Guild Wars 2

Its best not to buff ranger because they nerf it soon after anyway.

Bryzy.2719:

DavyMcB.1603:

Bryzy.2719:

DavyMcB.1603:

ohhh. LOL they nerfed it already? hahahahahahahahah I knew that wouldn’t last long.

Where’s the patch note? I’m seeing people saying it’s been nerfed but why haven’t they made an announcement? Where’s the Dev communication?

This is completely ridiculous and proves every Ranger critic right.

I can’t find anything – what change have they made?

In wiki & in game

Thanks, can’t play as I’m at work but just seen the game release notes addition.

Ridiculous. No communication from Roy other than “We’re nerfing it without consultation”. He always seemed a much more reasonable Dev

lol at what time has Roy every impressed you with anything? He’s always been one of the worst together with Jon Peters.

Tried testing out the might stacking.
I can safely assure everyone that you can still achieve 25 stacks of might for 10 whole seconds.

You just need to run MM and NM, use 3 signets (traited), Warhorn 5, Jungle Stalker F2, WHaO and AA with sword while under the effects or RoA.
Still completely viable in all games modes (though I only did the testing on an indestructible golem that doesnt fight back but I assume it works for all modes like this).

Enough with the sarcasm though,
definitely not worth the boons you get from the Heal.

Please remove the might cap from WHaO.

Please increase the duration of boons transferred for both WHaO and Fortifying Bond.
Example:

Might (or keep it at 10seconds, either way) , Fury, Swiftness, Regeneration, Aegis: 9 seconds
Retaliation, Vigor, Stability: 6 seconds
Quickness, Protection, Resistance: 3-4 seconds.

And those are my thoughts on the matter.

Holland.9351:

Bryzy.2719:

DavyMcB.1603:

Bryzy.2719:

DavyMcB.1603:

ohhh. LOL they nerfed it already? hahahahahahahahah I knew that wouldn’t last long.

Where’s the patch note? I’m seeing people saying it’s been nerfed but why haven’t they made an announcement? Where’s the Dev communication?

This is completely ridiculous and proves every Ranger critic right.

I can’t find anything – what change have they made?

In wiki & in game

Thanks, can’t play as I’m at work but just seen the game release notes addition.

Ridiculous. No communication from Roy other than “We’re nerfing it without consultation”. He always seemed a much more reasonable Dev

lol at what time has Roy every impressed you with anything? He’s always been one of the worst together with Jon Peters.

I liked what he did with the Rev. Uhhh… I’ll admit that’s probably about it.

Quite ironic actually, seeing as the Rev has incredibly good similar boon uptime.

-puts tin foil hat on-

So this is why Roy in particular was so keen to nerf WHaO – “It’s a threat to my beautiful Revenant boon stacking abilities – only Revs get this!”

Even if it had to be nerfed so soon, it still is, nonetheless, a buff to the base skill from two days ago when it still had no boon interaction.

In other words, this “nerf” is still half a buff, when the full buff was discovered to be insanely broken.

It’s unfortunate how overly sentimental some players become with nerfing. If you truly believe that “those meany anet devs don’t like my class”, then we can probably conclude that they don’t like any class, considering that’s said in every single class forum.

lol at what time has Roy every impressed you with anything? He’s always been one of the worst together with Jon Peters.

Nope. Every dev is “the worst” when they nerf the stuff you don’t like, and they’re all “the best” when they buff the stuff that “needed to be buffed”.

I liked what he did with the Rev. Uhhh… I’ll admit that’s probably about it.

Quite ironic actually, seeing as the Rev has incredibly good similar boon uptime.

Roy knows how to be harsh on Revenant as well. For example, the base revenant class is actually lacking at boon input. It is the elite spec that’s good at it, much like how druid is excellent at healing while the base class is anything but that. When a second set of elite specs gets to be made in the future, revenants will have to choose between herald’s boons and the second set, much like rangers will have to choose between healing or whatever the next one will bring.

Gaile Gray.6029:

kevvy.5081:

Mcrocha.3891:

Look at all the red posts. Let this night go down in history as The Ranger Riots of 1328 AE.

And rightly so.

Nothing will turn eyes away faster than a riot. Don’t even go there! (Even if you were kidding, which I hope you were. )

Let’s provide actual, gameplay-based feedback and look for changes in the future. But let’s not post to be rude, comment to add nothing, or repeat endlessly the same reactions. Give details, give solid input, that’s what we should do. And yes, “we” includes… me!

The main point is that rangers have been unquestionable the “dirt” of gw2, there is absolutely no reason to run a ranger, the horrible pet AI which hold 1/3 of our dps which just dies, the clear lack of responses from devs and the clear hate from the devs. Rangers have been crying out for support for 3 years already and you can’t expect people to “trust” the devs fix anything with nothing to show after 3 years…

I understand why there was a need for a nerf however when you compare it to other classes which essentially do the exact same thing party wide without sacrificing everything to do it we start to question. For example why is it okay for warriors and ele to have party wide 25 might stack by themselves but ranger and pet is a no?

If you’re going to nerf things should do them to every profession not just one.

Draeyon.4392:

Tried testing out the might stacking.
I can safely assure everyone that you can still achieve 25 stacks of might for 10 whole seconds.

You just need to run MM and NM, use 3 signets (traited), Warhorn 5, Jungle Stalker F2, WHaO and AA with sword while under the effects or RoA.
Still completely viable in all games modes (though I only did the testing on an indestructible golem that doesnt fight back but I assume it works for all modes like this).

