Guild Wars 2

RoyalPredator.9163:

Let’s make it clear then

Xaylin.1860:

RoyalPredator.9163:

Every class has 100% base player damage by itself, and their unique bar gives more dmg or special things.

While I didn’t read the original 70:30 post it quite obviously derived from a dev who said that Rangers are expected to bring some damage through their pet. But this also applies to other classes who have damaging class mechanics because the class mechanics are most likely not exlcuded when balancing their damage. Everything else does not make any sense at all. This means that the class mechanic has to be included for all Mesmers, all Warriors, at least power Necromancers, most Engineers and even situationally for Thieves. Comparing Ranger 70:30 to Warrior to 100:15(F1) is just inaccurate.

Okay, let’s make it clear then. As an average, classes have ~75% dmg of possible fully.
Then when they trait on it, they’ll have maximum of “100%”, + the F skills give additional dmg or features. It should matter what you trait on. If you go for damage, then go, other hands there are survivality, support, and beastmaster for us.

I am not sure if I understood you right, but all classes, with the exception of ranger’s from what I have understood from the dev’s, all classes start with 100% damage. I have not read any post’s or heard any statements from dev’s stating that mesmer’s damage is reduced because they expect clones to fill a portion of that damage. Or necro’s damage is reduced because they expect minions to fill a portion of that damage. So far the Dev’s have only mentioned ranger’s as having to give up 30% of their damage to pets. A level 80 warrior with no traits has 100% control of their damage and they have 100% of their damage. When traited, any bonus’s, 10% through this trait for using XYZ weapons, 5% this other trait, 15% for the adrenaline full trait, ect.. This is all added to the 100%, so the example I’m using above, he will have 130% damage which is a 30% buff to damage thanks to traits. That’s a given, that’s what traits are for and why some traits are for some weapons and not others.

Ranger’s on the other hand start at 70% damage instead of 100% damage with 0 traits. So you add the Bow percentage, or your traiting that way or you add the GS percentage when traiting that way and any other percentage from traits and you’ll see that you, the ranger part, does not come up to 100%. Now you have pet’s, which are suppose to be responsible for 30%, trait on them and their damage percentage is suppose to go up as well. On paper it should balance out to what warriors are doing. However, since our pets can’t hit moving targets and since are pets can’t scale walls and since our pets die in 2 seconds in zerg’s and since our pets are practically USELESS, we lose out of those 30+%. So while all other classes are doing >100+% damage, we are at <100+%.

So to recap, From the dev’s mouths as we know for sure right now, Ranger’s are the only ones that start <100% damage because of pets. Now, if a dev wants to come on here and say anything about Necro’s having the same thing or mesmer’s to clear the air on this matter that would be great. But until we hear otherwise, we only have confirmation of ranger’s having this handicap.

Speaking of which, why is it that necro’s with all of their minions don’t have balancing issues when they can spec to not use minions and not lose DPS? What’s the difference between them and us if they also have pets and theirs is optional?

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Permastowing Pets
This suggestion goes in line with my previous suggestions, which I will sum up shortly:

• Shift the damagemodel from Ranger: 70%, Pet: 30% to Ranger: 100%, Pet: Additional damage (10%)
• The pet should serve the prupose to support his master through CC and Support rather than through damage
• Investing Points into Beastmastery will shift some power back to the pet

Function:

• Stowing your pet should give you no bonuses
• You should be able to stow your pet while in fight
• You oughn’t be able to fetch your pet while in fight

Impact:

• I don’t want people to exploit the stow function to bypass all kind of AoEs
• You can stow your pet but you have to be responisble for the impact of doing so

+1 I love it.

Flytrap.8075:

misterdevious.6482:

Everquest had rangers, shamans, druids, and beast lords… this game only has one magical-nature-themed-pet-archer-class. We’re all in the same boat, the boat is leaking, and we need to stop arguing about what name is painted on the hull.

This is a good point.

Ranger is a lot more than just “the pet class”, yet that is where ANet has chosen to place the profession’s emphasis for whatever reason. In my opinion, our pet should be one aspect of the Ranger, not its defining characteristic.

That’s not to say that the pet mechanic should be removed, but it’s a bit disheartening that many of our utilities and traits revolve around our pet when there’s so much untapped potential elsewhere.

