I didn’t single you out, did I?
But throughout this thread there has been a lot of useless, not constructive “cry” responses.
You on the other hand have been having a very good discussion about DPS outputs with the class, which is the exact type of conversations that need to be happening within the community.
I try. ^.^
I want to see the ranger be used more, esp in PvE. I want to see more viable builds and build types. I want the class to not be auto-kicked from most dungeon PUGs. I want to see the ranger where it should be, a balanced class that you don’t feel punishes you for playing.
Instead of complaining, I try to discuss with others on exactly where the weaknesses are. And I try to keep the threads civil and informative enough that ANet doesn’t skip over them due to tone and stuff. Because too many good threads will get ignored due to language and tone. And that’s just a shame.
Well to add to the discussion about weaknesses…
The single biggest weakness the ranger class currently suffers from is that the pets damage is factored into the total damage output, and not treated as a separate entity and then used to bolster roles the ranger could perform. Because, as everybody in the community has seen, there are instances where the rangers pet just can’t be used (environment, one shot mechanics with no pet dodge, etc).
The best way to go about making rangers a better and more viable class is to change the pet mechanic from a “go and mindlessly attack this for sometimes easy DPS” role to a burst or utility role. It would solve the issues for pvp players (nobody wants AI damage sources in high level competitive play, it detracts from competition), while simultaneously allowing rangers to get their damage coefficients adjusted to have strong damage output, with an even higher achievable damage output or utility output by keeping the pet alive and utilizing it to its fullest potential. At least that would shift the mindset from needing to use the pet to even be viable to needing to use the pet to maximize top level potential (hit the skill ceiling), while still performing competitively and viably without the pets DPS (which would allow players not wanting to focus on the pet to use it as pure utility to boost the type of build they run).
Sorry, it’s kind of a lot to read (I think) lol.
That actually wasn’t what he said at all. He said if you aren’t going to be taking damage traits to maximize damage output, then people shouldn’t complain about not having enough damage.
He said: “nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.”
When I asked him why, he compiled a neat list of reasons. So I gave him a build that incorporates everything he considers to be optimal.
Seems to me like that’s exactly what he meant.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
That actually wasn’t what he said at all. He said if you aren’t going to be taking damage traits to maximize damage output, then people shouldn’t complain about not having enough damage.
He said: “nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.”
When I asked him why, he compiled a neat list of reasons. So I gave him a build that incorporates everything he considers to be optimal.
Seems to me like that’s exactly what he meant.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
It seems you like to argue for the sake of argument. I’ve already made my point, I see no need to continue this pointlessness.
That actually wasn’t what he said at all. He said if you aren’t going to be taking damage traits to maximize damage output, then people shouldn’t complain about not having enough damage.
He said: “nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.”
When I asked him why, he compiled a neat list of reasons. So I gave him a build that incorporates everything he considers to be optimal.
Seems to me like that’s exactly what he meant.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
It seems you like to argue for the sake of argument. I’ve already made my point, I see no need to continue this pointlessness.
No, you’re just mad that he tore apart a build because it wasn’t optimized for damage lol but that’s okay.
That actually wasn’t what he said at all. He said if you aren’t going to be taking damage traits to maximize damage output, then people shouldn’t complain about not having enough damage.
He said: “nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.”
When I asked him why, he compiled a neat list of reasons. So I gave him a build that incorporates everything he considers to be optimal.
Seems to me like that’s exactly what he meant.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
It seems you like to argue for the sake of argument. I’ve already made my point, I see no need to continue this pointlessness.
No, you’re just mad that he tore apart a build because it wasn’t optimized for damage lol but that’s okay.
I’m not mad. I know my build isn’t optimized for damage. I’ve tried builds that stack every possible damage enhancing trait. I don’t find them fun or interesting in the least. But I don’t go around proclaiming they suck either.
That actually wasn’t what he said at all. He said if you aren’t going to be taking damage traits to maximize damage output, then people shouldn’t complain about not having enough damage.
He said: “nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.”
When I asked him why, he compiled a neat list of reasons. So I gave him a build that incorporates everything he considers to be optimal.
Seems to me like that’s exactly what he meant.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
It seems you like to argue for the sake of argument. I’ve already made my point, I see no need to continue this pointlessness.
No, you’re just mad that he tore apart a build because it wasn’t optimized for damage lol but that’s okay.
I’m not mad. I know my build isn’t optimized for damage. I’ve tried builds that stack every possible damage enhancing trait. I don’t find them fun or interesting in the least. But I don’t go around proclaiming they suck either.
And it’s fair that you didn’t put it up for a DPS comparison, I never meant any disrespect in this whole thing, I only meant to point out a misunderstanding of some sort was occurring.
Well to add to the discussion about weaknesses…
The single biggest weakness the ranger class currently suffers from is that the pets damage is factored into the total damage output, and not treated as a separate entity and then used to bolster roles the ranger could perform. Because, as everybody in the community has seen, there are instances where the rangers pet just can’t be used (environment, one shot mechanics with no pet dodge, etc).