Enough with the sarcasm though,
definitely not worth the boons you get from the Heal.

Please remove the might cap from WHaO.

Please increase the duration of boons transferred for both WHaO and Fortifying Bond.
Example:

Might (or keep it at 10seconds, either way) , Fury, Swiftness, Regeneration, Aegis: 9 seconds
Retaliation, Vigor, Stability: 6 seconds
Quickness, Protection, Resistance: 3-4 seconds.

And those are my thoughts on the matter.

Tested on dummy, yet saying viable in all game mode..

That’s the most hasty generalization I’ve ever seen… (shake head and sigh)

A build which use 3 signets, no cleanse, bring a useless pet (yes, Jaguar is useless in PVP), while burning your elite skill for a 10 sec 25 mights and you call that viable?

Edited: Didn’t read the later part, sorry didn’t know you’re being sarcastic, because that Mc guy seems to be serious about his claim of using worthless specs against dummy.

Kaze.6029:

For example why is it okay for warriors and ele to have party wide 25 might stack by themselves but ranger and pet is a no?

If you’re going to nerf things should do them to every profession not just one.

In the case of elementalists, yes, it is okay. Different professions have different strengths, and might stacking was always one of ele’s base strengths since launch. Their kit is very dedicated to easily accessible fire fields and blast finishers, and generating might stacks requires specific rotations mid-combat, so it is part of their playstyle.

For the warrior, I would agree. Warrior gets a significant amount of might stacking from a single source (one trait), which is probably as bad as ranger getting massive boon uptime from a single skill. To make things even worse, most might stacking traits in this game are mediocre, and even those that get buffed, like revenant’s, get a very conservative buff, while Phalanx Strength remains GOD-tier for some unknown reason.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Holland.9351:

lol at what time has Roy every impressed you with anything? He’s always been one of the worst together with Jon Peters.

Nope. Every dev is “the worst” when they nerf the stuff you don’t like, and they’re all “the best” when they buff the stuff that “needed to be buffed”.

You don’t understand it at all. I’m not against the nerf for HaO in particular. It’s not the first time Roy has been involved (together with Jon Peters) and made terrible changes to Ranger. But the way the do balancing is the most appalling.

might stacking is no issue here. The issue is upto 24 seconds of quickness. QZ+pet swaps x2 = 12s quickness and WHaO 24s quickness. add 25stacks of might and equal duration of fury and stability with RoA totally throws rangers outta balance in pvp situations. Even with projectile reflects the pet damage is OP as hell and rapid fire burns like lazer with 20ish stacks of vuln.

Just the remove the might sharing cap and we are golden. Alternatively increase it.

SilverThorn.5047:

might stacking is no issue here. The issue is upto 24 seconds of quickness. QZ+pet swaps x2 = 12s quickness and WHaO 24s quickness. add 25stacks of might and equal duration of fury and stability with RoA totally throws rangers outta balance in pvp situations. Even with projectile reflects the pet damage is OP as hell and rapid fire burns like lazer with 20ish stacks of vuln.

No no no no.

No viable or sustainable build can get this kind of utilisation. You sacrifice way too much. You’re an all-or-nothing one-trick pony if you do this.

It’s the same as a full zerk, traited signet thief going all-out squishy for max snipe damage. The ability is there to get ridiculously high might/damage, but people don’t because it’s just a stupid move.

oh well a hot fix

DiogoSilva.7089:

Kaze.6029:

For example why is it okay for warriors and ele to have party wide 25 might stack by themselves but ranger and pet is a no?

If you’re going to nerf things should do them to every profession not just one.

In the case of elementalists, yes, it is okay. Different professions have different strengths, and might stacking was always one of ele’s base strengths since launch. Their kit is very dedicated to easily accessible fire fields and blast finishers, and generating might stacks requires specific rotations mid-combat, so it is part of their playstyle.

25 stacks of might is 750 power and 750 condition damage. Giving any class access to this, but not others, is a sure way to cause imbalance.

Bryzy.2719:

SilverThorn.5047:

might stacking is no issue here. The issue is upto 24 seconds of quickness. QZ+pet swaps x2 = 12s quickness and WHaO 24s quickness. add 25stacks of might and equal duration of fury and stability with RoA totally throws rangers outta balance in pvp situations. Even with projectile reflects the pet damage is OP as hell and rapid fire burns like lazer with 20ish stacks of vuln.

No no no no.

No viable or sustainable build can get this kind of utilisation. You sacrifice way too much. You’re an all-or-nothing one-trick pony if you do this.

It’s the same as a full zerk, traited signet thief going all-out squishy for max snipe damage. The ability is there to get ridiculously high might/damage, but people don’t because it’s just a stupid move.

still it is way too OP for 1v1 scenario, also if supported by 1 bunker the two of them can wreck the whole team. You can fire off 2 rapid fires like lightning. It burned my bunker guard in 8 seconds with the ranger claimed 10k crit on rapid fire final hit

I saied it was needing nerf, but it realy got butchered, now its like 2-3 sec? atleast make it base 3-4 sec and make it to scale with pet boon duration(so we can get somthing out from going into NM with WHAO).

LughLongArm.5460:

I saied it was needing nerf, but it realy got butchered, now its like 2-3 sec? atleast make it base 3-4 sec and make it to scale with pet boon duration(so we can get somthing out from going into NM with WHAO).

Ok, it does seems to scale with pet boon duration so i think the base is 2 sec, should be 3-4 sec if you ask me.

