Guild Wars 2

Prysin.8542:

The long duration of the waterfield allows it to be blasted many times over, contrary to that of an ele’s fields. It also cleanses conditions, ALSO not provided by an ele’s fields. It also has a mere 30 second CD, shorter then healing rain.

The ultimate defense is a strong offense, however if you fight an opponent of equal or greater strength the ultimate defense is simply resilience. It is better to outlast everything, tank through and do 50% damage compared to the rest, then do the same damage and rallybotting on the first push.

Xev, not to be overly rude, but either you have no clue what a ranger can or cannot do, or you simply haven’t played as much WvW as me.

Deja vu… You make the bizarre claim that rangers outlast all others in zerg encounters; I challenge it, you ignore it, and now you’re back to making the same assertion again. You claim that HS is amazing for WvW because of duration, I explain why it isn’t, and now you make weird claims about ele water fields. You know that ele’s have 2 water fields in staff, yeah? And that one of them is on a 20 sec cd, 16 when traited, and that, again, despite your claims to the contrary, they can easily be blasted multiple times.

I think its fairly pointless to list my credentials, but all I do is WvW, and I told you in the other thread that several months ago my guild experimented with a large ranger frontline, and that it was terrible. Every time you precede to inform us all about the wonders of the ranger in WvW, though, you reveal grave misunderstandings in how both ranger and other classes abilities function. Tell me again about the fern hound’s “instant 2k heal and 4k regeneration” – numbers which are not, and have never been possible since pets don’t inherit the ranger’s stats. And tell me again about the usefulness of ranger’s regeneration, that ele water fields are insufficient, and that ranger’s are the most durable class in zerg fights. Consensus is certainly no guarantee of correctness, but the rest of the WvW community caught on to the relative uselessness of rangers for zerging a long time ago. If you’re going to convince anyone of anything, you may want to at least understand the abilities and situations you’re discussing.

But clearly I’m the one who has no idea what I’m talking about…

xev.9476:

Prysin.8542:

The long duration of the waterfield allows it to be blasted many times over, contrary to that of an ele’s fields. It also cleanses conditions, ALSO not provided by an ele’s fields. It also has a mere 30 second CD, shorter then healing rain.

The ultimate defense is a strong offense, however if you fight an opponent of equal or greater strength the ultimate defense is simply resilience. It is better to outlast everything, tank through and do 50% damage compared to the rest, then do the same damage and rallybotting on the first push.

Xev, not to be overly rude, but either you have no clue what a ranger can or cannot do, or you simply haven’t played as much WvW as me.

Deja vu… You make the bizarre claim that rangers outlast all others in zerg encounters; I challenge it, you ignore it, and now you’re back to making the same assertion again. You claim that HS is amazing for WvW because of duration, I explain why it isn’t, and now you make weird claims about ele water fields. You know that ele’s have 2 water fields in staff, yeah? And that one of them is on a 20 sec cd, 16 when traited, and that, again, despite your claims to the contrary, they can easily be blasted multiple times.

I think its fairly pointless to list my credentials, but all I do is WvW, and I told you in the other thread that several months ago my guild experimented with a large ranger frontline, and that it was terrible. Every time you precede to inform us all about the wonders of the ranger in WvW, though, you reveal grave misunderstandings in how both ranger and other classes abilities function. Tell me again about the fern hound’s “instant 2k heal and 4k regeneration” – numbers which are not, and have never been possible since pets don’t inherit the ranger’s stats. And tell me again about the usefulness of ranger’s regeneration, that ele water fields are insufficient, and that ranger’s are the most durable class in zerg fights. Consensus is certainly no guarantee of correctness, but the rest of the WvW community caught on to the relative uselessness of rangers for zerging a long time ago. If you’re going to convince anyone of anything, you may want to at least understand the abilities and situations you’re discussing.

But clearly I’m the one who has no idea what I’m talking about…

The dudes completely right. Ranger IS the worst class for WvW zerging. No decent AoE (600 range traps don’t cut it, nor does suicide barrage), no decent group support (spirits die from AoE overload, spotter and healing spring are good but that’s about all we bring), poor dps (sword is 1/3 single target and that leap can really kitten you over in heavy fighting; gs simply has too low dps), and a nearly always dead pet that contributes nothing to the zerg.

Blame a-net if you’re angry.

My spirits really don’t die much in wvw. Then again, we are not a huge server and typically you would see 20ish. I have seen pictures where that would be ugly (but then again I might change to get double AE cc from spirits). Nature’s Voice does wonders really in midsized zergs.

Likewise, too many people play spirits as “always up” pets but that really isn’t smart in wvw. You call them as needed. And their CC is quite helpful situationally especially with the long chill. Not sure you lose if the spirit dies IF you are playing for the CC vs damage.

You should be putting up some very impressive regen numbers on the group and have multiple sources of regen so ideally you can move around to cover different targets. There is a lot of HPS a spirit ranger can provide to multiple “clumps”.

In WvW, I tend to be more focused on scouting, taking out solos/camps/dolys, and providing healing/spirit support which we really do well.

Traps have usefulness in choke point fights. They are decent AE.

The whole game is too smash mouth melee and too little CC and range focused but on whole the ranger has a role in WvW, just not as part of a blob. The bigger the blob, the less a ranger is valuable.

Somehow we have gotten to a play style where blobbing is more common than multiple small groups taking objectives in parallel.

Best thing you can do as a ranger is play on a smaller server really.

Blah blah blah, Rangers are terrible. Any class can do it better. I’m tired of seeing this posted over and over. I wish ANet would be a bit more heavy handed in their attempts to balance and shift the meta. At least that way we’d have something new to complain about. It’s been Spirits/Traps/BM forever now.

Some people just need to L2P.
FYI, the characters i have;
Elementalist (lvl 32), Guardian (lvl 34), Thief (lvl 19), Engineer (lvl 12) and a mesmer (lvl 16).

