Guild Wars 2

I am finding the experience of playing a longbow ranger in WvW extremely frustrating due to constantly taking ridiculous amounts of damage from retaliation. It is near impossible to shoot anything most times without getting retaliation, and both rapid fire and barrage stack massive amounts of retaliation damage particularly if you have an aoe sigil and target a zerg. I try to pop troll unguent whenever hitting a zerg with barrage and even then retaliation will often outdamage my heals.

You can’t hit more than 5 players at a time with barrage but I have been killed by the massive damage caused by using barrage against zergs. At a minimum I experience 50 to 75 percent damage most times I use it. That is absolutely absurd. There has to be a hard limit on how much retaliation damage you can take from a particular attack.

Retaliation is a cheesy, counter-intuitive mechanic to begin with and really has no place in PVP games. When you shoot the enemy, he should take damage and not you. There is simply too much passive damage in this game that rewards people for standing mindlessly in a neat aoe-able ball and getting shot, rather than punishing them for making themselves an easy target.

It is bad enough we have to adapt an extremely squishy build to do any sort of damage at all, but do we really have to get reamed with retaliation on top of it?

Ranger isn’t good at gvg or zergs. While I agree that retaliation is a passive mechanic, Lb ranger itself isn’t what I would call skillfull or active play. It’s a rewarding and low skill based weapon, for a class not well designed for zergs.

I don’t think retaliation should be removed, maybe tweaked but not too much. What needs change is the ranger, and not the Lb. They need a weapon to FIT in zergs instead of just pewpew from 1500 and get rekt by thieves.

Retaliation hits directly against your health pool and ignores your Armour. This mechanic goes all the way back to GW1 where it was even more devastating, along with skills like Xinrae’s weapon. Be glad you don’t have to face Ritualists!

It’s hard to say without seeing your LB build, but you probably have too little HP for WvW. Try adding more hp with celestial or soldiers trinkets. You may want to bring protect me and signet of stone as well…

could try sylvan hound for 1k heal + some regen if you don’t have regen already.

To be honest I kind of wish retaliation only affected melee and non-reflectible attacks, but that’s just me as projectiles feel underwhelming compared to other ranged attack option and due to game design (or lack there of) melee stacking being king.

my only suggestion is don’t go full zerker in wvw and expect to live a long healthy life. i have never been troubled by retaliation in wvw, largely because i use tanky gear when I’m in and around large groups of people.

just remember dead players don’t do damage, gets some Pvt.

Oh, so something managed to hit you while you were at 2100 range? sucks.
(hint: play engi if you want to feel what retal is)

95 percent of the time I die in WvW it is due to being swarmed by the zerg, so PVT armor would be next to useless. All that does is kitten our already pathetic damage even further. I survive so long as the zerg I am in survives, but retaliation keeps me from being continuously in the fight. A bigger health pool just means you might get of an extra barrage or rapid fire before you have to withdraw and heal than you would without it. If you are not taking massive damage from retaliation you are not shooting at zergs or the opposing side is too inept to keep it up.

Of course, you can adapt a roamer build, which gives you okay survivability but crap damage and is useless for anything but roaming, which rarely occurs on my server anyway as we are always outnumbered.

My point is this is a crap mechanic that really hurts rangers due to the fact our two main shots, rapid fire and barrage, trigger so many procs of retaliation, plus whatever the aoe sigils proc. The idea you should have to adopt a particular build or use a particular pet just to counter this one mechanic is proof of how badly it affects us. I am already wasting my troll unguent on it. What more do I have to do to accommodate this poorly thought out mechanic?

It also hurts small groups fighting against larger zergs as those zergs will tend to have more retaliation going for longer than the smaller groups. It is a mechanic that encourages and rewards mindless zergs and incompetent play while severely punishing the one class that hit zergs from a long distance.

My experience never drop a barrage on the head of a zerg , create Stragglers using Barrage + muddy terrain , maybe Draken hound or Wolf/spider.

you’ll take less Retail damage and create openings for spikes, use Rf against targets that don’t run and hide in the ball , you can Slow down / split a group of players off using muddy terrains ect then proceed to single target down one of them using Autos+RF Gradually you’ll be damaging that group you split off and down a few if they return to help res , if the Zerg passes over your target (oh well can’t be helped) move onto a different target and repeat.

apart from that just keep trying , its hard to master while fighting zergs with Retailiation.

Rangers do not have 2100 range, our attacks are easily dodged, we have to use three traits to get 1500 range and have a chance of hitting anything and our pets routinely run 50 feet ahead of us when we stop and die in seconds in any kind of aoe. It takes a minute to rez a dead pet. Our pet abilities routinely fail or go off at the wrong time so it’s pure luck when they actually work.