SilverThorn.5047:

might stacking is no issue here. The issue is upto 24 seconds of quickness. QZ+pet swaps x2 = 12s quickness and WHaO 24s quickness. add 25stacks of might and equal duration of fury and stability with RoA totally throws rangers outta balance in pvp situations. Even with projectile reflects the pet damage is OP as hell and rapid fire burns like lazer with 20ish stacks of vuln.

Not possible. Zephyr’s Speed has an internal cooldown now, so you can’t do a quick pet swap and benefit from that trait two times in a row.

LughLongArm.5460:

LughLongArm.5460:

I saied it was needing nerf, but it realy got butchered, now its like 2-3 sec? atleast make it base 3-4 sec and make it to scale with pet boon duration(so we can get somthing out from going into NM with WHAO).

Ok, it does seems to scale with pet boon duration so i think the base is 2 sec, should be 3-4 sec if you ask me.

Ok, its different for each boon(like FB), I think it scales with player boon duration(not pet, they should change that i think) also the durations are not static, the bonus 3 might i got after using horn 5 was different(i think) to the bonus 3 might after i used axe AA with FB. But the 3 might bonus with horn is nice, now horn +WHAO will give ranger 6 might and pet 12 might in 2 sec.

While Heal as one was previously incredibly strong, right now all I’m managing with the boon copying is maintaining swiftness and regen (which we already could do fairly easily). This surprise nerf stopped the 32 seconds of quickness build (That was by pet swapping above half health, instinctive reaction, QZ and HaO.), as well as running around with over a minute or two of swiftness, fury and regen. I couldn’t find the way to maintain 25 stacks of might before, but I was able to reach it for short bursts after using my heal skill whenever I was in combat with sword/Jungle Stalker/Warhorn.

Some boons, particularly fury, should definitely be copied for longer. At least the 3 might stacks gained isn’t just for 3 seconds I guess? At this point I’ll just be using the skill like I always have before, for the swiftness with free regen, the new boon copying will be just a minor afterthought.

there it’s down to 13 secs atm but great burst with 18 might stacks and 16 vuln + pet damage
i used boon duration runes and sigil of rage

SilverThorn.5047:

there it’s down to 13 secs atm but great burst with 18 might stacks and 16 vuln + pet damage
i used boon duration runes and sigil of rage

Ita cool and all but only ~3 sec of quickness are actually from WHAO, so nothing overwhelimg here. Also I c only 10 might which is not that rare while activating RAO. Seems fine.

I agree with most people here.

It was a Knee Jerk reaction (to fast, to big nerf).

Twitter (on a ’nerf this plox thread of all) was wrong way to communicate.

Roy who made warrior in year 1 of gw2 op, and now revenant very powerfull (not truly op, but within the real of celestial ele, warrior etc). He of all people (who has had no impact almost at all on ranger design), calls for the nerf. Not logical. Weither this was spoken about internally before decision or not. It seems Roy took the lead in the ‘nerf argument’ side here. In his own revenant threads he often says ‘lets first play more with it before we draw conclucions, for instance, the energy drain and or cooldown, might be bigger punishment then players think now’. This is how WHaO should have been handled. It wasn’t. The biggest problem: Roy and Jon Peters seem to be the lead profession designers (they are boss of balance sort off). They both don’t play ranger (not enough at least). Some players hotjoined 8 hours here with ranger and still honestly admit it was to few to make a conclusion. I would be very surprised if Roy/Jon play ranger more then 8 hours per month… That is so out of wack and a source to the ranger problem. It’s part of why the ‘absolutely not satisfied’-tone has overtaken this forum. Dig the rev for 3 months after launch, only play ele, thief ranger necro (all have some very weak trait/buids – that need to be playtested to form a objective conclusion about what needs a boost/nerf and how).

Revenant, Elementalist, Warrior, Necromancer, Engineer all (to a normal or crazy extend) can buff might to themself AND allies. Why in hell would it be wrong for ranger to do this? Ranger is still behind other professions in dungeon dps. For pvp most of dps is not utilized (pet rarely connects to enemy). Necromancer is just blood is power, revenant has the energy drain punishment (wich is especially heavy on protection). This makes it an ok balance (so far). Warrior and Elementalist however, are questionable in the current tone of ‘rangers cannot have 25 might stacks, that are even not shared on top of all downsides’, since they can do 25 might (and fury) to all party members, permanent. Ele can add, swiftness, protection, regen on top of it! C’mon Anet.

This is not a call to arms for huge boost/nerfs. I know Ele has downsides. I have 9955 hours playtime… It’s split amongst all professions (not evenly but still xd). I know some bigger nerfs would make ele getting shelved probably. But at the same time, currently it’s so strong in heal, boon support, mobility, Cc applicaiton, condi, power, armor aspects, that it’s simply to overpowered. Especially effort wise to what is gained.

Ranger has in most circomstance to work double (or triple) as hard to get similar (sometimes still not same effect due to weaker skills/traits) effect. Now when we finally overcome some of the dps weakness, in a not all that overpowered way and with serious limitations (the build, timings, healing skill, cleansing, utility slots all make big sacrafices to get there, unlike elementalist), it’s op? I know to expect a nerf, just to get it a bit in line, but this is a joke. You nerfed it to ‘non existant’ status. 1 sec cast time removes 1 sec of all existing boons on you. On top of it, after it you only get +2 sec on the most important ones, really?

