Guild Wars 2

Chokolata.1870:

@jcbroe:

What you have said about the inability to implement ideas goes for pretty much any business or company. Having said that, I do not think that it can apply in this scenario however.

As we have seen, A-net is not adverse to making rather big changes as far as specialization and balance changes go. Mesmer, Engineer, Guardian, Necromancer and even Elementalist changes can be called anything but conservative. However, in the case of Ranger they just did not bother.

I am of the opinion that in the case of Ranger something else is afoot. It is not a conspiracy or anything like that, it is just that no one really wants to bother fixing something that can not be fixed. And many things that really could be fixed are brushed off by the standard it is not in our design philosophy for class XYZ, and in this case Ranger

Prime examples:

We need more F abilities to better control the pet – Said it was to complicated for new players, but with the latest patch Thieves and Engineers got another F button. Mesmers will get a new one with the Chronomancer

Permanent stow – Said that the pet was meant to always be out even if it completely ruins the experience for an entire team, ex. skipping in TA and pets activating blossoms. Just having the ability to force stow it even if its at a damage loss for the ranger would go a long way in increasing the reliability of the mechanic.

Single target sustained damage – Anyone remember this golden sentence? How Ranger is designed to be a sustained single target damage class? In a game that absolutely does not support it, with very poor innate defenses and zero bunker busting capacity or boon removal.

Ranger + pet = total other class damage – Damage tied to an AI that even got nerfed a while back for doing too much damage, even though it simply can not hit moving targets.

Think of the whole situation like this, it has fallen to the Ranger to be that one piece of the game that no one actually bothers with. It is sad for us Ranger players but it is what it is.

I think this post perfectly sums up all of the ranger problems right now. 10/10.

Chokolata.1870:

@jcbroe:

What you have said about the inability to implement ideas goes for pretty much any business or company. Having said that, I do not think that it can apply in this scenario however.

As we have seen, A-net is not adverse to making rather big changes as far as specialization and balance changes go. Mesmer, Engineer, Guardian, Necromancer and even Elementalist changes can be called anything but conservative. However, in the case of Ranger they just did not bother.

I am of the opinion that in the case of Ranger something else is afoot. It is not a conspiracy or anything like that, it is just that no one really wants to bother fixing something that can not be fixed. And many things that really could be fixed are brushed off by the standard it is not in our design philosophy for class XYZ, and in this case Ranger

Prime examples:

We need more F abilities to better control the pet – Said it was to complicated for new players, but with the latest patch Thieves and Engineers got another F button. Mesmers will get a new one with the Chronomancer

Permanent stow – Said that the pet was meant to always be out even if it completely ruins the experience for an entire team, ex. skipping in TA and pets activating blossoms. Just having the ability to force stow it even if its at a damage loss for the ranger would go a long way in increasing the reliability of the mechanic.

Single target sustained damage – Anyone remember this golden sentence? How Ranger is designed to be a sustained single target damage class? In a game that absolutely does not support it, with very poor innate defenses and zero bunker busting capacity or boon removal.

Ranger + pet = total other class damage – Damage tied to an AI that even got nerfed a while back for doing too much damage, even though it simply can not hit moving targets.

Think of the whole situation like this, it has fallen to the Ranger to be that one piece of the game that no one actually bothers with. It is sad for us Ranger players but it is what it is.

You’re right, and my opinion of the situation is summed up in my statements to Mohagi.

Sadly enough, every single one of the things you mentioned were nonexistant in GW1. Rangers weren’t forced to take pets, weapon skills, and even bows had decent cleave abilities (splinter barrage anyone?), and of course an entire set of pet skills, with active skills, enhancing skills, and complimentary effects between pet and player existed, with even an evolution system that specialized what unique way your pet interacted with combat (damage increased, health increased, etc).

I actually played interrupt ranger for a few years so long ago isn’t even relevant for most people, but it was an extremely high skill way to play the game competitively.

So seeing all these backward steps and my main profession dumbed all the way down to what it is has been one of my most frustrating experiences in gaming so far, and I don’t understand why ANet essentially ruined my favorite class of any game I’ve ever played.

So yeah, my experience has been ruined ever since they designed ranger in this game the way they did, before launch was ever even finalized lol.

