Guild Wars 2

• Since it’s obvious ranger DPS builds simply are not competitive or viable in PvE, here are some suggestions to help that fact. This does not include our awful traitline options except for greasword/swrod traits*

Shortbow
1- Shortbow flanking requirements on bleed is removed. This is an asinine requirement to begin with, as condi rangers is third place in the condition build DPS totem pole to begin with.

2- Swiftness on shortbow 3 changed to super speed on ability activation, not hit. Quite frankly, ranger shortbow is just a crappy version of the thief shortbow. It needs improvements to its mobility.

3- Crippling Shot also applies 5 stacks of Torment.

4- Base damage and power coefficient on skills 2-5 buffed by ~70-100%. They do virtually no damage on power builds and are a DPS loss to just autoattacking on a power build.

Axes MH/OH

1- Mainhand autoattack’s base damage and power coefficients buffed by 70%+ (again, this autoattack’s base DPS is pathetic, even on a power build). 2 stacks of bleeds per autoattack for 4 seconds.

2- Splitblade’s base damage and power coefficients buffed by 150%. No reason to use this skill ever on a power build, as the projectiles hit for nothing, it’s just bleeds.

3- Path of Scar’s Damage buffed by ~60%. This skill has a whopping 15 sec cd and on a zerker ranger in ascended hits for a mere 6k total, it’s really unacceptable.

4- Whirling Defense is now usable while moving, damage buffed by another 20%. It has a whopping cd, it should hit harder and be a more meaningful skill for what it does, as the ranger cannot attack while channeling it unlike other reflects.

• Swords*

1- Autoattack damage on mainhand sword buffed by 60%. Autoattack on greatsword buffed by 80%. Even with these buffs our sword DPS would be doing half of what daredevil staff is doing.

2- Maul damage buffed by 50%. A maul crit in full ascended zerker is doing 5-6k crits without might stacks; my revenant’s autoattacks are doing 4-5k crits, his sword 2 is doing 4k for 3 projectiles that also chill. Maul is terribly weak.

3- Serpent’s Strike has a 15 sec cd for a miserable damage output, compared to Unrelenting Assault which easily does about 4-5 times the damage on a lesser CD. Buff it’s damage by 200% (it has an ample telegraph) and reduce its cd to 8 seconds.

4- Monarch’s Leap needs to have its cast time reduced town to 1/4, and the evade frame should take place during its cast time. Really unreliable evade.

5- Merge Strider’s Defense and greatsword training into a single trait. Remove the icd off the fury proc on greatsword component (3 seconds out of 10 is pitiful uptime, compare with Warrior’s greatswrod trait of 12 might stacks on 100B with no icd) of the trait and make so when it procs it also cripples the target for 3 seconds so that the greatsword has some way to benefit from Predator’s Onslaught other than skill 4.

6- Greatsword’s 4 skill needs to knock down, not back. 1 second knockdown.

7- Greatsword 5 needs to be sped up so it actually hits moving targets, it shouldn’t even root you in place.

Longbow

1- Pierces targets baseline. Why does this need to be a trait when rifle warriors and revenant hammer pierce baseline and hit just as hard if not harder?

2- Damage ranges removed and maximum damage standardized. My revenant’s hammer autos are critting people for 4-6k, but my mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow are rendered null in PvE by being kitten because you need to be in melee to pick up boons and be healed?

3- Barrage cd lowered to 20 seconds. Damage of each volley increased by 50%. This is truly a pathetic skill compared to the likes of meteor shower which not only don’t kill you anywhere as badly with retaliation but Meteor Shower even has a lower cd!

Staff

Either the damage or the healing needs to go considerably up. This weapon is a stinker only used for the mobility on 3 and because its small numbers heal padding charges up astral force.

It actually needs to excel at something, so either buff the base healing on solar beam and skill 2 and 5 considerably (and allow solar beam to heal the ranger baseline), or its damage on solar beam and wisp need to go up by the ranges of 30-40%.

1- Vine Surge is incredibly weak. The roots actually need to last longer than this, and it should cripple the target after the root ends.

Buff its damage by 100%, increase the root amount to 3 seconds, and apply a 7 second cripple afterwards.

Warhorn

1- Reduce cd on Call of the Wild down to 20 seconds. Increase might stacks to 5.