The best way to go about making rangers a better and more viable class is to change the pet mechanic from a “go and mindlessly attack this for sometimes easy DPS” role to a burst or utility role. It would solve the issues for pvp players (nobody wants AI damage sources in high level competitive play, it detracts from competition), while simultaneously allowing rangers to get their damage coefficients adjusted to have strong damage output, with an even higher achievable damage output or utility output by keeping the pet alive and utilizing it to its fullest potential. At least that would shift the mindset from needing to use the pet to even be viable to needing to use the pet to maximize top level potential (hit the skill ceiling), while still performing competitively and viably without the pets DPS (which would allow players not wanting to focus on the pet to use it as pure utility to boost the type of build they run).
Sorry, it’s kind of a lot to read (I think) lol.
Pretty much right on. Pets are the biggest downside for the ranger, but not the only mind you. That is one potential solution to the pets, but I think that ANet wants pets to play a more crucial role. All we can really do is discuss it and hope that ANet comes up with a solution that’s tenable.
It seems you conveniently forgot the rest of his response again: “You can’t complain about rangers not having DPS until you actually try to DPS with them first.”
You can DPS well with a 0/20/20/0/30 build. It’s less direct damage from the player without sacrificing too much and more damage from the pet. I did test this build and it is quite fast. Faster than Guanglai’s build in my own testing, and none of it’s damage is conditional unlike 3 seperate +10% conditional damage boosts that his relies on for the DPS that are not feasible for 100% uptime in any battle. He just seems to dislike all builds that aren’t his.
@SynfulChaot;
To the second part, it isn’t my place to make assumptions, I was barely even following every little detail of the conversation because ultimately, no matter how much testing anybody does, after spending so many hours of my own life theorycrafting, I have found that there are too many variables. What could be the best DPS in one persons hands could be a failure in another persons because they don’t understand or have a feel for the playstyle, and the playstyle isn’t conducive enough to them for them to learn it. And that’s just a single aspect of how potentially hard it is.
So I really don’t mean to agree or disagree with anybody on this, because the reality is that I could pick up any of the builds suggested, and objectively think it’s horrible because it isn’t what I want it to be (I’m going to call it perceived power creep).
As for the pet suggestion, I don’t mean making it less important at all, I just mean to make the damage less front loaded. As it stands, the reason why it was nerfed in pvp is because the sustained damage from the pets is too easy, too rng, and too good because it could be made into a constant across all builds (which results in their not being enough involved play from the ranger, and not enough counterplay for opponents). But I’m suggesting making it more like an eviscerate mechanic, where now, you can still send your pet to attack and do damage, but sustained damage wise, it’s maybe 5% (untraited) of the total damage, maximum. But, you have a big damage skill, that you can now setup, or fake.
For the people who don’t want this to be a damage skill, or want to use the pet for utility, now, you can use group wide Stability, or, for an amount of time, have the pet receive 10% of all damage about to be done to the party (5 people, whatever).
Point is, from a pvp standpoint, the pet would still be a priority, and it would finally be a useful component in team fights, because now, the other team knows that if they don’t worry about pressuring the ranger/pet, that ranger/pet can pull of a skill and win the teamfight, so it makes the ranger a target worth focusing, and the pet a target worth killing, and not just something annoying that players hope random AoE kills.
I mean, its a rough idea, but that’s the gist of it, to separate the players damage output from the pets, and allow the player to choose the role the pet has, in order for the player to maximize their potential in whatever role they choose to perform (DPS, damage/utility, full utility).
As for the pet suggestion, I don’t mean making it less important at all, I just mean to make the damage less front loaded. As it stands, the reason why it was nerfed in pvp is because the sustained damage from the pets is too easy, too rng, and too good because it could be made into a constant across all builds (which results in their not being enough involved play from the ranger, and not enough counterplay for opponents). But I’m suggesting making it more like an eviscerate mechanic, where now, you can still send your pet to attack and do damage, but sustained damage wise, it’s maybe 5% (untraited) of the total damage, maximum. But, you have a big damage skill, that you can now setup, or fake.
For the people who don’t want this to be a damage skill, or want to use the pet for utility, now, you can use group wide Stability, or, for an amount of time, have the pet receive 10% of all damage about to be done to the party (5 people, whatever).Point is, from a pvp standpoint, the pet would still be a priority, and it would finally be a useful component in team fights, because now, the other team knows that if they don’t worry about pressuring the ranger/pet, that ranger/pet can pull of a skill and win the teamfight, so it makes the ranger a target worth focusing, and the pet a target worth killing, and not just something annoying that players hope random AoE kills.
I mean, its a rough idea, but that’s the gist of it, to separate the players damage output from the pets, and allow the player to choose the role the pet has, in order for the player to maximize their potential in whatever role they choose to perform (DPS, damage/utility, full utility).
Oh. I totally agree on the potential solution. It’s a great shake better that most people suggestions of ‘just remove the pet’.
