Guild Wars 2

Ranger—Smokescale: Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet. Fixed an issue in which this skill dealt higher than intended damage; it has been reduced by 50%.

Typical Anet. Always ready for nerfs but never ready for buffs.

Hammerguard.9834:

Ranger—Smokescale: Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet. Fixed an issue in which this skill dealt higher than intended damage; it has been reduced by 50%.

Typical Anet. Always ready for nerfs but never ready for buffs.

its kittening amazing how true this is.

Not only that but…

Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet

…is a huge mistake.

We need the smoke field on demand for invis. Wtf is Anet thinking?

Right, so it was 50% more damage “than intended” all throughout BWE3, but only now, suddenly, it had to be “fixed.” Sounds legit, Anet. Can you go actually fix Druid now? :P

AF gain and cooldown still not something that’s fixed. So, essentially, we were already in poor posture and one of the few things which was nice was also downgraded.

I really wish they’d have taken the Smokescale’s effectiveness as a benchmark on “pets, done right” and then raise the others to that level, but -noooo-

Some people do say that the damage nerf on Smoke Assault was needed. I figure I can give that the benefit of the doubt.

I am, however, not thrilled about the F2 swap. I like doing the smoke cloud to choose when to get more tanky, and otherwise let the rather effective smokescale do its own thing. Now I have to spam F2 for damage pretty much whenever rather than use it tactically.

Kreed.2768:

Right, so it was 50% more damage “than intended” all throughout BWE3, but only now, suddenly, it had to be “fixed.” Sounds legit, Anet. Can you go actually fix Druid now? :P

You can’t fix what’s “working as intended”…

Substance E.4852:

Kreed.2768:

Right, so it was 50% more damage “than intended” all throughout BWE3, but only now, suddenly, it had to be “fixed.” Sounds legit, Anet. Can you go actually fix Druid now? :P

You can’t fix what’s “working as intended”…

Of course, how silly of me.

Called it!

Hammerguard.9834:

Ranger—Smokescale: Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet. Fixed an issue in which this skill dealt higher than intended damage; it has been reduced by 50%.

Typical Anet. Always ready for nerfs but never ready for buffs.

What the hell do they mean “not intended?” They set the kittening values, play tested it, must’ve said “Yeah, that’s good.” And had done with it

Fed up of being shafted again and again by poor planning and failure to predict anything. WHaO was a great example.

I don’t mind being nerfed at the end of the day, but 50%? Just, for the love of God THINK before you do something and then you won’t have to nerf anything!

The damage reduction? Ok, fine.

But swapping the F2 skill?

I’d like to know the reasoning behind that.

Hammerguard.9834:

Not only that but “Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet” is a huge mistake.

We need to smoke field on demand for invis. Wtf is Anet thinking.

wouldn’t want ranger to infringe on thief/ mesmer territory and be useful in a new way…..i genuinely dislike the devs in charge of balance.

their vision for ranger stinks.

this is perfectly fine. in fact, I like it better. 50% is still 5.5k damage without crits, on-demand. while I thought the on-demand smoke field would be amazing, it turned out to be impractical and useless to me. id rather have a bit of on-demand burst.

I was gonna suggest a 30% damage nerf, but 50% + on-demand status of the skill is fair. also now, you can just grab the 7 stacks of might the smokescale gets with WHaO because you know exactly when the pet has it. this in itself makes might stacking on the ranger absolutely trivial. I’m talking 25 might here, whenever.

when the smokescale has 25 stacks of might (very easy to achieve), this hits for ~8k.

this is still my favourite offensive pet.

Having the Smoke on auto makes no sense. Why would I want my pet to randomly put a smoke field down, that it will have to stand in to not take damage? It has no tactical use to me.

Do they even test this stuff. Seriously it was pretty obvious this pet was good. You could see it in the Druid reveal video lol. Not exactly sure as to why the F2 got switched.

aB EXT.1287:

Having the Smoke on auto makes no sense. Why would I want my pet to randomly put a smoke field down, that it will have to stand in to not take damage? It has no tactical use to me.

This.

-Pet puts smokefield down randomly, interrupting a stream of dps. -Boss/mobs move
-smokescale moves too
-random smokefield chillin at the edge of the battlefield
-pet made 1/4 more useless.

It’s our MECHANIC. THE THING THAT MAKES US RANGERS. why are you so intent in making it useless as you can Anet?!?

I genuinely hate the people that QQ over ranger power and get us nerfed in seconds.

Watch the threads about this get merged into one big kittenfest so devs can “listen” to it.

The tool tip indicates the new F2 does not work with Go For The Eyes, Loud Whistle , and Withering Strike traits. Those are the Blind, reduced cool down, and weakness traits, respectively.

