Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I see many threads complaining about ranger being too overpowered in the sPvP forums, and then i come back to the ranger forums and people are complaining about it being underpowered.

Well, my opinion is that the ranger is in a good place right now with the builds we currently have. We have TPVP viability (which we didn’t have before), and we have two decent meta builds that is Trapper and Beastmaster.

What is OP about the ranger? Well, many people would argue that the pet doing high damage even though we can bunker is overpowered but those people just need to learn how to play, because once you know you can avoid the pets damage it becomes a fight between the ranger enforcing cripple on you, and you evading it and using the terrain to your advantage.

The ranger’s downed state is the strongest one, and we only lose to the warrior if he manages to use vengeance in a duel. One class was going to be the strongest while downed one, it just happens to be us. Not gamebreaking, since we can’t avoid forced stomps. The revive rate is too strong though, i feel a nerf coming that way.

LEASH range, something that has been talked to death. The solution is to remove the pet capability to let the enemy stay in combat while following it. Reducing it will cripple the ranger too much and his usefulness in tournaments.

This goes for PVP, but what about PVE?

Well we all know the problem about PVE, which is pets. They can’t survive on the special conditions that the dungeon provides, so we need AOE damage reduction on pets. Like right now. Same for spirits, spirits should have even higher aoe mitigation.

Buffing the spirits survivability, would increase it’s usefulness in PVE, which will make us useful in dungeons again. 60% vitality doesn’t cut it, because they have no armor at all. It’s like pouring water on a broken bottle.

Some of our weapons are very weak in comparison to our META weapons. The longbow sucks completely. It’s terrible. The damage mostly. Same applies to greatsword, doesn’t make any sense for it to deal less damage then the normal sword.
Buff damage on both longbow and greatsword.

The axe offhand would be useful if it worked like the chieftain (that brings the enemy to you on the way back). And you should be able to move while doing number 5.

Some of our traits are horrible too. Spirits being able to move shouldn’t be a grandmaster trait, that 1s bleed on crit is horrible.
Quality of life improvements please! I want to be able to use more than two specs.

So, tl;dr:

We are in a good place if you choose the correct builds with the correct traits with the correct weapons and utilities. Axe Offhand, Greatsword and Longbow is terrible. Our pets and spirits needs aoe mitigation, and spirits need a buff to their armor.

Rangers are indeed in a good place. We could use tweaks but overall good and viable. The class with the need for most changes is a warrior. A joke in PvP and its making every dps class not wanted in PvE.

Yes. Poor warriors :/
It’s like ANET feeds on their hopes and dreams.

AlexRD.7914:

Yes. Poor warriors :/
It’s like ANET feeds on their hopes and dreams.

The boon hate trait so laughable and dumb.
1) You do more damage going cookie cutter dps build then going 30 into tactics even if the enemy has lots of boons. Esentially its not a dps boost because its so high in the tree.
2) Even if it was lower in the tree you should not be punished for having boons, stealing boons is okay in its current form since you can steal them back or remove them. Removing boons is good also. Corruot boon is also good. More damage for having boons….. laughable.
3) The CC reduction trait is a good change but should be limited to only when having melee weapons or being moved up to 2nd tier like the ele one. Overall good though.
4) Passives for having Adrenaline at 100% should be removed. Its lazy design and its 1 of the reasons its OP in PvE. Need more “fun” active traits.

Warriors have been asking for many of these but ANET has their head up their kitten taking forever to do any significant changes. Warriors waiting for changes every patch is the same as Rangers waiting fof Longbow changes. You think this patch is finally it but every patch you are dissapointed at their failure to even try.

Anyways this is getting too off topic atm.

Rangers are in an “ok” space, in my opinion.

A lot of the people you see moaning on the forums, as you called it, have valid reasons on issues that need to be addressed because they just ruin the over-all feel of the class.

Take one of the points i bought up in my own thread for example, the sword auto attack locks you into an animation that prevents you from dodging, no other class has to suffer from this, so why should the ranger? It doesn’t make the game skill-based, it makes it a mess.

I too agree rangers are ok right now. Polish is needed yes, but every class needs some polishing up. The pets are much better but is again one of those polish things, just not quite there. Overall as a whole, ranger is a whole lot better off than most classes. Yes a few of them might have some very powerful single builds, but that’s about all they have, or like necro who has tons of available builds, none overpoweringly powerful like other classes though. As far as ranger goes, yes we still have a few top end builds that are preferrable, but there is lots more room to get a little creative and personalize your builds.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Rangers are in an “ok” space, in my opinion.

A lot of the people you see moaning on the forums, as you called it, have valid reasons on issues that need to be addressed because they just ruin the over-all feel of the class.