I’m not yet sure what my ideal pet suggestion would be. Right now I’m just content looking at other suggestions and trying to keep people from getting too negative. That and trying to keep people from overhyping the class past what it actually is
I’m not yet sure what my ideal pet suggestion would be. Right now I’m just content looking at other suggestions and trying to keep people from getting too negative. That and trying to keep people from overhyping the class past what it actually is
I definitely understand that, but there really are times when there is only so nice I can be lol. As far as consistently active forum posters, I believe that there are only maybe 10-15 total that I have memorably come across that I feel understand the class, how to play the class, and where the class is lacking, without over-dramatizing it.
I don’t think that everybody else is “bad” though, I find that most people either play the ranger as an isolated class, or view patches as an isolated incident. The shortbow, for instance. I know I’ll get crucified for it, but the shortbow was a necessary change. It was too good at both power and condition damage, and even though the obvious design was a skirmishing, constantly moving around, controlling the opponent weapon; people were using it as an autoattack spam easy win “111111” weapon at 1200 range. That change was to put the shortbow into the role it was designed for without decreasing it’s effectiveness within that design, yet people are writing hate responses and cursing the devs and telling them the devs don’t know their own game, and basically crying instead of learning.
I would like to think that less of the playerbase approached the game with such a casual (unwilling to understand or improve beyond what they want out of the game, yet more than willing to cry over and over when something changes the way they play) attitude, but the forums unfortunately remind me all the time that there really are people who just don’t understand what they are playing and how the game works (there are STILL people who think Rapid Fire is doing 40k+ damage).
But, positivity positivity positivity lol.
I don’t think that everybody else is “bad” though, I find that most people either play the ranger as an isolated class, or view patches as an isolated incident. The shortbow, for instance. I know I’ll get crucified for it, but the shortbow was a necessary change. It was too good at both power and condition damage, and even though the obvious design was a skirmishing, constantly moving around, controlling the opponent weapon; people were using it as an autoattack spam easy win “111111” weapon at 1200 range. That change was to put the shortbow into the role it was designed for without decreasing it’s effectiveness within that design, yet people are writing hate responses and cursing the devs and telling them the devs don’t know their own game, and basically crying instead of learning.
I, unfortunately, didn’t see it as necessary. They outright stated that their reason for the nerf was to force LB use. That is bad design. Yes, the SB auto-attack was spammed. That is because the SB is still more powerful than the LB, even though the LB is supposed to be the power weapon. That was more a failing of the LB than anything else.
The biggest problem with the nerf isn’t needing to switch weapons from SB to LB. It’s twofold. One, if you ever need 900+ range in combat, you are forced to carry the LB into battle. Period. So builds are limited by that. Two, if you are a condition ranger then you have no viable 900+ range weapon as the LB is power, not condition. I still run rampager stats and I take a noticable DPS loss at max range due to my condition stat being nigh-useless when I wield the LB.
Easy solution: Give us a trait (or two) to raise SB range back up again and raise LB power a bit more. Make it so we want to use LB over SB for power builds. And make it so condition rangers are viable at 900+ range.
this is all wrong rangers are people that crawl out from under rocks, birthed from grubs and eat little children who get lost in the woods. scraps are fed near by animals that fallow them hoping for more scraps of children who were lost. also rangers bleed acid.
This is the greatest debate I’ve witnessed on these forums this far.
nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.
I run this build. Enlighten me oh great paragon of ranger wisdom, why does it suck?
Because you are doing very little damage. You’re missing out on opening strikes, alpha strikes, precise strike, hunter’s tactics, tailwind, furious grip, not to mention all the DPS increasing adept and master traits in the skirm an marks lines. It’s not a question to put 25 or 30 in skirm for dungeons unless you’re playing a highly specialized role…none of which is required afaik.
My damage build on my ranger is 10/20/10/0/30, I fail to see how 0/20/20/0/30 would be a bad build, can you enlighten me oh wise one why this build is bad?
:( sorry durz about what I just said to quark. I believe that…am I wrong?
There are substantive mechanical changes and there are quality of life changes.
The problem is that spreadsheet balances are the only real way to balance a class. Just like with fighting games, there are classes that dominate everything even if the player is only average, and there are classes that are going to require a lot of work just to get a slight marginal advantage over the former. Rangers are pretty much the latter, since their DPS is basically split across three sources at the moment (self, pet, spirit) and they need to be able to keep them all alive, or their damage becomes rather lackluster. However, if you buff the damage to compensate, then you’re left with a class that is good for an average player, and extremely overpowered for a good one. That’s too much. Even the warrior is only good for an average player and not that much better for a good one.
Something like sword auto being interruptible with dodges and other skills would be a quality of life change that would be very nice. On the other hand a DPS increase to the sword (or any weapon) would probably straight-up break the class.
I do agree that the greatsword needs a slight buff to DPS, and that axe is total garbage, but otherwise the ranger is actually in pretty good shape short of some quality of life changes.