You do squat for damage unless you go full glass cannon at which point anyone in the game can three-shot you.

Cuchullain.3104:

Rangers do not have 2100 range, our attacks are easily dodged, we have to use three traits to get 1500 range and have a chance of hitting anything and our pets routinely run 50 feet ahead of us when we stop and die in seconds in any kind of aoe. It takes a minute to rez a dead pet. Our pet abilities routinely fail or go off at the wrong time so it’s pure luck when they actually work.

You do squat for damage unless you go full glass cannon at which point anyone in the game can three-shot you.

not constructive at all instead of relying on your damage alone to kill someone , Prep a target or help some people by slowing thier targets , be it a Immobo or even a pets wolf (swap leap KD) Rangers do an amazing job of preventing people from Returning to the zerg balls when they are Seperated, and if they fail at downing the target they can Escape just as easy if they get focused (excluding a Zerg Bulldosing you into the ground).

when Retailiation becomes a factor in zerg fighting. its all about Hp management/ choosing targets/supporting other players with Ranged CC’s rather than Bombing Aoes into a heavy concentraited area.

Muddy terrain 5 targets
Barrage 5 targets
Entangle 5 targets
drake hound 5 Targets
it can average 12-15 targets if you spread out your CC’s during a push against the tail of a zerg and its possiable to do this atleast every 48secs per full Bomb and every 30secs for a 3/4 CC bomb.

i’d gladly take a hit in power to effectively remove upto 5-8 players (if they don’t CC clear or stun break) and those stun breaks don’t effect immobo so most of the time you just force people to use the stun break poorly.

if they use their condi clears while seperated from the bulk of the zerg , the amount of CC will quickly put those skills on cooldown , if they don’t wait it out till the optitune moment but by then other players will have noticed and procced to help you slaughter the targets.

Your comments are not constructive at all. I responded accurately to the point being made. We are discussing how retaliation effects rangers, not how some of our abilities can be used to cc opponents, which I think we all realize by this point. What you fail to mention is all those cc effects also proc retaliation, and aside from barrage and pets require you to be in proximity to the enemy which you usually don’t want to be if you’re a lb ranger. Drakes like all pets die too quick and all pet F2 abilities are too slow and unreliable to be of any consistent use. There have been enough complaints from people who understand the class on these issues so I won’t rehash them here.

The primary reason to fire a barrage at a zerg is to slow some of them and cause them to separate while doing some damage, yet you say don’t “drop a barrage on the head of a zerg.” This is precisely where you want to put it but you get destroyed by retaliation if you do. You suggest hitting the tail as if no one in the tail has retaliation.

You’re just rattling off a list of our abilities while denying the fact that retaliation makes all of those abilities difficult to use and certainly not in the sequential order you suggest. The ranger lb ranger is not “amazing” at anything. The rangers cc can be useful but it pails in comparison to other classes, as does its damage and survivability, all of which are severely compromised by the crappy suicide mechanics of this game. My staff elementalist is amazing and extremely versatile at delivering slows, stuns and cripples as well as heals, damage and buffs. She has incredible survivability. She does ok damage and retaliation is never an issue for her.

Maybe you should play your elementalist then if you are not willing to learn to play your ranger properly?

All this posts like ‘get more hp, get more healing power’ are insufficient against Seafarer’s rest. Their playstyle has been for ages to stack perma retaliation on the whole zerg. If you find someone without retal, it’s a rare occassion. This makes it for thiefs, ranger and engineer incredible hard to get on ground to counter the retaliation. Ranger is worst imo because of the heals. The heals aren’t bad, but healing spring has to long cd, (if you just look at your personal healing and not the support it gives), and TU is about as good as it should be, problem is other professions have similar healing skills, but have support skills on top of it (ele), ranger has nothing extra to heal himself except the sylvan hound wich is unreliable. Or you must sacrafice a lot for regen/Signet of wild build (and then your damage is to low to even go against a retaliation zerg).

Also a big part of issue is that they BUFFED retaliation. I think they still don’t realize they did, cause it was like this at launch, then they nerfed it (like they should), now it’s back 300 strikes rather then 180-200 damage per strike. (and even 200 damage per strike is questionable powerfull, if you look how much damage guardians can absorb (and send back) before they die.

It’s one of the reasons i’m playing wvw less and less. Retaliation is the most op strategy (and the most lazy one). Boon removal is a non argument. To few around, it’s chance based, to long cooldowns, and to fast renewals of the boons.

“Maybe you should play your elementalist then if you are not willing to learn to play your ranger properly?”