Take one of the points i bought up in my own thread for example, the sword auto attack locks you into an animation that prevents you from dodging, no other class has to suffer from this, so why should the ranger? It doesn’t make the game skill-based, it makes it a mess.

Removing the sword’s root is actually a nerf, as you can follow people very effectively with it. You just have to time the dodge well.

Just turn off autoattack

I’m not sure what you mean by not having viability in pvp before, since the builds being used are the same builds that have been used in pvp since around launch.

In pvp, the class really hasn’t changed at all. It’s other classes changes coupled with top players popularizing certain builds (which is even more prevalent with spectator mode and shoutcasted tournaments).

I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m just really not sure where the idea that rangers weren’t viable in pvp came from, since they’ve always been viable.

jcbroe.4329:

I’m not sure what you mean by not having viability in pvp before, since the builds being used are the same builds that have been used in pvp since around launch.

In pvp, the class really hasn’t changed at all. It’s other classes changes coupled with top players popularizing certain builds (which is even more prevalent with spectator mode and shoutcasted tournaments).

I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m just really not sure where the idea that rangers weren’t viable in pvp came from, since they’ve always been viable.

Rangers werent viable when SB could be side strafed for 0 damage, pets couldnt hit moving targets. Also some other classes have been toned down. GS used to suck also. Really it doesnt seem like much but in the grand scheme of things a lot has changed to make rangers what they are today.

Puandro.3245:

jcbroe.4329:

I’m not sure what you mean by not having viability in pvp before, since the builds being used are the same builds that have been used in pvp since around launch.

In pvp, the class really hasn’t changed at all. It’s other classes changes coupled with top players popularizing certain builds (which is even more prevalent with spectator mode and shoutcasted tournaments).

I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m just really not sure where the idea that rangers weren’t viable in pvp came from, since they’ve always been viable.

Rangers werent viable when SB could be side strafed for 0 damage, pets couldnt hit moving targets. Also some other classes have been toned down. GS used to suck also. Really it doesnt seem like much but in the grand scheme of things a lot has changed to make rangers what they are today.

Specifically, the BM build hasn’t changed at all except maybe the pets being a tad more reliable. But 0/0/30/10/30 was always strong on the node.

I would actually go as far as to say we’ve been weakened since the Empathic Bond nerf. No more free full cleanses every 10s (that weren’t transferred to the pet).

It just depends on the definition of strong. But rangers have always made for good point holders.

The shortbow change definitely had more of a significant impact on the trap build (I’m only mentioning the two current preferred meta setups in tpvp), but again, Rangers are much more susceptible (and therefore weaker against) condition builds than they used to be.

What’s sorely lacking for ranger is a good direct damage build. The bunker/condition builds are fine though.

Rangers are not in a good place, pets ai is still shoddily programed. And anet does not seem to have the talent to fix the issue, so rangers are stuck in a crap hole. Pets need a major over haul as they are easily countered and we have no real control over them. Spirits are still a joke, and a gust of wind results in the longbow be blocked a good portion of the time. Ranger traits are still not working right and have not been since beta.

People hoping for a good direct damage need to realize that they will lose all survivability. I can force a 10k crit in PvP, but the second that’s done I’m mincemeat. I’ve found a pretty decent damage build with 3k+ armor, gets crits in the 4k to 6k range, and has a few options to survive. The issue is that we lack any real means of adding might stacks regularly. Might is by far the best means of adding damage to a build, but one stack just doesnt cut it. My fix would be to increase warhorn to 3 stacks of might, and change Companion’s might to add the player getting might if the pet crits, extend the duration to 8 or 10 seconds.

1 second boons/ conditions are pointless.

AlexRD.7914:

The axe offhand would be useful if it worked like the chieftain (that brings the enemy to you on the way back). And you should be able to move while doing number 5.

I love this idea. Such a great synergy with our Main Hands – Sword to keep them close to you, and to aid the Axe bleed shotgunning and general ricochets.

Heck, synergizes with Axe 5. Knocked to you and into you Whirl.

Rangers are in a good place? Sorry, I don’t want to be a bunker in wvwvw, and I’d like to do dungeons. I don’t give a rat’s kitten about S/Tpvp.

Rangers need help that’s not focused around the s/tpvp areas. Until the longbow is reasonably viable, and we’re not kitten by our AI “companion”, we’re still the bottom of the barrel.

Longbow needs help (projectile speed, primarily, and recharge on Long Range Shot actually matching it’s tooltip.)

I’d love to have some kind of condition removal that doesn’t revolve around the pet, or force me to blow my heal. (We’ve got 3. Empathic Bond, SoR, Healing Spring. 2 depend on the pet being alive, the third wastes our heal.)