I just want to let the forum know that I agree with a lot of what Guang says, including this. Guang has a confrontational manner that makes people gang up on him. I saw it happen in the dungeon forums and I’m seeing it happen again. Now I’m not saying ranger is perfect. But I am asking you to read Guang with an open mind.
nor is anyone going to run a 0/20/20/0/30 build on a ranger, because those builds suck.
I run this build. Enlighten me oh great paragon of ranger wisdom, why does it suck?
Because you are doing very little damage. You’re missing out on opening strikes, alpha strikes, precise strike, hunter’s tactics, tailwind, furious grip, not to mention all the DPS increasing adept and master traits in the skirm an marks lines. It’s not a question to put 25 or 30 in skirm for dungeons unless you’re playing a highly specialized role…none of which is required afaik.
I have tailwind and furious grip, everything else is situational. I very much prefer my cooldown reduction traits. Especially loud whistle.
Edit: I also have the DPS increasing adept and master traits in the skirmishing line.
We are warriors with training wheels(rely your damage on pet ai)
It sounds very odd that you played a hunter for years in WoW and detest kiting. I mean, it is such a core mechanic to the class. I still remember the day I spent several hours outside Crossroads in the Barrens perfecting my jump shot. Now I could kill an enemy while running away from them. A masterful jump shot set the veteran hunter apart as someone who understood their class mechanics and the best way to take advantage of them.
At any rate, some people really do not like to kite excessively and for those we have the primarily melee professions. Even my guardian kites occasionally, but with a warrior or guardian you’ll spend a lot of time in melee. I would exclude Ranger simply based upon your detesting kiting.
It sounds very odd that you played a hunter for years in WoW and detest kiting. I mean, it is such a core mechanic to the class. I still remember the day I spent several hours outside Crossroads in the Barrens perfecting my jump shot. Now I could kill an enemy while running away from them. A masterful jump shot set the veteran hunter apart as someone who understood their class mechanics and the best way to take advantage of them.
At any rate, some people really do not like to kite excessively and for those we have the primarily melee professions. Even my guardian kites occasionally, but with a warrior or guardian you’ll spend a lot of time in melee. I would exclude Ranger simply based upon your detesting kiting.
The ranger is a primarily melee profession.
I don’t think that everybody else is “bad” though, I find that most people either play the ranger as an isolated class, or view patches as an isolated incident. The shortbow, for instance. I know I’ll get crucified for it, but the shortbow was a necessary change. It was too good at both power and condition damage, and even though the obvious design was a skirmishing, constantly moving around, controlling the opponent weapon; people were using it as an autoattack spam easy win “111111” weapon at 1200 range. That change was to put the shortbow into the role it was designed for without decreasing it’s effectiveness within that design, yet people are writing hate responses and cursing the devs and telling them the devs don’t know their own game, and basically crying instead of learning.
I, unfortunately, didn’t see it as necessary. They outright stated that their reason for the nerf was to force LB use. That is bad design. Yes, the SB auto-attack was spammed. That is because the SB is still more powerful than the LB, even though the LB is supposed to be the power weapon. That was more a failing of the LB than anything else.
The biggest problem with the nerf isn’t needing to switch weapons from SB to LB. It’s twofold. One, if you ever need 900+ range in combat, you are forced to carry the LB into battle. Period. So builds are limited by that. Two, if you are a condition ranger then you have no viable 900+ range weapon as the LB is power, not condition. I still run rampager stats and I take a noticable DPS loss at max range due to my condition stat being nigh-useless when I wield the LB.
Easy solution: Give us a trait (or two) to raise SB range back up again and raise LB power a bit more. Make it so we want to use LB over SB for power builds. And make it so condition rangers are viable at 900+ range.
Oh, I’m definitely not saying that it was the only way to handle it. But look at the design of the skills is all; flanking for max damage, point blank for max effectiveness, evade+kiting, cripple+pressure, and interrupt with better effects when flanking.
Everything about the weapon suggests that it’s purpose wasn’t to sit at 1200 range and spam 1 at people. Maybe the devs didn’t design the other weapons well enough, or maybe they don’t want rangers using conditions at long range, but either way, the change was to force the weapon to have to be used as intended. Down the line from now, with a different change, they could implement something where everybody all of a sudden goes “oh man, I get why they did that now.”
All I’m saying is that for everybody who wants the game “fixed,” thinking that it was okay for the shortbow to be the go to weapon for everything (and that fact that it was kind of true) isn’t balanced, and isn’t good design, and needed to be limited within its design so that it doesn’t overshadow weapons. Also, the data analysis after the patch is going to be an extreme measurement of how much the ranger community doesn’t like the longbow when even after the patch people still won’t use it. That right there is going to immediately start a flow of improvements to the longbow down the pipeline, which is ultimately what most power build users wanted (until they got used to the prepatch shortbow).
That being said though, the next patch really does need to take a ranger/warrior/engineer focus (from a pvp perspective anyhow).