Now, i main a ranger, and the others are there purely cuz i want to find out what they do and how they do it. So i do not spend too much time on them, at best i take em into PvP just to look at all their traits and stuff without having to level them up for real.
Now, i dunno about your server’s, what kind of awesome “hardcore core of zergers” there are in there, but in Desolation (EU Silver League #1, former T1 server) we got no such thing as ONE guild or ONE group. We got pugs, lots of pugs. They get on TS, and that is how far it goes. We are lucky if we can get waterfields and not lightfields.
Now, i started out on a much more skill oriented server, which DID infact run with core guilds close to 30 man strong. It was fun, it was effective, and it was futile. Those core guilds wiped against 80 man blobs, even when we got a blob of our own. Took me a while to realize this, but back on that server, i was about one of 3 rangers that was “allowed/Tolerated” in the guild zergs. All others were told to bring guardians, eles or warriors, and in rare cases, two mesmers. Want to know the result? Want to know how awesome that pureblood meta-zerg did? It failed. Because back then, people told me to shut up and stop wasting my waterfield, it was garbage, Ele’s were much more pro, much better. So i ran with Troll Ungent. End result; Eles wiped on the second or third push, or was wiped by AC’s, or wiped by thieves (a few EU servers got really good wolf-packs of 5-10 thieves that just murder the backline at their own discretion). Who was left? Two rangers with waterfields.

Now your argument will be; Those ele’s sucked, they need to L2P, they probably ran zerker because that was the meta for eles back then.
Nope. They didn’t run zerker, they ran PVT.

In the end, what happens is, the eles dies. They can not survive well in zergs and are absolutely tied up to guardians and others keeping them from the frontline. Once an ele is close to the melee line, it dies. There is no if’s or but’s here. It dies. A decent ranger won’t unless the player made a brutal mistake.

This is what matters, to be left standing when others die. I love how this profession is aimed towards survival. I simply love it. I do not care about the DPS being lower, i do not care about the pet being a pain in the kitten . I do not care if others can allegedly do whatever i do better. In the end, if they try to build for hybrid support the way i do, thus trying to be as versatile as possible, they get wiped. I do not.
Now, the most valuable player in a zerg is the one that DOES NOT RALLY THE ENEMY. A well played ranger will not do such a thing. A well played Ele or necro or mesmer or guardian will do so once the pressure and focus get’s too high. It is not a matter of being stronger in specific numbers, it would be nice if we were, however in overall ability to stay alive we are only matched by a select few professions.

If you cannot or have not been able to reach this level of play, you simply are a bad player. My own skills are just about average. I am far from godlike, however i can make a ranger viable and functional in anything from 5 man group to 80 man blob, with minute variations to ONE non-meta build.

Think about it like this:

PvP – quite good
Small scale combat and roaming – quite good
PvE – very dependent on group composition and dungeon
Zerg – abysmal

Verdict – viable but unstable

Prysin.8542:

If you cannot or have not been able to reach this level of play, you simply are a bad player. My own skills are just about average. I am far from godlike, however i can make a ranger viable and functional in anything from 5 man group to 80 man blob, with minute variations to ONE non-meta build.

Lol ok you’re right everyone who thinks the ranger doesn’t belong in zerg play is just bad. So that includes pretty much all of the wvw population except you.

Mcrocha.3891:

Prysin.8542:

If you cannot or have not been able to reach this level of play, you simply are a bad player. My own skills are just about average. I am far from godlike, however i can make a ranger viable and functional in anything from 5 man group to 80 man blob, with minute variations to ONE non-meta build.

Lol ok you’re right everyone who thinks the ranger doesn’t belong in zerg play is just bad. So that includes pretty much all of the wvw population except you.

My statement only applies to rangers. Most others got no clue of what a ranger can do, they just hate on it because they can/and or have never met anything but terrible rangers (we got loads of those).

I guess that is another issue of the ranger. Those who play it believe it is weak, those who doesn’t only face off against those who think ranger is weak. To add in an analogy here; If you think you suck at driving a car, and you fear crashing. You will eventually crash, because your own fear eats away at your attention and concentration. This also applies the other way, if you think you are awesome, and others gonna crash into you, your fear of your surroundings will cloud your judgement.
The whole ranger community, as a whole, is so negative to the profession, that it is no wonder that everyone thinks rangers suck. While it is not a question about rangers being weak or not, they are far from it, people simply believe that rangers can not be good. Thus their expectations for the profession regardless of performance is negatively tuned. Thus even when you do great, even when you are winning, most players strongly believe that others can somehow do it better.
Your own mental state are betraying you. Wake up and realize that rangers are far from bad, far from weak, far from useless. They need some improvements, but redesigning the whole profession is far from needed.

The whole ranger community is under what is professionally called “the placebo effect”. Some people hate the profession through and through, mostly because they don’t like how it works. The rest just hates it because “apparently” that is how you should approach the profession.

@Prysin;

(bunch of words were edited here) Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

When you couple that with a real serious lack of other “amazing,” or, better put, highly functional Grandmaster Traits that drastically change the capabilities of builds, it does make Empathic Bond one of the most chosen and highly sought after traits for many players, more so in competitive play than anything else.

That and it is honestly the best cleansing option we have access to, which is also part of the reason people view it as such a necessity, because it is an Apex Predator option that needs to see some competition from either traits or utilities in order to create more build diversity when factoring in cleansing into a build.

It may be overhyped, but it is the best cleansing option we have access to as well, so maybe the trait isn’t as overhyped as the value of having tons of cleansing options in a build?

@Thread;

Wow, didn’t expect this topic to be so big. I’ll try to get a post with a summary of the entire discussion and what can be taken away from it going.

In case it isn’t evident, I was hoping this thread would serve the effect that the CDI topics are serving, and since I highly doubt ANet will ever come to the ranger forums ever again willingly, it’s nice that we can have this conversation and try to organize key points as a community, to be able to take to the balance forum.

Even though we all debate the specifics, it will be nice to take a bunch of key issues the majority of the community either agrees on or has a “why not, it doesn’t affect me either way” attitude about and be able to stand by them instead of squabbling over things in the balance forums because we get to into how the specifics of things should work instead of just trying to address the general problem at first and then working out the specifics.

So…. keep it going, I’ll work on that summary

Prysin.8542:

The whole ranger community is under what is professionally called “the placebo effect”. Some people hate the profession through and through, mostly because they don’t like how it works. The rest just hates it because “apparently” that is how you should approach the profession.