Maybe you should troll somewhere else.

I understand what you are saying but its Retal if its buffed on a zerg its unavoidable unless you want to stop damaging.

the CC’s comming from the ranger Excluding barrage, deal very little damage and are only 1 use skills , like muddy terrain and entangle (is indirect damage so it won’t effect you)

yes the damage from Retal was buffed because of the amount of rangers anet predicted would increase so the best counter in WvW to keep rangers under control was to improve retal , since zerg balls have Self sustaining hp gain while rangers sitting away in smaller groups have less hp gain, making retal overpower them.

all true, what happens when you get a Retal blob fighting a retal blob not much.
fight a power/high burst blob vs a retal blob = death for the burst blob.
feel sorry for lower servers , i;ve face seafarers a long while ago and yes its not nice facing that amount of retal , but i managed to peel targets down enough to reduce the amount of retal hits i’ll be taking.

from what i’ve read you have a problem with retaliation rather than Rangers themselfs being incapable of dealing direct damage against these foes,
as that is the main source of damage rangers deal in for WvW.

though just running Condi specs vs these seperated targets might be slow and not enough to get them downed before they return to the ball , it’ll allow you to stack damage at the cost of hitting them less taking less retal damage.

apart from anet nurfing retaliation back to 180-200 , all you can do is peel targets and reduce your Hit boxes vs Retal booned targets.

Cuchullain.3104:

“Maybe you should play your elementalist then if you are not willing to learn to play your ranger properly?”

Maybe you should troll somewhere else.

No can do because I’m not trolling. If you seriously think doing a barrage on top of a buffed up zerg is a good idea it just means you are a prime candidate for natural deselection. Judging by the posts you made.. Viva la evolution!

“No can do because I’m not trolling. If you seriously think doing a barrage on top of a buffed up zerg is a good idea it just means you are a prime candidate for natural deselection. Judging by the posts you made.. Viva la evolution!”

Yes, you are trolling, first with the L2P comments and now with juvenile insults.

Where else are you supposed to use aoe except against large groups? That is what aoe is for but retaliation punishes you for using it for its intended purpose. The ONLY way to avoid retaliation is to not shoot at large groups and that is pretty dumb. Even for single targets you cannot afford to wait around for 12 seconds waiting for retaliation to go away while someone is hammering on you or a teammate.

It’s a stupid mechanic, and anyone who can’t see this obvious fact shouldn’t be hurling insults at others like he is some kind of authority. If you can’t see the tactical need to sacrifice your health bar from time to time due to this crap mechanic in order to support the team, then I am not the one who needs to “l2p.”

You need to use Apothecary in this situation. They are using a resistance spec and killing you with minor malice and minor brutality. Apothecary counters both. They will have quite a bit of defense against conditions, through combo fields, shouts, and utilities so it will be a long fight. There is no easy way to cheese them down, but apothecary stats will give you the advantage.

Brutality is armor affected attacks (Power, Precision, Crit Dmg)
Malice is armor ignoring attacks (Condition Damage, life stealing, retaliation, precision)
Purity is the counter to malice (vitality, healing power)
Resistance is the counter to Brutality (Toughness, Healing, Vitality)

Even without the retaliation they would squash you because Resistance builds overpower brutality builds. Also use life stealing and retaliation, they have no counter to this, as well.

Retaliation shouldn’t ignore armor.

If they change that, I’d feel that people wouldn’t have such an issue with it.

And I agree with OP. We shouldn’t be forced into CC roles just because our aoe’s proc retal 1000 times.

I’m glad you die by Retaliation. This is coming from my main, a Guardian. In fact, I also find it rather amusing when ignorant Rangers continue to shoot when I have my Wall of Reflection up. Quick JI or Leap and the Ranger is usually dead. Ignorance is bliss my friend but treat it as a learning experience.

My wise crack aside my secondary character is a Ranger so I know how you feel. But since my main is a Guardian I know when to use, and not use, Rapid fire or any burst for that matter when facing some classes or zergs. This, in my opinion, is one key to life or death that we all must learn. I run my Ranger in our zerg and have no issue with it but then again I’m not b@lls out running rapid fire on every cool down. In fact, it is just the opposite.

I run traps and throw them around like skittles falling out of the sky. It helps slow them down while we collide with their zerg and prevents them from turning so we gain a bit distance. One ranger, two, etc. Then after we pass through toss a few more, swap weapon sets, lay down some fire, swap weapons again, toss a trap or two, then entangle, AOE, and then only then, do I use rapid fire. Plenty of low health targets around to nuke with Rapid Fire.

