Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Come on, I’m STILL laughing that for even one second they let a version of WHaO exist much less get to the live servers that you could have four Guards click Feel my Wrath, and then you had PERMA QUICKNESS until you left the map… With Ranger being better than most professions at adding even more quickness duration from time to time so that each cast of your heal actually built up your buffer even higher…

Quickeness on pet swap and Sigils of rage just make it more ridiculous.

In that situation you would have to blow your heal on cooldown to keep it going which would likely get you killed in your first fight, and if you have 4 guardians in your party you kitten near have perma quickness in a fight anyway, so why would you waste your heal for a gimmick that is completely impractical?

The arguments against WHaO were made by people fighting training golems or just theory crafting. That crap doesn’t work in combat.

You don’t need them in your party. You need them ONE TIME at the entrance to a WvW map to charge you up for hours of continuous quickness. Again, it actually builds margin with quickness on pet swap so you don’t have to fire it instantly on cooldown after a little while either. You only need to keep it above the critical 16 second threshold of recursive absurdity. And while the heals might not come at the precise clutch moment you’re hoping for they still come literally as fast as they can: every 16 seconds. 16 seconds where you were dishing 24 seconds of your favorite damage. If you can’t figure out which fights to pick with THAT kind of advantage…

Nike, I do not think that anyone here is arguing about the boon duration copy on quickness, protection, swiftness etc. Most people have an issue with the 3 might cap and the fact that the whole thing was handled very poorly.

A developer who is known for making Rangers a laughing stalk on every stream and always joking about bearbows, announced a kneejerk change on Twitter less then 2 days after the patch, all the while letting things like Ele dominate the PvP and PvE scenes for more then a year.

This is why people took offense.

Nike.2631:

You don’t need them in your party. You need them ONE TIME at the entrance to a WvW map to charge you up for hours of continuous quickness. Again, it actually builds margin with quickness on pet swap so you don’t have to fire it instantly on cooldown after a little while either. You only need to keep it above the critical 16 second threshold of recursive absurdity. And while the heals might not come at the precise clutch moment you’re hoping for they still come literally as fast as they can: every 16 seconds. 16 seconds where you were dishing 24 seconds of your favorite damage. If you can’t figure out which fights to pick with THAT kind of advantage…

If, and that’s a big if because I don’t believe your ever going to have multiple guardians dropping everything to come buff a ranger every time he dies, but if that ever became a problem they could then cap quickness.

The preemptive nerf because of what people “could” pull off on paper was ridiculous. How hard they hit the skill was just stupid. And the fact that they nerfed it in less than 24 hours but they would leave things like the gun flame bug over the entire BWE, the multiple golem week bugs left for the whole week, the engi grenade bug for over a week, mesmers being brokenly op for months, or cele eles being god mode for over a year….
Why the kitten is it the only time rangers receive fast attention is when they are nerfing things? Why is our bug list still something like 50 bugs long and the first ones to get attention are the things that benefit rangers?

And if anet can make changes to the skill in less than 24 hours why aren’t they testing out different versions of it right now?

Nike.2631:

You don’t need them in your party. You need them ONE TIME at the entrance to a WvW map to charge you up for hours of continuous quickness. Again, it actually builds margin with quickness on pet swap so you don’t have to fire it instantly on cooldown after a little while either. You only need to keep it above the critical 16 second threshold of recursive absurdity. And while the heals might not come at the precise clutch moment you’re hoping for they still come literally as fast as they can: every 16 seconds. 16 seconds where you were dishing 24 seconds of your favorite damage. If you can’t figure out which fights to pick with THAT kind of advantage…

You know nothing of ranger.

QZ has a wooping CD of 48 secs.
Pet swap quickness requires you to stay in combat to trigger.
So you have to:
1. Get in combat
2. Swap pet for no reason right when you hit your foe.
3. Use QZ (your cleanse and stunbreak 48 CD) immediately for no reason.
4. Burn your heal for no reason (If you do it too slow, pet’s quickness will not stack high enough)
5. Congratz, you got your 20secs quickness, now ready to be killed since you have no heal, no cleanse, no stun-break, no on demand pet swap, completely vulnerable.
6. After pet is swapped again, all boons are gone and you need to rebuild quickness on pet again.