I agree with you there. I think this is why many people are asking for a stowable pet option and the reworking of the traits. This way the pet remains for those who like the concept and can be stowed for those two don’t like the concept. It’s hard to understand why some people are so against this idea when it’s not harming the pet concept idea at all. By saying no to the stowable pet option is like us saying that we should just remove pet’s completely (which I admit was my original train of thought but who am I say to pet lover’s that my way is the right way. With stowable pet’s we can have our cake and eat it too).

Criminal.5627:

actually gw1 had a beta around the same time and even before that (first beta was in 2003?), at which time gw1 looked very cartoony and nothing like what we know it now GW1 started development shortly after WoW we know this because atleast one of the founders of Anet was an employee at blizzard and did work on the early stages of WoW. but in terms of development wise gw1 was in dev by i believe 2002 (should look up the early stages of gw1 it looked pretty much identical to WoW with the cartoon figures and vivid colors)? also other games have used the pet incursion but it was something to be opted for. In those games pets pretty much instent reserected and could be controlled/buffed much easier…. pets could actually kill players.

I’m not sure when beta was, Like I said, I never played GW1 but this is from their wiki and I know wiki’s are not 100% many times:

“Beta Weekend Events were events that took place once a month to let players experience the game before official release, in 2005.

People who wanted to play had to obtain a key from someone who pre-ordered the game or get an access key from a number of fansites.

The end of the events usually involved fireworks.

There were a total of six weekends in all:

November 6th 2004 until November 8th 2004
December 4th 2004 until December 6th 2004"

However, since this really is getting out of control now and deviating from the CDI thread we should change topics I think to something that will help the ranger class in this game. Yes I know I started by naming other games so I’m trying to end it

I still believe permastow is the best option to keep the ranger’s happy and the beastmaster’s happy, that’s my vote

Edit:
Just wanted to say sorry for derailing the thread everyone

Flytrap.8075:

Akisame.9508:

Flytrap.8075:

Akisame.9508:

And no, the ranger class has never before used pets, the pet inclusion was something created by WoW if I remember correctly and adopted from there on other games.

Rangers could use pets in the original Guild Wars by slotting a specific skill onto your action bar, but they were by no means required to do so.

In fact, most Rangers decided not to use pets unless they were on certain team comps that were tailored towards minions.

ok, let’s read my sentence together. “the pet inclusion was something CREATED by WoW if I remember correctly”

There I cap’ed the ‘created’ part so you can understand. WoW was announced in 2001 and beta and full release was in 2004. GW1 was released in April of 2005, so yes, they most likely took the idea from WoW. Mind you, I never played either of these two games because I was still playing EQ1 and EQ2 at those times along with any interesting releases I may have seen.

I can read just fine, there’s no reason to be rude.

I thought you were talking about the Ranger specifically in regards to Guild Wars, especially considering that WoW’s version is known as a Hunter. I don’t really want to get into an argument about the profession’s origins in other games; I was simply mentioning how the Ranger existed in a previous installment.

Sorry I misunderstood your post then. I just get aggravated when people put words in my mouth and I may have taken it out on your post, my apologies on that.

Flytrap.8075:

Akisame.9508:

And no, the ranger class has never before used pets, the pet inclusion was something created by WoW if I remember correctly and adopted from there on other games.

Rangers could use pets in the original Guild Wars by slotting a specific skill onto your action bar, but they were by no means required to do so.

In fact, most Rangers decided not to use pets unless they were on certain team comps that were tailored towards minions.

ok, let’s read my sentence together. “the pet inclusion was something CREATED by WoW if I remember correctly”

There I cap’ed the ‘created’ part so you can understand. WoW was announced in 2001 and beta and full release was in 2004. GW1 was released in April of 2005, so yes, they most likely took the idea from WoW. Mind you, I never played either of these two games because I was still playing EQ1 and EQ2 at those times along with any interesting releases I may have seen.

phys.7689:

Sorry that anet is going to sacrifice ranger for marksman, i think the vocal minority is about to screw over 80% of the people who play ranger who play it because they have pets, or who have grown to like the class. I dont really believe the majority of people who play this class dont want a pet. But that seems to be what they are taking away from this.

I don’t know where you get your number’s from or where you pulled it out of, frankly I might not want to know where you pulled that number out off, but we do not want to change ranger for marksman, we want to change beastmaster for ranger. There is a difference, get it straight. Not only that but we are not trying to remove pets from the game entirely. Read the post’s instead of putting words in our mouths. We want the OPTION of a permastow, so if we do not want to use the pet, then we can stow them away and be more like a true ranger instead of a beastmaster. When stowing of the pet the 30% damage comes back to the ranger. If you and everyone else that wants to be a beastmaster wish to be gibbed by 30% because of the pet, well, for each their own. We are not taking the pet away from you, all we want is the option to be a true ranger.