Like some people have posted, Thanks Gaile for good commnications effort, staying calm, and remaining positive in a dissapointed discussion. Not many people are as ‘warm hearthed’ as her. Kuddos to her. I really hope she never leaves Anet, cause she is a blessing for us players. And even more blessing she plays ranger herself (like it or not, even the super kind Gaile is slightly biased! Good for us, she probably more likely will push her collegues to work on ranger). But i remain realistic, the ball is in Roy/Jon’s camp. Irenio btw, thanks a lot of trying. Your intentions were great, creative and a fun end result. Don’t let the big dissapointment come to your heart, I think most people will agree with me, that you take no blame at all in this (on the contrary).

Another worry note: Please don’t nerf Druid. May sound QQ/childish, but really. The intention of druid is clear: some CC on a very long cooldown (you must build up avatar energy), some huge burst heal on a very long cd, some heavy condi cleanse on a VERY LONG CD, I can repeat, but very long cd is emphasis. Also, while staff skills are great, if we don’t have access to the Avatar CC/heal burst, it will feel to weak, and incomplete. So any WHaO-nerf threatment on it is wrong. Also HoT is by definition harder. Harder means, support, healing, etc will be more important. Wether Jon/Roy love pvp so hard they almost explode from it or not (just a figure of speech), that cannot be the only goal when looking upon Druid balance. It has to remain HoT pve, dungeon, Raid, wvw viable. Pvp is of lesser importance here. If anything, this might be first time ever were a split in skills (pvp part heals 50% as effective) is truly necessary, not even needed or welcome, NECESSARY a 100%. So to end: the ranger communinity does not wish a super Druid nerf. We can already now see this is not the way to go.

What is the ranger role? Irenio has a kitten good idea i think, but what about Roy/Jon who supercede his decision? An important question that needs answering before doing anything else, can be done about Druid/ranger. Also please Roy, leave that Bias to your subconscience. Year 1 anet definitely showed warrior Bias. It has about a year ago finally slowed down to normal levels, presumably once you started HoT design. Revenant seems ok so far, but at same time, was boosted a lot (not just a little bit) to make that ’it’s so slow and hits like a wet noodle’ feeling away. But by ‘improving’ Rev so much (with new technology i might say), other professions feels lacking something. Like not modernized enough to have the same fun/viability. Is it powerpowered? I’d say no, not at all, Energy management, fixed utilities, Hero swap cooldown, weapon swap cooldown, etc make it a ‘hard to master’ profession. And that alone seems like a good enough trade off so far for it. If you ask me, would you nerf revenant in the current meta? Crazy hard question. I would say yes. But that yes, is for the wrong reasons. It’s for the reasons, guardian will be less played, ranger lacks so much behind, Necromancer still has some problems, etc. Not because revenant as a stand alone feels over tuned. The issue again lies in that some professions simply are not ‘upgraded’ enough to modern hearth of thorns style. Give the ranger sword auto attack versus revenant. Both are cute, fun, and have merrit. But in the end, revenant is way better, because you are fully at control as player how to use it, a ranger (no matter how clever and trained at sword using) will often lose control over it. All i’m saying is, nerfing takes wisdom to do correctly. You need objective overall conclusions. So far some big mistakes in this area have been made (like the way WHaO was handled).

I said it several times, put a set duration, but don’t butcher it.

And they butchered it. Of course they did. The boon copying is negligible now.

Hilt Bash has had a shorter range than intended for 3 years. WHAO got (over)nerfed in 24 hours. It’s the ranger routine.

Alright, I’ve managed to vent all my furious rage for now so I’ll try and keep this relatively constructive.

Today is Thursday morning, so I can say that roughly ~36 hours ago, the Tuesday balance patch went live and the the initial WHAO changes entered the game.

36 hours.

THIRTY.

SIX.

HOURS.

Gaile, I know you’re reading this thread, and I really do appreciate it. Thank you for attempting to communicate with us, and forgive me for directing these rhetorical questions at you.

How long did it take for icebow to get nerfed?

How long did cele d/d elementalist run rampant in the PvP arenas?

How many stacks of might can a warrior give, permanently, to their entire party?

Are rangers autoattackers, or do they primarily use their 2-5 skills to do their damage?

The main cause for my ire in this situation is, more than anything else, the sheer lack of logic demonstrated. What is wrong with a ranger being able to stack might in the first place? My warrior can stack upwards of 15 stacks of might using only his weapon skills, and he doesn’t have to gut his build for it. And he can give it to the ENTIRE PARTY!

For my ranger, before WHAO was nerfed, in order to get 25 stacks of might, I would need to:

• Use my Jungle Stalker’s F2 skill, Mighty Roar, which puts it on cooldown for 25 seconds.

• Swap my pet (which puts it on cooldown for 20 seconds) to procc Clarion Bond which has an ICD of 30 seconds. A combined 50 second cooldown.

• Use Strength of the Pack which has an activation time of 1 second and a cooldown of 60 seconds.

• Attack my target to build up might stacks. We’ll say this takes ~5 seconds if I’m saving my Rapid Fire and Barrage.

• Use my healing skill We Heal As One (1 second activation time, 20 second cooldown) to transfer my pet’s boons to myself and gain 25 stacks of might if I do this entire rotation properly.

• Use LB #2 Rapid Fire to deal ~15k damage in full Berserker gear if all shots land on the target. This is assuming I have LoS and the target does not have anything that would utterly ruin me, such as:
  * Any skills or traits utilizing reflect.
  * Any skills or traits utilizing block.
  * Any skills that utilize invulnerability, which doesn’t include the Warrior’s Defiant Stance ability for some reason despite Defiant Stance doing essentially the same thing with the added bonus of using their damage to heal you.

