It doesn’t even do that much damage and its only use is for stacking something (or burst, but even axe is better for that).
The blast is on such a long cooldown that its not even worth taking over something else.
brilliant deduction there, shows that you have a lot of valuable insight and information to share with us. Any word on the torch too?
To expand on what shadow said the war horn is indeed a bad weapon. It has a few merits in the #4 skill combined with sharpened edges or companions might but not much else.
Its downsides are long cooldowns, sub par damage and subject to a lot of retaliation in a small space of time. The #5 skill would be better if it granted more than a single stack of might or even lowered its cool down a and buff duration. But alas.
On torch. Problem I have with it is you have two skill that essentially do the same thing. If one of those was changed to something else it would over all be a much more rounded weapon.
Edit: Also it doesn’t do anything unique or better than anything else. There are superior options for offhand and our uptime on the boons it grants is great as is.
I’m new to game. Started a thief. Died a lot and it was too fast past for me. Went to Warrior, it bored me somewhat. Tried Ranger and loving it. I don’t die nearly as much as I did with the thief and warrior. Maybe that’s because I’m better experienced with the game mechanics? But I know the fact I have a pet to take agro makes things a ton easier. Actually, 2 pets. You can swap in combat even. I’ll likely play thief and warrior more some day. Hope I find them better than Rangers. If so, I’ll be blown away haha.
What’s an oh kitty button? Can you give me a detailed example of some abilities that thieves and warriors have that fit whatever the oh kitty button is? Thanks.
Our warhorn is designed to be used with two traits. Outside that it serves no purpose and is overshadowed by every other offhand.
Warhorn is incredibly good for team utility in both pve and wvw. Hell it’s a vast majority of the team utility we even have.
I do agree that WH5 needs about a 5 second shorter cooldown though. Maybe drop the 1 might as it doesn’t make that big of a difference.
See this is where ranger falls short since 1 stack of might, swiftness and fury arent the best when other classes can provide the same thing without losing out on dps. Even if your team lacks fury, because one might stack is useless, you would be better off with a red moa as a swap and using offhand axe for better damage and the reflect.
Worst thing about it in WvW is when you have used its skills it leaves you with an essentially dead weapon for far to long where as in that time could have had 30s poison, 3.75s of evasion frames, 6bleeds,12s cripple, 5~15k worth of damage and interrupts, a set of reflects with varying effect or up to 20s of burning for a minimum of 9k damage depending on build.
tl;dr
The opportunity cost of using the warhorn in its current state is to great to thing about taking it over anything else.
Warhorn may not be so great in WvWvW/PvP, but it is by far the best offhand in PvE.
The only reason people say that warhorn is bad in PvP is because they don’t respect their blast finishers. Warhorn 4 may not be the best damage, but it’s fantastic to initiate pet quickness for a quick burst rotation from sword auto to begin a fight. I do fine with it, and none of the other offhands would suit my build with my reliance on finishers through my water field.
Warhorn in general is a ok weapon. The nr5 is good. Yes, it could easily offer 2-4 more might stacks (IE; 3 stacks or 5 stacks pr use) but considering the base durations, the AOE effect, and the cooldown, it is by far good.
The NR4 is meh. Sure it can stack 25 stacks of might on the pet really quickly if using RaO and beastmasters Might, Fortifying bond and Sigil of Strength. But outside of that combo, it is a one trick pony.
It is however, quite strong when used alongside venomshare thieves… instant venom spam <3
Lv 80 Guard, Ranger, Ele, Thief, warr, engi
Currently @ some T1 server in EU
Our warhorn is designed to be used with two traits. Outside that it serves no purpose and is overshadowed by every other offhand.
Warhorn is incredibly good for team utility in both pve and wvw. Hell it’s a vast majority of the team utility we even have.
I do agree that WH5 needs about a 5 second shorter cooldown though. Maybe drop the 1 might as it doesn’t make that big of a difference.