And no, the ranger class has never before used pets, the pet inclusion was something created by WoW if I remember correctly and adopted from there on other games. But from D&D to Everquest, no pets. In books, Aragorn, no pet (unless you count Frodo as a pet), Legolas, no pet (unless you count Gimli as a pet), Will treaty, no pet (except for one book where he found a dog and trained him then gave him away in the following book), Halt, no pet, unless you count his apprentice as a pet.

Every time ranger’s are mentioned it’s an archer that is pictured wearing a green/brown cloak where they can conceal themselves in the forest, not a person who goes and trains animals to fight (frankly that is kind of barbaric and against the law in many countries, let’s not even mention that it goes against nature itself). Ranger’s are suppose to be one with nature, Beastmaster’s are suppose to be one with animals. Understand the difference of what we are asking for before you start pulling number’s out of thin air and putting words in our mouths.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Well, but they do know how much damage they have taken from the ranger and shifted to the pet. Now they have to revert that. We hardly can give more detail if we don’t know the detailed stuff. We’re all just guessing that the ranger loses 30% of his damage but we don’t know for sure. ANet knows and they have to do the changes. We just can say what we want to happen.

Actually Orca, I believe a couple of months after the game was released, ranger community was complaining that we couldn’t dps as well as all the other classes and a dev was quoted as saying that we might not see those large number’s because ‘about’ 30% of the ranger’s damage is done by the pet, so we have to figure pet damage when viewing our own damage in order to get the real DPS amount like all other classes. That is where the 30% came from. Later player’s changed it to 30 to 40 percent and I can only believe it’s because with the addition of new and more powerful gear, everyone’s DPS goes up by their 100% number’s while ours only goes up by a 70% number because as you know, pets don’t scale with our armor. Either that or people are just over exaggerating to get their point across. <Shrug>

You’ve been around here for a while and are a steadfast, reliable poster on the ranger forums, I thought you would have known that. I wish I remember exactly when that quote came out so I can link it but it was a while ago.

Edit
Just like when people say because the word ranger has the word range in it doesn’t mean we are a ranged class. In one of the video’s where they are talking about classes just a few months ago, they talked like 10 o 20 minutes about each class. when asked about ranger’s they talked about ranger’s for only 2 minutes (feeling the love there) but one of the things said was, and I don’t remember the exact phrasing of it, but that ranger’s where designed to be the long range damage dealers of the game. (would love to find that one too so I can link it here).

ItIsFinished.9462:

mtpelion.4562:

In regard to the class mechanic utilization and its effectiveness across classes, I think the explanation is as follows:

If Class Mechanic is used correctly in a perfect scenario the DPS potential is:
Guardian – 100% DPS
Warrior – 100% DPS
Engineer – 100% DPS
Ranger – 100% DPS
Thief – 100% DPS
Elementalist – 100% DPS
Mesmer – 100% DPS
Necromancer – 100% DPS

If the Class Mechanic is completely ignored, the DPS potential becomes:
Guardian – 85% DPS
Warrior – 85% DPS
Engineer – 85% DPS
Ranger – 70% DPS
Thief – 85% DPS
Elementalist – 85% DPS
Mesmer – 85% DPS
Necromancer – 85% DPS

Now, we have to then look at the scenarios that are not optimal and the probability of the scenario being not optimal (this section is approximated based on my opinion and numbers do not reflect any type of measured value):

Guardian – 100% DPS (really doesn’t have a non-optimal situation since the class mechanic is a combination of invincibility, healing, and fire damage. Immune to burning enemies/objects would be the only limiting factor)

Warrior – 100% DPS (as adrenaline builds regardless of what you are hitting, DPS potential is never lost while in combat).

Engineer – ??% DPS (I don’t have a lot of experience with Engineer, but I have noticed that some F# abilities do not function when kits are equipped so that would be a limiting factor).

Ranger – 70% DPS (When you pet is dead or cannot attack your target because of the target type/location/etc.)

Thief – 85% DPS (can’t steal against some target types)

Elementalist – 100% DPS (can always change attunements)

Mesmer – 90% DPS (I’m not super experienced with Mesmers either, but with the ease at which clones/illusions are created the only limiting factor I can think of would be enemies that the clones/illusions cannot reach and since shattering is only part of the mechanic, I’ve given them a 90%)

Necromancer – 100% DPS (Life Force can always be generated).