If, at any point, Rapid Fire and, to a lesser extent, LB #5 Barrage are somehow negated, I am out of luck. That was my entire burst. The might stacks did not last that long without you removing all damage from your build (this is how you get perma-quickness by the way), and might doesn’t even stack duration anyway.

I am going to be perfectly honest with you here, Gaile, because honesty is what you need right now, and I truly do ask you to forgive my bluntness. I love Anet and I love Guild Wars 2, but whispering sweet nothings and saying “It’s alright” and “You’ll do better next time” will not help solve the problem.

In my own, sincerest opinion, this smells like developer incompetence.

This smells like people who do not understand what the Ranger is capable of and what it is NOT capable of. This smells like people who are balancing a game based on hearsay and not solid numbers and information. And, most importantly, this smells like people who do not understand their playerbase.

If any of the developers even so much as glanced at the Ranger subforums, they would understand that things here are tense. There are many people here who feel ostracized and feel the developers, in no uncertain terms, simply do not give a flying kitten about them. Are some of them overreacting? Probably. Are there also legitimate concerns based the iffy track record of the profession they love? Definitely.

What the developers did here was multiply the “They hate the Ranger” issue by a factor of ten. They did not wait to gather data on how the WHAO change might have effected the gameplay environment. They did not wait to see how players would use it. Within hours of the change going live on Tuesday, Ranger players had already isolated the “perma-quickness build” (if it even deserves the term “build”, which is highly disputable in itself) that the balance team feared so much as extremely niche, and determined that it was not worthwhile in any scenario.

As someone else said, the balance team took a sledgehammer to a situation that needed a scalpel.

And regarding the “They hate Rangers” issue:

As an analogy, what happened here is the equivalent of a small child’s perceived bully placing a fun toy before him in an act of goodwill. “Here,” the bully says. “This should be fun to play around with!” Tentatively, the child reaches forward and runs his hand over the toy, thinking of all the fun he could have with it. After allowing the child a moment of happiness, the bully reaches down and snatches the toy away, walking away and leaving the child with nothing. The other children in the background are happily playing with their own toys, either unaware or willfully ignoring the situation.

This is how the players of this subforum think of the issue. They are the small child, the one tormented by the bully. The background children are the other classes they believe Anet “favors”, most notably Elementalist, Warrior, Mesmer. The toy the bully takes away is the buffed WHAO. And the bully is you, Anet.

I do not know whether this mindset is based on truth, a circlejerk or some strange, spoiled entitlement issue. Perhaps a combination of all three. But I also believe that the fact it exists at all merits some… concern.

Gaile Grey

panda the chop chop.4712

Alright well let’s discuss, a full explanation in complete detail in why these changes were made, why was ranger boons were discussed on Twitter rather than the ranger community to begin with, why was the inherent issues of “boon duration” discussed via Twitter only to have two side changes made on top of those durations made without announcement ANYWHERE?
I hope you understand how disrespected and shocked many of of us are, hundreds? Thousands of us. I hope you realize that some of them don’t want to stand up but that’s why those of us who will fight for those who can’t are right here to stand up against this unjust treatment. We diserve better than a Twitter feed.
IGN: Itspanda

All this has already been asked and answered. Closed. NOT because we’re trying to stop discussion, but because we’re trying to make the most of everyone’s time and efforts in sharing their thoughts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Discussion-from-ranger-community-to-devs

actually…this was never answered. I looked back through the dev posts (mostly posts from Gaile) and there is no answer to this. This was the closest response but it doesn’t answer the question at hand.

Gaile Grey

We have forums for a reason. While Twitter is great for a lot of things, for something of this depthy, you can’t have a meaningful discussion at 140 characters.

If you have feedback, place it here. Don’t ping devs on Twitter or other places — just share your thoughts here!

So…again yes, we have the forums for a reason. Why was this change discussed on a dev’s personal twitter and not on the forums?

khani.4786:

Gaile Grey

panda the chop chop.4712

Alright well let’s discuss, a full explanation in complete detail in why these changes were made, why was ranger boons were discussed on Twitter rather than the ranger community to begin with, why was the inherent issues of “boon duration” discussed via Twitter only to have two side changes made on top of those durations made without announcement ANYWHERE?
I hope you understand how disrespected and shocked many of of us are, hundreds? Thousands of us. I hope you realize that some of them don’t want to stand up but that’s why those of us who will fight for those who can’t are right here to stand up against this unjust treatment. We diserve better than a Twitter feed.
IGN: Itspanda

All this has already been asked and answered. Closed. NOT because we’re trying to stop discussion, but because we’re trying to make the most of everyone’s time and efforts in sharing their thoughts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Discussion-from-ranger-community-to-devs

actually…this was never answered. I looked back through the dev posts (mostly posts from Gaile) and there is no answer to this. This was the closest response but it doesn’t answer the question at hand.

Gaile Grey

We have forums for a reason. While Twitter is great for a lot of things, for something of this depthy, you can’t have a meaningful discussion at 140 characters.

If you have feedback, place it here. Don’t ping devs on Twitter or other places — just share your thoughts here!

So…again yes, we have the forums for a reason. Why was this change discussed on a dev’s personal twitter and not on the forums?

Because the dev who made the change to WHaO thinks the ranger class is a joke & treats it like one.

