Guild Wars 2

Hello, (Feel free to jump down to the first bulleted list to get the point of the thread).

Since Ranger Watch Spirit Watch was the last map in rotation there has been a lot of QQ from the community about rangers. Also, since the ele nerf Rangers are now some of the best “replacements” for d/d eles due to high survivability to damage ratio namely the BM spec. Traditionally the BM is a side node holder but some rangers, such as myself have developed it into an offensive roamer. Currently, my spec has near perma swiftness in combat an 1100 range gap closer on a 9.5s recharge. Moreover, I have 21.5k hp, 3k armor, and potentially a pet that can crit from 6k – 11k depending on my opponent armor. In a perfect storm, with my spec if you are out of stunbreak (which after the amount off CC from LB/GS you’ve probably used) I can double spike you with both ravens turning that 6k-11k to 12k-22k in about 3 seconds while you’re stunned (granting crits). So why am I telling you this? Because this kitten is OP. My weakness however, is that my pet can be killed quiet easily since I don’t run signet of the wild. Qt Hman has been the only player to EVER target and kill my pets (though with traps and on a small area).

Of course I am a little bias and I don’t want my build to be nerfed but there are other BM specs out there that have more evades than mine, a significant burst, and the pet cannot be killed do to signet of the wild cough [DTC] cough and also Ovi’s spec though Ovi has less burst and is more tanky.

My spec since people have asked: 0/10/30/0/30
Skirmishing: I
WS: III, X, XI
BM: VI, IV, XII

Amulet: Soldiers
Runes: 6 x Melandru
Weapons: Longbow, sigil of doom. (poison stops heals If I miss the rupt and does like 500 damage).
Greatsword, sigil of paralyzation (allows just! enough time to get the pet F2 off).
Heal: Troll Unguent.
Utilities: Signet of Renewal, Lightning Reflexes, X. I like muddy terrain for the immo on most maps which is both offensive and defensive.
Elite: Whatever. I like RaO because I tend to end up having to debunk someone off a node (which is really easy with LB/GS/Muddy Terrain).
Pets: Double Raven (each of the ravens have their own skill CDs and they do not share them even though it looks like they do). Good Luck. Ravens are a bit… unruly.

So the issues the community has been having are the following:

• Hard to kill 1 v 1
• Leash range
  - Pets killing players at a team fight while the ranger is off doing whatever
  - Pets keeping players in combat
  - Pets killing treb/stalling communes.
• Can’t kill the pet
• Survivability:Damage
• Downed state

Thoughts:
1. 1 v 1.

• Some specs can kill BM 1 v 1, some trappers can do it if they catch the ranger and the pet in aoe.
• Some eles can do it killing the pet.
• Phantasm mesmers can do it as well.
• Some good necros can do it, DPS guards could if they targeted pet.
• Most things are easy mode regardless of my health because I can just run, block, or cc (other specs evade) until I can either heal or I can burst you.
• This is a team game and most BM builds doesn’t attribute much to the fight.
  My choice: This is a team game leave the 1 v 1 specs as they are (lol @ bias).

2. Leash range.

• Only thing that breaks this is stealth so unless Anet thinks teams need to be highly coordinated to deal with rangers then something has to change.
• If leash range is shortened then it will significantly hurt a tactical advantage that rangers have. Being able to watch a point while pet kills treb or attack at another node is awesome but when I’m on the receiving end it really sucks.
• Is this really all that different from mesmer portal? Should guard allow a pet to guard another player or be able to keep the pet on that point and not reset if the player stealth or runs out of range while the ranger is out of the guard range?
• Should pets keeping players in combat be removed somehow but not leash range?
  My choice: Mesmer’s have portal let us have our pet fun, though keeping people in combat is lame.

3. Can’t kill the pet (sorta).

• Only birds and cats need to be worried about (unless you got a tanky pet keeping you in combat in which case see number 2).
• Lower signet of the wild healing on pets in pvp? Or fix all aoe dmg and lower pet health?
• Birds and cats can be killed if there isn’t signet of the wild. However, pet swap is very fast and if the BM is condition spec then you need to worry about 2 things at once. Other classes do have minions so is this fair? I don’t know.
• Jaguar can stealth for 6/15 seconds. Good luck. Only thing that works best is aoe conditions (which is only trap ranger or epidemic/well necro on point).
• Too fast pet swap.
  My choice: Increase time between pet swaps for BM specs?