Our base damage should not be skewed 60:40 ranger:pet. It should be far closer to 90:10.

Traps still shouldn’t be in the trait line that controls critical damage. Seriously, wtf anet?

I love my ranger, but I mained ranger in GW1, and what we have now is a pale shadow of what they should be.

AlexRD.7914:

Hi,

We are in a good place if you choose the correct builds with the correct traits with the correct weapons and utilities. Axe Offhand, Greatsword and Longbow is terrible. Our pets and spirits needs aoe mitigation, and spirits need a buff to their armor.

You think gs for ranger sucks? Well, we should meet each other at wvw one day, and then I could kick ur kitten with my Twilight. Really. Gs for ranger is the most strategy-weapon of the game, you just need to learn how to use it.

Ranger is very useful in dungeons .

I kind of agree with the overall sentiment of some posts here.

There really isn’t one broad sweeping overarching conclusion you can draw about the state of a class, you really need to draw at least four separate conclusions examining the class in the four major gamemodes independently.

The axe offhand would be useful if it worked like the chieftain (that brings the enemy to you on the way back)

God I like that idea.

I think rangers are in a good place but still needs some skills to deal with stealth… we have little AOE and not enough burst to deal with constant stealth… and entangle can even be blinked out of, which sucks…

@Stale

Our condition removal is the way it’s supposed to be. Other classes are the ones who have too much. Also, empathic bond doesn’t kill the pet like i thought it did, you just have to swap more frequently.
Who said in WVW you have to go bunker? You can go berserker signet build if you want, we just happen to excel in bunkering.

We’re FAR from the bottom of the barrel. Have you seen warriors? T/SPVP is a very important aspect of the game, you can’t just ignore it. Besides, i said we need buffs in PVE but overall we have viable builds. Also, can’t really complain we aren’t included in speedruns, since the speedruns setup is normally mesmer/4x warrior.

@AreuMadBro
That would be a first.

The only problem with the sword is actually a problem that any profession with common skill effects face. Dodge doesn’t cancel your current action and allow you to perform the dodge roll. Fix this and it’s good to go.

Longbow needs to be worked better. Its only cripple you can see coming, is on too long a cd for a skill that the ranger has to remain still and channel. Rapid Fire will hurt your dps if you use it when available, provided you are getting top damage from Long shot due to range. It doesn’t produce any combo fields (something rangers are lacking with all their weapon skills).

The pet’s auto attack needs to be something that can be performed while on the move.

I am happy sPvP/tPvP Rangers are having such good experiences. This is a good thing for our class. But in your enthusiasm to reinforce Ranger’s good position in format, you might be overreaching a bit and glossing over some valid concerns in another.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I am happy sPvP/tPvP Rangers are having such good experiences. This is a good thing for our class. But in your enthusiasm to reinforce Ranger’s good position in format, you might be overreaching a bit and glossing over some valid concerns in another.

This and so much more of this.

Rangers bring little to a group (besides Healing Spring) that other classes can’t bring. Rangers really lack in group utility options. As far as damage goes from a power perspective, with the rangers lack of strong self boon support, group boon support, or group utility, logical design would dictate rangers to be the groups DPS. But the game offers better/more preferred classes than rangers at that as well, kind of leaving rangers without a niche in a group.

As a matter of fact, the same is true, to a degree, for tpvp, where typically the ranger is the back node holder (playing alone on the point) while the rest of the team fights up on mid, unless your team specifically asks you to go help in a team fight, or you back cap the enemy team (usually done alone as well).

And if your team asks you to go to assist in a team fight, its usually more so for a numbers advantage and to catch and rez people, and not what you can do (like mesmers dropping a time warp, or even moa’ing the bunker, or a nade engi spamming nades, or an ele AoEing, etc).

Spirits should offer that missing group utility, but their benefits aren’t strong enough and they die too easily. If their function is to remain in its current iteration, the least that should be done is increasing the range to 900 or even 1200. That way they can be dropped out of harms way and still provide their functions.

Anyhow, I’ve rambled enough now.

I am a bow centric ranger, and I can say it still needs work. I use it for barrage in WvW and that is IT. DPS, condition, utility, raw power, and everything else is practically stacked toward the shortbow side. I don’t even see much of a difference using eagle eye trait for the extended 1000+ range when all it takes it a tap of a left or right button to dodge all my arrows at that range. Longbow is so mediocre right now.

Got to say it’s a long way from in a good place in wvw- no other class suffers so much from being placed on a wall/firing up at a wall.