I don’t usually come and respond to the posts by clueless ignorants on here (and the forums are 99% filled with those), but seriously – please, identify the guy who said that rangers “has always been overpowered and meta-like”. I was told by people on the map chat that there are the ^%^&*#$%@# who said that here.

Show me the ones who said that, please.

PS The quick change by the dev team as a response to those who cried over the recent buff of the ranger class is a joke. Enough said. 3 stacks of might with the WHaO? Amazing, indeed.

It’s not about the nerf. I think it needed it too. It’s because of how they handled it and how hard they nerfed it and how quickly.

Boons should be shared between the pet and Ranger (including their durations), but it should be baseline and it shouldn’t stack on top of eachother and it shouldn’t be tied to a trait or heal. That’s the kind of fix it needs. In fact it doesn’t even need to be on the heal, they could just make fortifying bond work both ways. And once Fortifying bond works like that, make it baseline.

All I want is for them to remove the might cap, because there is legitimately, absolutely no reason for it when several other classes can give 25 might stacks to an entire party.

Another solution is, why not just remove quickness from the boons that are copied over? Is that hard to code, is that not a thing?

The very fact that it made it into the game without restriction is like screaming “we don’t play ranger so we didn’t expect this”.

Also when will we get food, potions, sigils, runes and party buffs (when in full group = banners, spotter…) affecting the pet as well?

Holland.9351:

It’s not about the nerf. I think it needed it too. It’s because of how they handled it and how hard they nerfed it and how quickly.

This, it’s not like it was even that strong. There was counterplay, and some glaring problems with the builds that could do the stronger dps like a true glass cannon. I agree it was a bit strong but releasing a hotfix? How come pu mesmer lasted so long with a clearly ‘strong’ ability that finally got nerfed Tuesday? It’s like ok ranger’s get a few weeks of glory because someone didn’t test things properly, but no Rangers don’t get to be strong for a few weeks only other classes.

Olcon.9506:

Another solution is, why not just remove quickness from the boons that are copied over? Is that hard to code, is that not a thing?

Literally the first thought I had when I read how they were nerfing it.

For Devs Reading this,

The main issue is how relatively fast you intentionally patch/nerfed the ranger in comparison to every other class who has had plenty of time to enjoy being rediculously overpowered.

Since you gave rangers less than 36 hours to shine, rangers will be expecting/demanding you to pull through and nerf anything similar/overpowered IN THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME, NO MORE LONG DELAYS.

You just issued yourself a challenge devs, either keep up with rapid patch/nerfs or sit on your hands long enough to match how idle you sit normally.

If we put aside the reason as for why they buffed We Heal as One in the first place, I can’t help but wonder why buff it, then within 24 hours gut it into something that’s hardly noticeable at all?

If you’re serious about buffing a skill, then go ahead and buff it – make that buff count. The state of the skill right now is that the “buff” is so small it won’t make a difference – at all.

They could’ve gone ahead and “buff” the skill by transferring all boons from the pet, but make them last 1 millisecond. The skill would still be buffed compared to previous incarnation, don’t you agree?

So when is a buff really not a buff? I’d say that the “buff” to WHaO is not a buff even worth mentioning anymore for rangers. But it WILL be an argument from others in their hunt to nerf rangers in the future by saying things like “yeah, but you got the ability to copy boons from your pet – that’s strong!”.

(…and yeah, sorry for typing the word “buff” so many times, lol!)

@OGDeadHead.8326 It wasn’t a buff, it was a bluff buff that wanted to be a buff but actually was bluff :p

yet another example of how Devs could care less about Ranger. How are we to expect you will ever make serious improvements to the base ranger? You put through changes that were clearly never even really looked at or discussed as a community, and gut it into oblivion after you realize your own kitten up.

You give us something great and make it completely irrelevant 2 days later

aside from the completely pointless 2 seconds of quickness and protection, now we only get 3 stacks of might? seriously? Now I get 8 might from my jungle stalker instead of 15. Thanks…you almost made the 3 second cast timer on Might Roar usable. What is regen like 4 seconds? lol who cares I already get it in spades. vigor seems to be 3 seconds maybe, woopty doooo

thanks for another pointless aquaman “buff.” 2 more might on call of the wild, neato! Good thing I can time Clarion Bond with my pet swap to know when im gonna get it!Spirits are soooo much more viable now, and our pets can actually do condi damage now (wait they should have done that 3 years ago). Good thing block, invuln, dodge, evade, don’t exist and are not spammable in this game, otherwise Beastly Warden would have been hit pretty hard with its recent fix. Oh so glad you fixed Windborne Notes, wow, the Ranger community thanks you greatly for this, our most precious trait!

But hey, at least MDG is pretty awesome now…

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Olcon.9506:

Another solution is, why not just remove quickness from the boons that are copied over? Is that hard to code, is that not a thing?

Literally the first thought I had when I read how they were nerfing it.

It wasn’t only about Quickness. People keep saying it, but it wasn’t.

You could quite easily get permanent Swiftness, Regeneration, Fury, Vigor and Protection with it. With help from a friendly guardian, you could get permanent Quickness easily on top of it (could also do it solo, but not as easy) and Retaliation too.

So it was pretty powerful, even without permanent Quickness.

The interaction with Forifying Bond made the boon durations add up quickly. It would also tripple the amount of Might and Stability stacks the Ranger would get. It wouldn’t increase their duration however, so keeping permanent 25 stacks of Might and Stability wasn’t possible.

The problem is that it got nerfed into non-existance instead of coming up with a proper fix. And you know, once they nerf something into non-existance, it’s usually never reviewed.

