Guild Wars 2

Now don’t just go jumping straight onto the free buffs bandwagon there. Higher power in one area suggests there should be costs in another. Of course, consensus is the Ranger is weaker right now, so this would be an opportunity cost rather than a cost of nerfing some other abilities.

Why should the Ranger have a larger health pool?
The Ranger is a profession that is meant to excel in battles of attrition but is lacking in the defences department. Increasing health increases defences against all kinds of damage, but especially helps against condition damage and as such a higher health pool would put less pressure on the wilderness survival trait line and our survival utilities to fill that role. There’s certainly an argument our +90% health traits would be harder to restore without breaking combat, but bark skin at least would be more powerful naturally to compensate. This would also make Most dangerous Game style traits more powerful.

Symmetry
Warrior, Revenant, Guardian
Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist
____, Ranger & Engineer, Thief
Humans like patterns, it’s just in our nature. It’s natural for us to complete them. The rules of nature dictate that we should complete patterns wherever we see them. But in all seriousness, the Ranger as the high health profession for the adventurer armour class slots into place and completes a pattern. Even if it is an unintentional pattern.

If symmetry is your argument why not give the engineer high health instead?
The Ranger and the Engineer have competed for the title of jack of all trades since launch. Rangers were jacks in GW1, with builds like Barrage/Pet performing all the necessary roles for a party like all professions in GW2 do now. But when you have top level rangers saying that celestial gear doesn’t work very well on the profession and, as I said, every profession performing every party role simultaneously, you can see why the Ranger’s not the jack of all trades.

What are your thoughts on the subject? How do you feel about the Ranger’s identity becoming the high health adventurer?

increasing their healthpool won;t solve the problems a ranger has.

Active defenses> larger health pool.

Just ask necromancers how their health sponge with little active defenses has fared for them.

You have to look at ranger in the meta. Anet has said that rangers are great at 1v1 and I think they have probably the most sustained dps in the game. For the most part this is true. Longbow should not be considered a burst weapon. It does not have the ability to hit 8k on you in 2 seconds, but offers an above average amount of single target dps.

For condi builds, most of the damage is applied single target.

Now from a pvp percpective you need to look at the gamemode. It is a team game where roles are filled and skirmishes are expected on point. You have to ask yourself, what role can a ranger fill just as good if not better than another class? Also, how can I survive if I am potentially being outnumbered?

Rangers are not better than a thief or mesmer at bursting down. They are not better than a guardian tanking on point and supporting allies. They are not better than an ele or warrior surviving and putting out damage on point.

Defensively they lack the ability to survive being focused. They do fine in 1v1 situations, but it is hardly ever a 1v1 situation in pvp.

If anet wants rangers to be viable they need to increase the damage spike potential of longbow. For example, your next attack does 50% more damage from stealth.

They need to increase your defensive ablities. the -66% cooldown on your next skill was great for this if you are using a sword or a melee weapon. If they decreased the cooldown of some skills I think they would be in a good place. Signets are underused because of the cooldowns. Shouts are underused because pets die easily. Hunters shot deserves a 3 -4s decrease on cooldown. counterattack on greatsword could use the same. quickshot on shortbow should be like kitten cd. serphants strike 10s.

Simple things like that I feel will help the class overall.

FrownyClown.8402:

I think they have probably the most sustained dps in the game.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh, pvp players, you are so cute.

This is what a game without proper dps meters gets us, vastly misinformed people making claims like this.

Zenith.7301:

FrownyClown.8402:

I think they have probably the most sustained dps in the game.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh, pvp players, you are so cute.

This is what a game without proper dps meters gets us, vastly misinformed people making claims like this.

make a counter argument please. At least make your post productive.

Anet does have that pattern of at least one class in each of the armor tiers having a low, medium, and high health pool. I know I’m going to get flack for saying this, but I think Engineers deserve the high health pool over Rangers.

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Wondrouswall.7169:

Anet does have that pattern of at least one class in each of the armor tiers having a low, medium, and high health pool. I know I’m going to get flack for saying this, but I think Engineers deserve the high health pool over Rangers.

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Nope, get back out here! This is a thread for discussion and I want to know your reasoning! Don’t make me sic my drake on you!

Wondrouswall.7169:

Anet does have that pattern of at least one class in each of the armor tiers having a low, medium, and high health pool. I know I’m going to get flack for saying this, but I think Engineers deserve the high health pool over Rangers.

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Engineer gets kits for a possible 30 skills on their bar which is much more utility and defense. We can claim +3k base health with our measly 15 skills, 10 of which have 10s CD to swap them.

Crap, you used “Sic ’Em” on me and now I’m revealed

My reasoning is that Engineers have a lot of utility and tools at their disposal, so I can see Engineers taking advantage of the higher health pool with different bruiser and bunker setups. On the other hand, Rangers need more of a design tweak than a larger health pool. Though, either class would benefit from a larger health pool.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Anet does have that pattern of at least one class in each of the armor tiers having a low, medium, and high health pool. I know I’m going to get flack for saying this, but I think Engineers deserve the high health pool over Rangers.

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I agree. Rangers have better condition removal than engineers, although we are pigeon holed in to taking certain skills and traits. This makes me think engies deserve it more, but we rangers are in a worse spot so maybe we deserve it for that. Then again as was said previously, higher health aint gonna fix us…

Please no, I don’t want to see a full apoth ranger with a necro healthpool running around.

Giving rangers more health or even more toughness would solve nothing.

I would much rather have the bark skin change reverted. The pet damage reduction is nice, but useless at the same time any damage brings the ranger below the threashold. Reverting bark skin then makes MDG more appealing.

I think the health breakdown should be:

necromancer, warrior, engineer
ranger, mesmer, revenant
thief, elementalist, guardian

However, I also think the gap between the tiers is currently too large and needs to be reduced. Especially between the bottom two.