Ah, well, by the time of bwe 3 I had almost gotten used to feeling useful in raids and fractals.
Glad to see things are back as they’re intended to be, huh?

ANet #1: “Yo dude this skill is bugged, it’s doing 50% more damage than it should and we didn’t know about it during beta, what should we do?”

ANet #2: “Oh wow, we messed up. Which class was it?”

ANet #1: “Ranger.”

ANet #2: "WHAT!??? NERF it and break a completely different skill’s utility too! WE MUST PUNISH THOSE FILTHY RANGERS FOR HAVING SOMETHING GOOD. I bet they are hyped about our expansion too, even after we tried to kill it by making them into dedicated healers, I bet they are actually adapting to it and are calling it “viable”. They will suffer for having something good. I want it destroyed next hotfix.

ANet #1: But those are only for bugs right now, we want to wait and see if things are actually strong and not nerf it 2 days into the expansion.

ANet #2: Ranger being viable is a bug.

Relshdan.6854:

Hammerguard.9834:

Not only that but “Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet” is a huge mistake.

We need to smoke field on demand for invis. Wtf is Anet thinking.

wouldn’t want ranger to infringe on thief/ mesmer territory and be useful in a new way…..i genuinely dislike the devs in charge of balance.

their vision for ranger stinks.

What vision? All evidence points to flailing in the dark at this point. They launched HoT with CAF in a blatantly unusable state, and haven’t even bothered to discuss it with the playerbase. Instead, they throw heavy-handed nerfs while we’re already down.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Relshdan.6854:

Hammerguard.9834:

Not only that but “Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet” is a huge mistake.

We need to smoke field on demand for invis. Wtf is Anet thinking.

wouldn’t want ranger to infringe on thief/ mesmer territory and be useful in a new way…..i genuinely dislike the devs in charge of balance.

their vision for ranger stinks.

What vision? All evidence points to flailing in the dark at this point. They launched HoT with CAF in a blatantly unusable state, and haven’t even bothered to discuss it with the playerbase. Instead, they throw heavy-handed nerfs while we’re already down.

my bad indeed…should have said “their lack of vision” stinks.

they’ll stay silent on the matter until 4-6 months from now when they decide to do a balance patch….because only buffs on certain classes like necro and ranger get quick dev attention.

Seyamn.8071:

The tool tip indicates the new F2 does not work with Go For The Eyes, Loud Whistle , and Withering Strike traits. Those are the Blind, reduced cool down, and weakness traits, respectively.

Can anyone confirm this?

If that is true, its just….. omg

Hammerguard.9834:

Ranger—Smokescale: Smoke Assault: This skill has switched places with Smoke Cloud so that it will now be the F2 skill for this pet. Fixed an issue in which this skill dealt higher than intended damage; it has been reduced by 50%.

Typical Anet. Always ready for nerfs but never ready for buffs.

Anet, since the inception of Guild Wars 2, has shown a disdain for Rangers all the way around.

1. F2 doens’t work consistently, if at all

2. Rangers pet’s have half the health of their PvE counterparts

3. Rangers, some, have been disallowed into PvP, our pets have been turned off so we are not tempted to go into PvP.

4. We are hated even now in WvW, PvP, Dungeons and Fractals – and for good reason

5. Anet closes down any real discussion of why Rangers are being nerfed while other professions continually become better, faster, stronger and able to one to two shot us while standing in stealth – and that’s not as a glassy Ranger either.

6. Anet doesn’t want the discussion about Rangers and why we are not as well thought out as our supposed peers.

Any additions?

We’re not asking for the world – we’re asking for things to work as intended and as they say they will and not to be put at a disadvantage in our favorite game modes – which for many isn’t PvE.

Norrath.5910:

ANet #1: “Yo dude this skill is bugged, it’s doing 50% more damage than it should and we didn’t know about it during beta, what should we do?”

ANet #2: “Oh wow, we messed up. Which class was it?”

ANet #1: “Ranger.”

ANet #2: "WHAT!??? NERF it and break a completely different skill’s utility too! WE MUST PUNISH THOSE FILTHY RANGERS FOR HAVING SOMETHING GOOD. I bet they are hyped about our expansion too, even after we tried to kill it by making them into dedicated healers, I bet they are actually adapting to it and are calling it “viable”. They will suffer for having something good. I want it destroyed next hotfix.

ANet #1: But those are only for bugs right now, we want to wait and see if things are actually strong and not nerf it 2 days into the expansion.

ANet #2: Ranger being viable is a bug.

See my post… I am disgustged that supposed adults would ignore Rangers, give us a glimmer of hope (but not in the game modes we need) and then, as you said, slam us to the ground…

Ranger – Slammed to the ground since Pre-Release

Thanks, I just found my tagline.