So much of this….. I always love the “Rangers -ok- in sPvP” nonsense, we are REALLY strong in sPvP, and people keep trying to play it off as being “meh”.

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —→Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Actually, it being a transfer makes it significantly worse than a cleanse since you’re essentially gutting part of your DPS and utility everytime you transfer cripple, chill, immob, or weakness to your pet, it’s why I despise the trait so much.

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Indeed, this is why i do not like how it works atm. It is detrimental to ranger DPS, as no other pet then bears can actually hope eat 3 stacks conditions and survive. This pidgeonholes us into a “bear or die” build setting. While i generally like bears, they are far from great options.

Another thing that i cannot verify off my memory is whether or not EB works when pet is dead. I believe that it doesn’t, however since i haven’t used it for half a year, i cannot remember.

EB should be activated on pet swap or pet F2. As an active, not the current passive system which sucks.

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

It makes the trait stronger, has counter play, makes tanky pets more useful in certain builds, I’m not saying that should be our ONLY option, just AN option.

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

It makes the trait stronger, has counter play, makes tanky pets more useful in certain builds, I’m not saying that should be our ONLY option, just AN option.

Opening up for making tanky pets more viable does not make up for their blatant lack of utility. The drakes, devourers and bears are pretty mediocre, except for brown bear. However the brown bear is a special exception only due to its active AOE condition transfer/cleanse.

this discussion also brings to light another core issue.
If you want something fixed properly when it comes to the ranger, it is not just a matter of fixing the issue, but taking the pets into consideration too. In this case, one could argue that a change in EB would warrant a overhaul of the current tanker pets.

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

Cleansing Ire is a terrible counter example (not saying you’re wrong), only because of how god awful strong it is with the right weapons. With the longbow you basically have a free condi cleanse whenever the burst comes off of cooldown (as low as 7.5 seconds) and with a warrior you can build adrenaline so easily, or maintain it, that Cleansing Ire might just be one of the most spammable cleanses in the game.

Also, Prysin was just talking about the class being built around survivability, and while I agree that EB being a transfer is far worse than a cleanse, I’d rather have a dead pet or a pet where I’m losing it as a source of DPS because of debilitating effects than I would being dead from conditions.

Also, we can swap pets for as low as every 15 seconds, which does make all of the conditions disappear, which is about the equivalent of most of the other classes cleansing options, aside from a few classes that have really strong options.

However, and I did make my own list of changes page, I would much prefer to see EB be turned into something like “3 conditions are cleansed on pet swap.”

We aren’t arguing though, I am only trying to use reasoning to back the things I say, or mistakenly say, while agreeing with the point you’re making, that the transfer is bad, and that, on a broader scale, there are a few themes with rangers that are “abusive” to our pets that need to be worked on.

Right now it feels like Michael Vick as a ranger (too soon?).

jcbroe.4329:

there are a few themes with rangers that are “abusive” to our pets that need to be worked on.

we better fix that, before some animal protection group discovers this game and sues Anet for animal cruelty (has happened before with other games/movies)

EDIT: How about EB is turned into a “overflow” trait?
It activates once the ranger has 3 conditions on it, and CLEANSES all of them. The ICD should be around 10-15 seconds. Kinda like diamondskin for eles, however it means you have to play smarter against rangers when using conditions builds, as dumping a million conditions on them would be detrimental.

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

It makes the trait stronger, has counter play, makes tanky pets more useful in certain builds, I’m not saying that should be our ONLY option, just AN option.

Opening up for making tanky pets more viable does not make up for their blatant lack of utility. The drakes, devourers and bears are pretty mediocre, except for brown bear. However the brown bear is a special exception only due to its active AOE condition transfer/cleanse.

Bears have AoE weakness, AoE chill, AoE poison field, drakes are our ONLY pet who cleaves their attacks AND does more damage per hit than canines, their utility is essentially AoE damage, not actual utility.

Devourer I’ve got no clue about, I hardly use them , I do know the one with the F2 bleed rapid fire thing can do a pretty good amount of damage though…

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

Cleansing Ire is a terrible counter example (not saying you’re wrong), only because of how god awful strong it is with the right weapons. With the longbow you basically have a free condi cleanse whenever the burst comes off of cooldown (as low as 7.5 seconds) and with a warrior you can build adrenaline so easily, or maintain it, that Cleansing Ire might just be one of the most spammable cleanses in the game.

Also, Prysin was just talking about the class being built around survivability, and while I agree that EB being a transfer is far worse than a cleanse, I’d rather have a dead pet or a pet where I’m losing it as a source of DPS because of debilitating effects than I would being dead from conditions.

Also, we can swap pets for as low as every 15 seconds, which does make all of the conditions disappear, which is about the equivalent of most of the other classes cleansing options, aside from a few classes that have really strong options.

However, and I did make my own list of changes page, I would much prefer to see EB be turned into something like “3 conditions are cleansed on pet swap.”

We aren’t arguing though, I am only trying to use reasoning to back the things I say, or mistakenly say, while agreeing with the point you’re making, that the transfer is bad, and that, on a broader scale, there are a few themes with rangers that are “abusive” to our pets that need to be worked on.

Right now it feels like Michael Vick as a ranger (too soon?).

Mate, cleansing ire is a great counter-example of how a well designed condition clear should work. Ours is a simply tacked on condition transfer that harms as much as it helps. Not only that, but if the pet is dead, then a 30 point trait stops working, which is absolutely terrible design.

Pet swap only goes as low as 16, but I do agree that it is extremely helpful in dealing with conditions. And I’ve heard the suggestion of cleanse on pet swap, but that leaves a few problems imo. Whenever I swap pets, it is because I either need their f2 or they’re about to die. And I usually end up swapping them as soon as the recharge is available. I don’t want to have to save my swap until I’m eating conditions. And if this trait did change into such a functionality, then we would lose half our condition cleansing potential if not BM specc’d as standard recharge rates for swapping are 20 seconds.

(It’s not too soon)

Yeah, there are two particular options that I can think of immediately (Protect Me, Empathic Bond) where we basically go “ummm, I know I’m the pet class and all, but I’m gonna need you to die now so I can stay alive. Because, you know, we’re supposed to work together and all. You don’t use your F2 skills and I kill you. Symbiotic Bond!”

