem.

I dont understand why the kitten sotg or game balance is based off these esport kids who only favor spvp, and the entire game is based off whats good in team vs team comp, not how it even affects players in wvwv. My pet is not OP, if your going to reduce the damge, at least fix the kitten pathing.

You guys are getting your panties in a bunch. You dont know how this nerf will happen. You guy are like little kids crying before you get your whoppen. Why don’t you enjoy the time you have and cry after you get your spanking. Start documenting you dps now for comparison later. It may come with buffs to other area’s so just wait and see.

Because they are talking about nerfing pet dmg when it wasn’t really increased to begin with, now that these newly discovered “bunker” builds are viable in spvp, and the players are complaining, it’s all of a sudden a problem.

Not reallya matter of how/when it will happen, it will still be a nerf w/o any fixes to the class.

They could easily lower Ranger BM Bunker damage without a nerf..

By offering us something besides DPS pets…

Imagine if Pigs with their god awful DPS worked like Thief Steal…I would use those pets… They have great utility….And I would gladly take a DPS nerf to use that utility…However the way they work…I will never touch them.

Same with MOA’s….I might consider it a MOA if it didn’t have crappy utility and a heal I can’t control.

Devourer…If this was a condition pet..I would probably use it over maybe a Bursting DPS pet.

You can’t just implement a half kitten Pet system like Anet, and expect us to not pick the only viable pets.

Yeah the most frustrating thing about sotg is that the only ranger nugget that gets dropped is this stupid nerf. Also I know it has been said before, but it’s pretty annoying that neither the devs or the players that sit there and discuss the game actually seem to play ranger. Or have any real knowledge of the class. Get Hrouda in on one of these sometime. He’s the only dev that seems interested in this class.

If they do end up nerfing pet dmg significantly they better compensate. Give all pets a cleave on all their attacks. Or at least one for each pet. Instant cast f2 skills. Improve the pathing more so they connect more often. Let us get more utility out of them through traits. Especially the traits that aren’t in BM line.

Also it’d be nice to see more interaction between weapon skills and pets. More skills like Crippling Shot or Hunter’s Shot or Hilt Bash or Winter’s Bite.

Kitten

Is this an spvp only change? Or are they still not splitting between game types.

Legacy.7360:

Saw this Nerf Coming a mile away. Kitten good day Rangers

Thief?

Serraphin Storm.2369:

You guys are getting your panties in a bunch. You dont know how this nerf will happen. You guy are like little kids crying before you get your whoppen. Why don’t you enjoy the time you have and cry after you get your spanking. Start documenting you dps now for comparison later. It may come with buffs to other area’s so just wait and see.

i second this

It really is messed up that the ranger community has given countless amounts of evidence on why the pet ai is bad, pet f2, numerous weapons that need to be adjusted and fixed and much much more about the ranger and then the bads of pvp complain about pet dps just recently after a viable bunker pvp build gets surfaced (its been out for a while now ACTUALLY because nothing has changed with pet dps at all and its just become popular recently with the spectator mode because people can see what others run and it caught on) and that immediately gets attention? And the response from devs is dropping pet dps overall which not only penalizes bunker builds but pretty much all ranger builds because it’s not bunker specific it’s an actual overall class mechanic and will hurt everyone.

Lol , it’s really good to know where we stand as a voice within this game for our own class.

BUT on the other hand we’ll just have to see how this plays out though for sure, it could be dmg buffs on the actual ranger’s side to compensate or it could simply be a straight nerf. We’ll just have to see.

I dont mind a drop in pet damage but it should be compensated with pet utility + increased damage from the ranger weapons. Pet utility would include things like AoEs/Combo Fields, or something like the jaguar sharing its stealth with you, or otherwise making useless F2 functions actually decent.

I thought balance nerfs were suppose to be separated now? between PvE, PVP and WvW, wasn’t this a massive complaint the players are on about…

Yes sure Anet are listening…

If they nerf pet damage with no compensation to the ranger’s damage, I see a large ranger exodus coming ….

I’m a BM/bunker and any half-decent player can kite my pet around and not get hit. You can use cripple, chill, or anything else but the pet ai is still terrible to hit a decent player.

The last patch didn’t really do much to alter the BM/bunker build. It’s always been there.

When I fight BM/bunker all I do is cripple the pet and keep moving in a circle … the pet doesn’t bother me at all.

I wonder if some of this boils down to perception. People get embarrassed to be killed by a ranger for whatever reason. Since rangers are figuring out decent builds to work around the poor ai … people are complaining more. I’m speaking more about wvw. If this is a purely spvp thing … just fix the damage in that area of the game. I thought we were splitting things up in wvw / pve and pvp now anyway.

Ranger is basically a beastmaster and now they are nerfing our beast …

Sorry if this was rambling … I’m not happy about a pet nerf.

Dante.1508:

I thought balance nerfs were suppose to be separated now? between PvE, PVP and WvW, wasn’t this a massive complaint the players are on about…

Yes sure Anet are listening…

How do you know they aren’t going to separate it?

The comment everyone’s going nuts over was a single offhand remark in an hour-long podcast dedicated exclusively to sPvP. There was no discussion whatsoever of PvE or WvW.

They are not going to separate it. And quite frankly even if it did it would be an end to any sort of ranger representation in spvp because if the BM ranger is going to do similar damage to other bunkers, then why the hell would you bring one over a guardian or ele bunker?

The pet IS the ranger. There are no berserker rangers in spvp, no knight geared rangers — there are only trap rangers with rabid stats and the rest are healing power build bunkers because the ranger doesn’t have enough damage to play a fragile build, so he must win by sustained damage. You decrease that sustained damage, and there’s no point to the class anymore as the supposed tradeoff to not having the burst of other classes is having high sustained damage and survivability in turn. If our sustained damage will be made similar to other classes but we don’t bring burst or team utility, we are no longer desired for a spot over other classes with actual utility and killing power.

This is pretty stupid.

These kittens at anet don’t even know their own game! God, Camelot Unchained where are you?!?!?!?!

Lol kind of useless, we’re only so strong 1v1 because we can outlast anything, slightly reducing one of our damage sources wont change the fact that we can’t die, we’re still going to easy mode own 1v1 just now slightly slower.

If they want to make us not as uber 1v1 but still strong and viable they should hit our regen and use that to buff our pets not nerf them.

Daishi.6027:

Lol kind of useless, we’re only so strong 1v1 because we can outlast anything, slightly reducing one of our damage sources wont change the fact that we can’t die, we’re still going to easy mode own 1v1 just now slightly slower.

If they want to make us not as uber 1v1 but still strong and viable they should hit our regen and use that to buff our pets not nerf them.

This is true. Rangers tank batter than guardians in some cases. I often 3vs1 with Lucky Leaf
With pet dps taking a hit we need some other viable build option besides bm/regen ranger

Yeah, but you won’t be killing anyone as there is a fine line between being able to make a push for the kill before someone’s heal recharges and not being able to.

You can stall, but so can they. It’s why guardian bunkers are not very good at killing people. They may be immortal but they also tickle.