Your info are all wrong and you don’t play / know ranger at all.
All you do is see some you-tube video of players against a dummy stacking quickness.
You never even once tried it in any pvp battle with this so-called perma quickness before. (Because it’s not practical and also weak)

You don’t even worth arguing to. Moving on.

Dude. QZ is gilding the lily. Once you have ANY amount of quickness above 16 seconds it goes recursive. Whatever that excess is, it doubles each time you press WHaO. So if you want to look like you don’t math, please press on with your obliviousness to why the skill got shut down the moment it made it out of the soft and cuddly laboratory and into the hands of real players. Because real players will use it break ANY boon that stacks duration.

Chokolata.1870:

Nike, I do not think that anyone here is arguing about the boon duration copy on quickness, protection, swiftness etc. Most people have an issue with the 3 might cap and the fact that the whole thing was handled very poorly.

Oh, I don’t disagree with that. This is basically the second time in a month (that dreadfully exploitable invasion event) they’ve shown their internal testing process is critically flawed. This skill should never have been seen by players in the first place because the curiously MISSING in-house weasel-tester, the guy that’s not there to rubber stamp things but instead is there to exploit new content in development like a real player would have/should have caught how vulnerable to recursive exploitation this skill gets in under 5 minutes.

Nike.2631:

Dude. QZ is gilding the lily. Once you have ANY amount of quickness above 16 seconds it goes recursive. Whatever that excess is, it doubles each time you press WHaO. So if you want to look like you don’t math, please press on with your obliviousness to why the skill got shut down the moment it made it out of the soft and cuddly laboratory and into the hands of real players. Because real players will use it break ANY boon that stacks duration.

“Real players” didn’t try to pull off some ridiculous gimmick build that required them to gather up multiple guardians to stack quickness on them and to constantly spam their heal to keep it going.

Puck.9612:

“Real players” didn’t try to pull off some ridiculous gimmick build that required them to gather up multiple guardians to stack quickness on them and to constantly spam their heal to keep it going.

Do you not have ‘guild nights’ in your universe? Because I’d have had death squads of 20+ Rangers with perma-Quickness and probably perma-Regen and likely perma-Protection just for giggles by the end of the week. Pirate-ship meta meet 21st century USN destroyers.

We may also have different definitions of “Ridiculous gimmick”. All you have to do as the Ranger is carry ONE skill, and once the Guards say (shout, really) “Gettum!” all you have to do is press that one skill every time it comes off cooldown. We’re not even talking a trained monkey being required. A trained CHICKEN can peck a key when a light comes on…

Nike.2631:

Puck.9612:

“Real players” didn’t try to pull off some ridiculous gimmick build that required them to gather up multiple guardians to stack quickness on them and to constantly spam their heal to keep it going.

Do you not have ‘guild nights’ in your universe? Because I’d have had death squads of 20+ Rangers with perma-Quickness and probably perma-Regen and likely perma-Protection just for giggles by the end of the week. Pirate-ship meta meet 21st century USN destroyers.

We may also have different definitions of “Ridiculous gimmick”. All you have to do as the Ranger is carry ONE skill, and once the Guards say (shout, really) “Gettum!” all you have to do is press that one skill every time it comes off cooldown. We’re not even talking a trained monkey being required. A trained CHICKEN can peck a key when a light comes on…

So apparently you have that guild wvw night right on that day with this so-called 20 rangers perma quickness?

More theory-crafting plz zzz.

Btw, 20 Guardians can easily provide themselves permanent group quickness without sacrificing a dam thing, while blocking all projectiles, applying aegis/protection to each other, stacking 25 stacks of might to each other with staffs and so on.

Even then that type group would be unpractical. How does this gimmick 20 rangers quickness build, who sacrificing more things, and way more selfish than Guardian, perform any better? Also, if you have 20 rangers, all of them can only stack quickness on themselves, and can only pull out that quickness trick DURING COMBAT with the above tricked I mention (step 1~6, go check again) They can’t stack up quickness to each other at all lol…

Go on with your imagination. It doesn’t exist.
The more you talk, the more we can see how little you know about ranger and this game.

Nike.2631:

Puck.9612:

“Real players” didn’t try to pull off some ridiculous gimmick build that required them to gather up multiple guardians to stack quickness on them and to constantly spam their heal to keep it going.