Gonna add the general issue to the summary lol.

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

It makes the trait stronger, has counter play, makes tanky pets more useful in certain builds, I’m not saying that should be our ONLY option, just AN option.

Opening up for making tanky pets more viable does not make up for their blatant lack of utility. The drakes, devourers and bears are pretty mediocre, except for brown bear. However the brown bear is a special exception only due to its active AOE condition transfer/cleanse.

Bears have AoE weakness, AoE chill, AoE poison field, drakes are our ONLY pet who cleaves their attacks AND does more damage per hit than canines, their utility is essentially AoE damage, not actual utility.

Devourer I’ve got no clue about, I hardly use them , I do know the one with the F2 bleed rapid fire thing can do a pretty good amount of damage though…

Drakes are too slow, and devourers, well, the Lashtail/Whiptail (never remember which) has a 7x barb attack, however it is slow and suffers from some of the issues with pigs’s “charge” attack. If target moves before attack is initiated, the whole thing misfires. Devourers are epic against low-movement AOE spamming targets due to their sudden backwards evade and KB-melee range attackers.

Soilder.3607:

Mate, cleansing ire is a great counter-example of how a well designed condition clear should work. Ours is a simply tacked on condition transfer that harms as much as it helps. Not only that, but if the pet is dead, then a 30 point trait stops working, which is absolutely terrible design.

Pet swap only goes as low as 16, but I do agree that it is extremely helpful in dealing with conditions. And I’ve heard the suggestion of cleanse on pet swap, but that leaves a few problems imo. Whenever I swap pets, it is because I either need their f2 or they’re about to die. And I usually end up swapping them as soon as the recharge is available. I don’t want to have to save my swap until I’m eating conditions. And if this trait did change into such a functionality, then we would lose half our condition cleansing potential if not BM specc’d as standard recharge rates for swapping are 20 seconds.

(It’s not too soon)

EDIT: How about EB is turned into a “overflow” trait?
It activates once the ranger has 3 conditions on it, and CLEANSES all of them. The ICD should be around 10-15 seconds. Kinda like diamondskin for eles, however it means you have to play smarter against rangers when using conditions builds, as dumping a million conditions on them would be detrimental.

we could go with my suggestion, and add it to a list. It would be very strong against spammers, and useless against smart play.
1-2 stacks of conditions can be dealt with with bears or Signet of Renewal’s passive, however beyond that, the damage they do is significant.

The counterplay to this kind of trait would be to unload 3-4 conditions like chill/cripple/bleed/immob, then once the trait triggers, you drop all the conditions you can on the ranger. It will require timing, strategy and that the opponent must press more then 3 buttons

Prysin.8542:

Soilder.3607:

Mate, cleansing ire is a great counter-example of how a well designed condition clear should work. Ours is a simply tacked on condition transfer that harms as much as it helps. Not only that, but if the pet is dead, then a 30 point trait stops working, which is absolutely terrible design.

Pet swap only goes as low as 16, but I do agree that it is extremely helpful in dealing with conditions. And I’ve heard the suggestion of cleanse on pet swap, but that leaves a few problems imo. Whenever I swap pets, it is because I either need their f2 or they’re about to die. And I usually end up swapping them as soon as the recharge is available. I don’t want to have to save my swap until I’m eating conditions. And if this trait did change into such a functionality, then we would lose half our condition cleansing potential if not BM specc’d as standard recharge rates for swapping are 20 seconds.

(It’s not too soon)

EDIT: How about EB is turned into a “overflow” trait?
It activates once the ranger has 3 conditions on it, and CLEANSES all of them. The ICD should be around 10-15 seconds. Kinda like diamondskin for eles, however it means you have to play smarter against rangers when using conditions builds, as dumping a million conditions on them would be detrimental.

we could go with my suggestion, and add it to a list. It would be very strong against spammers, and useless against smart play.
1-2 stacks of conditions can be dealt with with bears or Signet of Renewal’s passive, however beyond that, the damage they do is significant.

The counterplay to this kind of trait would be to unload 3-4 conditions like chill/cripple/bleed/immob, then once the trait triggers, you drop all the conditions you can on the ranger. It will require timing, strategy and that the opponent must press more then 3 buttons

Ehh, sounds fairly powerful, but then again, warriors were buffed into god status so why not rangers?

@Soilder;

It is well designed, but it is too strong imo. I don’t think from a design perspective that it forces warriors into enough of a “backpedal” when performing a defensive action, and is instead just tacked on to an action that most of the warriors weaponsets would be performing anyways, which allows for a more constant offense than what I personally believe is healthy for competitive play.

I think that the best designed cleanse in the game is Elementalists Water Magic line (the cleanse for attuning to water and for gaining regeneration). They don’t necessarily want to be in their water magic attunement at the time they need to attune to it to cleanse, but they are forced to in order to stay alive, which opens up a window to counterplay them by taking the pressure off of the opponent allowing them to get either more offensive and push them, or to reset the fight.

I find that the warrior on the other hand can just keep on attacking, and use a burst skill whenever they need to cleanse. It’s a pure offense setup that I don’t feel punishes warriors enough for taking an action that is achieved by most other classes through some sort of defensive action or debilitating effect (killing pets, putting skills on cooldown, switching attunements, etc).

But that is a design philosophy conversation that you and I really should not have in this topic for the sake of the thread since you and I can just debate our opinions all day long and never see eye to eye.

The point being, that we agree on the fundamental level that there is something that needs to be improved with how Empathic Bond functions, which is enough to extract another general idea to take to the balance forums when they open

How is this looking for the running summary? I may have missed things, or things may not be clear:

• Pet responsiveness
• Reliance on small handful of traits for every working build
• Pet survival not being balanced adequately for large scale engagements
• Utilities completely outclassing other utilities
• Weapons not having unique and competitive functions/roles versus content
• Pet class that harms pets, contradicting by design

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Prysin.8542:

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

I still think it should be a sorta “condi duration is halved while your pet is alive” sorta trait….

normally that would be fine, however this still demands rangers to run with high toughness/vit pets.
So that means; Bears, Devourers, Drakes… not the best pets for WvW. They are ok, but i’d rather run with spiders and a bird/canine

It makes the trait stronger, has counter play, makes tanky pets more useful in certain builds, I’m not saying that should be our ONLY option, just AN option.