Still, I blame the designers more than the balancers. If we had somebody like Robert Gee who had actually crafted this extensive class beginning all the way in GW1 and adapted, reinvented, and pushed for improvements the way it is evident that Robet Gee does, I don’t think the ranger community would be arguing itself out of a developmental pitfall to begin with.

Mesmer was my “second main” in GW1 though, and I can honestly say GW2 has left me little reason not to enjoy mesmer. Ranger…. Well, I enjoy what I can lol.

What pains me is that, even though I have many other characters, Ranger is the most fun for me theme wise. It is not even about ranged combat, but I am always drawn to ranger/druid type characters in any RPG.

Even now, the Ranger remains very very easy to fix, but they are simply doing the opposite. One should look no further then what they did to Healing Spring.

I stand by my comment that they will simply not bother, hell it is evident in every single Twitch episode that deals with classes and balance!! Ranger always has the smallest segment or is simply brushed aside!!!

Chokolata.1870:

I am of the opinion that in the case of Ranger something else is afoot. It is not a conspiracy or anything like that, it is just that no one really wants to bother fixing something that can not be fixed. And many things that really could be fixed are brushed off by the standard it is not in our design philosophy for class XYZ, and in this case Ranger

Prime examples:

We need more F abilities to better control the pet – Said it was to complicated for new players, but with the latest patch Thieves and Engineers got another F button. Mesmers will get a new one with the Chronomancer

Permanent stow – Said that the pet was meant to always be out even if it completely ruins the experience for an entire team, ex. skipping in TA and pets activating blossoms. Just having the ability to force stow it even if its at a damage loss for the ranger would go a long way in increasing the reliability of the mechanic.

Single target sustained damage – Anyone remember this golden sentence? How Ranger is designed to be a sustained single target damage class? In a game that absolutely does not support it, with very poor innate defenses and zero bunker busting capacity or boon removal.

Ranger + pet = total other class damage – Damage tied to an AI that even got nerfed a while back for doing too much damage, even though it simply can not hit moving targets.

Think of the whole situation like this, it has fallen to the Ranger to be that one piece of the game that no one actually bothers with. It is sad for us Ranger players but it is what it is.

Nice summary, and sadly all too true. +1.

We need more F abilities to better control the pet:
I think Anet sees the ranger as a great starter class, especially since a large amount of the new player population start on ranger but move to something else later on. that being said, a lot of us like the ranger and it’s evident by how many people continue to main this class. there should be a toggle of some sort that would allow for greater pet control for the more experienced player.

permanent stow: I like my pet, i prefer it out but stowing should be available in combat. so many times your stuck in combat because something is on the pet. or trying to stealth in dungeons and the pet doesn’t get it but you cant put him away. damage shouldn’t autotrigger the pet to come out if it’s set to passive. more control for the more experienced player

single target sustain damage:
I don’t think anything can be done about this sadly, without a very heavy class redesign. the game is what defeats our sustain not the ranger we just dont have the burst abilities other have so we’re left lagging in a 15s fight.

pet AI:
we’ve been asking for AI changes for a loooooong time, it isn’t going to happen unfortunately. increasing base pet range would help the melee pets so they hit more often like the birds do. some AI improvements are really needed though.

+1 on everything you said, just my take on it

permanent stow works for me. would make stealth missions alot easier.

also. anyone here played mabinogi before?
the game has a system(primitive compared to the AI we’re given for GW2 pets i’ll admit) where you can make a pet ai. basically make responses for it depending on what its target does (shoot ranged, charge target. if enemy comes in melee, fall back)

it would be alot of work for players to make a quality pet AI, but i think it would be fun.

plus u can use several AIs, changing your pets ai by shouting orders like
Aggro!
Heal!
support!
defend!

I secretly keep hoping there is some unorthodox combination of skills, traits, and utilities that we are missing—which the devs know about—that will result in a powerhouse Ranger build. I found a few moderately strong builds, and am still looking.

Sad to loose Healing Spring and tried a few variations of Nature Magic spirit builds. Oh my gosh. I feel bad trying this in Ranked… Horribly weak does not begin to describe the result. That being said, I feel one Spirit traited or untraited may be the way to go.

I too would love to have interrupt style play on the Ranger. I always saw Ranger as the anti-spellcaster class.

jcbroe.4329:

You’re right, and my opinion of the situation is summed up in my statements to Mohagi.