4. Damage:Survivability

• I don’t see birds as much of an issue since most of their damage is all in one skill which can be dodged so it is kind of a l2 kitten ue. I personally think birds are ok how they are (maybe lower the damage but its only high damage when they crit… mainly on that one skill…. which could be dodged….).
• Cats. Most cats can easily be seen and kited and their F2 skill dodged because it is easy to see. The exception is the jaguar which can stealth for 6 seconds and crit every hit from stealth and also gain the bonus of +30% crit damage from the ranger skirmisher trait while no other pet F2 does. Since most BM’s use jaguar I think a reasonable nerf could be to only have the pet crit once when it hits and come out of stealth and not be stealthed for the whole 6 seconds.
• While you are taking all that damage im sitting in my clerics/soldiers/shaman gear laughing as my flesh either nits back together instantly or your attacks bounce of my juggernaut body.
• A common suggestion is have pets reflect the rangers stats. I’m not sure If I really like this one since I already have to boon each pet separately if I want to make up for a lack of stats. Also, this would only make condi build even stronger for ranger because now my rabid amulet, tanky jaguar that truly can’t be killed is also bleeding you for every hit for full bleed damage instead of the half damage it can be traited for while I am also doing the same with you.
• Increase pet swap time.
  My choice: Increase pet swap time get rid of jaguar 6 sec perma crit while invis or maybe make pets slower?

5. Downed state.
I see no reason for this to change. I have no aoe least I can do is not get stomped for a little while/fightback. Also underwater combat downed state blah blah blah. Yes. It is silly luckily Capricorn isn’t a tourney match. QQ about hotjoins is not accepted. Silent Storm… Yes I have abused this mechanic to save myself, hide underwater, and then attack the “communer” with my amphibious pets. No you cannot kill the pet because I use tanky ones underwater since I am the aquaman class. Though it is difficult to target the “communer”. But seriously, do we need to talk about this?
My choice: Fix the bug, don’t hotjoin.

The Issues:

• If pet damage is nerfed then half of the ranger is essentially worthless.
• If leash range is nerfed rangers can’t be as tactical as we are now.
• Besides barrage, traps, and bonfire, the ranger has no aoe and is already kitten in team fights. Any pet will make it harder to contribute to a team fight since rangers can only fight one thing.
• Traiting pets like ranger = OP condi builds and worthless power builds because pet power/crit is already higher than the ranger even when traited for zerker (precision is not completely sure about power.

So what do you think? And please, try to be civil.

I have seen lots of the fotm ele players rerolling to ranger, one of the best classes now. The same thing happens with HGH engineers. They are incredibly easy to play and way too strong.

Peace.

I do think condi BM is easy but would you like to try my spec? I do not think you would call it easy; Rangers do not use LB/GS for a reason. I’ve heard its hard to aim grenades although I’ve never tried.

To be fair, I have a bunker BM spec and I find them pretty easy to play. Also, I think most rangers avoid LB because they think it’s inferior, not because it’s hard to use. Props to you for giving it an honest shot though.

I honestly don’t think they’re that OP. They can excel against a lot of builds 1v1, but they can fall apart pretty quickly when they are focused in a team fight.

If a ranger wants to bring more team support, they can always play traps. It’s nice to see a class actually have multiple viable builds.

Were there some hidden changes i don’t know about? I honestly can’t see how in one update that upgrades pet’s health by 2k, the ranger can go from being the “known scrub class” to “FOTM”? I mean, everyone got signet and haste buffs.

Was it because all other classes got nerfed but us, thus we are considered stronger?

Anyway, i think your suggestion for jaguar is too extreme.
No one would use it anymore

I agree with the fact that the pet shouldn’t keep the person in combat alone. This would allow the person some breathing room (as the pet can’t hit moving targets well) without crippling the ranger’s leash range.

I think the game was designed for the pet to only be killed if the ranger is careless or if everyone gangs up on the pet to cripple the ranger. If someone is able to kill the pet just because he chooses to focus the pet, the ranger would be in a very bad place.

@ Nettle. I love the CC too much to be able to go back to anything else. Really good for peels.

@ Alex. Yes Alex you are spot on. With (namely the ele nerf and maybe thief mug nerf) Ranger BM is now a really strong 1 on 1 class and is a good replacement for d/d ele to assault a node now. The 2k health is really negligible and people are mainly QQing because everything took a small hit and ranger did not (for a change).