Opening up for making tanky pets more viable does not make up for their blatant lack of utility. The drakes, devourers and bears are pretty mediocre, except for brown bear. However the brown bear is a special exception only due to its active AOE condition transfer/cleanse.

Bears have AoE weakness, AoE chill, AoE poison field, drakes are our ONLY pet who cleaves their attacks AND does more damage per hit than canines, their utility is essentially AoE damage, not actual utility.

Devourer I’ve got no clue about, I hardly use them , I do know the one with the F2 bleed rapid fire thing can do a pretty good amount of damage though…

Drakes are too slow, and devourers, well, the Lashtail/Whiptail (never remember which) has a 7x barb attack, however it is slow and suffers from some of the issues with pigs’s “charge” attack. If target moves before attack is initiated, the whole thing misfires. Devourers are epic against low-movement AOE spamming targets due to their sudden backwards evade and KB-melee range attackers.

Never noticed drakes being slow , then again when I run a drake I’m also running a lot of stuff to slow them down… So I’m gonna say that’s probably what it is. And Devourers I feel are pretty useful (just by glancing at their kit again and based on the small time I used one) for a tanky ranged damagy pet, not really too good vs condis though lol.

I’m currently leveling a ranger (now currently 50). I don’t have too much experience obviously, and excluding the open world stuff, I’ve done some wvw zerging and low level fractals. I can’t say I understand all of the despair though I suppose I may need to level to 80 to see it all. Though I can’t imagine wvw getting any harder.

I can see why zerging can be tough. Aoe ranged damage is quite lame, with it being centered completely around barrage, a skill I don’t find impressive at all since the cast time is awful. Tagging is not amusing at all. It looks like piercing arrow > spotter in zergs?

I’m curious on why people think rangers give crap support. Spotter is a really good trait that increases group dps and call of the wild+ Healing Spring is what? nearly 50% uptime on fury coupled with condi pulsing clear, a blasted water field, and swiftness and also vigor if traited. I wish I could heal groups like that with my guardian. Sure, this is missing protection, but vigor is really good.

The class is also very mobile. It’s no warrior or thief, but since my other characters are guardian and necro, any kind of reasonable escape ability seems like it’s Christmas.

Pet AI is kinda awful; I think they need to be more durable in any meaningful content.

I think the ultimate problem is that this game is very biased against range. Being ranged means you are out of range for boons and gap closers make kiting nearly impossible. And even if you can take people down, the rally system ensures that if anything happens to you, then your efforts will be in vain.

How would people feel if pets were invulnerable, did no damage, and only provided buffs/de-buffs?

Sube Dai.8496:

How would people feel if pets were invulnerable, did no damage, and only provided buffs/de-buffs?

Better than the current system for sure.

@Sube: I think that would break it the other way around and not solve it. From all the MMO’s I’ve played you could kill a ranger/hunter’s pet reducing the damage taken by the class as a whole.

The ranger was designed as a two part profession, where when fighting the ranger you have to not only worry about him but worry about his pet too. This is pretty evident with how most of our skills have combinations with the pet, where we do an attack and our pet does an attack. In theory this is pretty awesome, but it’s hindered by the fact that our pet is broken.

What I don’t mind seeing is a variation (actually quite similar to what you want), where pets are relegated to support/CC. Reduce the normal damage done by pets by lets say 90% and transfer that damage to the ranger while the pet is alive. For those that want the beastmaster playstyle with the pet doing most of the damage they could have a trait in the beastmastery line to split the damage done between both the ranger and the pet (50:50 or even more tilting towards the pet). This would require the pet to function in a very different way, meaning the F# buttons will need to change. Let me explain:

Aggressive/Defensive/Passive Toggle: Change the function to aggressive will target and attack who we are attacking, defensive will only attack if we are attacked, passive doesn’t attack at all.

F1: Changed from ordering the pet to attack target to using a Offensive skill
F2: Keep it as is but keep it to a Utility skill
F3: Change it to order the pet to use a Defensive skill
F4: Keep it as it is to switch between pets

The idea from this change is to give more direct power to the ranger to not rely on having our damage decided by AI while moving the pet into the CC/Buff/Debuffer role. This way we still retain pets, we get to control more of their skills without needing to add more F# buttons and it forces our opponents to think between taking the time to kill our pets to stop our CC/Support or to go straight for us and dealing with the CC and the Support our pet will bring with it. Also, it would be nice if pets defenses could get buffed with this. In the end invulnerability will not solve the issue nor will removing pets’ damage totally solve it either.

Another idea I had was that to make targeting someone (attacking in unison) cause a ranger only buff (focused target) causing us to deal more damage while the the pet dealing reduced damage but taking less damage itself.

To make the ranger work flawlessly, we need a much more aggressive AI. Faster response, better tracking, stronger damage (even if longer cooldowns) and better immunity against AOE & conditions

Sorry to drag the convostion back a bit but I was in bed…

Te discussion about EB being a transfer not a straight condition removal really sums up one of the other big issues rangers have, and is why we have poor group support.

Most of the traits which on other classes would be group support, or buffs for the player themselves have just been shifted to work on our pet, all in the name of making the pet a key part of the ranger (which is a fine notion, just poor implimented).

EB and SoR are one great example.. where we dont cure conditions, we just kill our pet with them.

Shared Anguish is another great example.. every class has a simular trait, which in some way or another protects them from 1 CC, but instead of ours being a flat protections just moves the CC to our pet.. which is certainly better but for a BM build is still annoying.

The list goes of of traits which could/should/would effect us or allied players were they on another class, but have been moved to effect the pet instead, which to me, is the root of many of our problems.

I dont hate pets like many rangers.. and if we’re going to have them of course they need to be incorperated into our play.. Just they way theyve done it is pretty bad.

My own personal opinion on the pet matter is that they should count for more than just DPS. Currently, the system is set up where you either invest in the pet through BM traits, or you don’t, and either way, the pets have the same basic performance, while maybe hitting harder and living a few seconds longer when focused or in AoE.