Do you not have ‘guild nights’ in your universe? Because I’d have had death squads of 20+ Rangers with perma-Quickness and probably perma-Regen and likely perma-Protection just for giggles by the end of the week. Pirate-ship meta meet 21st century USN destroyers.

We may also have different definitions of “Ridiculous gimmick”. All you have to do as the Ranger is carry ONE skill, and once the Guards say (shout, really) “Gettum!” all you have to do is press that one skill every time it comes off cooldown. We’re not even talking a trained monkey being required. A trained CHICKEN can peck a key when a light comes on…

So you have to pray 5 guardians gather around that one pet, all of them w/o a party (Guardian’s shouts only affect 5 targets mind you, if they’re in a 5 man party, your pet won’t get any quickness), wasting all the quickness on your pet instead of other precious members, that you can then selfishly steal it from your pet. (Even though you already got more than enough quickness from 5 guardians in the first place)

Great! Hope that gimmick works in real combat.

Ohh, I bet clicking that Guardian’s Elite skill is SOOO difficult, much more difficult than clicking a heal skill. Yeah yeah I get it.

Tell you one more secret, hope you don’t get scared!
Mesmer has this skill called “Signet of Inspiration”
After 5 Guardians apply quickness on him, do you know what he can do?
Spread that quickness (full duration) TO THE WHOLE PARTY.
WOW, SO OP RIGHT? Just ONE bottom.
Clearly even your trained chicken can do that!

Nike.2631:

Puck.9612:

“Real players” didn’t try to pull off some ridiculous gimmick build that required them to gather up multiple guardians to stack quickness on them and to constantly spam their heal to keep it going.

Do you not have ‘guild nights’ in your universe? Because I’d have had death squads of 20+ Rangers with perma-Quickness and probably perma-Regen and likely perma-Protection just for giggles by the end of the week. Pirate-ship meta meet 21st century USN destroyers.

We may also have different definitions of “Ridiculous gimmick”. All you have to do as the Ranger is carry ONE skill, and once the Guards say (shout, really) “Gettum!” all you have to do is press that one skill every time it comes off cooldown. We’re not even talking a trained monkey being required. A trained CHICKEN can peck a key when a light comes on…

and those 20 rangers would get destroyed as soon as they ran up against an organized group running reflects, and then what? sit around for 5 minutes while your 4 guards go around buffing everyone only for your group to get destroyed again?

What you are describing falls into the same category as a minion master run or mesmer run. They are fun but they completely fall apart when facing an organized group. If you think about it a 20 man PU mesmer group is way more broken than a ranger group with quickness. Should they completely remove stealth to avoid some gimmick that would work against test golems?

And yet the skill (in its recursive form) is gone within two days of hitting live. They got rid of it before a lot of people’s guild night, and that’s a GOOD thing.

What they put out BREAKS. It’s not coming back. Ever. So maybe there’s room to negotiate on what comes next, but that first attempt, its done. It’s an embarrassment. If the focus here is on trying to get some improvement for core Rangers (who I am so on board with NEEDING some love) great. Lots to talk about there. But pining for the silly monstrosity that slipped through the tattered net of in-house testing is not helping.

Nike.2631:

And yet the skill (in its recursive form) is gone within two days of hitting live. They got rid of it before a lot of people’s guild night, and that’s a GOOD thing.

What they put out BREAKS. It’s not coming back. Ever. So maybe there’s room to negotiate on what comes next, but that first attempt, its done. It’s an embarrassment. If the focus here is on trying to get some improvement for core Rangers (who I am so on board with NEEDING some love) great. Lots to talk about there. But pining for the silly monstrosity that slipped through the tattered net of in-house testing is not helping.

The one who destroyed it is not even the one who’s in charge of ranger.

It’s Roy, the one who’s in charge of REVENANT, go on and destroyed it without any testing / wait and see. It’s tend to be a trend to ranger because some developers have the passion of making ranger into an inferior class, that’s all. It has nothing to do with balance because the build that utilize WHaO is trash in PVP at best.

Also you didn’t rebut any of my points because you don’t have the knowledge and experience of the game/classes to do so.
Instead, you divert the topic, and using an unrelated topic to cover up the flaws in your logic and argument, making your argument extremely unconvincing and very hard to take it seriously.