Butchering a brand new concept just because d/d ele started crying is kinda counter productive.
Maybe it was indeed slightly OP, but that doesn’t justify nerfing it to the ground 1 day after adding it.
The first version was slightly too stronk yes but the nerf makes it negligible.
It would be more tactically interesting to find a middle ground, something like:
“copy each other boon with half duration” rather than the hard cap.

I have to admit, even though I advocated that the boon sharing should not have full durations and instead be static, that the way it was handled is just terrible. So many issues Ranger has had for years have not been fixed, that presumably could have been with the same amount of work that went into coding the static durations. Look at the Ranger bugs here so many of them could have been fixed with the same vigor that was put into the Zephyr’s Speed/Clarion Bond fix, Swoop “fix”, or the WHaO fix. But it seems that things that actually benefit the Ranger end up taking years to fix. How about a little sense of urgency for the rest of our bugs?

Ok, so we have actually got a lot of love with the latest patch, but so much more needs to be done and ’we’re busy with HoT’ is no longer a valid excuse.

Guess the real purpose of this thread is to let people voice their anger, frustration etc. Then it will be closed as “non-productive”. Everyone will know by now that ranger isn’t allowed to have easy access to might stacking like warr. Everyone will know by now that ranger can’t have any “OP” skills for a long time like ele’s ice bow. Some might call this “balancing”. Just look at the facts and you know what this is all about. The lightning speed with which every buff for ranger gets nerfed to the bottom compared to the long overdue nerf of ele’s ice bow for instance says it all. The silence of the responsible developer for ranger says it all. The silence of developers in general says it all. What else is there to say? I guess nothing.

Holland.9351:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Olcon.9506:

Another solution is, why not just remove quickness from the boons that are copied over? Is that hard to code, is that not a thing?

Literally the first thought I had when I read how they were nerfing it.

It wasn’t only about Quickness. People keep saying it, but it wasn’t.

You could quite easily get permanent Swiftness, Regeneration, Fury, Vigor and Protection with it. With help from a friendly guardian, you could get permanent Quickness easily on top of it (could also do it solo, but not as easy) and Retaliation too.

So it was pretty powerful, even without permanent Quickness.

The interaction with Forifying Bond made the boon durations add up quickly. It would also tripple the amount of Might and Stability stacks the Ranger would get. It wouldn’t increase their duration however, so keeping permanent 25 stacks of Might and Stability wasn’t possible.

The problem is that it got nerfed into non-existance instead of coming up with a proper fix. And you know, once they nerf something into non-existance, it’s usually never reviewed.

Another theory crafter who never use the build, like at all.
It’s a subpar build that can build boons, and nothing else.

No cleanse, no heal, low burst.

Even thief’s signet build (instant 20 might, quickness, fury, in ONE second anyone?) is way better than this, yet no-one complain?

https://youtu.be/QMNsVVW7YVI

Same mechanic, sacrifices EVERYTHING just for boons for a short duration spike.
Difference is thief actually has that burst to utilize those boons, while boon ranger doesn’t lol.. (Axe+wh / S+torch no burst at all lol)

Protection stacking? You bring kitteneless utility, and try to make it remotely useful by wasting your heal lol.. What’s the point of protection when your heal is always CD?
Plus Guard messed up your pet attack pattern too.

Quickness stacking? No real build under real pvp situation has the leisure to build up this so-called infinite quickness.

Really tired of all the theory-crafters who never even try the build in PVP. Great that you’re doing well against dummy though.

Zoef.2761:

Guess the real purpose of this thread is to let people voice their anger, frustration etc. Then it will be closed as “non-productive”. Everyone will know by now that ranger isn’t allowed to have easy access to might stacking like warr. Everyone will know by now that ranger can’t have any “OP” skills for a long time like ele’s ice bow. Some might call this “balancing”. Just look at the facts and you know what this is all about. The lightning speed with which every buff for ranger gets nerfed to the bottom compared to the long overdue nerf of ele’s ice bow for instance says it all. The silence of the responsible developer for ranger says it all. The silence of developers in general says it all. What else is there to say? I guess nothing.

Problem is ALL CLASSES can easily self stack up to 25 stacks of might if they build for it.
(And they’re all functional build, not always the best, but at least functional)

How come ranger is the only one who’s not allowed?

Wouldnt a simple cd increase to we heal as one fix the perma boons while make the heal still desirable. to be honest when traited we heal as one had a 16sec cd and healed for about 7k thats kinda strong

zxosz.4097:

Wouldnt a simple cd increase to we heal as one fix the perma boons while make the heal still desirable. to be honest when traited we heal as one had a 16sec cd and healed for about 7k thats kinda strong

Its about risk vs reward until the reward is greater than the risk no one will use it. It was before now it isn’t

Shiren.9532:

I think WHaO was OP in it’s buffed stat. I played BWE2 almost exclusively on a herald revenant and I loved building up large durations of boons passively. The big difference between ranger and herald is the herald had to lock down a large chunk of their profession resource to do it (upkeep of several skills) and it was the intended design focus of the specialisation – sacrifice energy to maintain AoE boons. The ranger used a single skill which snowballed once you obtained boons from other sources that easily rivaled what the herald’s primary appeal is (admitedly the herald is AoE while the ranger was simply it and its pet). It also revolved around using a heal for something other than healing.