Sadly enough, every single one of the things you mentioned were nonexistant in GW1. Rangers weren’t forced to take pets, weapon skills, and even bows had decent cleave abilities (splinter barrage anyone?), and of course an entire set of pet skills, with active skills, enhancing skills, and complimentary effects between pet and player existed, with even an evolution system that specialized what unique way your pet interacted with combat (damage increased, health increased, etc).

I actually played interrupt ranger for a few years so long ago isn’t even relevant for most people, but it was an extremely high skill way to play the game competitively.

So seeing all these backward steps and my main profession dumbed all the way down to what it is has been one of my most frustrating experiences in gaming so far, and I don’t understand why ANet essentially ruined my favorite class of any game I’ve ever played.

So yeah, my experience has been ruined ever since they designed ranger in this game the way they did, before launch was ever even finalized lol.

Still, I blame the designers more than the balancers. If we had somebody like Robert Gee who had actually crafted this extensive class beginning all the way in GW1 and adapted, reinvented, and pushed for improvements the way it is evident that Robet Gee does, I don’t think the ranger community would be arguing itself out of a developmental pitfall to begin with.

Mesmer was my “second main” in GW1 though, and I can honestly say GW2 has left me little reason not to enjoy mesmer. Ranger…. Well, I enjoy what I can lol.

While I never played GW1 at a super high competitive level, Ranger was my favorite class, followed by, in no particular order, Assassin and Mesmer. Likewise, I’ve been rather disappointed with GW2 ranger as it barely even feels like an extension of the GW1 class.

Ranger went from the ‘team toolbox’ in GW1, to….largely useless in team situations.

Part of this I think stems from largely uninspired…everything. Take spirits for example. Spirits in GW2 are boring and uninspired (they’re a bad form of banners), while the spirits of GW1 had, in many cases, battlefield warping effects that weren’t so easily quantified as: more damage, more healing, more protection, etc. Spirits like Frozen Soil, Tranquility, Nature’s Renewal, Edge of Extinction, etc. could drastically warp a portion of the battlefield. GW2 spirits, not so much. And this trend continues for basically everything.

On topic:
Were rangers nerfed? Directly: not much. Things like having empathic bond and wilderness knowledge dumped into the same line hurts; Healing Spring being…not as good, hurts; ICDs added hurt. But none of these are very crippling on their own or even together, really.

Now, indirectly nerfed: very much so. Most classes, notably Mesmer, received large to massive buffs across the board, while ranger received few that can compare. This has left ranger in a relatively weak position simply because it roughly stayed the same while everything else got much better.

Further thoughts:
While I will acknowledge that the trait update wasn’t a balance patch, that doesn’t stop me from being annoyed at it essentially being an involuntary beta test. The last time I actually saw this amount of basic functionality being broken in a patch was actually ON a PTS for a game, and not the live servers. In addition, I find it somewhat disbelieve-able that someone didn’t think that stacking burning wouldn’t be a problem. Then again, I’m not overly surprised considering in GW1, the post-rework Lingering Curse was an abomination of overpoweredness; because who would ever think that having a: large AoE, high health degen, 30% heal reduction, low CD, low cast time, and low energy cost hex would be game unbalancing?

Yeah, I don’t mean my responses to make me out to an apologist, by any means, because I’m just as frustrated as the next person, I just blame different people lol.

I think that ANet handles patching and community interaction poorly. What should be done differently? For starters:

• A weekly “what’s new at ANet” blog post, boiling down to basically telling the fommunity what the main development focus of the week has been. Just telling people what’s being worked on in the immediate scope would give a layer of needed transparency (literally everything ANet tells us at this point is a “reveal,” because we are in the dark about everything) to create a stronger relationship between the developers and the community (and so people can’t keep making the toxic and vitrolic claims of how ANet is lazy and doesn’t care or do anything)

• Bring back the old system of blog posting the set in stone balance changes a month or even two before they happen with the devs concisely describing thought processes powering the changes, and give the community a chance to give feedback to the devs before the changes go live. There is a ton of balance issues that should just never ever make it to any live servers that do, and as much as you want to blame the devs, they must hhave the worst feedback gathering team/system, and simply building a communication bridge with the community could fix that.