Can’t have everything. Enjoy the RF change. I for one love it and have zero issues with it regardless of what class I’m on.

FrouFrou.4958:

Cuchullain.3104:

“Maybe you should play your elementalist then if you are not willing to learn to play your ranger properly?”

Maybe you should troll somewhere else.

No can do because I’m not trolling. If you seriously think doing a barrage on top of a buffed up zerg is a good idea it just means you are a prime candidate for natural deselection. Judging by the posts you made.. Viva la evolution!

+1

We also call it Thinning the Herd.

Hmm weird I never noticed any retaliation on my Axe-condi ranger :/

So in other words, don’t shoot until after you throw traps, run through the zerg, use entangle, then use aoe and rapid fire.

I can see where this “strategy” would avoid doing any serious dps while getting you gibbed constantly unless you are in a massive zerg ball that routinely steamrollers smaller groups, at which point retaliation and pretty much everything else doesn’t matter. I am failing to see how you avoid retaliation doing this, other than by not shooting anyone, since it is up near 100 percent of the time against the enemies my always outnumbered server faces.

The tactical situation often requires you to shoot at the enemy even when you KNOW they have retaliation up. That so many here don’t seem to get this pretty much disqualifies any opinion they have on ranger play.

But at least you have the honesty to admit you’re a guardian and benefit from the retaliation cheezfest.

Retal is the natural enemy of wvw rangers. A barrage can kill you as a piercing rapid fire. Rangers do a lot of little phisycal dmg. Thieves and eles do big ones.

Vikkela.7261:

Hmm weird I never noticed any retaliation on my Axe-condi ranger :/

only hits 3 targets + the basis of the build has enough regn from boons (if you have some) to obsorb those 3 hits.
let alone troll ugent isn’t overpowered by retal for main hand axe.

Cuchullain.3104:

“Maybe you should play your elementalist then if you are not willing to learn to play your ranger properly?”

Maybe you should troll somewhere else.

Yeah you tell him op. Clearly it is a much better idea to barrage into a retal zerg instead of trying to separate and pick off the back line. I mean yeah you are sacrificing your life but you probably nailed a bunch of them for a few hundred damage each! That contributes way more to the fight then taking out the glassy heavy hitters.

I use the same strategy when someone runs reflection. If I see them pop reflection I immediately rapid fire into them to kill myself because reflection is cheesy and I don’t think it should exist.

Don’t listen to the haters, you know what you are doing. I mean you have probably been maining your ranger for a good solid month since the change to rapid fire, I’m sure you’ve got it mastered.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

only hits 3 targets + the basis of the build has enough regn from boons (if you have some) to obsorb those 3 hits.
let alone troll ugent isn’t overpowered by retal for main hand axe.

Yeah I was just joking, I’m just trying to point out that it’s only a problem if you go full DPS on someone with retaliation while you are squishy yourself. I find confusion and torment much worse

Cuchullain.3104:

So in other words, don’t shoot until after you throw traps, run through the zerg, use entangle, then use aoe and rapid fire.

No, that is how I play. But if you honestly expect to live after you spot a enemy zerg stacking you reap what you sow. You know what they are doing ahead of time. Even if you didn’t see them and just found them while roaming, you should know better. That is why they are in a group after all.

I can see where this “strategy” would avoid doing any serious dps while getting you gibbed constantly unless you are in a massive zerg ball that routinely steamrollers smaller groups, at which point retaliation and pretty much everything else doesn’t matter. I am failing to see how you avoid retaliation doing this, other than by not shooting anyone, since it is up near 100 percent of the time against the enemies my always outnumbered server faces.

It isn’t about avoiding retaliation. It is more about knowing when to do what otherwise it is like peeing in the wind, yeah? Mitigation. You are actually better off working your way through the initial contact using your groups stability and other effects rather than going b@lls out. Then swap to your burst and mow them down.

The tactical situation often requires you to shoot at the enemy even when you KNOW they have retaliation up. That so many here don’t seem to get this pretty much disqualifies any opinion they have on ranger play.

See my comment about peeing in the wind. That is what you just described. If you want to use rapid fire when you know retaliation is up, or think it is up, more power to you. I wouldn’t. No more than I’d recommend you bursting when you see wall of reflection up.

But at least you have the honesty to admit you’re a guardian and benefit from the retaliation cheezfest.

Yes, my main is a Guardian but I also play a ranger. So I actually see both sides of your argument. We don’t agree, that is ok. I’m just offering some advise in how I deal with it by not going all in at first engagement. I have found it wiser to roll with the group I’m in then turn and engage or cleanup. It works for me. Maybe not for you.

Retaliation isn’t the problem though just like Rapid Fire isn’t when other classes complain about us Rangers.