Rapid fire is surely the devs idea of a joke name for a skill that takes SO long to cast you can start it at max range and your opponent can have run past you by the time it gets over half way through the channel.

What do all you Gs/SB weilding BM’s do during sieges- pew pew and hit for 200 damage, or stand there and hope other people come along so you can contribute?

At least pets don’t die quite so frequently now in wvw unless they run past 5 or more enemies doing aoe, but they are still about as much use at actually causing damage 90% of the time as a snowball in hell.

Arrow attacks are way too easy to dodge or they miss or they are obstructed (sometimes by your pet or another friendly player!!!).

So yep, might be alright for spvp etc but still needs a lot of work to be a viable option in all areas of wvw unless you like solo roaming – but then you’d be sensible and roll a thief.

i like the sword as it is . This game is too simple as it is , the ranger sword is a weapon on the higher end of the skill scale . Mastering sword , the ranger goes from meh to awesome

AlexRD.7914:

Some of our weapons are very weak in comparison to our META weapons. The longbow sucks completely. It’s terrible. The damage mostly. Same applies to greatsword, doesn’t make any sense for it to deal less damage then the normal sword.
Buff damage on both longbow and greatsword.

-disc scratch- whaaaaaa?

You do realize that the Greatsword is a defensive weapon right? Block+counter, the mobility of Swoop, evade on a normal attack chain, quick stun/daze… It’s not meant to be a high DPS weapon, otherwise it would be broken. And it does have decent damage. You can even get a nasty burst with signets and Maul.

Longbow does need fixes… mostly changing the way #1 works so it isn’t kitten pie outside of max range, and making #2 a little faster channel. If they also wanna make it so you can cast Barrage on the move (considering roughly every other class can do their AoEs on the move, barrage is a long channel, and longbow isn’t a particularly defensive weapon) sweet jesus kitten dancing christ, I’m in heaven.

Regen ranger, on the other hand, might need some small nerfs. Possibly PvP only.

Chokolata.1870:

…the ranger sword is a weapon on the higher end of the skill scale . Mastering sword , the ranger goes from meh to awesome

This. The sword paired with dagger is really an amazing weapons set. Great defense and really good damage. Spamming 1 on a thief who missed their CnD (because I just evaded and poisoned) who is hobbling away them is satisfying.

GS on ranger is decent. A blast finisher on maul would give us the group utility we currently lack. Also, maul shouldn’t reset the auto attack chain. I should be able to interrupt my chain with maul so that I can move that evade window around.

Longbow and sword could be our high direct damage weapons, but longbow is too weak and sword has that annoying root. Sure, you could take it off of auto attack, but that lowers damage output and gets tiring pretty quick (for me at least).

Those one second boon/condition traits are terrible. The might should apply to both ranger and pet and last for 5 seconds. The bleed could use the same duration.

This is all from a PVE/dungeon perspective.

AlexRD.7914:

@Stale

Our condition removal is the way it’s supposed to be. Other classes are the ones who have too much. Also, empathic bond doesn’t kill the pet like i thought it did, you just have to swap more frequently.
Who said in WVW you have to go bunker? You can go berserker signet build if you want, we just happen to excel in bunkering.

We’re FAR from the bottom of the barrel. Have you seen warriors? T/SPVP is a very important aspect of the game, you can’t just ignore it. Besides, i said we need buffs in PVE but overall we have viable builds. Also, can’t really complain we aren’t included in speedruns, since the speedruns setup is normally mesmer/4x warrior.

@AreuMadBro
That would be a first.

I do ignore PvP – I’ve always been honest about that. It’s a small chunk of the GW2 community – 10-15%.

In overworld PvE, we’re great. In wvwvw, we’re bunkers, or we’re losing 40% of our potential damage (if you ignore the pet, you’ve kitten yourself by that much.)

And, yeah, I’m kind of mad – not “I’m never playing again!” mad, just at the level of “WHY won’t they give us what they told us we were getting?”

We’re supposed to be the masters of ranged combat – but we’re not. We’re supposed to be survivalists, but the only class with less condition removal is the warrior, I believe. 40% of our damage comes from an AI that’s useless. These are problems – each and every time someone tries to gloss over them, you’re kittenting on the rest of the community who wants to see them fixed.

For the whole bottom of the barrel deal – tell you what; Actually pay attention to the damage/utility that you bring to an organised party. Our damage is low (ranged, anyway), our party utility can be summed up as Muddy Ground and Healing Spring. Boom – we’re out of utility. Spirits are bad – brokenly bad. To get traps to be useful, you’ve got to spec into the crit trait line, instead of the condition trait line, when traps do condition damage.