You explained it better than I did, also, you are referring to just DPS situations, I was referring to all aspects of the game, including PvP.

If you are agreeing with him, then you are agreeing with me. you are contradicting yourself.

“Warrior – 100% DPS (as adrenaline builds regardless of what you are hitting, DPS potential is never lost while in combat).”

Warriors deal 100% damage, as adrenaline builds regardless of what you are hitting, DPS potential is NEVER lost while in combat, However, with three bar’s of adrenaline, you are given a DPS Boost of 15%. So at full adrenaline you are now sitting on 115%. Using the adrenaline you are not at a dps lost, because you will be back to 100%.

Ranger’s are always at 70%, all I want is for my ranger to be at 100% DPS if my pet attacks (adrenaline for warriors) it’s 15% boost. When I use f2, I return to 100% damage because pet is doing animations and crap, taking it’s time to perform f2, which is all the time a warrior would need to regain adrenaline back to three bars.

Seriously? When you go into WvW, elementalist are ONLY using one attunement. FIRE. Why do you think in every fort capture/defense, zerg fights, etc, all you see is meteor shower’s all over the place? The damage amounts coming from one meteor shower is HUGE, and your telling me that’s with a 65% nerf because he’s only using one attunement? Can’t you see that your only proving my case? He doesn’t need to change attunements in order to do 100% of his damage since Fire is their best DPS element.

Thief starts off at 100% damage, their class mechanic is stealth. If they use their class mechanic, stealth, then attack from stealth (backstab) they get a burst on top of their DPS. What your saying is that Thief’s only do 60% of their damage while visible and in order for them to do their true 100% damage they have to do it from Invisible/backstab. Your incorrect, because they used their class mechanic they got an increase to their damage, not that they where given their true damage value.

I don’t have a necro, but i’m sure that necro’s are not being balanced around their pets, and I have seen them call forth an army of pets to their side. of course they are not called pets but they have them. But they are not balanced around them I’m sure because your not being forced to use them. The conjured pets are ‘added’ damage to their 100% damage.

ItIsFinished.9462:

If each of these classes lost the ability to use their Class mechanic, here are the estimated results:

• Class mechanic/F1-F4 not used in all aspects of the game per class(% decreased)
  • Engineer 30%
  • Gaurdian 20%
  • Warrior 35%
  • Elementalist 65%
  • Mesmer 25%
  • Thief 40%
  • Necro 20%
  • Ranger 30%

Ranger isn’t in such a bad position if their pet dies compared to some of the other classes.

So your saying that if everyone’s class mechanic died, we would be one of the best damage dealers? A warrior doesn’t need his class mechanic to deal his 100% of his damage, he uses his class mechanic to get a boost to his overall damage. What your saying above is like saying that warriors start off doing 35% less damage then what they are suppose to do. hmmm, and Elementalist starts off by doing 65% less damage then they are suppose to do, WOW, I’d hate to see what they do at 100% because when I start a fight with one, they come out strong and hit hard!

Allie Murdock.8152:

I’m not saying this isn’t possible, but I want you to understand exactly what that suggestion means. It would mean completely rebalancing the Ranger.

The Ranger is designed to have a pet. If the pet was taken away or didn’t do damage, then it wouldn’t be a Ranger anymore. Does that make sense?

The only reason Rangers lose damage is because the AI is not currently what it ought to be. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should completely redesign the Ranger and get rid of the pet.

Hi Allie, and thank you for your replies.

I do believe that you are understanding us incorrectly about the pet damage. We are aware that pets are suppose to be 30 percent of our damage and that is our class mechanic. What we are trying to explain to you is that no other class has to give up damage for their class mechanic. A warrior has 100 percent of his/her damage. When their class mechanic fills up they have 115% damage. They use their skill and they are back to 100 percent damage for a few seconds until their class mechanic (adrenaline) fills up again.