At the end, you really don’t worth arguing to. Cya.

Aomine.5012:

The one who destroyed it is not even the one who’s in charge of ranger.

No, the one who tweeted is Roy. It’s actually a team that handles the classes together and I’m really impressed you think you know their internal politics so well. I’ve been there in person and been introduced to the whole crew and I certainly don’t think I have a perfect grasp of what goes on behind the closed doors other than that the doors are closed.

Also you didn’t rebut any of my points because you can’t.

I didn’t rebut them because you’re doing a better job of embarrassing yourself than I ever could. I ignored them as a courtesy.

Durations were a problem yes.

But the fix was equally heavy handed in the other direction.

There just seems to be very little in incremental change at Anet… it’s always extremes.

The might stacks capping at 3 was somewhat unfair given how much boon stacking other classes have access to – even more so with some of the sheet the new elites can do.

Nike.2631:

Aomine.5012:

The one who destroyed it is not even the one who’s in charge of ranger.

No, the one who tweeted is Roy. It’s actually a team that handles the classes together and I’m really impressed you think you know their internal politics so well. I’ve been there in person and been introduced to the whole crew and I certainly don’t think I have a perfect grasp of what goes on behind the closed doors other than that the doors are closed.

Also you didn’t rebut any of my points because you can’t.

I didn’t rebut them because you’re doing a better job of embarrassing yourself than I ever could. I ignored them as a courtesy.

You gave imaginative result that doesn’t exist, talking about a spec/ class you know nothing about, which every ranger players here can tell.

Yet you don’t feel embarrassed even after people gave you DETAILED EXAMPLES of how those are flawed, while you’re unable to rebut us with better examples that actually exist.

Guess someone really win the crown of embarrassment in this thread.

Sandzibar.5134:

Durations were a problem yes.

But the fix was equally heavy handed in the other direction.

To a degree, certainly, but keep in mind the reference point was really badly designed skill vs. really mediocre skill .

There just seems to be very little in incremental change at Anet… it’s always extremes.

Could be some o f the others were feeling a little jealous of Irenio’s epic ‘mic drop’ and just wanted a turn in the spotlight. Even so, yeah, I’td be nice ot see the skill settle out to something a little less… impulsive.

The might stacks capping at 3 was somewhat unfair given how much boon stacking other classes have access to – even more so with some of the sheet the new elites can do.

If you watch the classes as a whole, you’ll see some other places they’re nibbling away at might stacking. I think the casual 25 stacks of might ecology we’ve got right now is going to see steady erosion throughout the year…

Put 4 Guards not in a group in a line. The two ends 601 to 800 apart (so Guard 1 and 4 are outside of each other’s shout radius). Put the ranger and pet in the middle. Cast Feel My wrath. Press recursive WHaO any time in the next three seconds. DONE. Perma Quickness. The extra 1-3 seconds doubles every 16 seconds.

You could set up a “car wash” at the entrance to a borderland or EB and prep another ranger every 36 seconds. This is child’s play for an organized WvW guild and perma-regen and perma-protection are even easier.

Nike.2631:

Put 4 Guards not in a group in a line. The two ends 601 to 800 apart (so Guard 1 and 4 are outside of each other’s shout radius). Put the ranger and pet in the middle. Cast Feel My wrath. Press recursive WHaO any time in the next three seconds. DONE. Perma Quickness. The extra 1-3 seconds doubles every 16 seconds.

You could set up a “car wash” at the entrance to a borderland or EB and prep another ranger every 36 seconds. This is child’s play for an organized WvW guild and perma-regen and perma-protection are even easier.

Look at what you wrote and think about how ridiculous that is.

Nike.2631:

The one who destroyed it is not even the one who’s in charge of ranger.
No, the one who tweeted is Roy. It’s actually a team that handles the classes together and I’m really impressed you think you know their internal politics so well. I’ve been there in person and been introduced to the whole crew and I certainly don’t think I have a perfect grasp of what goes on behind the closed doors other than that the doors are closed.

^^ this!
Who knows, which developer is the boss over the other? Why the druid the last profession we’d got? Maybe Irenio and the ranger dev team at the bottom on the food chain…. Maybe that’s why so many broken things with the whole ranger….