There’s no one other class with the issues we have. I love rangers – the flavour of the class, and what’s possible to do with them – I just wish Anet would actually fix whats broken.

jcbroe.4329:

Vox Hollow.2736:

I am happy sPvP/tPvP Rangers are having such good experiences. This is a good thing for our class. But in your enthusiasm to reinforce Ranger’s good position in format, you might be overreaching a bit and glossing over some valid concerns in another.

This and so much more of this.

Rangers bring little to a group (besides Healing Spring) that other classes can’t bring. Rangers really lack in group utility options. As far as damage goes from a power perspective, with the rangers lack of strong self boon support, group boon support, or group utility, logical design would dictate rangers to be the groups DPS. But the game offers better/more preferred classes than rangers at that as well, kind of leaving rangers without a niche in a group.

As a matter of fact, the same is true, to a degree, for tpvp, where typically the ranger is the back node holder (playing alone on the point) while the rest of the team fights up on mid, unless your team specifically asks you to go help in a team fight, or you back cap the enemy team (usually done alone as well).

And if your team asks you to go to assist in a team fight, its usually more so for a numbers advantage and to catch and rez people, and not what you can do (like mesmers dropping a time warp, or even moa’ing the bunker, or a nade engi spamming nades, or an ele AoEing, etc).

Spirits should offer that missing group utility, but their benefits aren’t strong enough and they die too easily. If their function is to remain in its current iteration, the least that should be done is increasing the range to 900 or even 1200. That way they can be dropped out of harms way and still provide their functions.

Anyhow, I’ve rambled enough now.

Ramble more – you’ve got your head on straight.

The greatsword occupies two slots, offhand and mainhand. I understand you say the greatsword is a defensive weapon, but the sword does this a lot better.

The sword has two evades, one that also puts you out of harms way. If you pair this with dagger, you get three evades. Three evades. Whereas the greatsword has only 1 and you can’t use it whenever you want, like to evade a specific ability.

I know it has block, but that’s just it. The greatsword is a defensive weapon, therefore it has defensive ABILITIES. The auto attack damage shouldn’t be affected by this.
Maybe terrible was a strong word (the longbow is still terrible), but it does need a buff to the overall damage in it.

Like why does maul bleed? It should be completely raw damage. Swoop is great. Block is great. The stun is great (but could use a reduction cd).

The longbow needs an overhaul. If i were a dev, i’d go like this:

Auto-attack: Normalized damage, bonus to 1000+, the attack speed reflects the tooltip.
Rapid-fire: 10x over 5 seconds. Each strike gives you 5 seconds of might.
Hunter’s shot: Vulnerability lasts 10 seconds, give 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds to your pet.
Point-Blank shot: Increased range to 1200, reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.
Barrage: You can move while channeling.

PS: I’m not saying we don’t need buffs to specific areas. I did state we need spirit buffs, and that alone should help our usefulness in group fights. I’m just trying to say, we’re not as bad as some as you make it out to be.
I’ll admit, i don’t do a lot of dungeons, but when i do them, i bring a lot to the group. Healing spring enables AOE with blast finishers and condi removal, our spirit can resurrect a whole team if timed correctly.

AlexRD.7914:

The greatsword occupies two slots, offhand and mainhand. I understand you say the greatsword is a defensive weapon, but the sword does this a lot better.

The sword has two evades, one that also puts you out of harms way. If you pair this with dagger, you get three evades. Three evades. Whereas the greatsword has only 1 and you can’t use it whenever you want, like to evade a specific ability.

I know it has block, but that’s just it. The greatsword is a defensive weapon, therefore it has defensive ABILITIES. The auto attack damage shouldn’t be affected by this.
Maybe terrible was a strong word (the longbow is still terrible), but it does need a buff to the overall damage in it.

Like why does maul bleed? It should be completely raw damage. Swoop is great. Block is great. The stun is great (but could use a reduction cd).

The longbow needs an overhaul. If i were a dev, i’d go like this:

Auto-attack: Normalized damage, bonus to 1000+, the attack speed reflects the tooltip.
Rapid-fire: 10x over 5 seconds. Each strike gives you 5 seconds of might.
Hunter’s shot: Vulnerability lasts 10 seconds, give 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds to your pet.
Point-Blank shot: Increased range to 1200, reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.
Barrage: You can move while channeling.

PS: I’m not saying we don’t need buffs to specific areas. I did state we need spirit buffs, and that alone should help our usefulness in group fights. I’m just trying to say, we’re not as bad as some as you make it out to be.
I’ll admit, i don’t do a lot of dungeons, but when i do them, i bring a lot to the group. Healing spring enables AOE with blast finishers and condi removal, our spirit can resurrect a whole team if timed correctly.