2- Hunter’s Call does pathetic damage and has a humongous cooldown, on top of being a single target skill.

Buff its damage by 100% and reduce its cd to 15 seconds.

How to make ranger ridiculously op (in PvP/WvW) …

UmbraNoctis.1907:

How to make ranger ridiculously op (in PvP/WvW) …

Which is why I put PvE in the title, but thanks for bumping my thread with your worthless post.

1. Balance isn’t split between PvE and PvP.
2. Druid is already one of the most important classes in PvE, thanks to its support/buffs. Huge dps increase would require nerfs elsewhere to keep it balanced.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

1. Balance isn’t split between PvE and PvP.
2. Druid is already one of the most important classes in PvE, thanks to its support/buffs. Huge dps increase would require nerfs elsewhere to keep it balanced.

1- It should be. I don’t see why my format should be hostage to yours.

2- By important you mean as a buffbot that would be back to being discarded like before HoT if it didn’t have a grandmaster like Grace of the Land and Frost Spirit.

A DPS increase would require no such change to balancing, since guardian provides perma protection at 29k DPS, Herald provides perma fury, quickness, and might at 30k DPS. The list goes on, warrior gives an even bigger party DPS boost than druid and yet they still do more DPS.

But this isn’t even about druid and people who are forced to be heal/buffbots just to be allowed to participate in PvE.

This is about making people who rolled a ranger to fill a DPS role be viable. Which it isn’t.

Don’t even pretend to care about PvE. This is so obviously a facade for denying buffs to rangers that are needed for PvE just because your crappy PvP/WvW takes precedence.

In which case we’re talking WvW because ranger isn’t even good in sPvP to begin with.

I do agree that we should be more than buff/heal-bots and at least considerable for a DPS role when we actually spec for it. However, a large portion of our damage issues come from our Pets also being unreliable against moving targets (and being easy to melt when it comes to AoE and whatnot) and their own inability to share our boons without Nature Magic. If those are ever addressed, we’ll definitely be on the way to being better in terms of overall DPS.

That said, I like your Shortbow/Axe changes, but I also thing something should be done with Honed Axes, as its current effects aren’t even GM worthy. It either needs to either be moved somewhere else or given Precision over Ferocity with a stronger additional effect.

Winter’s Bite’s AoE should also be baseline imo, but if not, a compromise would be the Winter’s Bite AoE+Moving Whirling Axe.

Disagree on GS 4 being a Knockdown, though. Its still able to be used to knock enemies off points or edges or just to keep them away from you a little longer before swapping weapons/healing, but what I’d suggest is that it works closer to Bandit’s defense: You block until you activate the kick instead of kicking automatically when a target gets close. Also, make the kick faster or change it to a quick frontal sweep/lunge to make it reliably hit

Euthymias.7984:

I do agree that we should be more than buff/heal-bots and at least considerable for a DPS role when we actually spec for it. However, a large portion of our damage issues come from our Pets also being unreliable against moving targets (and being easy to melt when it comes to AoE and whatnot) and their own inability to share our boons without Nature Magic. If those are ever addressed, we’ll definitely be on the way to being better in terms of overall DPS.

That said, I like your Shortbow/Axe changes, but I also thing something should be done with Honed Axes, as its current effects aren’t even GM worthy. It either needs to either be moved somewhere else or given Precision over Ferocity with a stronger additional effect.

Winter’s Bite’s AoE should also be baseline imo, but if not, a compromise would be the Winter’s Bite AoE+Moving Whirling Axe.

Disagree on GS 4 being a Knockdown, though. Its still able to be used to knock enemies off points or edges or just to keep them away from you a little longer before swapping weapons/healing, but what I’d suggest is that it works closer to Bandit’s defense: You block until you activate the kick instead of kicking automatically when a target gets close. Also, make the kick faster or change it to a quick frontal sweep/lunge to make it reliably hit

Honed Axes would be worthwhile if my suggestions for the axe went through as its power components on the mainhand would no longer be miserable.

In this case ferocity is more useful than precision because in a raid setting you are already crit capped (which is why we don’t use sigil of accuracy, going for either sigil of water or air instead).

They just need to buff the numbers so that the weapons works as either power or condi damage, with gear just amplifying them instead of just making them viable.