What we are asking for is for the ranger to have full control over their damage, 100%, just like the warrior. Let the pet do 15% damage. The time it takes for a pet to reach it’s target, stop, run animation, and begin it’s attack is the same amount of time it takes a warrior to fill it’s adrenaline bar. This puts us on even grounds with other classes. When a warrior uses his adrenaline it performs a special attack/move. when we hit our f2 the pet stops, runs an animation, performs the animation (whether it’s a heal, fear, call for a second hyena(or was it wolf? can’t remember now)) then it runs to the target, performs an animation again, then it attacks. During all of this, the warrior would have filled up his adrenaline bar already and continued doing his/her 15% extra damage. The pet is still doing damage, but now the ranger will have full control of their 100% instead of only 70% while an AI that doesn’t work does 30%, plus we lose out on damage because everyone’s class mechanic ADDS to their damage, not brings them up to 100%, their mechanic raises them above 100%

You see, this puts us on equal footing with other classes when it comes to damage. Telling us that we have to split our DPS with out class mechanic is the same as saying that warriors have to start off with a 30% reduction in damage until they fill up their adrenaline, once adrenaline is filled up then the warrior can do 100% of their damage. first bar being 10%, second bar 20% and third bar is 30%. Then warriors will only have 100% damage instead of the current 115% damage. Do you understand where we’re coming from now? Pets are still in, pets are still doing damage, at a lower percentage, if they ever hit, but ranger’s will not be handicapped when it comes to DPS. We will be on even footing with all other classes in this aspect.

urdriel.8496:

Angela Ranna.5638:

Akisame.9508:

Thank you for the summary post, however, I did not see anything in there pertaining to WvWvW. We still have the problem of them dieing way to fast in zerg vs zerg. And we also have the large issue of us loosing 30% of our damage when defending or taking a keep/fort because pet’s will not scale up or down the walls. This includes the birds which will not fly up or down the wall to attack the targets. The only way I can see to combat this would be to have pets like all over class mechanics, an addition to our damage, not taking away from our damage. For instance, warriors get to do 100% of their damage and if they have full adrenaline they do an extra 15% damage. Ranger should be set up the same way with pets. Ranger’s should have 100% control of their damage and the pet, while alive, should be able to deal an extra 15% damage. If the pet is dead then it deals no extra damage like warriors with no adrenaline will deal no extra damage. We will still have the problem of the pets not being able to hit a moving target but at least the ranger will no longer have this handicap on them.

Thing is, warriors have to build adrenaline to have that bonus damage, and they have plenty of incentive to spend it. In many scenarios ranger pet DPS is always up, so ranger base DPS has to be lower or they’d outshine other classes.

That said, pet DPS is much more often down than intended (dead, inactive to prevent dying, can’t hit spit with default creature AI, etc.), so I wouldn’t mind a band-aid to either boost pet or ranger base damages across the board to account for this. At least until pets are closer to 100% uptime.

i will change pets for a “adrenaline” bar like warrior.

I think we all would LOL

Angela Ranna.5638:

Thing is, warriors have to build adrenaline to have that bonus damage, and they have plenty of incentive to spend it. In many scenarios ranger pet DPS is always up, so ranger base DPS has to be lower or they’d outshine other classes.

That said, pet DPS is much more often down than intended (dead, inactive to prevent dying, can’t hit spit with default creature AI, etc.), so I wouldn’t mind a band-aid to either boost pet or ranger base damages across the board to account for this. At least until pets are closer to 100% uptime.

I get what your saying Angela, however, when I’m on my warrior I can build up my adrenaline very fast. It’s very easy to build it up especially in a zerg. The time it takes me to build it up is about the time it takes my ranger pet to run up to the target, charge up his attack skill and attack. If the warrior doesn’t use his adrenaline then he’s getting a constant 15% damage bonus. That’s all I’m asking for. Him using his adrenaline is no different then me using my f2 function which stops attack’s, charges a skill, performs the skill, then resumes the attack. In the time period, the warrior uses his adrenaline and recharges it with the next couple of hits, especially if he’s traited for it. Time investment for the adrenaline charge would be the same as the time investment of the f2 ability, give OR take a second or two. Comparing these two scenarios I see no reason why ranger-to-pet damage cannot be the same as warrior-to-adrenaline damage.

Prysin.8542:

Having damage tied up in the pet is NOT the core issue, it is using it. And yes, you can avoid pets by using WASD, but you can also use those same keys to avoid clone attacks, ele staff attacks, guard scepter attacks, warrior LB attacks, engineer grenades, engineer bombs, thief SB or pretty much ANY projectile and or AOE not derived from a rifle/pistol due to overall low projectile speed.

This is not entirely true, especially thief SB is not true since their attack homes in on the target unless the target uses an evade. When I play my Thief I see my arrows changing course to hit it’s target, plus the arrow bounces off and hits two other targets on top of that which is an overall dps increase compared to our AA attack. I also see very little people able to evade my mesmer’s greatsword throw by just using the WASD keys, on top of which that throw equals the distance of my short bow which seems kind of off if you ask me. The only time my clones miss is when the opponent is running away from the clone right after the clones attack. My clones just stand there staring while the guy runs away. But not all clones do this, depends on the skill used, some clones will give chase. Honestly, rifle, gun, short bow and longbow should have the best range. grenade’s being thrown the same distance and swords being thrown the same distance is just wrong.