I disagree with this heavily. First of all, getting boons from another player and extending them isn’t as big of a deal as it’s being made out to be. Every time you have an allied elementalist or warrior near you, you’re going to have 25 stacks of might. Therefore, gutting the might transfer on the skill was either shortsighted or malicious. The fact that Roy can’t be bothered to explain his heavy-handed treatment of the skill on the forums here points suggestively at the latter; after all, it isn’t as if he has any reluctance explaining his changes on the revenant subforum. Besides, rangers have been at the bottom of the heap for three years straight. Ranger players are looking for anything that has a chance in hell of putting them nearly on par with the other professions, yet every time anything comes up that might make them competitive, it doesn’t just get nerfed…it gets obliterated.

Chokolata.1870:

The problem with WaO was that it could stack long duration boons that were really powerful like protection and quickness.

The issue was not with might stacking. The might limit of 3 was a knee jerk overnerf that was not necessary. They should have just used the fortifying bond template of boon duration and the might stacks would have fallen off within 10 seconds with a maximum of 17.5 seconds if someone used might runes.

However, as with everything, they completely over reacted.

If protection and swiftness stacking are so powerful, why can elementalists and guardians do it casually for an entire team? The only ‘problem’ here was quickness, and even that didn’t give the ranger any more burst than a scepter elementalist (and less condition cleanse). Oh, and it also required having your stunbreak and heal on cooldown most of the time. Yeah, what an advantage…

Thoughtful Constructive Criticism

Hey all, if anyone is still reading this for constructive feedback (and I really hope someone in ANet is), I’d like to give mine: The first thing is that, so far as I can tell, WHaO is a pretty powerful heal already, and I liked it so much after the update that made it a shout that I ran it all the time, just to have a strong heal on a short recharge that also gave regen and swiftness — so I thought it was sort of an odd place to put such an obviously powerful buff.

That said, let’s talk about the actual functionality of the buff, as well as what it actually gave us that we didn’t already have easy access to:

• It was obviously very powerful, but the main issue seems to have been the ability to stack up too much quickness, and possibly too much protection. Even then, however, nobody could maintain perma stability, because it doesn’t stack duration, nor could you realistically maintain permanent quickness in solo play. Still, permanent (or at least extremely high uptime) on protection (albeit through the use of “Guard,” which is an otherwise relatively weak and silly skill, for the most part) was possible, and that is almost certainly bad for the game. So fine, it needed a fix (although I am a little shocked that nobody realized this before it went live in the first place), at least in the areas of protection and quickness.

• I already had permanent Fury, Regen, and Swiftness, all the time, while running around in PvE, both for me and my party (and about 99% uptime on protection for my pet), while doing tons of damage — and it was fairly easily possibly in PvP, although possibly it made one’s build less than ideal for other things. Rangers also have access to fairly high vigor uptime, if they spec for it. Of course, the new buff to WHaO makes that easier to maintain and allows a couple of other options for maintaining it, but really, the main bonus functionality we were getting was: Superior Might Stacking access (finally!), another way to access protection (in a way that synergized with an otherwise fairly weak pet-related shout), and far too much quickness. Since all of that has been nerfed into the ground (the transferred protection duration is the same as what we get on a dodge roll from a minor trait), the buff is hardly noticeable at all, now, especially for the build I typically run.

• The question now is, “What was the point of this buff, at this point?” All I get from it now, essentially, is an extra 3 Might. Further, by limiting the might stacks (especially by limiting them so drastically), you’ve destroyed any synergy with the Nature Magic line, since there’s no point in seeing how many stacks of might I can get on my pet (one warhorn 5 or Clarion Bond proc or Jungle Stalker f2 or blast finisher on a fire field or whatever is enough) for the purpose of transferring them back to me. Already it required some careful strategy and placement (the Ranger and pet need to be near each other for maximum effectiveness), and it offered me an incentive to keep better track of where and when I was activating skills and swapping pets, which made things more difficult and interesting but offered a higher reward — it even offered a potential incentive to actually NOT run Zephyr’s Speed, because of the potential benefit of keeping one pet out and buffed. Now, however, it offers basically nothing.

On the Bright Side, it is still a decent buff to a skill that I already liked and used in almost all of my builds. If nothing else, I typically gain a little extra might from it, or a couple more seconds of quickness, which can be powerful. It’s just, three stacks of might when I use my heal skill isn’t really anything to write home about, and compared to the momentary feeling of warrior, necro, and ele levels of might-stacking — coupled with beautiful synergy with my pet that made me really feel like it mattered — it’s not much. Could we at least raise the protection duration to four or five seconds, and the might cap to ten?

Bryzy.2719:

DavyMcB.1603:

ohhh. LOL they nerfed it already? hahahahahahahahah I knew that wouldn’t last long.

Where’s the patch note? I’m seeing people saying it’s been nerfed but why haven’t they made an announcement? Where’s the Dev communication?

This is completely ridiculous and proves every Ranger critic right.

I can’t find anything – what change have they made?

Roy communicated it via twitter, because the only profession forum he visits is revenant.

Imagine there wouldn’t have been a buff. This whole discussion wouldn’t exist. “We Heal as One” is an acceptable heal skill. It heals for a decent amount, has a medium to low cooldown and is affected by all shout traits and runes.

Nevertheless I think the buff is still a good thing because it adds some possibilities to rangers which other classes have since a long time.

But as others said the nerf came a bit too fast and too hard.

I think what should happen next:

• Take another look on the skill
• Determine how powerful it was / is and how much effort the player has to put in to get that “power”
• Compare this facts to other classes
• Take some time
• Rework the skill again