Oh, I’m definitely not saying that it was the only way to handle it. But look at the design of the skills is all; flanking for max damage, point blank for max effectiveness, evade+kiting, cripple+pressure, and interrupt with better effects when flanking.
Everything about the weapon suggests that it’s purpose wasn’t to sit at 1200 range and spam 1 at people. Maybe the devs didn’t design the other weapons well enough, or maybe they don’t want rangers using conditions at long range, but either way, the change was to force the weapon to have to be used as intended. Down the line from now, with a different change, they could implement something where everybody all of a sudden goes “oh man, I get why they did that now.”
All I’m saying is that for everybody who wants the game “fixed,” thinking that it was okay for the shortbow to be the go to weapon for everything (and that fact that it was kind of true) isn’t balanced, and isn’t good design, and needed to be limited within its design so that it doesn’t overshadow weapons. Also, the data analysis after the patch is going to be an extreme measurement of how much the ranger community doesn’t like the longbow when even after the patch people still won’t use it. That right there is going to immediately start a flow of improvements to the longbow down the pipeline, which is ultimately what most power build users wanted (until they got used to the prepatch shortbow).
That being said though, the next patch really does need to take a ranger/warrior/engineer focus (from a pvp perspective anyhow).
The shortbow always struck me as a mid range skirmishing weapon, with its high mobility and focus on flanking to apply conditions. I used to use it extensively in my PvE trap build, where I was always within 600 range of my target.
Oh, I’m definitely not saying that it was the only way to handle it. But look at the design of the skills is all; flanking for max damage, point blank for max effectiveness, evade+kiting, cripple+pressure, and interrupt with better effects when flanking.
Everything about the weapon suggests that it’s purpose wasn’t to sit at 1200 range and spam 1 at people. Maybe the devs didn’t design the other weapons well enough, or maybe they don’t want rangers using conditions at long range, but either way, the change was to force the weapon to have to be used as intended. Down the line from now, with a different change, they could implement something where everybody all of a sudden goes “oh man, I get why they did that now.”
All I’m saying is that for everybody who wants the game “fixed,” thinking that it was okay for the shortbow to be the go to weapon for everything (and that fact that it was kind of true) isn’t balanced, and isn’t good design, and needed to be limited within its design so that it doesn’t overshadow weapons. Also, the data analysis after the patch is going to be an extreme measurement of how much the ranger community doesn’t like the longbow when even after the patch people still won’t use it. That right there is going to immediately start a flow of improvements to the longbow down the pipeline, which is ultimately what most power build users wanted (until they got used to the prepatch shortbow).
Also remember that the range nerf also lowered the range that the Piercing Arrows trait can affect. And removed any 900+ condition damage option from the ranger.
Yes, the SB should not have been used as it was from a balance perspective. But to remove options is not the way. If they wanted people to stop using it as such they should have given us options, not removed them. I’d love to use the LB for many reasons, aesthetics included (working on Kudzu). Unfortunately it’s still weaker than the SB. All that change did is lower my damage at range.
Oh, I’m definitely not saying that it was the only way to handle it. But look at the design of the skills is all; flanking for max damage, point blank for max effectiveness, evade+kiting, cripple+pressure, and interrupt with better effects when flanking.
Everything about the weapon suggests that it’s purpose wasn’t to sit at 1200 range and spam 1 at people. Maybe the devs didn’t design the other weapons well enough, or maybe they don’t want rangers using conditions at long range, but either way, the change was to force the weapon to have to be used as intended. Down the line from now, with a different change, they could implement something where everybody all of a sudden goes “oh man, I get why they did that now.”
All I’m saying is that for everybody who wants the game “fixed,” thinking that it was okay for the shortbow to be the go to weapon for everything (and that fact that it was kind of true) isn’t balanced, and isn’t good design, and needed to be limited within its design so that it doesn’t overshadow weapons. Also, the data analysis after the patch is going to be an extreme measurement of how much the ranger community doesn’t like the longbow when even after the patch people still won’t use it. That right there is going to immediately start a flow of improvements to the longbow down the pipeline, which is ultimately what most power build users wanted (until they got used to the prepatch shortbow).
Also remember that the range nerf also lowered the range that the Piercing Arrows trait can affect. And removed any 900+ condition damage option from the ranger.
Yes, the SB should not have been used as it was from a balance perspective. But to remove options is not the way. If they wanted people to stop using it as such they should have given us options, not removed them. I’d love to use the LB for many reasons, aesthetics included (working on Kudzu). Unfortunately it’s still weaker than the SB. All that change did is lower my damage at range.
wouldn’t you say it’s easier to flank at 900 range than 1200?
wouldn’t you say it’s easier to flank at 900 range than 1200?
Oh. It is. And I prefer to flank closer. But. You’re still missing that extra 300 range for the arrows to pierce.
Because you are doing very little damage. You’re missing out on opening strikes, alpha strikes, precise strike, hunter’s tactics, tailwind, furious grip, not to mention all the DPS increasing adept and master traits in the skirm an marks lines. It’s not a question to put 25 or 30 in skirm for dungeons unless you’re playing a highly specialized role…none of which is required afaik.
