The Ranger is a lie

The Ranger is a lie

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

I want to discuss the design philosophy outlined in the CDI and explain why everything about the ranger is a lie:

Ranger Design Philosophy: Please keep this in mind when posting feedback.
The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.

A long time ago, I posted the Phantom Catmaster build here on the forums. The pet has always been unable to hit a moving target reliably, unresponsive with broken F2s, and has had horribly bugged traits. The redeeming factor of the pet was that despite all its terrible design, when specced into BM it used to HIT LIKE A TRUCK.

Prior to what I call the “Pet Cemetary” patch, the jaguar itself used to hit for 7000 on its own. Yes, the pet was easy to dodge but you have to think about the way that the ranger is designed. Opening strikes triggers ONCE per combat engagement and provides a window of opportunity in which the ranger can soften a target by loading them with vulnerability and autocrit.

Look at the signets and limited time attack boosters. Skills like signet of the hunt and traits like moment of clarity provide a 150% damage boost to the ranger in order to SET UP A BURST. The problem is the ranger has NO ATTACKS outside of maul and path of scars that even come close to being bursty.

However, before Pet Cemetary, the pet was loaded with them. The purpose of the ranger’s original design was obviously for the ranger to soften a target for the pet. The ranger would load the target with massive debuffs, whittle damage, and vulnerability, and the pet would deliver the finishing blow.

The ranger and pet was SYMBIOTICALLY designed around setting up the pet for a burst attack. Guess what? Back in the day, when the Jaguar and DPS pets (such as birds) were fearsome, this worked.

I guess apparently, people were too terrible to kite the pet around in a little red circle in SPVP. So ANET decides to nerf one of the few working mechanics that defined our class. They took the pet out into the backyard and smashed it so hard with a graviton hammer that the shockwaves could be felt by microbacteria on mars.

So we get a 30% flat nerf to the pet, in a situation where damage was the ONLY redeeming factor about the pet. The ranger then gets no compensation.

After that we get a shortbow nerf, in a situation where the 1200m shortbow was one of the few weapons that made the ranger a viable range skirmisher. This was because the large majority of spammable gap closers have a 900m range. Turning the shortbow into a fisher price kids toy with the ranger of kitten nerf gun basically spoon fed us to melee classes.

So all our burst is gone, all our skirmishing is taken away. The core functionality of the class was damaged in patches with no compensation. The ranger community became angered and ANET never released the design philosophy of the class. We had no idea why these changes were happen or what “metrics” the design team was trying to meet.

People were starting to get kittened off and for good reason.

(edited by lordhelmos.7623)

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

We are sitting here waiting for an answer, survived the aquaman patch that did nothing for us. Finally ANET livestreams the ranger changes. The balancers go before an angry ranger community and demonstrate that they couldn’t even find some of the ranger traits on the skill trees then just glazed over the class while providing no direction or insight on what the plans on it were going to be. In fact, the dev stated that the proper way to play ranger was to get a sword and zerker gear and be a poor man’s warrior. He also said the longbow sucked. I now point to the ranger class description about it being a superior ranged combatant…

(I have to say the presentation and unprofessionalism displayed in the livestream thread that day was probably the one thing that upset me the most in all of my time playing this game.)

So we are still left in the dark.

So we get to this point, 6 months later since our class was completely destroyed with no reason. It took 50% of the community to vote that the ranger was in dire need of a CDI because the class sucked so bad.

The final answer we get is this above outline “design” philosophy that makes no sense. What this class design philosophy basically says is that we are to be a resilient attrition class when our base health/condition removal sucks and there already is a superior attrition class in the game (necromancer). We are supposed to excel at steady damage with no burst when the obvious design of skills like signet of the hunt and opening strike as a whole are screaming burst. The CDI philosophy is basically telling the ranger community that they are going to be shoehorned into playing a poor man’s necromancer with only single target damage (I sense rraaaaaaaaggeeeeeeee).

What the devs propose for the “ranger philosophy” completely betrays the original direction of the ranger promoted on the guildwars main site.

On top of this, the “attrition” design of the ranger proposed will take a COMPLETE REDESIGN of the ranger from the ground up. Just look at opening strikes, signet of the hunt, QZ, hilt bash, moment of clarity, etc. and tell me this wasn’t supposed to be a burst class.

Why do we have so many skills that provide a limited window of high vulnerability to a target and damage amplification if we were never supposed to burst?

I feel like, the everything about the Ranger is a lie. The Ranger CDI came out late, maybe there was internal confusion on where this class should even be because it really has no place in the game.

If metrics were never defined for the ranger, what was driving its balance decisions? If the ranger really was supposed to meet the criteria in that CDI, then we would never have opening strikes and skills like SOTH in the first place.

TL;DR

The ranger is a lie. The proposed CDI vision for the ranger makes no sense when compared to its current design. I feel like balance decisions for the ranger were just thrown out there with no direction. What is proposed in the CDI requires a complete redesign and will place the ranger in the shadow of a class that already excels at attrition.

(edited by lordhelmos.7623)

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Posted by: Himei.5379

Himei.5379

TL;DR

The ranger is a lie. The proposed CDI vision for the ranger makes no sense when compared to its current design. I feel like balance decisions for the ranger were just thrown out there with no direction. What is proposed in the CDI requires a complete redesign and will place the ranger in the shadow of a class that already excels at attrition.

Think of the possible reason WHY Ranger is the first CDI. Anet are probably stumped on what changes to make so they are asking the players, who has played rangers more than perhaps ANet themselves. Just suggest what you think we as a class needs to improve without making us too OP compared to the other classes and pray ANet implements that change.