Puck.9612:

Look at what you wrote and think about how ridiculous that is.

You saying it won’t work or that you’re jealous you didn’t think of it?

Nike.2631:

Puck.9612:

Look at what you wrote and think about how ridiculous that is.

You saying it won’t work or that you’re jealous you didn’t think of it?

I’m saying a really bored guild might try it once and then never again because it is completely impractical and useless for anything other than hunting down small groups (which a 20 man ranger group could easily do without wasting a bunch of time trying to pre stack buffs).

Like I’ve said numerous times, just because it works on paper doesn’t mean it works in a fight.

Puck.9612:

I’m saying a really bored guild might try it once and then never again because it is completely impractical and useless for anything other than hunting down small groups (which a 20 man ranger group could easily do without wasting a bunch of time trying to pre stack buffs).

Like I’ve said numerous times, just because it works on paper doesn’t mean it works in a fight.

So, because you aren’t an exploitive weasel they shouldn’t design with exploitive weasels in mind. Because that’s worked SO WELL for them in dungeons…

That it works at all (something I hope we’re done contesting) is a strong enough reason to hot-fix it out of existence. And they did.

Now hopefully we can get a real WHaO soon rather than the knee jerk untested kludge they dropped in in under 48 hours.

Nike.2631:

Puck.9612:

I’m saying a really bored guild might try it once and then never again because it is completely impractical and useless for anything other than hunting down small groups (which a 20 man ranger group could easily do without wasting a bunch of time trying to pre stack buffs).

Like I’ve said numerous times, just because it works on paper doesn’t mean it works in a fight.

So, because you aren’t an exploitive weasel they shouldn’t design with exploitive weasels in mind. Because that’s worked SO WELL for them in dungeons…

That it works at all (something I hope we’re done contesting) is a strong enough reason to hot-fix it out of existence. And they did.

Now hopefully we can get a real WHaO soon rather than the knee jerk untested kludge they dropped in in under 48 hours.

Whether something works or not can mean 2 different things. Can this be accomplished by doing something absolutely ridiculous like you suggested? The answer is yes.

Does that make it work in game? The answer is no. There isn’t enough of a benefit to go through the trouble of doing this. Running a regular group is far more effective because a group of rangers won’t beat an organized guild, the second their boons are stripped, they are downed, or they have to man siege, the gimmick is over and they would have to wp to spawn to get their boon monkey guardians to set the whole process up again.

Puck.9612:

Whether something works or not can mean 2 different things. Can this be accomplished by doing something absolutely ridiculous like you suggested? The answer is yes.

Does that make it work in game? The answer is no. There isn’t enough of a benefit to go through the trouble of doing this. Running a regular group is far more effective because a group of rangers won’t beat an organized guild, the second their boons are stripped, they are downed, or they have to man siege, the gimmick is over and they would have to wp to spawn to get their boon monkey guardians to set the whole process up again.

If you believe my scenario is beyond the willingness and ability of dozens of WvW guilds in this game then the motivations of Devs are going to forever remain a mystery to you. And of course a real group is not gonna be mono-Ranger. Duh. But it’s a crazy power-boost to those Rangers who are present. This is a 5 million account game with the vast majority of the playerbase networked together. The worst case scenario is the ONLY scenario that matters because a stunt like this will propagate like wildfire.

Nah. Too hard. It takes a whole four adults who don’t mind sitting around 5-10 minutes making their buddies into rampaging beasts for the rest of the night. What kind of Guardian even wants to buff their allies, am I right? I know! The Devs did it for sheer spite. I’m sure that’s it. Came out and made themselves look like amateur hour in front of the industry with a recursive meltdown that got all the way to Live just so one of them could get off a mean-spirited tweet.

That’s gotta be it.

I think it’s also maybe unclear to people how FAST the doubling spirals out of control. 2 minutes after getting you start you’ve built over 90 seconds of quickness. You can wait over a minute and between casts still keep going. about two minutes after that you’ve built over an hour. At which point you really do just cast your heal when you would normally for the rest of the night.

[quote=5591125;Nike.2631:]

Nike.2631:

And of course a real group is not gonna be mono-Ranger.