I like your longbow suggestions, other than I’ve got no problem with being rooted for Barrage. (ele’s are rooted for their channeled skills, pretty sure 100b roots, and most other large channeled do as well.)

Spirits should be invulnerable to damage – the HP modifying trait should instead increase their range to 900-1200ish. (Current range is ~400).

For all my negativity in this thread, I like the ranger – and we’re a fun class. Sadly, we’re the lowest damage you can get without being a staff ele. Balancing our damage around the Pet has kitten us. As I’ve said before, the Ranger:Pet damage ratio should be 90:10, not 60:40. If you don’t invest in BM, you should not be punished. Instead, make it a reward for the BM builds to trait into BM, because you’re sacrificing something else to do it.

I have a question: where is everyone getting this 60:40 damage ratio? Does anyone actually have proof of this or is this just a number we are pulling out of our kitten

PVersionP.7042:

I have a question: where is everyone getting this 60:40 damage ratio? Does anyone actually have proof of this or is this just a number we are pulling out of our kitten

That is something ANET told us if i’m not mistaken.

It’s an approximation. It kind of has to be, because different build and pet choices lead to different ratios.

So then why is there a problem? Not investing in BM and instead focusing on your own damage would bring the ratio closer to 90:10, where the pet does some damage but is more a source of CC or boons

In this case its all about choosing the right pet:
Blue Moa—AoE protection, AoE heal
Red Moa—AoE fury, AoE heal
Cave Spider—immobilize, weakness, vulnerability
Jungle Spider—2 immobilize
Wolf—fear, cripple, kd
Hyena—2 cripples, 2 kd
Carrion Devourer—with RaO, can easily get up to 20 stacks of might on you

PVersionP.7042:

I have a question: where is everyone getting this 60:40 damage ratio? Does anyone actually have proof of this or is this just a number we are pulling out of our kitten

From testing, done by a forum-goer, then confirmed as fairly accurate by Anet. So, regardless of what we do, if we don’t spec into the pet, we’ve lost 40% of our effectiveness.

PVersionP.7042:

So then why is there a problem? Not investing in BM and instead focusing on your own damage would bring the ratio closer to 90:10, where the pet does some damage but is more a source of CC or boons

In this case its all about choosing the right pet:
Blue Moa—AoE protection, AoE heal
Red Moa—AoE fury, AoE heal
Cave Spider—immobilize, weakness, vulnerability
Jungle Spider—2 immobilize
Wolf—fear, cripple, kd
Hyena—2 cripples, 2 kd
Carrion Devourer—with RaO, can easily get up to 20 stacks of might on you

Not how the damage calculations work. If you don’t focus on your pet, instead focusing on yourself, right now you’re doing 60% of your potential damage. It’s why in our glass cannon build, we hit for substantially less than other classes with the same build. The damage on our weapons just isn’t there, because we were balanced around pets.

stale.9785:

PVersionP.7042:

So then why is there a problem? Not investing in BM and instead focusing on your own damage would bring the ratio closer to 90:10, where the pet does some damage but is more a source of CC or boons

In this case its all about choosing the right pet:
Blue Moa—AoE protection, AoE heal
Red Moa—AoE fury, AoE heal
Cave Spider—immobilize, weakness, vulnerability
Jungle Spider—2 immobilize
Wolf—fear, cripple, kd
Hyena—2 cripples, 2 kd
Carrion Devourer—with RaO, can easily get up to 20 stacks of might on you

Not how the damage calculations work. If you don’t focus on your pet, instead focusing on yourself, right now you’re doing 60% of your potential damage. It’s why in our glass cannon build, we hit for substantially less than other classes with the same build. The damage on our weapons just isn’t there, because we were balanced around pets.

Im not really sure what you are talking about, i used to run a glass cannon ranger when i did arah with my guild, and i did plenty of damage. Yes, maybe we arent as effective as some other classes glass cannons, but its still a viable build

PVersionP.7042:

Im not really sure what you are talking about, i used to run a glass cannon ranger when i did arah with my guild, and i did plenty of damage. Yes, maybe we arent as effective as some other classes glass cannons, but its still a viable build

It’s the skill coefficients – ours are deliberately lower than the other classes on our weapons, the pet is supposed to make up the difference.

Damage is done by a formula:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

For example – Warrior skill coefficients are 0.7-2.2; Guardian skill coefficients are .55-1.75; Thief have a wide range of .38-3.75 Ranger skill coefficients are .55-.75

So, without a pet, we are always doing less damage – significantly less – than other classes with the same gear/traits/weapons.