If you really want to rapid fire & barrage into a Zerg of heavy armor, buffed with retaliation—and survive, you can equip “protect me” and a bear. You’ll have 6s to do whatever you want. The bear has more than enough HP to eat all the retaliation. I think signet of stone might give you another 6s…. Not sure though, I rarely have problems with retaliation in WvW.

Also conditions don’t proc retaliation once applied and keep on giving damage after applied… It’s really the obvious choice in this situation. In addition, conditions ignore all that armor, like it’s not even there… I do think a group of twenty heavies should be able to protect themselves from arrows if they choose… Don’t you think that is fair?

Retaliation killing rangers? What? I don’t run full glass in zergs (but I still only have 17k hp on ranger), but I rarely have trouble from retaliation when tossing meteors as ele or grenades as engie as long I don’t toss them into the stacking, buffing train. Compared to that , Rangers don’t even have that great AOE and killing yourself with rapid fire without any reflects is just silly.

The only point of interest is when you recklessly spam barrage into a stacking train in which case you deserve it. And yes, there’s a fire sigil in my bow.

Although retaliation ignoring armor is kinda silly…

ArchonWing.9480:

Retaliation killing rangers? What? I don’t run full glass in zergs (but I still only have 17k hp on ranger), …

I know you are aware of this but that 17k HP on your/our ranger is still more than on our Guardians

Just saying…

Crapgame.6519:

ArchonWing.9480:

Retaliation killing rangers? What? I don’t run full glass in zergs (but I still only have 17k hp on ranger), …

I know you are aware of this but that 17k HP on your/our ranger is still more than on our Guardians

Just saying…

Hmm… my guardian has slightly more hp, like 500.

(Okay, I lied; my ranger has 16932 hp because I switched my backpiece to one of those crafter ones and never updated link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjYD7kRFaYx+VwWQ4axA9B16HofDgm7w0y8f/gSGVTA-T1SBwA7U5I4+D4UH5qyvIKBRpZAvOgFXEAEmg08AAAcEAIDwyWA-w

Guardian…
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApfnNDxVI8DNRCBl1Mw+DPPEXHgLcAA-TFSBABBt/gZKBvS5Xlq/gnugFOEAacFAA4BAEAAB4m3MbezAHd5Gd5G9o1mH9mH9mlBYZLA-w

Though I’m using a food buff so the base would be 600 less. Of course, my ranger has much less vit gear and guardian invests in defensive lines as per the typical zerg builds so yea. :p

However, since I know that toughness does nothing vs retaliation now then I’d really not be that better off than a zerker ranger vs it. I guess that is sorta lame.

The scope of the issue is much more broad than just Retaliation (and WvW).

In general, rangers don’t handle boon maintaining/stacking mechanics on opponents very well.

It’s actually one of the main arguments I would give for why in a PvP environment, power builds on ranger aren’t top tier in effectiveness. They don’t have the boon handling capabilities of other typical power specs (thief, shatter mesmer) or the tanky capability of a warrior.

It’s easily one of the main things that has always pigeonholed ranger into running conditions in PvP. But conditions in WvW are generally mitigated by foods and by the group AoE cleansing brought by guardians and elementalists.

So the point I’m getting at in regards to the thread is; yes, it would be nice to have some sort of boon removal/punishment available to us. For issues with retaliation and beyond.

jcbroe.4329:

The scope of the issue is much more broad than just Retaliation (and WvW).

In general, rangers don’t handle boon maintaining/stacking mechanics on opponents very well.

It’s actually one of the main arguments I would give for why in a PvP environment, power builds on ranger aren’t top tier in effectiveness. They don’t have the boon handling capabilities of other typical power specs (thief, shatter mesmer) or the tanky capability of a warrior.

It’s easily one of the main things that has always pigeonholed ranger into running conditions in PvP. But conditions in WvW are generally mitigated by foods and by the group AoE cleansing brought by guardians and elementalists.

So the point I’m getting at in regards to the thread is; yes, it would be nice to have some sort of boon removal/punishment available to us. For issues with retaliation and beyond.

This is a great suggestion. I would love to have a boon removal option. There are so many times I see that one boon I want to get rid of (stability says hi) and can’t touch it…

Okay, I get it now. Retaliation really isn’t a problem for rangers, just me. I have been making the mistake of shooting at people in WvW.

I realize that if you use an aoe ability against multiple targets like it is designed for, you deserve everything you get. There is simply no time at which using aoe against a zerg is appropriate, so creating a mechanism that punishes you for doing so is perfectly reasonable. Large zergs are too weak and need more protection.