That makes the design of the pet system extremely linear and simple, you either deal damage with your pets, or you deal more damage with your pets. Any functionality changes through traits involving pets are mostly all transfers to the pets, which is problematic because with the design the way it is, it means you are choosing to harm your DPS much more than the support you gain through the transfer traits, no matter how “needed” those traits are because of their defensive nature.

What I would like to see is for ANet to allow the pet mechanic to be built to be more supportive, through either traiting for F2 skills to have more functionality, or for pet swapping to have more functionality.

Mighty Swap and Vigorous Training are both very good examples, and if Mighty Swap was AoE, it would actually be a very good group support trait on top if it’s solo support functions. I think that adding more functions like this (gaining more boons on pet swap, maybe AoE heal on pet swap, condition removal on pet swap, or any of these functions on F2 activation) would be an incredible asset and would really help out rangers who would rather use their pets for something other than just a damage source, and it would help bandaid fix issues of pet survivability (like sending them into a zerg) because there would be more incentive to keep them on passive and use pet swaps for group support.

That’s just my 2 cents on it though, and that would be my preferred direction to push the pet mechanic in.

Regardless of the specifics, I think we can all agree that right now the pet mechanic is extremely one dimensional, which ends up being one of the things that hurts build versatility more than anything else; that you have this mechanic that no matter what is going to be doing the same exact function in every build.

(Druzilla) “Devourer I’ve got no clue about, I hardly use them , I do know the one with the F2 bleed rapid fire thing can do a pretty good amount of damage though”

I like the lashtail devourer for RAO might stacking.

Agree that people underutilize bears for their AE.

I figured I’d go over some of the reasons why rangers are the way they are in dungeons:

• Stacking, DPS, and projectile reflects are king while many of the forms of control, defense, and support that the ranger have are less important.

• No condition build is strong due to condition limits. While bleeding stacks don’t often go above 25, the issue in dungeons mainly comes from poison and burning, which easily makes up half or more of your condition damage, not stacking in intensity with your allies.

• The risk vs reward system that was used in range and melee balancing does not work in dungeons. The logic behind it is melee fights up close so they have more trouble reaching the target and are in greater danger when fighting, so they are given a damage boost over range which attacks at a distance resulting in lower risk and more attack time.
  This system, which applies to all game variants, is fine for PvP but is flawed in dungeons where the risk of attacking and attack up-time is often close for both ranged and melee, making ranged weapons that follow this balance model sub-par in all encounters except those which you cannot effectively melee due to special mechanics.

How the ranger functions in dungeons basically comes down to those 3 things.

• Because of the way conditions work, it’s not good to build around conditions. This puts any build which focuses on condition damage at a low tier.

• Because of the risk vs reward balancing, all ranged weapons are low tier except in situations where you cannot effectively melee. This makes the axe, shortbow, and longbow low tier compared to melee weapons. The only melee weapons the ranger has are the greatsword and sword, and since the greatsword is defense/control focused this only leaves the sword as a competitive weapon.

• Ranger has a ton of support options, but because most of those play an unimportant role, the only competitive support the ranger can provide is spotter, frost spirit (when traited), whirling defense (when traited), healing spring, and call of the wild.

So what does this lead to? Use a sword/axe and sword/warhorn, use all of the competitive support the ranger has, and use power based equipment. And would you look at that, this happens to be the meta for rangers in dungeons.

When it comes to addressing this, the best route to take would be changing the enemy mechanics rather than make tweaks to the ranger mechanics. Most of the issue is with how stupid AI are, and the solution would be to make them respond more like a player would, along with the capabilities that a player would have.

• If players are crowded together make them respond with frequent AoE attacks.
• Make them knock back melee range players occasionally.
• Make them move, not just sit in the same spot.
• Give them a larger variety of attacks and abilities.
• Give them more cleave, bounce, and piercing attacks, not primarily single target attacks like they have now.
• Give them more frequent attacks and with more hits involved but with less damage so that defense is more than just dodges and aegis.
• Reduce their max HP and give them forms of damage mitigation and healing, of which you can strip, reduce the effect of, or interrupt.
• Tweak defiant so players can use CC effectively but not CC lock them.

And I’m sure there’s a lot more you could add to that list.

But what If they aren’t willing or capable of making these changes? Then they will need to revamp every profession, which are currently designed around the dynamic nature of SPvP, to fit in with the design of AI, which would require a fundamental rework of many weapons, utilities, and professions.

I guess i’ll discuss a few things.

A. We’re terrible in zergs, I’ve personally given up on trying to make my Ranger better in zergs, I mean I can do alright..But its no where near my Thief (which i’ll never understand why people complain about them being bad in zergs) and my Necro.
The thief for instance i’ve basically just run shortbow with 5 venom aura build…People don’t realize how much healing that gives to people around you + the amount of damage it puts out. Its bad city as well since I can basically just spam the crap out of Choking Arrow which is a long duration poison that will also apply weakness with my spec. Nothing I can do on my Ranger comes close to that amount of utility, Spirits are no where near that in utility. Eventually people in SPvP will start figuring it out and will start running that build and it’ll get nerfed but till then its hilarious.

B. BM Bunker is still unmatched as the ranger build of choice for 1v1 fights… The amount of conditions you can put out with the proper spec + the defense make it absolutely devastating. Every other Ranger Build dies to it, and I’ll point out why very simply…. Empathetic Bond….. Which is the biggest problem with the other builds right now. Yes other builds can have it, However the difference between BM Bunker and those builds is simple, I will kill your pet…. That’s how I end up beating most other builds in fights, I simply just kill the pet because they can’t swap fast enough. This leads to them having no condition removal worth anything.

That brings me to my final point.

C. We need to stop coming up with ways to improve Empathetic Bond, It’s a good ability right now…However we don’t need to improve it, We need more bloody options that aren’t centered around the pet. Part of the reason Power Builds aren’t super great right now is because they have to actually pick up this ability. Healing Spring/SoR and Bear Condition Removal aren’t viable either… Against most dangerous Condition Specs you’ll actually need SoR+HS+EB to even fight them… So going without EB is pointless. So as Rangers we need more ways to get rid of Conditions, Not improving the one good method we have right onw.