EDIT: The coefficients for hunter’s call and barrage are higher, but they’re divided by 16 and 12, respectively. The upshot is if we could get every single arrow of barrage to hit one target, we’d have a nifty damage skill.

The argument about damage skew being 60:40, where I keep asking it to be raised to 90:10 by default, is so that a ranger who ignores his BM trait stills does damage comparable to the other classes. A ranger who specs heavily into his BM trait is giving up his own potential damage, which makes it a fair trade-off.

stale.9785:

PVersionP.7042:

Im not really sure what you are talking about, i used to run a glass cannon ranger when i did arah with my guild, and i did plenty of damage. Yes, maybe we arent as effective as some other classes glass cannons, but its still a viable build

It’s the skill coefficients – ours are deliberately lower than the other classes on our weapons, the pet is supposed to make up the difference.

Damage is done by a formula:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

For example – Warrior skill coefficients are 0.7-2.2; Guardian skill coefficients are .55-1.75; Thief have a wide range of .38-3.75 Ranger skill coefficients are .55-.75

So, without a pet, we are always doing less damage – significantly less – than other classes with the same gear/traits/weapons.

EDIT: The coefficients for hunter’s call and barrage are higher, but they’re divided by 16 and 12, respectively. The upshot is if we could get every single arrow of barrage to hit one target, we’d have a nifty damage skill.

The argument about damage skew being 60:40, where I keep asking it to be raised to 90:10 by default, is so that a ranger who ignores his BM trait stills does damage comparable to the other classes. A ranger who specs heavily into his BM trait is giving up his own potential damage, which makes it a fair trade-off.

No i get that, what i’m saying is that our overall dps for a glass cannon build isn’t as bad as many people on this forum make it out to be. We aren’t going to match warriors, right now for PvE no one is. And even with no points in BM our pet is still doing damage, 1374 power vs 1674 power isn’t taking away most of the pet’s damage. So overall between the pet and the ranger the total dps is still pretty good.

And in PvE getting all the barrage hits on one target isn’t that difficult with some practice placing the skill right.

PVersionP.7042:

No i get that, what i’m saying is that our overall dps for a glass cannon build isn’t as bad as many people on this forum make it out to be. We aren’t going to match warriors, right now for PvE no one is. And even with no points in BM our pet is still doing damage, 1374 power vs 1674 power isn’t taking away most of the pet’s damage. So overall between the pet and the ranger the total dps is still pretty good.

And in PvE getting all the barrage hits on one target isn’t that difficult with some practice placing the skill right.

You’re missing (or ignoring) that many of us want the pet removed from the damage calculation because the pet is so unreliable.

My ideal pet would be one that does virtually no damage, and simply provides utility.

I lied there, actually. My true ideal would be to roll a ranger and not be forced to take a pet along, but that’s not going to happen. What we may get is a significant change to the damage ratio between ranger and pet, so we’re not dependent upon them for so much of our DPS.

Warriors don’t have to use burst skills to maintain their DPS – necros don’t have to use death shroud. Ele’s aren’t required to spec into Arcana, Guardians can ignore virtues, thieves can roll without depending upon stealth. Rangers are the one class whose core mechanic actually hurts our potential.

EDIT: I don’t play engineer or mesmer, so I can’t make claims for them. Possibly they’re as linked to their profession mechanic as we are, but I doubt it.

stale.9785:

PVersionP.7042:

No i get that, what i’m saying is that our overall dps for a glass cannon build isn’t as bad as many people on this forum make it out to be. We aren’t going to match warriors, right now for PvE no one is. And even with no points in BM our pet is still doing damage, 1374 power vs 1674 power isn’t taking away most of the pet’s damage. So overall between the pet and the ranger the total dps is still pretty good.

And in PvE getting all the barrage hits on one target isn’t that difficult with some practice placing the skill right.

You’re missing (or ignoring) that many of us want the pet removed from the damage calculation because the pet is so unreliable.

My ideal pet would be one that does virtually no damage, and simply provides utility.

I lied there, actually. My true ideal would be to roll a ranger and not be forced to take a pet along, but that’s not going to happen. What we may get is a significant change to the damage ratio between ranger and pet, so we’re not dependent upon them for so much of our DPS.

Warriors don’t have to use burst skills to maintain their DPS – necros don’t have to use death shroud. Ele’s aren’t required to spec into Arcana, Guardians can ignore virtues, thieves can roll without depending upon stealth. Rangers are the one class whose core mechanic actually hurts our potential.

EDIT: I don’t play engineer or mesmer, so I can’t make claims for them. Possibly they’re as linked to their profession mechanic as we are, but I doubt it.