Guardians that have reflects, blocks, burns, heavy armor and the ability to outheal your damage while cc’ing you in place and three-shotting you need more protection against your attacks, especially when they are in a zerg that outnumbers yours.

When you are on a server in which you are always outnumbered in a game with mechanisms that favor larger zergs, you should run through the wall of guardians and warriors to attack the guys in the back end. Don’t worry they won’t bother you and if they do, use entangle. But don’t drop a barrage on the guys you entangle because that violates the rule against using aoe against multiple targets. Any retal damage you take is because you suck.

If you shoot at anyone in the front end the retaliation damage you take is your own fault. If you shoot at anyone in the back end the retaliation damage you take is your own fault. Stand there and wait for the 12 seconds it takes to go away before shooting. Make sure you are on JQ, BG or YB and have a massive ability-lagging zerg to protect you while you do so.

Remember at no time should you shoot aoe at groups. If a large groups should happen to run into your aoe after you fire, this is because you suck, not poor game design. You should only shoot at the players who aren’t moving, like downed players. Don’t use it to chase away rezzers. Don’t shoot at the gate to hit the rams behind it. Don’t use it against massed golems. Don’t drop it on groups of mesmer clones. If you do you need to l2p and your deserve the retal damage you take.

The aoe cripple on barrage serves no purpose whatsoever, so do not use it for its non-purpose. If you see a large group chasing your guys putting a barrage in front of them to slow them down is not a good strategy. If you do you need to l2p.

Wear PVT armor so your health pool can accommodate the retaliation damage that no one but you is experiencing.

Hit an don’t be hit is the essence of competent fighting in fencing, boxing and the martial arts. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable game design that you should be hit every time you hit something in a video game. Ranged players should rely on their armor, and not range and positioning, to stay alive.

Cuchullain.3104:

Okay, I get it now. Retaliation really isn’t a problem for rangers, just me. I have been making the mistake of shooting at people in WvW.

I realize that if you use an aoe ability against multiple targets like it is designed for, you deserve everything you get. There is simply no time at which using aoe against a zerg is appropriate, so creating a mechanism that punishes you for doing so is perfectly reasonable. Large zergs are too weak and need more protection.

Guardians that have reflects, blocks, burns, heavy armor and the ability to outheal your damage while cc’ing you in place and three-shotting you need more protection against your attacks, especially when they are in a zerg that outnumbers yours.

When you are on a server in which you are always outnumbered in a game with mechanisms that favor larger zergs, you should run through the wall of guardians and warriors to attack the guys in the back end. Don’t worry they won’t bother you and if they do, use entangle. But don’t drop a barrage on the guys you entangle because that violates the rule against using aoe against multiple targets. Any retal damage you take is because you suck.

If you shoot at anyone in the front end the retaliation damage you take is your own fault. If you shoot at anyone in the back end the retaliation damage you take is your own fault. Stand there and wait for the 12 seconds it takes to go away before shooting. Make sure you are on JQ, BG or YB and have a massive ability-lagging zerg to protect you while you do so.

Remember at no time should you shoot aoe at groups. If a large groups should happen to run into your aoe after you fire, this is because you suck, not poor game design. You should only shoot at the players who aren’t moving, like downed players. Don’t use it to chase away rezzers. Don’t shoot at the gate to hit the rams behind it. Don’t use it against massed golems. Don’t drop it on groups of mesmer clones. If you do you need to l2p and your deserve the retal damage you take.

The aoe cripple on barrage serves no purpose whatsoever, so do not use it for its non-purpose. If you see a large group chasing your guys putting a barrage in front of them to slow them down is not a good strategy. If you do you need to l2p.

Wear PVT armor so your health pool can accommodate the retaliation damage that no one but you is experiencing.

Hit an don’t be hit is the essence of competent fighting in fencing, boxing and the martial arts. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable game design that you should be hit every time you hit something in a video game. Ranged players should rely on their armor, and not range and positioning, to stay alive.

You forgot the part about glass cannon builds being a poor counter to large Zergs, because they can easily rally their downed allies off you. Another thing I might add is that the game is balanced around warrior and guardian. Just look at the stats and traits on the typical zerker hambow warrior. It totally outclasses anything a ranger can bring to the table. High armor, high health, high damage output, high cc, great regen, great might stacking (will get itself to 25 stacks of might with no outside help). GG. Your only hope to win is with superior skill and tactics.

Edit: I forgot to mention it also has a passive counter to soft CC and great stability uptime. HaHa, it’s almost funny.

A zerg guard 3 shotting you? Lulz.

jcbroe.4329:

The scope of the issue is much more broad than just Retaliation (and WvW).