As rangers we are stuck with hybrid weapons, so both the power components and condi components on the weapons need to be brought up to be competitive, if they’re not going to overhaul the weapons.

The reason I’m insisting on also buffing the power components of mainhand axe instead of just abandoning it and making it a pure condi weapon is thus:

Rangers really don’t have any remotely good aoe/cleave weapon.

Mainhand sword misses a cleave on the second step, longbow barrage is our only other aoe and is on a ridiculius cd not to mention a weak channeled skill.

So axes can pose as our sustained aoe damage weapon with its bounce mechanic.

That way, the bows and swords serve as our single target power/condi weapons, but the axe fills that niche where it bounces and can do some decent aoe damage we’re sorely lacking.

They meant to give us glyphs as another option for aoe, but glyphs are trash and we only really equip them because ranger utilities in general suck and even a 10% buff for 6 seconds on a 20 sec cd seems good even though it isn’t.

I mean, what are our options, the dreadful shout for 40% extra damage on a pet that at best does 12% of our DPS? That’s miserly.

Signet of the Wild’s passive should be changed to a Power stat increase instead of that negligible regen that hasn’t been remotely useful ever since BM bunker builds were meta.

Rangers just don’t have meaningful options for effective offensive DPS traits and utilities. Just like we don’t have remotely good stun breaks or condi clears.

Our Signet of Stone is a whopping 80 sec cd (60 if traited), while warriors with traited Endure Pain breaks stuns, lasts the same amount, triggers twice, among other things. Signet of Renewal is still a whopping 60 sec cd for some reason, and our only other option besides Healing Spring and Empathic Bond for clearing conditions.

You basically just said, “buff everything because other classes”.
That’s not how balance works, nor is anyone going to take you seriously.

Yes, other classes need to be brought back down in line. There are better, more realistic tweaks and fixes needed as mentioned in the main thread going on right now here.

UnitedChaos.8364:

You basically just said, “buff everything because other classes”.
That’s not how balance works, nor is anyone going to take you seriously.

Yes, other classes need to be brought back down in line. There are better, more realistic tweaks and fixes needed as mentioned in the main thread going on right now here.

Well, yeah, unless you’re suggesting several classes eat nerfs to every skill and autoattack on the scale of 70-100% to be par with ranger, that’s the balance that’s needed in PvE.

Sorry you can’t grasp the concept of numbers or how class balance doesn’t translate into class disparity. In PvE, reducing a mob’s HP to zero is all that matters, and the classes who do so most efficiently fill the DPS role.

It’s that simple. They’re not going to halve the other classes’ DPS just so ranger can compete with its already low DPS.

There is a difference between “needed” and “wanted”. I mean, i would like to see some higher numbers too of course, but for what exactly do you need so much more dmg?

Ranger doesn’t really fit a dps role, yes. But the same is also true for other classes, even if they have better dmg. Warriors, revs and mesmers are not used for their dmg either. They are buffbots just like druid. Yes, the first two can deal more dmg than druid – but it doesn’t change their role.

There are only two reasons why a class is taken in an optimal setup: Top dps (power or condi) or unique buffs/utility.
If you have second or third best dps – nobody cares, if you don’t bring anything else. (Thieves or guards are basically useless – strictly talking about efficiency here).
Buffing ranger’s dmg won’t change its role unless it can take the #1 spot in dps rankings. But having both top dps and unique buffs in one class, while all other classes provide only one of those two things (or none), wouldn’t be balanced.

Of course it would be nice, if all classes can fullfill different roles at equal levels, but that’s nearly impossible to achieve.

So you can care about the most efficient gameplay and have a role as buffbot (which is more than some other classes have) – or you can stop caring and just play what you want, including dps ranger. Things will still die. Maybe not as fast as you want them to die, but does it really matter?

UmbraNoctis.1907:

There is a difference between “needed” and “wanted”. I mean, i would like to see some higher numbers too of course, but for what exactly do you need so much more dmg?

Ranger doesn’t really fit a dps role, yes. But the same is also true for other classes, even if they have better dmg. Warriors, revs and mesmers are not used for their dmg either. They are buffbots just like druid. Yes, the first two can deal more dmg than druid – but it doesn’t change their role.