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Posted by: OGDeadHead.8326

OGDeadHead.8326

I very well remember the insane damage nerfs done to our pets. That was made right after they increased pet health, remember that patch with a long list of patch notes for the ranger? The patch notes themselves were to blame since ppl started to pay attention to rangers due to them, and one never ending cry party started here on the forums, more or less forcing the devs to nerf pets into the ground.

Win10 pro | Xeon 5650 @ 4 GHz | R9 280x toxic | 24 Gig Ram | Process Lasso user

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Posted by: Lévis.5489

Lévis.5489

Welcome to Guild Wars 2’s ranger. How they went from one of the most versatile profession in Guild Wars 1 to this abomination we have now is a complete mystery.

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

I very well remember the insane damage nerfs done to our pets. That was made right after they increased pet health, remember that patch with a long list of patch notes for the ranger? The patch notes themselves were to blame since ppl started to pay attention to rangers due to them, and one never ending cry party started here on the forums, more or less forcing the devs to nerf pets into the ground.

Remember pet health was only increased for PvE, which is a misnomer when you think about the damage because even with the previous pet damage the ranger was still out-damaged by the warrior.

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Posted by: RyuDragnier.9476

RyuDragnier.9476

I very well remember the insane damage nerfs done to our pets. That was made right after they increased pet health, remember that patch with a long list of patch notes for the ranger? The patch notes themselves were to blame since ppl started to pay attention to rangers due to them, and one never ending cry party started here on the forums, more or less forcing the devs to nerf pets into the ground.

This was also the start and the cause of why every class dreads a balance patch. Everybody knew it was caused by QQers in sPvP, and 80% of the playerbase said it was unnecessary because they knew how easy it was to lose the pet and how underpowered we are without them. Shortly after this was when D/D eles got nerfed, thieves started getting massive nerfs, engineers got a few nerfs, etc. Basically it led to 80% of the playerbase despising the sPvP community.

That pet nerf should have never made it outside of sPvP, along with multiple other nerfs for multiple classes. Anet should knock it out with trying to balance around a game mode that LESS THAN 10% OF THE PLAYERBASE ACTUALLY PLAYS CONSTANTLY! This is what is alienating the majority of the playerbase. Not to mention PvPers go after the next big MMO, so it’s hard to impossible to keep them in your game, you shouldn’t try so hard to pull it off.

In the wise words of Spock, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few.”

[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald

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Posted by: Himei.5379

Himei.5379

Welcome to Guild Wars 2’s ranger. How they went from one of the most versatile profession in Guild Wars 1 to this abomination we have now is a complete mystery.

When did you start GW1? Rangers werent that great in the beginning also. Took about wha? 3-4 years before GW1 rangers were good?

I think the problem with GW1 vs GW2 ranger comes down to the Game’s engine/system. Interrupts were king in GW1 since cooldowns were much longer. In GW2, coodldowns, especially weapon skill CD are too short for interupt to be effective.

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

Welcome to Guild Wars 2’s ranger. How they went from one of the most versatile profession in Guild Wars 1 to this abomination we have now is a complete mystery.

When did you start GW1? Rangers werent that great in the beginning also. Took about wha? 3-4 years before GW1 rangers were good?

I think the problem with GW1 vs GW2 ranger comes down to the Game’s engine/system. Interrupts were king in GW1 since cooldowns were much longer. In GW2, coodldowns, especially weapon skill CD are too short for interupt to be effective.

This is untrue. Gw1 Rangers had disrupting shot since day 1 and always had a key purpose as the most effective interrupter in the game. WoW hunters were a different story. It took several years for hunters to be balanced in wow, but the pet dynamics were much more complex in that game. Also, you would expect some lessons learned to be ported over here.

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Posted by: Himei.5379

Himei.5379

Welcome to Guild Wars 2’s ranger. How they went from one of the most versatile profession in Guild Wars 1 to this abomination we have now is a complete mystery.

When did you start GW1? Rangers werent that great in the beginning also. Took about wha? 3-4 years before GW1 rangers were good?

I think the problem with GW1 vs GW2 ranger comes down to the Game’s engine/system. Interrupts were king in GW1 since cooldowns were much longer. In GW2, coodldowns, especially weapon skill CD are too short for interupt to be effective.

This is untrue. Gw1 Rangers had disrupting shot since day 1 and always had a key purpose as the most effective interrupter in the game. WoW hunters were a different story. It took several years for hunters to be balanced in wow, but the pet dynamics were much more complex in that game. Also, you would expect some lessons learned to be ported over here.

Yes, they had that skill since day 1 but werent a great class to play till later on in the game’s lifetime. As for the Bolded, clearly not. Just look at the QoL things missing from GW2 that was in GW1.

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Posted by: WatchTheShow.7203

WatchTheShow.7203

So we get a 30% flat nerf to the pet, in a situation where damage was the ONLY redeeming factor about the pet. The ranger then gets no compensation.

After that we get a shortbow nerf, in a situation where the 1200m shortbow was one of the few weapons that made the ranger a viable range skirmisher. This was because the large majority of spammable gap closers have a 900m range. Turning the shortbow into a fisher price kids toy with the ranger of kitten nerf gun basically spoon fed us to melee classes.

I remember when both of those happened. I was so upset because they supposedly separated sPvP/WvW/and PvE skills so that nerfs wouldn’t carry over from one game mode to the next. Then they nerfed rangers across all game modes and I had to put down my shortbow, and my pet not only still can’t hit anything, but when it does land a hit, nobody notices.