In general, rangers don’t handle boon maintaining/stacking mechanics on opponents very well.

It’s actually one of the main arguments I would give for why in a PvP environment, power builds on ranger aren’t top tier in effectiveness. They don’t have the boon handling capabilities of other typical power specs (thief, shatter mesmer) or the tanky capability of a warrior.

It’s easily one of the main things that has always pigeonholed ranger into running conditions in PvP. But conditions in WvW are generally mitigated by foods and by the group AoE cleansing brought by guardians and elementalists.

So the point I’m getting at in regards to the thread is; yes, it would be nice to have some sort of boon removal/punishment available to us. For issues with retaliation and beyond.

Unfortunately that is one of the intended weak spots on the ranger, and unless we can pull a “we’d like to play, boons are making it unfun/unplayable for us” argument that mirror warrior and conditions, I doubt we see any improvement.

The is the option of giving us a pet/or trait to modify pets, to allow them to strip boons for the ranger, but that would be further dependence on the still not up to the challenge pet system.

It is clear AOE is a big no-no in zergs. This is why no good zergs ever want necros or eles and all those wells/marks and meteors that hit tons of targets are just totally just a figment of people’s imaginations. And eles totally have high hp pools.

It’s okay though. Earlier this week some guardian was complaining that he was getting nearly owned by retaliation when he was spamming staff 1 (which most likely hits more targets over time than barrage too). I think they should make guardian staff 1 immune to retaliation in order to not disrupt my loot pickings.

Also, God forbid that that some skills are not good in certain situations. Afk attacking a zerg with a non-cleaving melee weapon.

Cuchullain.3104:

Okay, I get it now. Retaliation really isn’t a problem for rangers, just me. I have been making the mistake of shooting at people in WvW.

I realize that if you use an aoe ability against multiple targets like it is designed for, you deserve everything you get. There is simply no time at which using aoe against a zerg is appropriate, so creating a mechanism that punishes you for doing so is perfectly reasonable. Large zergs are too weak and need more protection.

As many others already pointed it out, you should shoot at the backline instead of the frontline because that’s where the motherblob’s weakspot is. If you look at GvG videos and such (Look! It’s a TA vs. vE GvG video with commentary! Both are top EU GvG guilds. You might learn a thing or two from them! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_OALK_WkTc), you’d see that while the melee balls are clashing, the ranged/focus group is picking off the staff ellies and squishies on the backline. Without the backline’s support the retaliation ball won’t survive very long. Then again, the enemy ball will prolly win because you were foolish enough to kill yourself on retaliation and you rallied half of their zerg. Good job!

Cuchullain.3104:

Okay, I get it now. Retaliation really isn’t a problem for rangers, just me. I have been making the mistake of shooting at people in WvW.

I realize that if you use an aoe ability against multiple targets like it is designed for, you deserve everything you get. There is simply no time at which using aoe against a zerg is appropriate, so creating a mechanism that punishes you for doing so is perfectly reasonable. Large zergs are too weak and need more protection.

That seems to be a design decision with this game, nothing specific to rangers in particular (it just so happens that one of the best longbow DPS skills is AOE).

In other games, if you drop an AOE on a blob, everyone in the blob takes damage. It strongly discourages players from clumping up (as it should). And vastly increases the strategic value of choke points like gates, tunnels, and valleys, or any place where you can set up an ambush by spreading out your forces while catching opponents grouped together.

For whatever reason, they decided to minimize this advantage in GW2. AOE damage is limited to 3 or 5 targets. They deliberately designed the game to discourage players from dumping AOE damage on each other willy nilly in mass combat. Retaliation is just icing on the cake.

Any person just trying to tag as much of zerg as possible isn’t going to like retaliation.

Stop being a greedy lootbag kitten.

The fact remains that in WvW, retaliation does massive damage to longbow rangers, and the only way to avoid retaliation is to not shoot any any individual or group that has it up. Unfortunately, that is just not a practical option for reasons that should be obvious (like near 100 percent retal uptime for the duration of fights). Not everyone gets to run in a massive zergball roflstomping lesser servers where retaliation isn’t an issue for the stompers.

When you are in a class that takes more damage from retaliation than it dishes out and outnumbered in almost every fight, a mechanic that rewards larger groups over small and rewards mindless zerging over tactics is incredibly frustrating and game-killing to deal with. I rarely encounter the situations offered by the nay-sayers here, such as the ability to stand off to the side and take shots at stragglers and back-enders and when I do, they have retal up most of the time. I am usually in a group getting swarmed by the opposing zerg and having to shoot and run at the same time. Survival in these situations is already tough for a glassy build without a cheezy mechanic that punishes you for shooting at people while rewarding them for being shot.