There are only two reasons why a class is taken in an optimal setup: Top dps (power or condi) or unique buffs/utility.
If you have second or third best dps – nobody cares, if you don’t bring anything else. (Thieves or guards are basically useless – strictly talking about efficiency here).
Buffing ranger’s dmg won’t change its role unless it can take the #1 spot in dps rankings. But having both top dps and unique buffs in one class, while all other classes provide only one of those two things (or none), wouldn’t be balanced.

Of course it would be nice, if all classes can fullfill different roles at equal levels, but that’s nearly impossible to achieve.

So you can care about the most efficient gameplay and have a role as buffbot (which is more than some other classes have) – or you can stop caring and just play what you want, including dps ranger. Things will still die. Maybe not as fast as you want them to die, but does it really matter?

Yes, because I don’t know of any raid that allows a ranger to no trait druid and come in as a DPS ranger instead, who does about 12-14k less DPS than a reveneant or guardian, which aren’t even DPS classes by your twisted logic but who still provide massive group support.

And so do eles for that matter, if PS warriors didn’t exist all eles would have to do is run heatsync and the fire grandmaster for permanent might and fury. It’s not like eles lack support.

The only DPS class without real group utility are thieves. And they are no worse than eles, they do virtually the same DPS and it’s even easier because their rotation is braindead autoattack spam in between vaults on top of their ridiculous mobility that allows them to do mechanics far better than ele without the DPS loss. Daredevils are actually used in raids.

Again, stop pretending like you care about PvE. This is clearly you not wanting any changes on account of PvP. Which is why I said PvE/PvP balance should be split.

In their very manifesto they said all classes would be able to fulfill their roles comparably, with only slight differences. A 12k+ DPS difference is not a “slight” difference.

I don’t have to be happy about the fact that ranger weapons and traits for a DPS are utter trash and my class is only propped up by frost spirit, spotter, and a druid grandmaster trait.

Class parity is very possible to achieve. FFXIV has a difference no greater than 100 DPS among the DPS classes. Stop spreading this BS that class balance in PvE for roles can’t be done. It can, they just haven’t bothered to try because of PvP.

The QoL changes to hornet sting and SB #3 would be very welcome, anything to help upkeep the steady focus modifier under real raid situations is great. The recent change to staff auto queuing made ancestral grace really good for dodging with too.

That said I think most of the proposed damage buffs are unneeded, and would make ranger extremely overpowered from a PvE perspective.

Zenith.7301:

Yes, because I don’t know of any raid that allows a ranger to no trait druid and come in as a DPS ranger instead, who does about 12-14k less DPS than a reveneant or guardian, which aren’t even DPS classes by your twisted logic but who still provide massive group support.

That simply isn’t true. Full DPS “Selfish” Ranger damage is around 30k DPS currently. The highest Revenant DPS I’ve seen is also around 30k, and Guardian I believe is slightly behind (28-29k).

The reason raid groups are generally unaccepting of base rangers isn’t because of their personal damage potential, but more because they have so much more potential when buffing the group as a whole. I’d take extremely powerful unique buffs over more personal damage anyday.

I mean look at the sorry state of revenants in raids right now. The one unique thing they brought to a group (Facet of Nature) is quickly being made redundant due to the rise in commander’s geared chronos. They rarely have a spot anymore.

Similarly, the main appeal of Guardian (Protection) is made completely redundant by the Druid slotting one simple utility skill (Stone spirit).

Meanwhile us Druids have 2 reserved spots in most organised raid groups. Personally I think the other classes need the buffs, not us.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4ft01q/qt_dps_benchmarkstests_for_all_classes/

Given those benchmarks, do you think a single traitline change away from druid would bring up the highest DPS recording, 20.2k, up by 9.8k DPS as you say?

Are you happy that our greatsword is so bad, that autoattacking in melee suboptimal range with the longbow in between rapid fires is preferable to a s+a/GS rotation?

And revenant didn’t just bring facet of nature, they brought Assassin’s Presence, 150 ferocity for the group. Their version of Spotter.

I’m not sure how you can be pleased with a state of PvE where tempests are being brought in spades, and if not that daredevils or engineers instead.