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Posted by: SpellOfIniquity.1780

SpellOfIniquity.1780

I agree 110%. The day I decided to make a Ranger, I had been researching builds and watching some videos of roaming Rangers. When reading traits and utilities, I was beginning to see it as a burst-y profession. I don’t range and/or melee my opponents in an average duel, I play more like a thief and catch my opponent off guard, demolishing their health before they know how to respond. Then, after actually playing the profession, I went from PTV, to PTV/zerk, to full zerk before realizing that even when I’m 100% glass bursting an opponent down isn’t easy… Not only that, if you’re full glass and can’t burst them down all they have to do is blink in your general direction and you’re dead.
So although I really have only myself to blame for assuming that the Ranger was supposed to be a burst profession… The description of them, and a lot of their traits/utilities didn’t help me to think otherwise.

Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior, Engineer
Champion: Phantom, Hunter, Legionnaire, Genius
WvW rank: Diamond Colonel | Maguuma

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Posted by: Sebastian Knight.4736

Sebastian Knight.4736

Yeah, Anet’s new “design philosophy” for the Ranger was very disappointing to see. It’s hard to imagine the class with the worst condition removal in the game as “resilient.” The sustained damage over burst comes out of nowhere, and as others in this thread have pointed out, is directly contrary to the design of many traits and abilities, such as traited signet of the hunt, moment of clarity, and remorseless. What’s especially annoying is each of these abilities requires significant investment (grandmaster traits) with extremely mediocre results. If the desire is to shift the Ranger towards an attrition playstyle, these abilities need serious reworking.

I was also disturbed by the absence of any mention of archery or bows. It almost feels like Anet knows Ranger bows are terrible but has no real desire to alter them.

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Posted by: Sarision.6347

Sarision.6347

Does anybody find it funny that the current Ranger design fits new balance philosophy?

(edited by Sarision.6347)

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Posted by: DeadlySynz.3471

DeadlySynz.3471

Ive played the Ranger from the beginning and couldn’t agree more. I defended them and continued to defend them until I realized it’s a lost cause. I mained a Ranger; I got them up to rank 340 or something in WvW with around 35K kills or so. While I find them more fun to play than most classes, they just aren’t as efficient.

For a class that’s needed some love for so long, I can’t figure out why a game mode that isn’t very popular was the possible cause as to why the SB was nerfed, as well as our pet damage. Then a long comes the good ole 50% damage nerf to Barrage just for good measure; absolutely perplexing.

At this point, there is really nothing they can do to the pet to bring us on par with every other class. The pet simply does not work with the class, nor has any synergies with the Ranger itself. It literally is a distraction that gets the occasional hit in once in a while and nothing more. I see good ideas on here from time to time, then usually followed by “we don’t want to make this overpowered”. Trust me, there is nothing they can do with the class at the moment to make it overpowered.

Here is a perfect example: I finally leveled up my Elementalist and outfitted her with Berserker gear and trinkets, with a berserker weapon. My Ranger is outfitted in all ascended gear, trinkets, and ascended weapon. Off to the training dummies I go where my pet can actually hit it’s attacks. My elementalist literally does 50x more damage than the Ranger. Not to mention, the Elementalist has far more tools for escape, CC, and support at it’s disposal.

Now fast forward this into real time where your pet misses most of it’s attacks or gets killed before it even blinks.. you get the idea. The class just isn’t comparable. Coming from someone who actually finds the Ranger more fun to play, they just simply aren’t as efficient.

My only wish is, I wish Anet would make ascended trinkets account bound so I could strip them off my Ranger and transfer over to my Ele.

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Posted by: OGDeadHead.8326

OGDeadHead.8326

Then a long comes the good ole 50% damage nerf to Barrage just for good measure; absolutely perplexing.

I bet the majority of the devs don’t even know about that nerf, it seems it was either nerfed by accident, or that one of the devs secretly nerfed it and kept quiet about it.

Win10 pro | Xeon 5650 @ 4 GHz | R9 280x toxic | 24 Gig Ram | Process Lasso user

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Posted by: Bran.7425

Bran.7425

Then a long comes the good ole 50% damage nerf to Barrage just for good measure; absolutely perplexing.

I bet the majority of the devs don’t even know about that nerf, it seems it was either nerfed by accident, or that one of the devs secretly nerfed it and kept quiet about it.

Might have been a misguided attempt to avoiding killing oneself against retaliation (which honestly with the number of reflex/absorbs for projectiles should probably only effect targets within a certain range if it must effect them at all).

Pets have been hidden due to rising Player complaints.

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Posted by: aussieheals.6843

aussieheals.6843

The thing that really throws me off is the balance philosophy is to ‘shave’ rather than nuke, so to speak. How is a direct damage nerf of 30% a shave? & addition to this was the jag crit chance reduction from 100% to something around 30% – a 70% reduction.

Another example is the quickness we used to gain from pet swap. It got nerfed from a 5point investment in a bad trait line to a 30point investment in the same bad trait line.

It feel like a solution couldn’t be found so the easiest thing is to put it somewhere no1 will use it.

I love the idea about ‘shaving’ by this is by far not the experience the ranger has been dealing with.

IGN: Aussie Archer

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Posted by: atheria.2837

atheria.2837

Ive played the Ranger from the beginning and couldn’t agree more. I defended them and continued to defend them until I realized it’s a lost cause. I mained a Ranger; I got them up to rank 340 or something in WvW with around 35K kills or so. While I find them more fun to play than most classes, they just aren’t as efficient.

For a class that’s needed some love for so long, I can’t figure out why a game mode that isn’t very popular was the possible cause as to why the SB was nerfed, as well as our pet damage. Then a long comes the good ole 50% damage nerf to Barrage just for good measure; absolutely perplexing.

At this point, there is really nothing they can do to the pet to bring us on par with every other class. The pet simply does not work with the class, nor has any synergies with the Ranger itself. It literally is a distraction that gets the occasional hit in once in a while and nothing more. I see good ideas on here from time to time, then usually followed by “we don’t want to make this overpowered”. Trust me, there is nothing they can do with the class at the moment to make it overpowered.