Ok. I’ll hit these one at a time.
Opening Strikes and it’s related traits (Alpha Training and Precise Strike) are nigh-useless in dungeons as it only applies once per fight. A couple times per fight if you have Remorseless, but almost any other grandmaster trait would improve your DPS more. And with a high enough precision Precise Strike isn’t that useful anyways. I typically reliably crit on my first hit just due to stats.
With 20 in Skirmishing, which that build provides, you still do have access to Tailwind and Furious Grip and and the master traits in Skirmishing including Companion’s Might, which with 30 points in Beastmastery can allow your pet to hit significantly harder.
Yes, the build is missing out on the 3 +10% damage boost of Steady Focus, Hunter’s Tactics, and Peak Strength. Unfortunately all three have an associated condition that need to be there for the boost to occur. Max endurance, flanking, and over 90% health. As one who mains a ranger in dungeons, I can tell you that you will rarely, if ever, get all three at a time. Even having two at a time is uncommon.
Instead we get more group utility in the form of Vigorous Renewal, personal survivability in the form of Natural Vigor, and Companion’s Defense (which is also useful in keeping your pet alive, a real concern in dungeons), and lastly decreased cooldowns for the melee weapons, which does increase our DPS with them.
And with the 30 in Beastmastery our pet not only hits significantly harder, but we can also swap pets more frequently and we can gain 3s of quickness upon pet swap. 3s of quickness every 16 seconds is nothing to sneeze at DPS wise. And don’t forget that the 30 point also significantly boosts our pet’s health so more pet options become viable in dungeons, esp felines and birds who would have otherwise been useless due to dying far to easily.
Yes, maybe in PvP and WvW you’re giving up too much as you have a better time positioning and your pet isn’t seeing the incoming damage like they do in dungeons. But in dungeons, that build is quite viable and still does quite heavy reliable DPS.
I just want to let the forum know that I agree with a lot of what Guang says, including this. Guang has a confrontational manner that makes people gang up on him. I saw it happen in the dungeon forums and I’m seeing it happen again. Now I’m not saying ranger is perfect. But I am asking you to read Guang with an open mind.
I may agree with some of it, but his tone is terribad. He makes it sound as if the class is just fine where it is (it really is not) and that the ranger community all doesn’t understand it, despite the fact that we do.
That and he doesn’t consider anything anyone else ever says. Can’t have conversations with a brick wall, you know?
(edited by SynfulChaot.3169)
@Jc hey your pet idea is essentially what my pet idea is xD.
I miss my SWG pet…. Oh how I miss you energy drain and healing removal….
I may agree with some of it, but his tone is terribad. He makes it sound as if the class is just fine where it is (it really is not) and that the ranger community all doesn’t understand it, despite the fact that we do.
That and he doesn’t consider anything anyone else ever says. Can’t have conversations with a brick wall, you know?
What exactly do you want me to consider? I’ve already told you why your tests are pretty much invalid. The fact that you’re not able to figure out why using quickness in a DPS test is a downright terrible idea is pretty much all I needed to know about the validity of your tests. Not to mention that even using your build, and especially using QZ, I drop the golems much faster than you do.
I may agree with some of it, but his tone is terribad. He makes it sound as if the class is just fine where it is (it really is not) and that the ranger community all doesn’t understand it, despite the fact that we do.
That and he doesn’t consider anything anyone else ever says. Can’t have conversations with a brick wall, you know?
What exactly do you want me to consider? I’ve already told you why your tests are pretty much invalid. The fact that you’re not able to figure out why using quickness in a DPS test is a downright terrible idea is pretty much all I needed to know about the validity of your tests. Not to mention that even using your build, and especially using QZ, I drop the golems much faster than you do.
As I’ve said before:
I’m not going to even bother continuing this conversation with you as you refuse to acknowledge any input you have gotten from anyone about anything. You’re convinced you’re right. Good for you. But no further positive dialogue can come from this with how you’re approaching it.
wouldn’t you say it’s easier to flank at 900 range than 1200?
Oh. It is. And I prefer to flank closer. But. You’re still missing that extra 300 range for the arrows to pierce.
Because you are doing very little damage. You’re missing out on opening strikes, alpha strikes, precise strike, hunter’s tactics, tailwind, furious grip, not to mention all the DPS increasing adept and master traits in the skirm an marks lines. It’s not a question to put 25 or 30 in skirm for dungeons unless you’re playing a highly specialized role…none of which is required afaik.
Ok. I’ll hit these one at a time.
Opening Strikes and it’s related traits (Alpha Training and Precise Strike) are nigh-useless in dungeons as it only applies once per fight. A couple times per fight if you have Remorseless, but almost any other grandmaster trait would improve your DPS more. And with a high enough precision Precise Strike isn’t that useful anyways. I typically reliably crit on my first hit just due to stats.