It should be closer. Tempest not only boost past 30k SINGLE target DPS, they’re the one class uniquely positioned to dominate the cleave/aoe scenario. A selfsih DPS ranger under ideal circumstances would still come far short in the aoe department.

Selfish DPS ranger wasn’t wanted then before HoT, and it isn’t wanted now. And after HoT virtually nothing of real value changed about base ranger DPS. It was mostly QoL fixes.

Zenith.7301:

Given those benchmarks, do you think a single traitline change away from druid would bring up the highest DPS recording, 20.2k, up by 9.8k DPS as you say?

The condi Druid rotations have been optimised quite a lot since Subi recorded those videos. The raid ready SB + A/T druid peaks out at roughly 23k DPS. But yes, the change of traits / utilities to be more selfish really does seem to add the remaining 7k DPS.

Zenith.7301:

Are you happy that our greatsword is so bad, that autoattacking in melee suboptimal range with the longbow in between rapid fires is preferable to a s+a/GS rotation?

Greatsword is the one weapon which I feel could use a slight buff, but certainly not to the extent that you mention in your OP (+80% on autos, +50% for maul). I would perhaps increase the damage of maul but also increase it’s CD, such that the skill has better synergy with quick draw. The weapon is overall far more defensive than main hand sword, so should never exceed it in DPS.

Zenith.7301:

I’m not sure how you can be pleased with a state of PvE where tempests are being brought in spades, and if not that daredevils or engineers instead.

Tempests, Warriors and Druid’s are currently brought in spades. Ranger is meta in both 5 and 10 man comps. Buffing the class further will just make life harder for the classes that are actually struggling to get raid spots right now (Engineers, Guardians etc).

AnariiUK.7409:

The condi Druid rotations have been optimised quite a lot since Subi recorded those videos. The raid ready SB + A/T druid peaks out at roughly 23k DPS. But yes, the change of traits / utilities to be more selfish really does seem to add the remaining 7k DPS.

“Rotation isn’t realistic, nor are the buffs applied.”

So basically the 30k number isn’t right.

AnariiUK.7409:

Zenith.7301:

Given those benchmarks, do you think a single traitline change away from druid would bring up the highest DPS recording, 20.2k, up by 9.8k DPS as you say?

The condi Druid rotations have been optimised quite a lot since Subi recorded those videos. The raid ready SB + A/T druid peaks out at roughly 23k DPS. But yes, the change of traits / utilities to be more selfish really does seem to add the remaining 7k DPS.

Zenith.7301:

Are you happy that our greatsword is so bad, that autoattacking in melee suboptimal range with the longbow in between rapid fires is preferable to a s+a/GS rotation?

Greatsword is the one weapon which I feel could use a slight buff, but certainly not to the extent that you mention in your OP (+80% on autos, +50% for maul). I would perhaps increase the damage of maul but also increase it’s CD, such that the skill has better synergy with quick draw. The weapon is overall far more defensive than main hand sword, so should never exceed it in DPS.

Zenith.7301:

I’m not sure how you can be pleased with a state of PvE where tempests are being brought in spades, and if not that daredevils or engineers instead.

Tempests, Warriors and Druid’s are currently brought in spades. Ranger is meta in both 5 and 10 man comps. Buffing the class further will just make life harder for the classes that are actually struggling to get raid spots right now (Engineers, Guardians etc).

From the link:

“Rotation isn’t realistic, nor are the buffs applied. I just wanted to see how far the damage could go if I went for every selfish personal DPS increase.
The result is decent but not extravagant, sadly :/”

Not what I call a ringing endorsement.

The video you linked is also of a condi build. Most of my suggested buffs are for POWER weapons, which lack behind condi numbers by a considerable amount.

And I don’t find greatsword a more defensive weapon than mainhand sword. Greatswor’ds evade is tied to the autoattack chain, which means it’s not under your control unless you want to delay the auto and kill your DPS.

Mainhand sword has 2 built in evades, and can be paired with warhorn for a blast+might+fury+swiftness, or an axe for reflects and a pull, or a dagger for a 3rd evade.

Mainhand sword has far more utility than greatsword, so if anything the greatsword should be the superior DPS weapon.