Here is a perfect example: I finally leveled up my Elementalist and outfitted her with Berserker gear and trinkets, with a berserker weapon. My Ranger is outfitted in all ascended gear, trinkets, and ascended weapon. Off to the training dummies I go where my pet can actually hit it’s attacks. My elementalist literally does 50x more damage than the Ranger. Not to mention, the Elementalist has far more tools for escape, CC, and support at it’s disposal.

Now fast forward this into real time where your pet misses most of it’s attacks or gets killed before it even blinks.. you get the idea. The class just isn’t comparable. Coming from someone who actually finds the Ranger more fun to play, they just simply aren’t as efficient.

My only wish is, I wish Anet would make ascended trinkets account bound so I could strip them off my Ranger and transfer over to my Ele.

I have one better for an example of how bad the Ranger really is:

My Warrior was able to get badges in every tower and camp UNDER 80 (from 1-80, almost all WvW) without ascended, without exotics and without expensive foods and tool consumption.

My Ranger is LUCKY to get 1 badge from any event, tower or keep – sometimes it’s days before I get any.

ALL other characters have better damage than my Ranger – not one is under her for damage or condition and damage.

Anet, you aren’t listening yet – and we’re still waiting past a year on.

Not keeping all IT jobs here is a major reason IT is so bad HERE. 33y IT 10y IT Security

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Posted by: Krugan.7901

Krugan.7901

Does anybody find it funny that the current Ranger design fits new balance philosophy?

It’s funny because that design philosophy was proposed by an user on this forum in an attempt to give a more accurate description of the class to the new players.

The biggers lie of that philosophy is the sustained damage part. When someone say sustained damage they are talking about autoattack(mostly), but really, anybody can autoattack(and probably still do more damage than us) while still having the option to burst. There is just no balance in that. Sustained damage dosn’t work, pressure does, and we have none.

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

Did you know, that the jaguar can only hit for 6.5k now? I know it got nerfed hard, so i dunno if i should use it anymore, 6.5k is kinda low….

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

Does anybody find it funny that the current Ranger design fits new balance philosophy?

It’s funny because that design philosophy was proposed by an user on this forum in an attempt to give a more accurate description of the class to the new players.

The biggers lie of that philosophy is the sustained damage part. When someone say sustained damage they are talking about autoattack(mostly), but really, anybody can autoattack(and probably still do more damage than us) while still having the option to burst. There is just no balance in that. Sustained damage dosn’t work, pressure does, and we have none.

Actually, look at ranger AA and compare it to warrior AA. Ranger is usually 100-180 damage less, then add in pet, which does around 250-300 damage untraited (tool tip)
… end result, if target doesnt try to dodge pet; we do more DPS with AA then warriors.

Who could’a known that pet DPS was supposed to be included in our overall DPS? Honestly, i thought they just gave us the pet so they could reduce our DPS by 30% for fun.

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: urdriel.8496

urdriel.8496

Prysin pls, open your eyes…….a warrior axe AA have more damage than your and your pet( and more armor, and more hp…), anyway, when you play ranger and try another class you know how to avoid the pet, you lost 30% damage due to a poor designed mechanic.

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

Prysin pls, open your eyes…….a warrior axe AA have more damage than your and your pet( and more armor, and more hp…), anyway, when you play ranger and try another class you know how to avoid the pet, you lost 30% damage due to a poor designed mechanic.

Further reinforcing this, look at all the undodgable pet killer mechanics in PVE. How can you realistically expect to have 100% uptime on that 30% damage when the pet is constantly getting nuked by red circles of death it can’t jump out of.

Sure you can run a bear or spec 30 BM just to keep the pet up, but then how much damage are you losing for the 30 BM points?

Either way, the ranger forces players to choose the lesser of a many pool of evils.

Ranger build theory is:

Rangers don’t choose their skills and traits because those choices are good. They make their choices based on what sucks less than everything else.

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Posted by: DeadlySynz.3471

DeadlySynz.3471

Did you know, that the jaguar can only hit for 6.5k now? I know it got nerfed hard, so i dunno if i should use it anymore, 6.5k is kinda low….

Really? I wouldn’t know, my Jaguar usually doesn’t survive long enough to get a hit in. If by some miracle they do, I get a front row seat to a clinic my jaguar pet is putting on in how to miss it’s attacks on moving targets.

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Posted by: roamzero.9486

roamzero.9486

I remember when Beastmaster Ranger was kind of fun in WvW. Back in the day the pet had enough range that you could send it out of a keep, or even on top of keep walls with guard. It was great fun to send a hard hitting jaguar against say, a squishy backline ele.

The sPvP people ruined all of that sadly Would it be too much to ask to revert the pet leash nerf in WvW?

(edited by roamzero.9486)

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Posted by: elez.4617

elez.4617

I love ranger gameplay, i always played as a ranger. Seem’s like warrior should be my choise, since they use bow more than ranger does. Almost everything about ranger class Is wrong, should i play ranger class with mele weapon’s? I dont think so! I never wanted to play any other class, but how much i can see, we also have worst skill tree, im so disapointed and i dont have any other choise , i dont want to play any other class. There Is something that hurt me the most, i cant group up with other ppl, no1 want me In their pt when they see that im ranger, doesnt mather how good am i or my item’s answer Is always the same. I dont know what you guys are doing, but i start to grind alone, im not sure that i will be able to do that for long time.

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Posted by: Fate.8673

Fate.8673

I once defended ANets design of the Ranger over a year ago, I still love the high mobility of the class.

I took a break for said year, and have come back to a LOT of changes. You say we got nerfed with no compensation, but I see that we did get a few buffs:

Axe off-hand got severely buffed. Path of scars is now probably my favorite weapon skill on the ranger, for its burst and CC potential. I made a thread for an S/A+A/Warhorn build awhile ago too and that is now very viable (in PvE at least).