Elementalist is the best example. They aren’t required to spec into Arcana, but they are required to make extensive use of their class mechanic. And just like ranger, the ele class mechanic takes some skill to use properly, it isn’t just constant attunement switching and skill spamming, a good ele has to know what all their skills are and when the to switch to each attunement. And since they are always actively using their class mechanic, speccing into Arcana is very useful.

Same thing with ranger, in order to fully realize the potential of the ranger, you have to learn to use the pet properly, even if you aren’t speccing Beastmastery. Using the right pets and knowing when to use F3 to pull them out of combat is a core part of knowing how to play a ranger. Having the pet gives us one of the most difficult learning curves.

I don’t understand why, if you have such a huge problem with the pet mechanic, you want Anet to get rid of the pet rather than just play a different class.

Also right now i’m testing the difference in pet dps for every pet type between 0 and 30 BM. I’ll post the results within an hour or 2

You’d think this whole thing would go down like;

Support Ranger + Glass Cannon Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes
Glass Cannon Ranger + Support Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes

But it’s more like;

Glass Cannon Ranger + Glass Cannon Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes

So if you’re into direct damage, you don’t get to choose what your ratio is.
And if playing glass cannon for two wasn’t hard enough, one of those cannons self-immobilizes every x seconds and the other one is incapable of dodging. Is it really any surprise glass cannon rangers react they way they do, when that’s the kind of thing they have to put up with?

Vox Hollow.2736:

You’d think this whole thing would go down like;

Support Ranger + Glass Cannon Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes
Glass Cannon Ranger + Support Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes

But it’s more like;

Glass Cannon Ranger + Glass Cannon Pet = Glass Cannon on other classes

So if you’re into direct damage, you don’t get to choose what your ratio is.
And if playing glass cannon for two wasn’t hard enough, one of those cannons self-immobilizes every x seconds and the other one is incapable of dodging. Is it really any surprise glass cannon rangers react they way they do, when that’s the kind of thing they have to put up with?

No that kind of makes sense. Switching to a pet with less damage and more support is like any glass cannon switching some of their gear or traits or utility skills to give more support. Its a tactical choice to lower damage in favor of more support.

So i finished the tests. I used a heavy practice golem. Melee pets started at melee range, spider and devourer started at about 600 range. Tests were done at 0 BM and 30 BM, with no major traits and no F2 skills. I tested almost every type of pet. I also tested felines and birds with the 30% extra pet damage on critical trait (skirmishing 1), pets deal extra condition damage trait (Wilderness Survival 5), and feline crits cause bleeding (Beastmastery 7)

Canine
0 BM 29.02 25.96 26.04 27.31 29.00
30 BM 24.26 23.33 23.28 22.87 21.78

Boar
0 BM 32.76 32.75 31.91 31.94 32.79
30 BM 27.17 28.67 25.49 25.72 27.24

Devourer
0 BM 37.91 38.10 36.29 38.09 37.98
30 BM 30.66 30.53 28.58 30.40 28.73

Spider
0 BM 41.54 40.12 41.96 42.06 41.88
30 BM 37.29 35.25 34.87 36.03 35.93

Feline
0 BM 19.72 18.43 19.41 18.35 18.29
30 BM 14.76 15.89 14.47 14.50 14.16
30 BM+traits 10.99 10.97 12.11 10.83 12.33

Bird
0 BM 30.80 31.15 32.70 29.07 33.97
30 BM 28.19 26.16 23.19 25.79 23.62
30 BM+traits 23.60 20.76 22.80 18.15 20.57

So overall the difference between full beastmaster and no beastmaster is at worst the pet loses about 40-50% of its damage (felines and birds).

But something that never comes up in these discussions: why wouldn’t a ranger want to put some points into BM if we are trying for high damage dealing and BM increases damage? You don’t have to go full beastmaster, and just 15 points increases your pet’s damage and survivability while giving you 2 seconds of quickness on pet swap (quickness nerf made this 1/2 as useful). Going back to my ele comparison from a few posts ago, a quick trip to the ele forum and i find a thread talking about how most builds use 30 Arcana (ele attunement based trait), and all builds benefit from at least 10 points in Arcana. Rangers are the same way. Our class mechanic is very intrusive, so we have to learn to use it to our advantage, even if we aren’t speccing for it

PVersionP.7042:

Also right now i’m testing the difference in pet dps for every pet type between 0 and 30 BM. I’ll post the results within an hour or 2

That’s actually been done – twice. The threads got deleted for being “unconstructive” probably because they highlight some of the issues we have. The testing in one thread was done in wvw, against a target who was side-stepping. Turns out that simple tactic – hitting a-d-a-d – can nullify almost 90% of pet damage.

Pretty sure the ele thread you’re talking about is also mine, PversionP.