And a real group won’t die to this stunt. Hell, most pug zergs wouldn’t die to this stunt, at least not more than once.

The community will exploit the hell out of any broken mechanic if it’s effective. They wouldn’t waste time on this because it’s simply not.

All that would have realistically happened is you would have had rangers that were able to stack might (which brings them more in line with every other profession), and have a little more quickness in a fight (which required them to chain together skills and be smart about when to use their heal). Rangers already had on demand protection and perma everything else anyway.

Quite honestly I really dont think that Roy is the sole person to blame for the change. He just had poor judgement in announcing it over Twitter. Besides, Irenio was the one who announced the absolute destruction of the PvE Icebow. Was he to blame? Probably not.

In the end, this being handled very poorly and as a kneejerk change, was very harsh on new Ranger innovation. For the first time I had a reason to think about using the Jungle stalker. Even with Fortifying Bond boon duration, one could theorycraft a might stacking build.

Alas, this ship has sailed…

I just couldn’t believe it when i saw the patch notes for the WHaO change. Cheesing the hell out of this was the 1st thing I thought of when the patch notes came out and it had no boon duration cap on the copy. Literally the 2nd thing I thought of was lets get 20 rangers all buffed up with quickness and run around WvW with LtW and Quick Draw doing a 400 piercing shot volley in 7.5s every 10s. Would have been epic.

I’m glad this is still being discussed but I’m still surprised to see many ppl who do not main ranger still here. We can all agree that WHaO got a bit OP. The duration of quickness, protection, and other boons was a bit too high.

However, thinking PvEwise, Ranger already had access to a long duration of quickness and the increment allowed us to sustain our dps for longer. I’d say this would put us in the same level as a warrior in terms of group utility (probably with higher dps in exchange of lower group buffs). The main difference is when pugging that we could actually self buff instead of depending on unreliable sources of boons.

In terms of PvP, you are vulnerable to boon strip, cc’s, soft cc’s, condies, burst, and probably something else I forgot. Yes, you could build up might and burst down a player very quickly, but for any fight that would last for more than 5s you’d be in disadvantage. You have to give up condi cleanse, signet of stone and stun breaks so you have that kind of burst. Whenever you swap pets (and remember that your pet is very vulnerable to aoe’s), your pet doesn’t retain boons, which means it becomes more difficult to stack them. Even in order to retain long durations of Quickeness, you had to give up some of your damage, which ended up badly as you depended on your opening burst.

Going to WvW, if you’re zerging then WHaO didn’t bring anything. The extra protection is nice, but let’s face it, you are still very much dependent on what other players are doing to help you survive. For roaming, that’s a different story. Yes, you could stack up quickness for a few minutes before you actually entered a fight and you would be able to change skills so you’d not be giving up anything in the actual combat. If you swapped pets, yes, your pet would loose quickness, but let’s face it, you’d sill have 3min quickness and protection left to burst down an enemy player. This is OP and should be dealt with.

Finally, going to the fix, the idea of capping the duration of the boons is good, it allows to keep boon stacking as a play-style while limiting the extralong durations of quickeness and protection. On the other hand, the extent to which it was done is ridiculous. I can barely see the increment on quickeness and protection, as I spend 1s (0.66s with quickness) casting a skill that is vulnerable to being interrupted and only gives me 2 extra seconds of quickness or protection. In terms of other boons, I have easy access to regeneration, fury and swiftness so a 4s increment to these boons is irrelevant. Might cap has already been extensively discussed, and I agree that the duration is actually in a good place but the cap at 3 might makes this skill lose any offensive utility it might have. At the moment, the only reason to take this skill is as a heal and it in many situations Toll Unguent is preferable. Only when you need a very high burst heal is that you’d take WHaO.
Doubling the duration of all boons except for might and removing the might cap seems a good way to go in order to fix the skill and give rangers a decent play-style based on synchronizing with your pets (both of them) in order to stack boons on you and your pet. This should give WHaO both offensive and defensive capabilities, which can fit differently according to the build we’re running.

The original buff was op under the right circustances. The “fixed” version is worthless. Please find a good middle ground.

If a similar change (as the original adjustment to WHaO) had been made to a different profession the developers probably would have left it in play for least 3 weeks if not 6 months plus.

Although my main is a ranger, I spent my “beta” time, however, trying to look at things from a different perspective. I was sampling each profession trying to get a qualitative feel for the direction that ANET is taking with the expansion. I have always liked the shout heal mechanic, but moved on to a typical long bow zerker. I liked the melee shout heal build and always experimented with the mechanic. After conditions were boosted in preparation for the expansion I tried a lb/sb build for a while, but now I am using a conventional short bow/ax & torch build with utility slot boosts for survival and shouts. I play open world pve and wvw. Just so you know where I am coming from.

My general impressions (based on no data) are :

1. that ANET is significantly boosting dps and providing new build alternatives through the new specialization for each class, with exceptions.

2. that ANET is significantly boosting utility, boon buffing and additional stealth.

3. that ANET is not so much expanding the game as redesigning it.

4. that ANET went to open beta without the normal alpha and beta testing process. (I don’t think that is necessarily a mistake, just unexpected.)

5. The significant increase in dps and passive damage mitigation (not to mention new healing specializations and skills) would be unnecessary in PvE if the challenge of the “environment” were not increased.

6. Because the open beta was the first testing, we are not going to see stable profession designs until probably January.

7. I think the group roles intended for Revenant are tank, healer, buffer combinations. For ranger, a new healing specialization/profession, but they don’t want the druid healer to be a better group buffer than the healer Revenant whose class theme appears to be buffing.

The exceptions to the trends are guardian and ranger. The guardian got access to a new ranged weapon, which fills a need, but it is a wimpy version of the ranger longbow. I didn’t see any significant change to the guardian profession, other than access to another weapon and some slot skills of limited use. Dragon Hunter is a new weapon, not a new profession. Likewise Engineer got a new weapon and slot skills, but not really a new way of playing. Unlike the Guardian, the Engineer additions are a significant help to power build dps and add stealth-related utility in wvw. Hammer is a zerker weapon, which the engineer lacked, and exactly what engineer zerker builds needed.

The ranger of course got a new healer role and new pets. Verdict is still out on whether the new pets will boost dps or not, because they apparently were not working as intended.

Put this all together and I suspect ANET is moving GW2 to a healer-tank-dps design. Meaning druid/revenant/everyone else. As a casual ranger player, I am worried that ANET is going to nerf the dps and buffing role of the ranger to balance the new druid healer role and make a niche for the Revenant. (If Ranger dps is not boosted while content is tougher to kill and other professions see a dps increase, that is the same as cutting Ranger dps.) That will reduce the Ranger’s current ability to thrive solo and in pickup groups, which is why since launch Ranger has been my main.

So I am watching this thread and subject closely, as I think it indicates what ANET plans for the ranger. By January we should know.

It occurred to me that, maybe what ArenaNet is concerned about, with the WHaO buff-nerf, isn’t ranger. It’s druid.

If a buffed WHaO gave us limitless power in exchange for losing our heal, condi cleanse, stunbreaks and pet swaps, we could still slot an extra stunbreak. The pet is only a portion of our total character anyway. So we were disadvantaged by losing the cleanse and the heal. With druid, however:

Druidic Clarity removes 13 conditions simply by entering the avatar.
And we know what druid does really well. That thing that rhymes with squeal.

sits back; heals hyena, hyena ally, and rock dog; sips a martini < living the dream.

Well, back to my mediocre ranger life.

Druid was very unlikely a concern. If so the heal would never have been released as it was and then it wouldn’t have been nerfed so quickly. The heal was a good idea that wasn’t vetted. The nerf was a knee jerk lazy fix that took the first suggestion thrown out in twitter and ran with it without regard to how it impacted the heal. Basically its the story a cluster kitten all the way around. Its no more complicated then that.

I dont get why people are so saltyabout this… WHaO didnt even need fixing in the first place. It gave great swiftness uptime traited and the short cd allows it to be used for the swiftness alone without too much worry that it wont be up when you need a heal.

Also, there was no way a loop of boonsharing would ever work. No other skill gives AND takes boons to/from another player or npc. This is ripe for abuse and obviously needs duration limits; not just on quickness or prot either. Without limits, it opens the potential for infinite duration. No bigs for regen but you probably shouldnt be able to maintain infinite anything else with as little work as popping WHaO on cd.

I think the anger stems from the fact that Rangers were supposed to get a bit of a boost in the balance update and ended up with near nothing, leaving them in the lower tier classes still, and how the message was delivered.

If Anet are serious about moving away from the almighty stacking tactics of this game, ranged combat needs something, and the buff to WHaO was a step in the right direction.

In true Anet manner they nerfed that aspect into oblivion, so much that now they can take away that boon sharing component altogether for the skill – it’s that useless.

Ranger has been the only class generally known for the need of buffs and quality improvements.. For a long time.
Placing a might cap on the skill was harsh.

And kept me away from game for another time..
I wanted to start playing again my ranger but im out guys.. Its nothing interesting in playing a mediocre class

Dardamaniac.1295:

Ranger has been the only class generally known for the need of buffs and quality improvements.. For a long time.

Are you kittening KIDDING ME?

This persecution complex is NOT HELPING.

Yes. Ranger has problems. Serious, systematic, intractable issues. But DON’T go around trying to play a pity card like all other classes are faultless paragons of blissful gameplay.

OGDeadHead.8326:

If Anet are serious about moving away from the almighty stacking tactics of this game, ranged combat needs something, and the buff to WHaO was a step in the right direction.

In true Anet manner they nerfed that aspect into oblivion, so much that now they can take away that boon sharing component altogether for the skill – it’s that useless.

Well, at least they can tweak the numbers slightly now to improve it, as having a perfect copy of boons was just absurd.

This persecution complex is NOT HELPING.

I’m really over this. It’s becoming so common throughout the whole forum, and its utterly pathetic.

They should have just copied fortifying bond boon durations.

Chokolata.1870:

They should have just copied fortifying bond boon durations.

Yeah, that would have been the best option.

Nike.2631:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Ranger has been the only class generally known for the need of buffs and quality improvements.. For a long time.

Are you kittening KIDDING ME?

This persecution complex is NOT HELPING.

Yes. Ranger has problems. Serious, systematic, intractable issues. But DON’T go around trying to play a pity card like all other classes are faultless paragons of blissful gameplay.

Its not a pity card. Its just what i think of. Its the fact that i dont like at all the way they treat my favourite class.
Ive played since launch and i watched many things on other classes that made them unfun to play against. Ive seen warriors outheal every dmg with healing signet. Ive seen necros doing huge dmgs with duhmfire without being able to counter play. Ive seen thieves evading everything. Ive seen ele sustaining two foes on point. Ive seen guardians throwing at me 7 stacks of burning. Ive seen it for a long time…
The moment a ranger was able to get 20 stacks of might they nerfed it to hell immidiately.. Well how can you blame me?

I don’t blame you, I’m tired of people asking for improvements and prefacing the request with statements that are so incorrect as to be bald-faced LIES. That sort of thing is the NOISE that enable the Devs to ignore any reasonable request that might be coming after.

If you don’t PLAY all of the other professions, don’t talk about them like you know their troubles or the complete lack of them you image they all enjoy. Because anyone who does will immediately smell a rat and that includes the Devs.

We all want nice things for the Ranger. Don’t be part of the reason we can’t have them.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Ive seen warriors outheal every dmg with healing signet…

Wat?

Its, at best, 450hp/s if you run all clerics. If a build cannot out damage that, its beyond terrible.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Ive seen warriors outheal every dmg with healing signet…

Wat?

Its, at best, 450hp/s if you run all clerics. If a build cannot out damage that, its beyond terrible.

Since he also mentioned dhuumfire, I believe he is talking about before warrior hps was toned down and you would see troll warriors build super tanky with every bit of regen they could squeeze out (food, runes, banners, etc.).

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Ive seen warriors outheal every dmg with healing signet…

Wat?

Its, at best, 450hp/s if you run all clerics. If a build cannot out damage that, its beyond terrible.

with adrenal heal it goes to 422 + 177 = 599 + regen 599+280 = 879 and if you are cleric, then of course you pick shouts. Each shout heal for 2200 AOE, and every might stack give you 10 healing power, so you can get additional 250 healing power.
And all those shouts AOE cleans and heal
2 shouts give about 330HPS in addition, but you can take more
So max output are not as low as you think.

IT’s more HPS in total, that Druid spam 1st skill