We got STEALTH. I remember reading threads begging for more camouflage and stealth like thieves and laughing that it would never happen. Then I come back and see that we got it and yet we STILL aren’t satisfied. Moving vulnerability to Rapid fire is also great at increasing unexpected sniper burst. A style that STILL exists with all of our % damage increase traits…. which we probably have the most of for any class. (5% longbow damage, 10% flanking, 10% endurance full, add in scholar runes and have a field day.)

The new Maul is beautiful. I don’t think it used to hit like a truck (I didn’t read a year’s worth of patch notes, I just played again and went with what I saw), but it definitely feels like it and with 4.5 sec cooldown with traits it is amazing dps for a TANK weapon. Vulnerability is much more desired with the gear you use with greatsword (PVT stats, no Condition damage usually) than bleed was.

BUT

I understand why the Ranger community is still upset. The pet damage nerfs did hit us at the wrong place. I imagine it was due to sPvP and burst builds being unfun, but it was a kitten hard burst to pull off… and I thought PvP would be balanced separate from PvE.

A nerf you didn’t mention that I was particularly upset with was the Endurance regen trait nerf by 50%. That’s a huge nerf (why not 75% to start?) and pretty unjustified. I don’t know how hard they hit other bunker classes (but from playing PvP cursorly it seems necros and guards are still gods), but was bunker ranger really even powerful enough to nerf?

Like I said I was fine with the direction I believed ANet had for this class. The mobility in fights was my favorite part of the ranger. I was fine with our ranged weapon inferiority. I just felt like a brawler with all the free evades and endurance regen….. then they go and nerf that aspect.

I’m missing some changes I’m sure but I’ve run out of time/desire to make a lengthy post that is mostly to the choir…

EDIT: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Rangers-are-a-HIGHLY-MOBILE-CLASS-You-might-be-doing-it-wrong/page/3#post503951

Here is my post from a year ago, yay search post function!

Looking at it reminded me of another nerf: The quickness on pet swap. Now I do see that in retrospect that was very strong, but in conjunction with the pet nerfs no one is going that deep into Beastmastery (I tried it, didn’t work out even kind of.)

The SB range nerf… well, I understand it. Its one of the nerfs I can say “yeah I get it… short bow should not have 1200 range.” I could whine and say they could buff long bow range by default to 1500 and change the trait (since its impossible to take that trait AND piercing arrows AND beastmaster signet anyway), but I’ll just pick my battles.

Nah kitten it, if you’re going to nerf short bow range give us back our machine gun attack speed with the kitten thing at LEAST because that was very enjoyable. Especially now that we don’t have more abusable quickness

(edited by Fate.8673)

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

Prysin pls, open your eyes…….a warrior axe AA have more damage than your and your pet( and more armor, and more hp…), anyway, when you play ranger and try another class you know how to avoid the pet, you lost 30% damage due to a poor designed mechanic.

Due to being unable to produce valid undisputable numbers on Jaguar crit rate without BM points, i cannot prove you wrong without making videos about this, however i am too lazy to bother to prove a very clear point, and you are too narrow sighted to even believe the video being real.

Oh, and i have spent the last 3-4 weeks playing ele and guard, grew tired of my ranger the day the CDI came out, knowing that all our suggestions will most likely never be heard nor even considered for anything but giggles over the coffee table.

Bottom line; Jaguar can easily crit 6k+, does not take rocket science, cheats, bug/glitch abuse nor special godlike skills to pull it off.
When you play other professions then rangers, you also learn how nasty it is to fight experienced rangers who knows what their doing, not to mention you learn how easy it is to play ranger on a defensive level compared to them. If you cannot make your pet hit reliably or cannot utilize the tools rangers got at their disposal then for the love of god, quit the profession right now and reroll ezmode warrior. There is enough scrub rangers around, we do not need yet another stubborn fool who refuse to L2P. Oh and if you don’t know how to make a rangers pet hit more reliably, then you don’t know your profession very well, at all.

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: snow.8097

snow.8097

haha i love it when prysin battles urdriel and wins it everytime xD

Safi/Clio Del Ray |Ranger, Elonas Reach,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestions-Gemstore-Items/page/31#post4533037
the skrittfinisher was my idea!

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Posted by: urdriel.8496

urdriel.8496

haha i love it when prysin battles urdriel and wins it everytime xD

Because seems than prysin love Pve, and i talk about WvW and pvp environment.

All other class mechanics are better and more rewarded than ranger mechanic, and we need a BIG amount of micromanagement to be on par with other classes.

Try with a Warrior friend full berserk with optimal dps build your dps vs is Axe dps, and you will cry.

If you use BM tree your pet will hit hard, but must be able to hit your enemy, if your enemy is a mob , ofc you will hit him, if your enemy is a normal player your pet will miss A LOT of hits, sry but if pets cant hit players we have a huge damage loss, it is not about win or lose, it is the truth, and you can timing your attack to hit a enemy, your pet CANT.

(edited by urdriel.8496)

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Posted by: Zoid.2568

Zoid.2568

PvP is often a zerg fest or a bunker fest. Why not build PvP around those two play styles?
And stop nerfing PvE to the ground please.

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

haha i love it when prysin battles urdriel and wins it everytime xD

Because seems than prysin love Pve, and i talk about WvW and pvp environment.

All other class mechanics are better and more rewarded than ranger mechanic, and we need a BIG amount of micromanagement to be on par with other classes.

Try with a Warrior friend full berserk with optimal dps build your dps vs is Axe dps, and you will cry.