I can only hope someone with common sense at Anet can see through the wall of obfuscation and insult that is always thrown up here whenever anyone makes a legitimate complaint and realize how game-destroying this absurd mechanic really is.

Your problem is you posted this complaint in the ranger forum so many of us assumed you were wanting veteran rangers to shed some light on how they deal with retal zergs.

All you really want is for people to join in the kitten fest with you. For the record I do agree that retal needs to be changed and the aoe limit sucks. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore the fact that they exist.

You can take the good advice that people here have offered, you can build an ac and rain arrows on them to your hearts content, or you can continue being rally bait and killing yourself. It’s your choice.

You die to Retaliation? Your build is no good for zerg vs zerg battles, its simple as that.
Just use somthing like – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjYDbkRlWWbVxhFiWDsHUrDgAuBYeBjgznoKq4jdA-TViFABLcQAST3Qhq/87+DA8AAOS5HDHBA9UCKwFAgUAlLMC-w
Stand in the back with the other rangers and eles, pets on “calm” mode, only function as buffers. You’ll deal lots of damage, you’ll support “back line dpsers” and you wont die to Retaliation, even with with piercing arrows.

Cuchullain.3104:

When you are in a class that takes more damage from retaliation than it dishes out and outnumbered in almost every fight, a mechanic that rewards larger groups over small and rewards mindless zerging over tactics is incredibly frustrating and game-killing to deal with.

Is that even possible? Assume both ranger and target have 2000 power.

Retaliation damage = (198 + 0.075 * 2000) * 2/3 = 232

Longbow damage = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
Weapon strength = 1000 (exotic longbow)
Barrage coefficient = 0.4
target armor = A
Damage done = 1000 * 2000 * 0.4 / A

Retaliation damage equals damage dealt when:

232 = 1000 * 2000 * 0.4 / A
A = 1000 * 2000 * 0.4 / 232 = 3448 armor

Unless you’re running into berserker builds with 3500 armor, or you’re using longbow (a power weapon) with a condition build, I don’t see how you’re taking more retaliation damage than you’re dishing out.

I actually think that’s one of the best things about retaliation. It’s a game mechanic whose cost/benefit scales with skill coefficient, not just power or armor. Using the above assumptions, and a 2000 armor target:

• RF (0.375 coefficient) nets you 1.62 damage dealt per damage received
• Barrage (0.4) nets you 1.72 damage dealt per damage received
• autoattack (0.9) nets you 3.88 damage dealt per damage received
• Maul (1.5) nets you 6.77 damage dealt per damage received

Retaliation adds a new dimension to combat. It forces you to factor in skill coefficient into your skill selection, rather than straight DPS . More complexity like this is good for the game.

Its a lost cause. If it was just me saying it is a learn to play issue then maybe I’d take a step back and rethink my points and yield. However, there are too many in here, that are veterans with the class, and saying the same thing.

You really need to think before you run head long into a enemy zerg. Plain and simple, most of us in this thread agree. That also holds true for all other classes. Just like they now have to watch their 6 for rangers.

Its a dance. Enjoy it.

You’re right, it is a lost cause. I try to spark a debate about how punishing retaliation is for rangers, especially when you shoot at a zerg with barrage, and the “advice” I get from alleged “veterans” is “don’t shoot at zergs with barrage.”

No kidding. I would never have realized this if you hadn’t repeated the obvious 20 times.

This is like the guy who goes to the doctor and says, “my elbow hurts when I bend it” and the doctor replies, “then don’t bend your elbow”—completely missing the point.

Good advice on builds or how to deal with retaliation is of course appreciated, bombarding me with the obvious or snide comments is not. Beyond that, the “advice,” while spamming the obvious, also ignores it, such as the obvious fact retaliation is often up 100 percent in some fights and functions as a de facto nerf on our dps more severe than our insta-die, uncontrollable pets are. Having to use PVT armor to deal with it is also a nerf to our damage which is too high a cost for the little advantage it gives.

All the “advice” here says that it is better to auto-nerf your dps than to take a chance retaliation may set you up for an easy kill, while ignoring my statement that I rarely die except to being swarmed by the zerg. Even without retaliation the circumstances of my death would usually be the same as with it. So retal is more of a dps issue for me than a survival one as I am very good at surviving. You have to be as a glass ranger on an outmanned server.

Beyond that, I have given examples of why the benefits of shooting at zergs with aoe often outweighs the outrageous cost. I’d like to see someone refute those examples with something other than insults and dubious claims to expertise.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Nullification – enjoy