Also i’ll state this again.

We have to many Skills that require 30 point investments to be good.

Signets for example….Signet of Beastmaster should of been removed a long time ago…

Most of our skills need to stop requiring 2-3 Major Trait Investments to be good.

Traps and Spirits for example, Both require Far to many traits to be good, and far to many points to be viable.

Terravos.4059:

I guess i’ll discuss a few things.

A. We’re terrible in zergs, I’ve personally given up on trying to make my Ranger better in zergs, I mean I can do alright..But its no where near my Thief (which i’ll never understand why people complain about them being bad in zergs) and my Necro.
The thief for instance i’ve basically just run shortbow with 5 venom aura build…People don’t realize how much healing that gives to people around you + the amount of damage it puts out. Its bad city as well since I can basically just spam the crap out of Choking Arrow which is a long duration poison that will also apply weakness with my spec. Nothing I can do on my Ranger comes close to that amount of utility, Spirits are no where near that in utility. Eventually people in SPvP will start figuring it out and will start running that build and it’ll get nerfed but till then its hilarious.

B. BM Bunker is still unmatched as the ranger build of choice for 1v1 fights… The amount of conditions you can put out with the proper spec + the defense make it absolutely devastating. Every other Ranger Build dies to it, and I’ll point out why very simply…. Empathetic Bond….. Which is the biggest problem with the other builds right now. Yes other builds can have it, However the difference between BM Bunker and those builds is simple, I will kill your pet…. That’s how I end up beating most other builds in fights, I simply just kill the pet because they can’t swap fast enough. This leads to them having no condition removal worth anything.

That brings me to my final point.

C. We need to stop coming up with ways to improve Empathetic Bond, It’s a good ability right now…However we don’t need to improve it, We need more bloody options that aren’t centered around the pet. Part of the reason Power Builds aren’t super great right now is because they have to actually pick up this ability. Healing Spring/SoR and Bear Condition Removal aren’t viable either… Against most dangerous Condition Specs you’ll actually need SoR+HS+EB to even fight them… So going without EB is pointless. So as Rangers we need more ways to get rid of Conditions, Not improving the one good method we have right onw.

Also i’ll state this again.

We have to many Skills that require 30 point investments to be good.

Signets for example….Signet of Beastmaster should of been removed a long time ago…

Most of our skills need to stop requiring 2-3 Major Trait Investments to be good.

Traps and Spirits for example, Both require Far to many traits to be good, and far to many points to be viable.

How do you fix the larger group/zerg problem? What do you feel this class lacks that other classes have that make their power builds work in a group/zerg setting that the Ranger doesn’t? If ANet magically found some way to make pets and spirits work in a zerg, do you think our problems would be resolved? Do you find this class has enough tools to actually pull off a power build and some trait shuffling is all the class needs?

Personally, I don’t think this class has what it takes to actually pull off a competetive power build. Certainly not one that could compete against what Thieves, Warriors, or even power Necros are capable of. There’s just no real burst or hard CC to win you the fight in my opinion. I’d love to hear yours though.

The only way to fix the “zerg” problem is to let us provide a crap ton of boons, cause thats honestly what separates the good “Zerg” classes from the bad ones, the ability to apply might/protection/vigor/swiftness/regen/fury all to excessive levels. That or excessive AOE like most classes, We’re basically limited to Barrage which sucks in comparison to the Ele Meteor or Running in with the Zerg and Cleaving with our Greatsword, which does less damage then other classes like the Warrior/Guardian and provides crap for CC.

Terravos.4059:

The only way to fix the “zerg” problem is to let us provide a crap ton of boons, cause thats honestly what separates the good “Zerg” classes from the bad ones, the ability to apply might/protection/vigor/swiftness/regen/fury all to excessive levels. That or excessive AOE like most classes, We’re basically limited to Barrage which sucks in comparison to the Ele Meteor or Running in with the Zerg and Cleaving with our Greatsword, which does less damage then other classes like the Warrior/Guardian and provides crap for CC.

I kind of feel the same way. Look at might for example. We have to trait 30 in marks and 10 in bm, then burn all our signets and a pet swap to give 12 stacks…to ourselves. Guards press staff 4, and provide 12 stacks to 5 people.

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

Soilder.3607:

jcbroe.4329:

@Prysin;

I see your arguments, and would like to say I only rated the Greatsword low for zergs because rangers have less cleave than other classes (only 3 instead of 5) and while the Autoattack is nice for zerg surfing, Maul is a very obvious damage source, and even in zergs I personally believe it to be very avoidable.

However, I do believe the weapon is a top tier weapon for zergs when compared to all of rangers options for zerging, so if we are talking about the post where I made a weapon breakdown analysis, then that will be the one that gets changed to saying it is top tier.

As for Empathic Bond, I know we have had this discussion as a community over and over, but the truth is that Empathic Bond is one of the best passive cleanses in the game, and outside of the lack of control over the time increment, it is one of the most condensed, shortest time frame cleanses.

Ehm, all melee attacks only hit three targets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave —->Link if you don’t believe) … It’s most of the ranger’s AoE that hits three instead of five.

Also, empathetic bond is not a condition cleanse, it is a transfer.

Whoops, wow, dunno why I just made the jump from AoE to melee cleave when I wrote that up (makes some remark about needing to drink more responsibly and don’t drink and forum post) haha I’ll get that fixed up.

That argument about EB is like, more nitpicky than even I can be lol. Fair, it transfers them to your pet, I misworded the post, but it doesn’t change the premise that it is the best access to removing conditions from the player, does it not?

Absolutely not, I’d prefer cleansing ire over empathetic bond 100 times to 1. It may be the best we have, but it’s certainly not the best in the game for that matter.

Empathetic Bond needs to be replaced, or atleast needs reduce the duration of the conditions received by our pets.

Definetly, if they can’t recieve full boons from us in the same sort of transfer they shouldn’t be recieveing full bleeds and whatnot /nod

Also is the any class so negatively affected by immobilize? I just can’t stand that crap 90% of my wvw deaths is because of it and it seems everyone has access to multiple sources of it too cause virtually everyone you meet just pulls out the big root and laughs at you, I just can’t help feel the warrior trait http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mobile_Strikes should be a ranger trait considering how utterly unaffected they already are to all conditions and how increadibly helpless we are to roots.