Norrath.5910:

ANet #1: “Yo dude this skill is bugged, it’s doing 50% more damage than it should and we didn’t know about it during beta, what should we do?”

ANet #2: “Oh wow, we messed up. Which class was it?”

ANet #1: “Ranger.”

ANet #2: "WHAT!??? NERF it and break a completely different skill’s utility too! WE MUST PUNISH THOSE FILTHY RANGERS FOR HAVING SOMETHING GOOD. I bet they are hyped about our expansion too, even after we tried to kill it by making them into dedicated healers, I bet they are actually adapting to it and are calling it “viable”. They will suffer for having something good. I want it destroyed next hotfix.

ANet #1: But those are only for bugs right now, we want to wait and see if things are actually strong and not nerf it 2 days into the expansion.

ANet #2: Ranger being viable is a bug.

See my post… I am disgustged that supposed adults would ignore Rangers, give us a glimmer of hope (but not in the game modes we need) and then, as you said, slam us to the ground…

Ranger – Slammed to the ground since Pre-Release

Thanks, I just found my tagline.

Sigh. I was wondering what was happening, why my pet was doing less damage, and why the pet was doing the F2 attack on its own for no reason.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Seyamn.8071:

The tool tip indicates the new F2 does not work with Go For The Eyes, Loud Whistle , and Withering Strike traits. Those are the Blind, reduced cool down, and weakness traits, respectively.

Can anyone confirm this?

If that is true, its just….. omg

It triggers Go for the Eyes and Beastly Warden (with a huge radius. It can catch two of the LMH testing golems) but does not work with Loud Wistle Pack Alpha and does not Trigger withering Strikes.

Anyone know who’s the dedicated dev to this miserable class?

Nibcakelol.9082:

Anyone know who’s the dedicated dev to this miserable class?

Who knows, can’t remmber the last class related dev post on ranger forums that wasn’t for druid.

May never have happened tbh :/

In the patch notes it states “damage was not working as intended; reduced by 50%”
What a bunch of clowns.

Not working as intended? So during the reveal, the first BWE, and then release no one noticed this until now?

Or did it really take that long to fix? Doubt it.
At least just have the balls to say it felt too strong so we did a kneejeek reaction nerf.

The worst part, not even comparable to the damage lost, is the switch on f2. What a shame.

Just wanted to post that this skill swap makes no sense. 3 years playing a ranger but this is too much. Lucky that i leveled another toon to 80 so i can bench the main.

I said this elsewhere, but I get the feeling this change is based around PvP. In the only beta we got, we couldn’t select any of the new pets because of a bug. Now, with them available, opposing players are seeing a ranger/druid they’re not liking . . . especially with a pet that will teleport to your location as you try to run away.

Thus. . . .

Norrath.5910:

ANet #1: “Yo dude this skill is bugged, it’s doing 50% more damage than it should and we didn’t know about it during beta, what should we do?”

ANet #2: “Oh wow, we messed up. Which class was it?”

ANet #1: “Ranger.”

ANet #2: "WHAT!??? NERF it and break a completely different skill’s utility too! WE MUST PUNISH THOSE FILTHY RANGERS FOR HAVING SOMETHING GOOD. I bet they are hyped about our expansion too, even after we tried to kill it by making them into dedicated healers, I bet they are actually adapting to it and are calling it “viable”. They will suffer for having something good. I want it destroyed next hotfix.

ANet #1: But those are only for bugs right now, we want to wait and see if things are actually strong and not nerf it 2 days into the expansion.

ANet #2: Ranger being viable is a bug.

Sadly, this is closer to the truth than not. Any indication that rangers are becoming viable and they immediately break out the nerf bat. They don’t want this class to work which is why #craphealer. But hey, we can’t fix that other unintended bug where Halloween events don’t give you Tyria credit, because that might break the game.

They are so full of kitten it’s beyond belief.

the damage needed nerfing, like it or not.

but the F2 skill change, like the garbage that is passing for celestial avatar duration and AF generation, is flat out unacceptable.

Seriously guys, save yourself from further distress/nervous breakdown/heart failure and either switch classes, or switch games.

I say this with love, BTW, as a former Ranger player and someone who mained a Hunter in WoW.

I’m not trying to remove the class, or anything.

It’s just not worth the stress, here.

TBH, I would far rather find out that it’s because the devs hate hunters IRL, because I can relate to that, because I would never kill an animal for fun.

But, while it just looks suspiciously like they want a permanent whipping boy type class and easy kills, while they presumably play their sustained stealthing/heavy armour classes, I struggle to have any respect for them, at all.