Like… If we had this sort of communication, we could just save each other time. The player community would spend less time arguing and speculating, and the devs could spend less time designing or trying to implement horribly awful traits (Most Dangerous Game) or gamebreakingly broken traits/mechanics (Prismatic Understanding).
Win/win.

Is it just me, or is part of the nerf the fact that we are forced into the pet swap mechanic? When and where to swap pets for quickness is trickier to master than it first appears. You have to be more aware of your skills and your pet’s skills on cooldown, positioning of you, your pet, and your enemy or you could waste it. It also forces different pet combinations than pre patch. Pre patch I had my jaguar and a utility pet. The jaguar was out 95% of the time. But, now that its out almost 50/50, its a huge dps loss to put anything other than a cat as my second pet.

I also feel that we gained utility with this patch. Not enough mind you. And with a change in the mechanics as posted above, its hard to enjoy it. Frost spirit has never been more powerful or easier to use, even untraited. Clarion Bond gives us 100% party uptime of Call of the Wild if you use a Warhorn offhand. Spotter + Fury is a 27% increase in crit chance for your entire party. With the endurance nerf, swiftness is even more important. Quick Draw has its uses, double Rapid Fire anyone? Resounding Timber can also be taken now with minimal DPS loss, more DPS if you include the ability to use strength of the pack more often. You can knock regen if you want, but it helps keep over 90% health for scholars and Loud Whistle, and can add damage for those who get +damage modifiers for boons, and adds almost 20% extra heal and reduced CD on We Heal as One.

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Is it just me, or is part of the nerf the fact that we are forced into the pet swap mechanic? When and where to swap pets for quickness is trickier to master than it first appears. You have to be more aware of your skills and your pet’s skills on cooldown, positioning of you, your pet, and your enemy or you could waste it. It also forces different pet combinations than pre patch. Pre patch I had my jaguar and a utility pet. The jaguar was out 95% of the time. But, now that its out almost 50/50, its a huge dps loss to put anything other than a cat as my second pet.

I’d say part of that is the terrible pet UI. If the pet UI had a little pop-up window that showed their skills and CDs, then there wouldn’t be nearly as much guesswork. Perhaps something similar to the Hero npc control panel from GW1. That panel would be AMAZING for pets. And also, yes the forced pet swap for effects traits are dumb. The fact that they have an ICD timer is also dumb. It strikes me as a lazy way of trying to add ‘interactivity’ to the ranger’s sub-par class mechanic.

Pve wise ranger’s build rely heavily on Quick Draw and Zephyr’s Speed traits now. These mean pets and weapons swapping on regular basis. Lots of rangers are stuck on old habit of camping weapon and pet.

Quickness as a boon is extremely powerful …. period, when you don’t swap your pet … what do you really expect.
Guardian’s Feel My Wrath is on 30sec cd.
Ranger’s with trait pet swap cd reduction is 15sec. Combine ZS With QZ and Clarion Bond, a ranger will get more up time on Fury, Quickness and throw in Might Stacking and Swiftness in comparison to Feel My Wrath. (it just you need to push lot’s of buttons for them and timing is crucial).
Start with pet stow, combat, click QZ, and you get 9sec worth of quickness right of the bat. 15 sec in the fight swap your pet, +3sec quickness and then again @ 30sec mark for another +3sec. You would have a total of 15sec quickness by the time a guardian’s Feel My Wrath came off cd @ 30sec. (imagine if you are in a group with a guard, 25sec quickness @30sec mark)
Bottom line, swap your pet and swap your weapons in combat regularly when it ccame off cd. Adjust your play style.

I second the idea to buff GS damage. GS is the only viable Melee weapon in PvP for most players. GS #4 skill is our only defense against Thieves.

Please buff our damage or at least improve the pet mechanics.

Keet.3142:

… GS #4 skill is our only defense against Thieves.

Not even, it’s got a huge tell and is totally countered by D/P #3, Shadowshot.

man what are you saying….rangers bad? they are completely indestructible in 1v1 be eit power clerics rangers in pvp (yes it eats all zerkers on all classes) or trapper ranger in wvw….both downright unbeatable in 1v1 small scaled fights…..what bad spot are you talking about? also pew ranger still doing fine and condi ranger in general brokenly OP…what is the bad spot you refer to?

Right now rangers are on the verge of being op. They are everywhere in tournaments. I feel they are in a good spot right now in terms of utility and direct/condition damage