Increasing the cd of Maul to make it look better with quick draw is exactly what I’m against. A weapon shouldn’t be tied to a grandmaster to be useful. The cd of Maul is already the same as 100 blades and it does only a fraction of the damage on top of wasted utility (vulnerability when vulnerability is already easily capped).

And you bring 2 druids only because the squad system limits buffs to 5 people. If we ever got to the point where buffs affected 10 people, Tempests would be punting the second druid/warrior out most likely.

I just don’t have a good taste of being basically a walking buff totem.

I don’t think buffing them will make life harder for those classes. What makes life harder for these classes is the rampant disparity in performance that they won’t fix.

Stuff like buffing power necro so it’s not garbage, buffing scrapper so it has a viable build option that doesn’t suffer on mobile bosses (just like the condi ranger).

I completely agree that other classes need help, but I don’t think this precludes the ranger being allowed more build diversity than being a buffbot for Grace of the Land and spirits.

More importantly, I want you to not take my number suggestions so seriously. They’re ballpark. Numbers can be adjusted, but what I want you to pay attention to is the spirit of the changes, which is that our power weapons need help, and mainhand axe and shortbow could use quality of life fixes in their autoattacks. Buffing our mainhand axe autoattack so that it does 2/3 the damage of our longbow auto isn’t going to make us be brought over all other classes, but it will make the weapon usable in more circumstances and viable with traits like Honed Axes

Levetty.1279:

“Rotation isn’t realistic, nor are the buffs applied.”

So basically the 30k number isn’t right.

Zenith.7301:

From the link:

“Rotation isn’t realistic, nor are the buffs applied. I just wanted to see how far the damage could go if I went for every selfish personal DPS increase.
The result is decent but not extravagant, sadly :/”

Not what I call a ringing endorsement.

There’s nothing unrealistic about his rotation, it’s the regular condi-druid rotation just with traps being spammed on cooldown. While I do agree that the applied buffs are unrealistic, the same buffs have been applied for the Revenant / Guardian numbers that I quoted above. It’s a common misconception that a selfish ranger does very little DPS so having an actual benchmark helps to stop the spread of misinformation.

But yeah, numbers aside you’ve convinced me that perhaps the power builds could use a little help and buffs to greatsword would be a great way to do that. My main concern would be that as you buff the power specs, condition builds quickly become useless as they lack the utility (Pulls, reflects, fury etc) that the power builds bring. I already bring power builds on 4/6 of the current raid fights simply for that reason.

Zenith.7301:

Increasing the cd of Maul to make it look better with quick draw is exactly what I’m against. A weapon shouldn’t be tied to a grandmaster to be useful.

The issue with Maul right now is that you need to cast it 3 times on each weapon swap. For example: Switch -> QD Maul, Auto, Maul, Auto, Maul -> Switch. This leaves no time to enter CA form, making the longbow rapid-fire alternative much more appealing. Spacing them out but increasing the damage would make it much more usable I feel.

Zenith.7301:

And you bring 2 druids only because the squad system limits buffs to 5 people. If we ever got to the point where buffs affected 10 people, Tempests would be punting the second druid/warrior out most likely.

I think this is healthy for the game as a whole. Boons affecting 10 players would mean that you’d only have a small number of slots allocated for “buffers / utility” then the rest filled with maximum DPS. Since there’s always going to be one particular class that shines at DPS for a certain fight, that class gets stacked and you end up with less diversity overall. We already see this happening with Ele’s at gorseval.

I think condi builds could also use some QoL fixes, for example making winter’s bite aoe baseline among other small fixes, and making more pets less terrible and their F2 skills actually useful skills would not penalize condi builds, as they would fill in what’s missing.

But, yeah, as I said, the mainhand sword is chock full of utility because of its offhand utility options, which is why I think greatsword should edge it out in DPS.

They could even modify offhand axe so in addition to what it currently does, whirling defense applies stacks of bleeds and path of scars applies torment so that you have these side options and incentives for condi offhands. Warhorn 4 is another stealth option that’s been used in wvw widely for its condition procs, so why not just only buff its power damage but also tack on to it a baseline stack of bleeds.

Simple changes to give us a variety of compelling weapon choices.

If anything condi shall always have the advantage in high level fractals and in encounters where blocks like the aetherblade fractal happen, along with meaningful debuffs like poison and weakness if they ever decide to make those relevant again in PvE.