See this is where ranger falls short since 1 stack of might, swiftness and fury arent the best when other classes can provide the same thing without losing out on dps. Even if your team lacks fury, because one might stack is useless, you would be better off with a red moa as a swap and using offhand axe for better damage and the reflect.
Worst thing about it in WvW is when you have used its skills it leaves you with an essentially dead weapon for far to long where as in that time could have had 30s poison, 3.75s of evasion frames, 6bleeds,12s cripple, 5~15k worth of damage and interrupts, a set of reflects with varying effect or up to 20s of burning for a minimum of 9k damage depending on build.
tl;dr
The opportunity cost of using the warhorn in its current state is to great to thing about taking it over anything else.
Being able to drop and blast a water field is also about the only decent team utility we have in WvW aside from a spirit build that just hides in the back with 3.5 spirits in tow.
Whether people think it’s fun or elegant is irrelevant when it helps your server win and I’ve been in plenty of situations where me placing a water field and being one of a couple blasts helped us turn a wipe into a victory. Being able to dodge or activate a 3 person aoe (bonfire isn’t even a true aoe) wouldn’t have done that.
Ranger panic buttons:
- Protect Me
- Lightning Reflexes
I won’t count Signet of Stone, but I’ll mention it anyway.
Protect me is unreliable and requires tons of awareness.
Lightning reflexes requires awareness of your surroundings. You also can’t use it every time, because the space you’d appear in would be even more dangerous.
Signet of stone is nice, but doesn’t help you survive. It helps you stay alive LONGER, but doesn’t help you survive.
You can use all of them only if you already thought of WHEN and HOW to use them in fight – which is not “oh snap!” button, but rather a “Now’s the time!” button.
It is our support weapon, true, but with high cooldowns and mediocre buffs its still currently lacking. Now of the 4 skill had cooldowns like all the other offhands and even provided maybe a blind or if the 5 skill, with its current cooldown, granted 3 stacks of might instead of one it would fit in to way more places. I was on about roaming and in that regard its the bottom pick.
Less about warhorn and more ontopic about why we are bad.
As far as i am concerned the reason we are difficult, not bad, is:
trait synergy -j ust look at other classes to see how well their traits and skill fit together. Guardian is a great example of this.
investment – to make anything actually usable you must invest way to many points. Doesn’t leave room for more versatility. Longbow is the main culprit of this as well as traps.
trait placement – the lines on where our traits should go are blurred. Some traits can fit in multiple lines where as others are just really out of place…
usefulness of traits and splitting – some of out traits hold almost no practice use as well as a few traits should be condensed into one to make room for better and more synergetic traits, trait choices and over all build diversity.
no clear role – currently the class is a mish mash of beast master, archer and survivalist. There is to much going on really to have room for other things. Anet has noe given us one as aprant high single target ranged damage, high sustained melee damage and evasion. I’m interested to see how they change things to fit with this new ethos.
Ranger panic buttons:
- Protect Me
- Lightning Reflexes
I won’t count Signet of Stone, but I’ll mention it anyway.
Protect me is unreliable and requires tons of awareness.
Lightning reflexes requires awareness of your surroundings. You also can’t use it every time, because the space you’d appear in would be even more dangerous.
Signet of stone is nice, but doesn’t help you survive. It helps you stay alive LONGER, but doesn’t help you survive.
You can use all of them only if you already thought of WHEN and HOW to use them in fight – which is not “oh snap!” button, but rather a “Now’s the time!” button.
6 seconds of invulnerability in a glass cannon build is a lot. 6 free seconds of dealing damage and gaining 6 seconds on your cooldowns.
It sounds like you think “awareness” is bad. LR is just knowing where the battle is and what’s behind you.
Protect me requires only a glance at your pet’s HP bar and how much time until you can swap again.
we are good in PvP, because it is a skirmish instead of a battle. problem is, Anet nerf us across the board so we are weak as kitten in other places and sorta normal in PvP.
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