Another problem I see with Ranger bow that I do not see as much on my thief is the obstruction message when my opponent is standing on a pebble.

Thank you for the summary post, however, I did not see anything in there pertaining to WvWvW. We still have the problem of them dieing way to fast in zerg vs zerg. And we also have the large issue of us loosing 30% of our damage when defending or taking a keep/fort because pet’s will not scale up or down the walls. This includes the birds which will not fly up or down the wall to attack the targets. The only way I can see to combat this would be to have pets like all over class mechanics, an addition to our damage, not taking away from our damage. For instance, warriors get to do 100% of their damage and if they have full adrenaline they do an extra 15% damage. Ranger should be set up the same way with pets. Ranger’s should have 100% control of their damage and the pet, while alive, should be able to deal an extra 15% damage. If the pet is dead then it deals no extra damage like warriors with no adrenaline will deal no extra damage. We will still have the problem of the pets not being able to hit a moving target but at least the ranger will no longer have this handicap on them.

Prysin.8542:

Akisame.9508:

I love this game and don’t really want to leave but if they do not either fix pets or give ranger’s 100% of their damage back, I’m gone on 4/4.

Well, if you think they can implement any of these suggestions, including balancing, testing, bug testing and effect/animation changes/improvements within 4/4 then you are sorely wrong.

So, goodbye for now, and i’d also use this opportunity to wager that you will be back on this game within the end of july.

July, probably July of 2016. And yes, it is an easy fix, lets do the fix right now…

step one. remove damage from pet. We know they can do this because they have already nerfed pet damage by 50 percent in the past. So this is easy for them, it’s a nerf, how hard can it be right? their pro’s at nerfing ranger’s. Now pet only does slight damage when a land actually hits, which is like once a week.

step two, add the missing damage back to ranger’s, the pet was suppose to deal 30% of the ranger’s damage, so they will have to up our damage to fill in that 30% gap.

step three, beastmaster trait work, for those that want to run beastmaster, allow this trait to up the damage by 20%, like the warrior’s adrenaline does 15%, but since ours is trait lined, it should give more damage. This balance’s out because we will not have as many trait points left over to buff the character’s damage, so it’s not overpowered.

step four, put it live and you tweak it on the following patch like they do for all other professions!

All of this is simple for them to do. pet’s are still in the game, and ranger’s now have full command over the damage they are suppose to do instead of a stupid AI that will NEVER be fixed.

But you see, they won’t do this, they need that easy kill in the game to make it enjoyable for all the other classes, so they can feel like gods. “you see that, I took that ranger out in two hits instead of three!” They are only giving us the illusion that they care and want to fix the class while throwing scraps at you to keep you from leaving on 4/4. open your eye’s man and read the dev posts. How do you go from a couple of months ago saying that pets F2 cannot be altered because it changes the way pet’s “think”. it means rewriting tons of code which is something they are not prepared to do. Then all of a sudden, ESO is coming out in one month and they are like, yea, we got a fix for the f2 command coming in on next patch, so stick around. This kitten should have happened over a year ago! Not before the release of a new game that has the potential to draw an exodus of this game. And in the end, they are still unwilling to fix the real problem at heart, pet AI, or removal of the pet. Because honestly, the F2 fix is crap because the pet still can’t hit a single thing that’s moving. It’s a waste of time without fixing AI!

yea, lets do a small comparison as to what our handicap would look applied to another class:

warrior: class mechanic adrenaline: For every bar of adrenaline you will have 10% LESS damage. So at three bars of adrenaline you will have 30% less DPS then when you have no bars of adrenaline. This way you are forced to USE your class mechanic instead of just letting it stay full for max damage.

Mesmer: Class mechanic Clones: Mesmer’s start of with 100% damage, for each clone they release they lose 20% of their damage while the clone picks up 10% of that damage. When all three clones are up the player will be doing 60% less damage but it’s covered by the 30% damage their clones are doing until they shatter them or whatever.

Thief: Two class mechanics, stealth and initiative: While stealthed, thief will deal 30% less damage on their next attack and will not be able to heal while stealthed. While breaking out of stealth initiative will regain 30% slower for 30 seconds. