Guild Wars 2

hello,
i have some suggestion in order to make ranger a really fearsome class … because now if i (or everyone) see an enemy ranger the first impression is “mmm… i can kill it” instead of the first impression when i see a thief (before disappear) is “oh kitten … i have to run!” LOL

so i really think that those 2 changes in Long Bow skills can be a great thing:

hunter’s shot: grant us invisibility (3 sec) and knock back enemy
point blank shot: becomes a 2 sec cast skill with a destructive damage (something like the head shot skill in south survival)

so we can really say “come here, and i will kill you” instea of “come here and after 10 mins of fight i may kill you” XD

what do you think about?

I really think that if you only use a Longbow and only want the Longbow skills to be adjusted, that this is a case of L2P..

I myself am a full zerker ranger, so I’m quite sure that, once enemies remember I have stomped them before, they’ll be like “oh kitten, her again”. And I know for a fact that our guild leader (Regan) has an awesome burst ranger that will kill 4 players in seconds.. So I assume he’ll be feared as well in time..

TL;DR: Reaction “I can kill it” should be triggered on player, not on class..

To make ranger fearsome you want to extend the casting duration of “Point Blank”

I do not understand..

Rangers don’t need any pvp buffs at the moment. The class is already at the point where a well played ranger can beat any other class 1v1. The amount of fear the enemy has is irrelevant if the ending is the same.

In fact, I like when enemies charge up to me for the easy kill, because that means I don’t have to chase them down.

Ryan.9387:

Rangers don’t need any pvp buffs at the moment. The class is already at the point where a well played ranger can beat any other class 1v1. The amount of fear the enemy has is irrelevant if the ending is the same.

In fact, I like when enemies charge up to me for the easy kill, because that means I don’t have to chase them down.

yes, youre right… i also like when warriors charge me so i can block them with GS 4# and knock them back (like a boss) in their face… but the problem (which isn’t a real problem) is that every one who see you want to try to kill you (also if you kill them, at least) … but no one try to start a fight against a running thief…

so i don’t say that ranger is a weak pvp class (because i’m playing it at moment and i’m killining toon on people in the mists) but we need, maybe, a decisive skill… as warriors have 100B or kill shot we need that high damage skill…

and yes… as said someone, over here, LB requires a lot of skill to be decisive in pvp but i already got some skill… and i’d say that to get a “great damage” skill wouldn’t be a bad idea (in my opinion)…
also DEVS can simply increase a bit rapid fire damage… i’m actually hitting for 6-9k (not full zerker build) but it’s really easy to avoid due to the long cast time… or simply what do you think about to reduce cast time from 4sec to 2-3 sec? because it’s a bit boring to see that number slowly grow

also we can use this thread to theorycraft… what’s your idea?

Ryan.9387:

Rangers don’t need any pvp buffs at the moment. The class is already at the point where a well played ranger can beat any other class 1v1. The amount of fear the enemy has is irrelevant if the ending is the same.

In fact, I like when enemies charge up to me for the easy kill, because that means I don’t have to chase them down.

True, but only because condi spamming is the meta at the moment. The problem isn’t necessarily whether a well-played ranger can do it or not. You have to go 30 in WS to even be competitive in this meta (and good luck trying to fight against a good/well-played condi longbow s/s warrior in 1on1 now with the bleed and torment stacking without running full BM / WS , which is a complete destruction of any power build), good bye power builds immediately with that trait sacrificing just to get adequate condi removal.

We’re forced into such trolly specs it’s ridiculous and then we get criticized and nerfed for it into oblivion from whiners. I just want to get some other condition removal in other areas of our traits so we can atleast go power/condi mix or straight power burst and be viable and not get melted by people because if you don’t go WS you have to bring a crap heal that is easily countered by any necro, longbow warrior or engi as well or mesmer (they all have aoe drops that make sitting on a healing spring completely useless) and bear pet, in competitive pvp games? really? The CC from canines, the drake aoes are much more viable and beneficial to a group.

The troll specs we have work well, but once the whiners in PvP get other classes other than our class torment and also make conditions more obsolete to counter the condi spam then it will hit our class the hardest because we can’t do anything going into power without putting 30 into a Toughness/Condition tree. Just the way it is for rangers at the moment and everybody is complaining about condi spam right now in PvP, it will get nerfed and also if burning gets nerfed which is being talked about the heaviest, we of course will get hit the hardest with that.

Ranger progression in PvP eyes:

1. Anet forces every rangers to be viable and competitive by going spirits / bm which are based completely around sustain / toughness / survivability while dealing insane condi dmg and burst from pets

2. Everybody in the community kittenes at the RANGER for this

3. Rangers get nerfed in those viable builds (except spirit, which everybody is complaining about right now so it’s probably next on the list)

4. We don’t get kitten to compensate not going into a toughness/condition tree that offers our only viable condi removal in other trait areas.

But as soon as they make conditions less op , like I said, we will get kittened as a competitive class in PvP since ranger is probably the biggest class being completely forced into a role of abusing the current condi meta while also being completely dependant upon the GM trait WS brings to have viable condition removal besides necros (but necros have options elsewhere and have gotten insane buffs unlike the ranger).

Am I the only ranger on this entire kittening forum who doesn’t run 30 in WS and still doesn’t have condi issues?

That being said, rangers don’t need any help in PvP, we are fine really, I haven’t met a prof I couldn’t take out, some players make it more difficult than others granted but it’s hardly a balance issue.

Durzlla.6295:

Am I the only ranger on this entire kittening forum who doesn’t run 30 in WS and still doesn’t have condi issues?

That being said, rangers don’t need any help in PvP, we are fine really, I haven’t met a prof I couldn’t take out, some players make it more difficult than others granted but it’s hardly a balance issue.

You just don’t play against good players who use conditions effectively, it’s ok , tell me your character name ingame and I have about 10 people who I duel regularly who you can try against without 30 in WS in 1on1 situation and I bet you , you will lose every one of them.

Ryan.8367:

Durzlla.6295:

Am I the only ranger on this entire kittening forum who doesn’t run 30 in WS and still doesn’t have condi issues?

That being said, rangers don’t need any help in PvP, we are fine really, I haven’t met a prof I couldn’t take out, some players make it more difficult than others granted but it’s hardly a balance issue.

You just don’t play against good players who use conditions effectively, it’s ok , tell me your character name ingame and I have about 10 people who I duel regularly who you can try against without 30 in WS in 1on1 situation and I bet you , you will lose every one of them.

Names Durzlla, always up for a challenge

The Outsider God (Durzlla) should not be trifled with. He is a Dolyak rank and only spvp/tpvp’s so…ya, he has indeed played good players.

Let’s examine why durz has no issues with conditions. His stated favorite gear sets are magi, soldiers, and carrion. Those all have vitality. Vitality counters conditions. Mystery solved.

I don’t know, 30 WS is a godsend for a lot of ranger builds. In one traitline, you can make every weapon but bows better, increase dodging, decrease taken damage through armor, protection on dodge, and bark skin, grant vigor, potentially AoE vigor, add a passive stunbreak, deal with CCs, and remove conditions, all the while increasing Condition Damage, which in itself is a separate source of damage that isn’t pet reliant, and gives rangers 40 more trait points to do whatever they please (You can essentially go Signets, Traps, Spirits, and BM, all with 30 Wilderness Survival).

There are many other reasons to go 30 into WS, more condi removal is just another perk, and also allows player to build offensive and defense at the same time. Not too shabby.

To add to all of this, the OP touched on a very important note. All things considered (where ranger has been in the past) we are in a pretty good state right now. There are a few builds out there that are nice, and it seems as if the devs are pushing the rangers in the right direction.

All that being said, there is one issue with the ranger that really sucks the fun out if it: its image. The ranger has one of (if not the) worst reputation in the game. Sadly I don’t think this is anything that will ever change, since this image of the ranger has been building up in the GW2 community for such a long time now. Anyone else agree with this?

Believe me, many rangers are fearsome….especially if you haven’t fought them before and aren’t prepared. I only get caught once, then I remember them for next time.

Paz Shadow.9715:

To add to all of this, the OP touched on a very important note. All things considered (where ranger has been in the past) we are in a pretty good state right now. There are a few builds out there that are nice, and it seems as if the devs are pushing the rangers in the right direction.

All that being said, there is one issue with the ranger that really sucks the fun out if it: its image. The ranger has one of (if not the) worst reputation in the game. Sadly I don’t think this is anything that will ever change, since this image of the ranger has been building up in the GW2 community for such a long time now. Anyone else agree with this?

Absolutely. At times, I tend to find that the ranger community does it to themselves though. If you were semi new to the game, and were looking to explore classes without having to make a new character and invest too much time to find out whether you like it (looking for endgame experiences to know what you’re working towards), then logically, you would jump onto the forums where people are discussing their class and how it deals with content.

Jump onto the ranger forums, and maybe 20% of the threads are positive and constructive (and that’s generous, because even if they start that way, it ends up turning into complaining, crying, negativity, and dev trashing 90% of the time), while the rest of the just ooze negativity that, when summed up, gives off the impression that the ranger is a bad class.

When the loudest advocates for rangers being in a bad place come mostly from the ranger community, it really tends to spill into the rest of the game, and give the rest of the community that perception, especially when most of the community won’t invest the time into the class and is willing to just take the ranger communities word for it.

Not every player is negative, but there are enough threads and enough people at it in every thread, that the positivity gets lost, and the perception therefore continues. Look, how Chopps posted a video of a world record speed run for rangers, something extremely positive (and awesome), and it gets lost to all the complaint threads.

It’s just… sad.

The ranger has a bad reputation because of how straight forward its gameplay is. If you really think about what you do while playing a ranger, 90% of it is running in circles spamming autoattack all day. The melee weapons aren’t much different really as a lot of the strength in sword/greatsword is the auto-evade mechanics and not so much their side effects.

I was very disappointed in particular with the shortbow nerf when they dropped it down to 900 range. The weapon is almost identical to axe, and since I have a thief and warrior among other chars, I still don’t understand why it needs directional placement for bleed stacking.

The class is just very boring to play and a lot of people equate the shallow gameplay to the class being more faceroll than skill. Class really needs a lot of work to make it ‘fun’ imo.

Atherakhia.4086:

The ranger has a bad reputation because of how straight forward its gameplay is. If you really think about what you do while playing a ranger, 90% of it is running in circles spamming autoattack all day. The melee weapons aren’t much different really as a lot of the strength in sword/greatsword is the auto-evade mechanics and not so much their side effects.

I was very disappointed in particular with the shortbow nerf when they dropped it down to 900 range. The weapon is almost identical to axe, and since I have a thief and warrior among other chars, I still don’t understand why it needs directional placement for bleed stacking.

The class is just very boring to play and a lot of people equate the shallow gameplay to the class being more faceroll than skill. Class really needs a lot of work to make it ‘fun’ imo.

That’s another part of it, definitely. The biggest thing that I think the ranger classes weapon skills lack is damage increasing skill rotations. Stunning into damage, knocking down into damage, etc, in general, rangers lack burst skill on weapon sets. The damage is very sustained, and because it is sustained, even the available rotations are boring, or provide little overall positive effect to compensate for completing them.

I’m a huge advocate for making the gameplay more active/interactive. It is my number one most requested change to the class.

Tribio.8531:

And I know for a fact that our guild leader (Regan) has an awesome burst ranger that will kill 4 players in seconds.. So I assume he’ll be feared as well in time..

Could you please post Regan’s build?

Pure Heart.1456:

Could you please post Regan’s build?

Might be best to ask it to Regan in game, no? Regan’s built is even more GC than mine..

jcbroe.4329:

Paz Shadow.9715:

To add to all of this, the OP touched on a very important note. All things considered (where ranger has been in the past) we are in a pretty good state right now. There are a few builds out there that are nice, and it seems as if the devs are pushing the rangers in the right direction.

All that being said, there is one issue with the ranger that really sucks the fun out if it: its image. The ranger has one of (if not the) worst reputation in the game. Sadly I don’t think this is anything that will ever change, since this image of the ranger has been building up in the GW2 community for such a long time now. Anyone else agree with this?

Absolutely. At times, I tend to find that the ranger community does it to themselves though. If you were semi new to the game, and were looking to explore classes without having to make a new character and invest too much time to find out whether you like it (looking for endgame experiences to know what you’re working towards), then logically, you would jump onto the forums where people are discussing their class and how it deals with content.

Jump onto the ranger forums, and maybe 20% of the threads are positive and constructive (and that’s generous, because even if they start that way, it ends up turning into complaining, crying, negativity, and dev trashing 90% of the time), while the rest of the just ooze negativity that, when summed up, gives off the impression that the ranger is a bad class.

When the loudest advocates for rangers being in a bad place come mostly from the ranger community, it really tends to spill into the rest of the game, and give the rest of the community that perception, especially when most of the community won’t invest the time into the class and is willing to just take the ranger communities word for it.

Not every player is negative, but there are enough threads and enough people at it in every thread, that the positivity gets lost, and the perception therefore continues. Look, how Chopps posted a video of a world record speed run for rangers, something extremely positive (and awesome), and it gets lost to all the complaint threads.

It’s just… sad.

That’s most forums except mesmer, and even then they cry quite a bit , mostly about condition handling.

My point is quite a valid one, you need, in the current state of the sPvP/tPvP meta , condition removal. The ranger, NEEDS 30 in WS to counter this popular meta, no ifs ands or buts about it. Rune stacking and condition removal sigils and healing spring and the condi signet simply do NOT cut it.. You can’t argue that. The issue with this, like I said, is that it dilutes any chance of a viable power build. That’s my issue in my post, I don’t get how stating obvious facts about a trait line is kittening, whining , complaining. I enjoy bunker builds, but the fact that this is all the ranger has (because most of our most important traits and most importantly condition removal) in terms of viable builds in both duel scenarios and team play derives from the WS tree shows you something. We are forced to use this tree to counter current meta in sPvP/tPvP. Hotjoins excluded, people who play in that are just straight garbage, im talking top tier teamplay / top tier dueling, you know, people who are good with their class.

Ask any ranger on these forums in a competitive tPvP team and/or is competitive in dueling GOOD players and in WvW even, everything ran in those build setups has 30 WS in it, and they’re running Empathic Bond, it’s probably THE most used trait by the ranger outside of PvE, which is fine because it’s a very good trait, but it ruins chances at a good burst build/power build because you simply can’t last, and it also does nothing but promote bunker BM / bunker spirit builds, the very viable builds complained about by every other class (hint hint). Direct dmg + tank doesn’t beat condi embedding + tank because our most important tree WS goes completely with the current meta/bunker setup but it’s also what we’re forced to run to counter those very builds run by other players. We don’t get options for any condition removal anywhere else in the tree if we ever wanted to, what I was proposing was simply adding some other options that benefits a power build in this regard.

The biggest issue: Coefficients (which is understandable, because of the pet/ranger split), Traited Condition handling with a good power build.

If you don’t run Empathic Bond, you’re running healing spring (you need high healing for the initial heal to be effective and the leaps to even matter, which means you’re not running any crit based power gear, automatic dilution of a power build) and you’re running condi signet, which is actually pretty good utility to run.

Continuation of above: My issue with it is that we get nerfed for this forced build running, BM got nerfed because we had to run a viable bunker tank build that allowed us to also do burst, BM was the answer, got nerfed with no compensation in other areas. Now spirit builds are under attack and will most likely get nerfed as well down the line because everybody and their mother complains about spirit builds right now as it fits in line with the current PvP meta which is condition loading. We will probably also see no power build compensation for it. You can’t simply just run a power build and ‘make it work’ with healing spring and condi signet against good players who utilize conditions, you need condition handling meaning Empathic Bond.

You mentioned fast CoF clearing, yes, against scripted mobs , ranger is pretty good, against good players in PvP , they’re lacking in terms of build diversity safe for the same condi bunker builds , which is my entire point of the post. Forced bunker build usage due to lack of condition removal options.

Durzlla lost to our condition warrior who was stacking bleeds/torment/fire damage too by the way, like 7 times. Not saying he’s bad, but it proves a major point as he was running power with healing spring and he had quite a bit of dmg output, but no survivability , if only he had some more condition removal he’d have a chance.

You want condition removal aka survive in this game, run bunker condi as a ranger, that’s our motto.

@Ryan, I will say, we do need some more condi removal options, it’s ridiculous, and I did find out what was making me think I had such good condi removal btw, turns out my necro friend (who I almost always run with) uses Carrion Gear + Plague Sognet, so she was alleviating me of a lot of condis, not to mention she has a staff (dat #4).

WTB antidote signet plox.

PS: reason I didn’t know she was running plague for so long was because she kept telling me it was Signet of Spite