3 things that make me quite annoyed in ranger gameplay
1- How easy it is for immobilization to cripple rangers so badly yet they cannot apply it when other classes can so readily. When we can its down to a root system that other classes can wriggle out easily of yet ranger cannot even escape out of entangle unless it has given up a valuable signet for a stunbreaker.
2 – How necros can place masses of wells down and reap mass rewards in AOE zergs without even trying due to both size and popularity of the necro class ( for that reason alone)
3- despite all that’s said about ranger being top tier in PvP, I find that hard to believe that out of all the perm steathing thieves, mass condition well placing necros, boon converting and mass stun guardians etc, that the ranger can be top tier. Everything about it is middle of the road and has no redeeming function other than its regen which can easily negated by a mass stealth, high burst thief as an example.

I agree with Manekk.6981, what ranger should have is something similar to mobile strikes and perhaps a trait of converting conditions to boons.

What ranger needs is
1- to stop promoting skills and lifelines that depend on the pet survivability, because the pet survivability in itself is weak. The pet is nor a parasite nor a symbiotic creature, it is a free entity or should be. Necro minions don’t take 40% off a players damage, why should a pet?
2- other builds can access both power and conditions quite easily as well as tapping into some amount of good survivability, simply because they offer not only better skill tree traits but also they can reach optimizations by not even stepping into 30 point territory. This is because the power/ condition levels are so good in basic format that anything else traited is a bonus. Rangers need 30 points in everything to be worthwhile and even then it will always fall behind other classes because the symbiotic nature of the pet swallows a mass % of the ranger damage coefficient. You need hard damage and CC to make any offensive regen build to work and this is what some people are not grasping.
WvW play is no longer a mindset for roaming because it is guaranteed that an xxx vs 1 scenario will always happen ( especially against very high pop servers where group roaming is the norm) Therefore the ranger is out of date with the meta and has to adapt in some way for the player that choose this class can hold their own easy in a 2 vs 1 scenario.

My final point I will make is this, why should players who choose ranger class have to work harder for less results, when some other classes can create cheese builds and gain mass rewards without even having to try. This is why the ranger for all its good points must be upgraded to give the skilled players the power to gank the unskilled back into a learning situation and not automatically be in a winning stance because their chosen class offers more than than another. Class balance is not happening under the current umbrella, ranger stats are enough proof to see that is not happening. We don’t want a god mode class, all we want is the opportunity to shine and hold our own amongst the mass stun, confusion rune aided, well spamming classes.

Tnx OP for the respectful way to address these issues, I think you are completely right about ‘why’ sometimes the discussion goes down the drain faster than a Skrit in LA.

I mainly post this little post here so that I can find it in my history tomorrow, and won’t forget about it. It’s just to late for me now to read the whole thread and reply. So that will have to wait…

What I can say is the build I like running:
- dual axes / axe warhorn
- healing well, spike trap, frost trap, lighting reflexes and (as a sylvari) take root.
- pets: Hyena + (still undecided, currently imob.spider)
- traits: 10/0/30/20/10 (from memory), traps, offhand, axe.
- berzerkers, and lyssa runes (4x), other two unsure from memory.
- axes & warhorn, have +5% crit chance, +7? per kill precision

I run mostly PvE with this build, living story, and I think I do okish with it. I have some support, move around a lot to trap/midrange. Main problem I have in PvE is my pet dieing on Champs. Other than that I like the healing I can do (incl. self combo), and warhorn buffs, also the take root and hyena are nice to suddenly provide a lot of targets for enemies, which can be very helpful in a dire situation.

I haven’t run many dungeons yet, but I did do the sylvari one multiple times as I wanted my armor. With this exact same build. Here also the warhorn is helpful, as is the healing and extra bodies.
Here again, my pet dieing is just to dang annoying, and seeing there isn’t a huge group to do damage on champs, both my pets tend to die on me, giving me both on a cooldown.

I tried WvW once or twice I think, in a zerk, just wanted to see if this build was usefull, but also to try out the armour setup, as I was looking for armour to put on my WvW thief. Yeah, well, I guess the warhorn was useful to get ppl around, the traps were somewhat useful in sieges, for keeping ppl out of keeps. And if I wouldn’t die so easily the well was somewhat useful for it’s water field also.
Biggest problem, for me, here was my pet dieing even faster, the only way to keep it alive was basically to put it on ‘do not attack’ and stay far away from anything doing any damage. ohw except for sentries and the spider, or unguarded yak… obviously…
Can’t really judge the survivability of myself, I mean berzerkers, I didn’t realy expect to live long, and my expectations were met…

I haven’t played PvP yet, so I cannot comment on it…

Overall my main annoyance is the pets survivability, and the fact that I can not work around it. It is there whether I want it to be or not. And sometimes that is soooo annoying I wish I could shoot it myself and it would stay down… As somebody that likes pets in gameplay, I wish I could have more, I am of the opinion that rangers should get a non-pet alternative. For which I wrote the ‘pets should embrace spirits’ suggestion in this forum-section. People are free to disagree with me based upon arguments, and positive or negative constructive/respectful feedback is always welcome with me, heck if you can prove me wrong in a respectful way based upon solid arguments I will even yield and tell you I was wrong and you were right. That’s just the way I roll

Anyways, besides this, now already long, post, I will leave any other comments till another time, after I had the chance to read all the comments and thus do justice and respect to the time put into them, and this discussion.

Excellent responses to everyone. This is the most up to date summary, please feel free to continue the discussion from this point or point out anything that may have been missed.

• Pet responsiveness
• Reliance on small handful of traits for every working build
• Pet survival not being balanced adequately for large scale engagements
• Utilities completely outclassing other utilities
• Weapons not having unique and competitive functions/roles versus content
• Pet class that harms pets, contradicting by design
• More functionality/gameplay options for pets

a few more to add on the list…

-perma stow pet option.

-pets can grow to be young adults and do cool stuff like automatically gather mats for you.

-less condition damage and much higher damage output overall. better burst damage too.

-more stealth abilities than the one they just randomly tossed in.