With 20 in Skirmishing, which that build provides, you still do have access to Tailwind and Furious Grip and and the master traits in Skirmishing including Companion’s Might, which with 30 points in Beastmastery can allow your pet to hit significantly harder.
Yes, the build is missing out on the 3 +10% damage boost of Steady Focus, Hunter’s Tactics, and Peak Strength. Unfortunately all three have an associated condition that need to be there for the boost to occur. Max endurance, flanking, and over 90% health. As one who mains a ranger in dungeons, I can tell you that you will rarely, if ever, get all three at a time. Even having two at a time is uncommon.
Instead we get more group utility in the form of Vigorous Renewal, personal survivability in the form of Natural Vigor, and Companion’s Defense (which is also useful in keeping your pet alive, a real concern in dungeons), and lastly decreased cooldowns for the melee weapons, which does increase our DPS with them.
And with the 30 in Beastmastery our pet not only hits significantly harder, but we can also swap pets more frequently and we can gain 3s of quickness upon pet swap. 3s of quickness every 16 seconds is nothing to sneeze at DPS wise. And don’t forget that the 30 point also significantly boosts our pet’s health so more pet options become viable in dungeons, esp felines and birds who would have otherwise been useless due to dying far to easily.
Yes, maybe in PvP and WvW you’re giving up too much as you have a better time positioning and your pet isn’t seeing the incoming damage like they do in dungeons. But in dungeons, that build is quite viable and still does quite heavy reliable DPS.
I just want to let the forum know that I agree with a lot of what Guang says, including this. Guang has a confrontational manner that makes people gang up on him. I saw it happen in the dungeon forums and I’m seeing it happen again. Now I’m not saying ranger is perfect. But I am asking you to read Guang with an open mind.
I may agree with some of it, but his tone is terribad. He makes it sound as if the class is just fine where it is (it really is not) and that the ranger community all doesn’t understand it, despite the fact that we do.
That and he doesn’t consider anything anyone else ever says. Can’t have conversations with a brick wall, you know?
I’m not a brick wall. I’m exhausted. Thousands of hours in dungeons, high level FOTM, etc. After tons of testing, I daresay you won’t be able to do much better than this:
There’s nothing else to say. Do it or go home. I’m fed up with this conversation. Spirits work and pets don’t die and ranger does damage. I shall leave it at that.
I’m not a brick wall. I’m exhausted. Thousands of hours in dungeons, high level FOTM, etc. After tons of testing, I daresay you won’t be able to do much better than this:
There’s nothing else to say. Do it or go home. I’m fed up with this conversation. Spirits work and pets don’t die and ranger does damage. I shall leave it at that.
Wasn’t referring to you there, Chopps. You’re tone there is rivaling his, though.
I told you I’m tired. I’m grumpy when I’m tired. I must be getting old. The circle of life, I’m becoming a child again. My apologies.
I’m not a brick wall. I’m exhausted. Thousands of hours in dungeons, high level FOTM, etc. After tons of testing, I daresay you won’t be able to do much better than this:
There’s nothing else to say. Do it or go home. I’m fed up with this conversation. Spirits work and pets don’t die and ranger does damage. I shall leave it at that.
I’m a bit curious. You use this build for everything? How flexible are the weapon sets? Does this build also work with say…a longbow and a greatsword?
I would imagine you’d have to know the content you’re doing like the back of your hand in order to manage your spirits/pet so they don’t die. But, I’m a simpleton. I just dump 30 into beast mastery and hit things over the head with my giant pool noodle. On the plus side, my pet doesn’t die.
Though, without those points in beast mastery, I imagine you cannot use cats for damage.
That build looks pretty beast i’m not gonna lie….
@Quarktastic, well Drakes are best AoE pet (pretty much only AoE pets xD), and they’re pretty tanky so they’re not too bad for damage, and then the devourer is easy to keep up and isn’t too bad in damage either, so there’s not too many downsides to taking them instead of a cat tbh.
this is all wrong rangers are people that crawl out from under rocks, birthed from grubs and eat little children who get lost in the woods. scraps are fed near by animals that fallow them hoping for more scraps of children who were lost. also rangers bleed acid.
How absurd.
We don’t eat little children.
That build looks pretty beast i’m not gonna lie….
@Quarktastic, well Drakes are best AoE pet (pretty much only AoE pets xD), and they’re pretty tanky so they’re not too bad for damage, and then the devourer is easy to keep up and isn’t too bad in damage either, so there’s not too many downsides to taking them instead of a cat tbh.
I’ll admit, I ran the build a few times through CoE (all paths). Didin’t change my pets, armor, or weapons. A few things to note: there seems to be no safe place to put spirits against subject alpha, though I did manage to keep that frost spirit alive for over 30 seconds in most cases. My pets died several times -I guess I’m just used to them being able to take more punishment. Other than that, I deal more damage, and my pet deals less damage. Not sure if I’m actually dealing more damage overall.
Though, between spotter, frost spirit, steady focus and hunter’s tactics, I’m getting about a 32% damage boost if all the conditions are met. Meanwhile, allies get roughly a 12% boost from frost spirit and spotter.
this is all wrong rangers are people that crawl out from under rocks, birthed from grubs and eat little children who get lost in the woods. scraps are fed near by animals that fallow them hoping for more scraps of children who were lost. also rangers bleed acid.
How absurd.
We don’t eat little children.
We just feed them to our pets.
this is all wrong rangers are people that crawl out from under rocks, birthed from grubs and eat little children who get lost in the woods. scraps are fed near by animals that fallow them hoping for more scraps of children who were lost. also rangers bleed acid.
How absurd.
We don’t eat little children.
We just feed them to our pets.
Psssscht, noob, why ONLY take children? I take any lost idiot in the wilderness…..
Thank you Raine.1394. I shall take that to heart…What is your opinion on Engineer and other range classes then? Like Mesmer Ele and for example Rifle Warrior?
I’m not a brick wall. I’m exhausted. Thousands of hours in dungeons, high level FOTM, etc. After tons of testing, I daresay you won’t be able to do much better than this:
There’s nothing else to say. Do it or go home. I’m fed up with this conversation. Spirits work and pets don’t die and ranger does damage. I shall leave it at that.
I’m a bit curious. You use this build for everything? How flexible are the weapon sets? Does this build also work with say…a longbow and a greatsword?
I would imagine you’d have to know the content you’re doing like the back of your hand in order to manage your spirits/pet so they don’t die. But, I’m a simpleton. I just dump 30 into beast mastery and hit things over the head with my giant pool noodle. On the plus side, my pet doesn’t die.
Though, without those points in beast mastery, I imagine you cannot use cats for damage.
Yes yes and yes! I do use one cat on grawl fractal (stun / team immob shaman then tear apart with sword and cat), or anywhere where you can quickly burst down a target. Still, drakes are very nice and devourers just live. Plus, devourer stacks might twice with every attack for rampage as one, which is kind of cool.
Afaik it’s always better to put points into the ranger for damage but I just playtest. Really I should head to a risengiant in orr to check for sure….nah, I’m almost positive this is better. I ran 20/20/0/0/30 for a long time and it’s just not as good.
Note: By always better I mean always better for fractals/dungeons. It’s glassy so expect to die if you aren’t practiced in dungeons or with your team or with ranger. Glass cannon is very effective but only if you can be flawless. You can get 1 shot. As a really good ranger though, you’ll find you have plenty of endurance and evades to stay out of trouble. But you have to put yourself in good position. This is the kind of build you use when you see Define stack and kill dungeon bosses. Drawn out extended encounters increase the likelyhood you’ll get fatigued and make a mistake. This is glass cannon though and being able to successfully use it in pve is to perform at peak.
(edited by Chopps.5047)
I’m fairly certain on about page 5 or 6, Guanglai will come out and laugh at everyone at the nearly perfect troll job he has done on all of you. +10 my friend.
Point out where he’s trolling
I’m not a brick wall. I’m exhausted. Thousands of hours in dungeons, high level FOTM, etc. After tons of testing, I daresay you won’t be able to do much better than this:
There’s nothing else to say. Do it or go home. I’m fed up with this conversation. Spirits work and pets don’t die and ranger does damage. I shall leave it at that.
I’m a bit curious. You use this build for everything? How flexible are the weapon sets? Does this build also work with say…a longbow and a greatsword?
I would imagine you’d have to know the content you’re doing like the back of your hand in order to manage your spirits/pet so they don’t die. But, I’m a simpleton. I just dump 30 into beast mastery and hit things over the head with my giant pool noodle. On the plus side, my pet doesn’t die.
Though, without those points in beast mastery, I imagine you cannot use cats for damage.
Yes yes and yes! I do use one cat on grawl fractal (stun / team immob shaman then tear apart with sword and cat), or anywhere where you can quickly burst down a target. Still, drakes are very nice and devourers just live. Plus, devourer stacks might twice with every attack for rampage as one, which is kind of cool.
Afaik it’s always better to put points into the ranger for damage but I just playtest. Really I should head to a risengiant in orr to check for sure….nah, I’m almost positive this is better. I ran 20/20/0/0/30 for a long time and it’s just not as good.
Note: By always better I mean always better for fractals/dungeons. It’s glassy so expect to die if you aren’t practiced in dungeons or with your team or with ranger. Glass cannon is very effective but only if you can be flawless. You can get 1 shot. As a really good ranger though, you’ll find you have plenty of endurance and evades to stay out of trouble. But you have to put yourself in good position. This is the kind of build you use when you see Define stack and kill dungeon bosses. Drawn out extended encounters increase the likelyhood you’ll get fatigued and make a mistake. This is glass cannon though and being able to successfully use it in pve is to perform at peak.
I typically skip the spirits in the open world, and prefer to run with signet of the hunt in its place. Though 6-7k mauls are always nice.
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