Will be interesting to see if the ranger QQ dies down now that Spirit Watch seems to be out of the rotation until they fix the bugs.

SHUDDUP AND TAKE MY MONEEYYYY or your build in this case

Thing is the build really was pretty solid even before the patch, it just wasn’t as widely used or known.

That’s the funny thing about patches. Devs make a small change and everyone jumps on it like it’s some brand new god-build, even if it was pretty good before. Same goes for nerfs and people’s overreaction to them. For example, the thief mug nerf. People thought thieves were doomed to oblivion, but d/p still works fine.

Honestly, I think its just the map that brought up the QQ. Ranger’s seemed stronger because of patch notes, rangers are strong on Spirit Watch, the map favors 1 on 1s, 1 v 2s, 2 v 2s, more than any other map, and BM is a great build for this. I really think/hope the QQ will die down as people realize how ineffective the build is in a team fight against a coordinated team.

So what is your build? I am curious and probably a lot of people reading this thread.

I posted my spec up there. I guess I could’ve done like build editor or whatever. But oh well.

Anet has a sick tendency to nerf builds in both PVE AND PVP. so while the jaguar gets a pretty nice f2 buff in PVP, if you made it only work 1 time it will destroy a pet in PvE and make it useless(that’s the only reason why i take the jaguar over any other pet, it has 6 seconds of burst-ish dps). also as of right now the ranger is not that great of a PvE class, it’s fun dont get me wrong, but why is it that in every LFG you never ever ever see a “LFM Rangers”? but instead see LF1M warrior, lf1M mesm, lf1m guard. Reason is because it’s a pretty crappy class outside of 1v1 PvP.

My suggestion:

In PvP: decrease the toughness of the jaguar and other feline pets, keep the damage the same. give the pet 1second invulnerability on ranger’s rolling. Do NOT touch it in PvE at all(although the 1second invuln on dodge would be nice in PvE)

The pet dies quick enough against eles and engineers. A single HGH engi has me constantly watching my pet.

People need to stop complaining about ranger pets untill they are fixed as a whole. Pet pathing and responsivness are are still kitten. Ranger still cannot control their pets and the promised dodge skill for pets and other features are still non-existent.

If devs nerf pets/other parts of the ranger people will riot in the ranger forums. So many things are still broken with the class that needs to be fixed…spirits…longbow…marksmanship trait line as a whole..greatsword autoattack kitten dmg is out done by a 1-handed sword…horrible OH axe cooldowns/roots.

Not to mention if devs nerf ranger pets ..the pve community will QQ so hard since pets are basically handicaps in pve/wvw

Having a class entirely bound to AI is baffling.
Talk about degradation of a proffession that had virtually the highest skill ceiling in the predecessor game. The same applies to the mesmer. It is SO obvious they didn’t quite know what to do with classes that had the role of shutdown on GW1.

And yea, it’s always amusing to see pets hit like a truck when their master is bunker specced. Long live rongers.

as i said before the patch, BM ranger will be new cantrip ele and maybe even worse… now its happening… absolutely unnecessary buff to pets… if something, they should buff ranger, not his AI pet…

they are going the wrong direction whole time… nerfing combos and thing which require coordination and skill and buffing AI and pure dmg (well, not everytime), it makes me sad panda…

Eurantien.4632:

I posted my spec up there. I guess I could’ve done like build editor or whatever. But oh well.

yes please use an editor in the future like intothemists (best one imo).

I still dont know how people think you need 2+ ppl to kill a bunker ranger when i blow them up on my HGH Engi. They are also weak in team fights.

^^

/15 char

There are many things I would love to say to you Eurantien, but frankly I’m too tired arguing this over and over again. Go ahead and put your best effort in trying to get the devs to nerf the ranger class, I’m sick of this bullkitten and don’t know if I even should care anymore.

There are so many exaggerations posted all over these forums these days, if I were a dev I would stay the hell out of here that’s for sure.

This post came from sPvP forums btw. Chances are this guy will never see the thread again if he was posting builds there instead of over here. It’s also a month old.

Like your build, have seen some play it with LB/SB, I play it SB/GS and use double birds, love the sigil on GS as its bugged and rounds up!

Edit: Ive also seen some use this build with x3 Signets, GS5 with Signet with F2/Maul

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.0|5.1n.h1j|1.1n.hd|1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c|0.a1.u4ac.0.u5ac|15.1|4j.4o.4r.4q.55|e