If you use BM tree your pet will hit hard, but must be able to hit your enemy, if your enemy is a mob , ofc you will hit him, if your enemy is a normal player your pet will miss A LOT of hits, sry but if pets cant hit players we have a huge damage loss, it is not about win or lose, it is the truth, and you can timing your attack to hit a enemy, your pet CANT.

haven’t played PvE since forever. Only PvE content i do is the LS events to level up my alts. That would be a Ele, Guard, Thief and Engi…

Ranger is purely WvW (never ever PvP)

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: snow.8097

snow.8097

and again xD

yes its really clever to compare ranger with warrior over and over and over and over….
alone the mind to compare totally different classes is not useful and makes no sense.
Warrior has another game design then ranger. deal with it.

and before u start again with ur minds on pet (QQ 30%, QQ they dont hit, QQ ranger is weak because i never won a 1v1…err we loose 30% of our damage) yes we know it, its an issue since headstart, but instead of crying around and hope that a Balance patch makes ranger OP too feel strong first time, some ranger learned their class and their pet mechanic. from this People u should learn instead of believing ranger class is the weakest class ingame.

Safi/Clio Del Ray |Ranger, Elonas Reach,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestions-Gemstore-Items/page/31#post4533037
the skrittfinisher was my idea!

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Posted by: Deamhan.9538

Deamhan.9538

It’s pretty straight forward..

No comparisons necessary. If the total damage we do is balanced to include the damage our pets do but our pets hit less than 100% of the time, then we are doing less than our balanced damage.

Ideally, I would balance around the assumption that we only get 50% output from what our pets are capable of. So just to use some loose numbers for example, our output should be 75% without our pet but 125% with our pet. With a 50% increase from our pet but assuming 50% up-time (time our pet is spent on target) that is only a 25% increase to our 75% base to reach that 100% balance.

As it stands now, I think our pet’s up-time is less than 50% and the biggest reason is the inability for our pet to actually hit the target when it’s moving. If the target is chilled, crippled, or moving backwards, then our pet can hit but if the target is moving at normal speed, the pet will miss. Now add in the fact that most people are running some sort of speed buff and well, you can see it for yourselves.

Cast times on pet skills need to be shorter, and range on the skills need to be longer. This will allow the pet’s skills to connect with the target as they should.

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

and again xD

yes its really clever to compare ranger with warrior over and over and over and over….
alone the mind to compare totally different classes is not useful and makes no sense.
Warrior has another game design then ranger. deal with it.

and before u start again with ur minds on pet (QQ 30%, QQ they dont hit, QQ ranger is weak because i never won a 1v1…err we loose 30% of our damage) yes we know it, its an issue since headstart, but instead of crying around and hope that a Balance patch makes ranger OP too feel strong first time, some ranger learned their class and their pet mechanic. from this People u should learn instead of believing ranger class is the weakest class ingame.

Feel free to list some tips rather than empty, vapid, “Learn to play bro!” comments if you are so sure that it’s player skill rather than class design at fault here.

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

nobody is denying ranger pets are problematic. They lack a lot of QoL functions, however they are not as terrible as many of you seem to claim. Yes it is a L2P issue by far.

You KNOW the pet has issues hitting moving targets. It is a FACT, it is not fiction or some weird bug. It is what it is.
So how can YOU help the pet perform?
You can slow the enemy down, how? You can apply crippled (Dagger 5, sword AA 2nd rotation, Muddy Terrain, Barrage, Spike Trap, GS4 throw blade, Shortbow 4 or through traits), Chilled (Axe 3, Frost Trap), Stun (SB 5, GS 5) or immobilized (Traited spike trap, entangle, muddy terrain).

Or you can choose to use the pets F2 to apply these conditions to help your pet do its task easier.

Pet survival is problematic outside of small encounters. It is a fact, it is well known. So how can you help it survive? You can use your healing when your pet is in trouble, if you are running a pet reliant build. Or you can apply regeneration, or protection. You can micromanage your pet to swap/recall it when it is getting into a tight spot.

Pet management is NOT rocket science. Rangers got so much CC, regen and healing at hand that making sure the pet survives is not a big feat in and of itself.

Another thing is that people got to stop using Empathic bond and believing it to be your only lifeline in this world. Even with condition heavy opponents does not give you so much problems you cannot deal with it without EB.

Drop 10 points outta wilderness survival and put them elsewhere, or run Bark Skin, which will make your pet really really tanky.

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

Thing is, that doesn’t help in WvW or during world bosses. I’m not going to blow my heal because my pet might die in a situation where I am trying to not die myself.
Protection will also only do so much to help keep a pet alive when it gets run over by the hammer train with their low WvW health pools or hit by something like Tequila Sunrise’s water waves.

Both situations can EASILY kill a pet in the 20 second window it takes to swap again when in combat so switching is merely a last ditch effort that likely causes you to sacrifice pet B to save pet A. Not an entirely solid idea if you use two different kinds of pets to allow for greater utility.

They are simply incapable of functioning as intended in these game modes, there’s no “learn to play” about it. Not until pets are able to dodge or automatically avoid/negate aoe.

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

Thing is, that doesn’t help in WvW or during world bosses. I’m not going to blow my heal because my pet might die in a situation where I am trying to not die myself.
Protection will also only do so much to help keep a pet alive when it gets run over by the hammer train with their low WvW health pools or hit by something like Tequila Sunrise’s water waves.

Both situations can EASILY kill a pet in the 20 second window it takes to swap again when in combat so switching is merely a last ditch effort that likely causes you to sacrifice pet B to save pet A. Not an entirely solid idea if you use two different kinds of pets to allow for greater utility.

They are simply incapable of functioning as intended in these game modes, there’s no “learn to play” about it. Not until pets are able to dodge or automatically avoid/negate aoe.

try roll an ele in WvW and you realize that your average ele is no more tanky then your average BM traited pet. Only difference is that ele can use dodge and heal on its own, the pet cannot.

Also, it all boils down to what pet you use, and where.
If you gonna zerg, run tankier pets, DO NOT RUN CATS, BIRDS AND DOGS. they will get roflstomped in 1 second flat. Also, i play in T1 NA, on Tarnish Coast. To this day, i have yet to find a situation where it was the pet mechanic causing the pet to die rather then my own lack of positional awareness.

Guard can be used in many ways, like telling your pet to stay put on the side of the zerg instead of following you into the hammertrain. Tell it to stay put, and recall it once you’ve made it past the first push.
Or you can pop Signet of Stone while rushing through the enemy lines.

Ofc, not all builds run signets or shouts, some builds will always leave your pet more vulnerable then others, but that goes for all games which has pets in them. No game with a beastmaster/pet class has yet to produce a 100% pet survival system no matter what. The pet will perform completely dependent on its masters build.

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: Sarlack.4096

Sarlack.4096

MY guildie, who is an experienced PVP player and has played with me across several games over the last 10 years picked up a Ranger in SPVP a week or two ago.

HE normally Mains a Mesmer, Guardian and a Warrior

Only build knowledge he has is using the bits and pieces he has heard me talking about in Vent.

He played it for several days and promptly proclaimed “Why the hell do all the Rangers cry, this is the most fun I have had on a class”

My response “They are trying to be something they were never meant to be” “Play the class to its strengths”

Fix Pet AI and a few tweaks and we are not so bad off….

My only disappointment comes from Anet’s lack of clear direction for the class, seems like they are making it up as they go along from patch to patch.

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Posted by: urdriel.8496

urdriel.8496

Ofc, not all builds run signets or shouts, some builds will always leave your pet more vulnerable then others, but that goes for all games which has pets in them. No game with a beastmaster/pet class has yet to produce a 100% pet survival system no matter what. The pet will perform completely dependent on its masters build.

You should look at Lineage 2 Wynn summoner, was THE OP PET CLASS xD, nice skills, nice pets (3 at same time, to be exact xDD), have a buff to redirect damage to pets, was able to heal them, have a lot of HARD CC because summoner is squishy, pets were able to land hits on players(L2 Combat is “static”).

(edited by urdriel.8496)

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Posted by: Vox Hollow.2736

Vox Hollow.2736

Prysin,

It’s not that it’s effort. It’s partly that it’s difficult effort. But the real sticking point for me is that it’s effort for effort’s sake, instead of actually accomplishing something.

I know what ‘downleveling’ and ‘corpse runs’ are. I can forgive difficult sort-of-questionable design decisions. But I can’t forgive a class mechanic that feels like I’m just spinning my wheels in the mud.

(edited by Vox Hollow.2736)

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Posted by: WatchTheShow.7203

WatchTheShow.7203

PvP players need to realize we are not upset with the ranger’s state in PvP. I PvP from time to time on my ranger and I don’t have any issues in there. PvP on rangers right now are fine. I’m seeing too many posts related to PvP posters saying things like “cry more PvE/WvW is ez mode with my swagbow, ranger is fine GG YOLO”.

What 90% of this thread is talking about is PvE, and WvW.

What’s more annoying is PvP and PvE are supposedly separate as far as skills getting buffed/nerfed. Yet, every time they nerf rangers in PvP, the PvE/WvW rangers get hit with the same nerf. Cut the invisible symbiotic bond between the two game modes and be done with it. Separate them for good.

(edited by WatchTheShow.7203)

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Posted by: urdriel.8496

urdriel.8496

PvP players need to realize we are not upset with the ranger’s state in PvP. I PvP from time to time on my ranger and I don’t have any issues in there. PvP on rangers right now are fine. I’m seeing too many posts related to PvP posters saying things like “cry more PvE/WvW is ez mode with my swagbow, ranger is fine GG YOLO”.

What 90% of this thread is talking about is PvE, and WvW.

What’s more annoying is PvP and PvE are supposedly separate as far as skills getting buffed/nerfed. Yet, every time they nerf rangers in PvP, the PvE/WvW rangers get hit with the same nerf. Cut the invisible symbiotic bond between the two game modes and be done with it. Separate them for good.

Pet leash range, and pet attack range were nerfed due to Spvp Players.

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Posted by: Prysin.8542

Prysin.8542

PvP players need to realize we are not upset with the ranger’s state in PvP. I PvP from time to time on my ranger and I don’t have any issues in there. PvP on rangers right now are fine. I’m seeing too many posts related to PvP posters saying things like “cry more PvE/WvW is ez mode with my swagbow, ranger is fine GG YOLO”.

What 90% of this thread is talking about is PvE, and WvW.

What’s more annoying is PvP and PvE are supposedly separate as far as skills getting buffed/nerfed. Yet, every time they nerf rangers in PvP, the PvE/WvW rangers get hit with the same nerf. Cut the invisible symbiotic bond between the two game modes and be done with it. Separate them for good.

Pet leash range, and pet attack range were nerfed due to Spvp Players.

Pet leash range was purely due to PvE and WvW because you could tell your pet to attack stuff and let it kill stuff while you were miles away. I abused this loads of times to kill veterans while hiding in safety outside of the area. All you had to do was activate TU when pet HP got low….

In WvW, it wrecked havoc on thieves and mesmers when the old BM builds told the pet to attack a thief or a mesmer, it did so and tracked them through stealth (couldnt attack, but if they dropped stealth the pet was on their kitten in a split second). Thief/mesmer tries to run and the pet would follow all the way back to citadel spawn, forcing them ot be in combat.

Leash range was never a real issue in PvP, merely an annoyance.

Also, if you do not take care of your pet, you do not take care of your own DPS. Ignoring the pet, is like not giving a kitten about your own DPS output. Whatever effort you put into the pet, comes out in the form of pure performance. Nothing else.

Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU

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Posted by: urdriel.8496

urdriel.8496

PvP players need to realize we are not upset with the ranger’s state in PvP. I PvP from time to time on my ranger and I don’t have any issues in there. PvP on rangers right now are fine. I’m seeing too many posts related to PvP posters saying things like “cry more PvE/WvW is ez mode with my swagbow, ranger is fine GG YOLO”.

What 90% of this thread is talking about is PvE, and WvW.

What’s more annoying is PvP and PvE are supposedly separate as far as skills getting buffed/nerfed. Yet, every time they nerf rangers in PvP, the PvE/WvW rangers get hit with the same nerf. Cut the invisible symbiotic bond between the two game modes and be done with it. Separate them for good.

Pet leash range, and pet attack range were nerfed due to Spvp Players.

Pet leash range was purely due to PvE and WvW because you could tell your pet to attack stuff and let it kill stuff while you were miles away. I abused this loads of times to kill veterans while hiding in safety outside of the area. All you had to do was activate TU when pet HP got low….

In WvW, it wrecked havoc on thieves and mesmers when the old BM builds told the pet to attack a thief or a mesmer, it did so and tracked them through stealth (couldnt attack, but if they dropped stealth the pet was on their kitten in a split second). Thief/mesmer tries to run and the pet would follow all the way back to citadel spawn, forcing them ot be in combat.

Leash range was never a real issue in PvP, merely an annoyance.

Also, if you do not take care of your pet, you do not take care of your own DPS. Ignoring the pet, is like not giving a kitten about your own DPS output. Whatever effort you put into the pet, comes out in the form of pure performance. Nothing else.

Pet leashr ange was nerfed because rangers were able to capture points and send pet to help their teammate, it is true that leash had a IMBALANCED distance, but the nerf was too hard.

I remember to be able to send pet to attack ballistas and catas while i was out of range xDDD

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Posted by: WatchTheShow.7203

WatchTheShow.7203

If your pet was strong enough to take out vets/champs on its own, then you must have had points in beastmastery. There is nothing wrong with this. That is the whole point of going 30 points deep into that traitline, so your pet is your DPS. Hence, beastmaster. Key word beast.

Honestly veterans are so easy to kill, I am not sure why you would resort to such a tactic to kill a trash mob.

If you didn’t have points in the beastmastery trait, then your pet would die within a few hits, or it would take forever for your pet to kill the mob. I don’t really see a problem with reverting the pet leash (and a bunch of other things) for PvE/WvW.

As I said before, PvP, as of right now, is fine.

(edited by WatchTheShow.7203)

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Posted by: Vox Hollow.2736

Vox Hollow.2736

Whatever effort you put into the pet, comes out in the form of pure performance. Nothing else.

Are you just acknowledging the dismal state of things, or saying this is what you want to be seeing out of a pet mechanic?

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

PvP players need to realize we are not upset with the ranger’s state in PvP. I PvP from time to time on my ranger and I don’t have any issues in there. PvP on rangers right now are fine. I’m seeing too many posts related to PvP posters saying things like “cry more PvE/WvW is ez mode with my swagbow, ranger is fine GG YOLO”.

What 90% of this thread is talking about is PvE, and WvW.

What’s more annoying is PvP and PvE are supposedly separate as far as skills getting buffed/nerfed. Yet, every time they nerf rangers in PvP, the PvE/WvW rangers get hit with the same nerf. Cut the invisible symbiotic bond between the two game modes and be done with it. Separate them for good.

Pet leash range, and pet attack range were nerfed due to Spvp Players.

Pet leash range was purely due to PvE and WvW because you could tell your pet to attack stuff and let it kill stuff while you were miles away. I abused this loads of times to kill veterans while hiding in safety outside of the area. All you had to do was activate TU when pet HP got low….

In WvW, it wrecked havoc on thieves and mesmers when the old BM builds told the pet to attack a thief or a mesmer, it did so and tracked them through stealth (couldnt attack, but if they dropped stealth the pet was on their kitten in a split second). Thief/mesmer tries to run and the pet would follow all the way back to citadel spawn, forcing them ot be in combat.

Leash range was never a real issue in PvP, merely an annoyance.

Also, if you do not take care of your pet, you do not take care of your own DPS. Ignoring the pet, is like not giving a kitten about your own DPS output. Whatever effort you put into the pet, comes out in the form of pure performance. Nothing else.

Pet leashr ange was nerfed because rangers were able to capture points and send pet to help their teammate, it is true that leash had a IMBALANCED distance, but the nerf was too hard.

I remember to be able to send pet to attack ballistas and catas while i was out of range xDDD

I went from (almost) never seeing “Target too far” errors in WvW to seeing them every 5 minutes after that bullkitten nerf.

Being able to send the pet to harass folks was one of the few nice things about playing ranger in WvW.

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

MY guildie, who is an experienced PVP player and has played with me across several games over the last 10 years picked up a Ranger in SPVP a week or two ago.

HE normally Mains a Mesmer, Guardian and a Warrior

Only build knowledge he has is using the bits and pieces he has heard me talking about in Vent.

He played it for several days and promptly proclaimed “Why the hell do all the Rangers cry, this is the most fun I have had on a class”

My response “They are trying to be something they were never meant to be” “Play the class to its strengths”

Fix Pet AI and a few tweaks and we are not so bad off….

My only disappointment comes from Anet’s lack of clear direction for the class, seems like they are making it up as they go along from patch to patch.

SPVP Ranger performance =/= PvE/WvW Ranger performance.

All the animosity is entirely on the everything BUT spvp side.

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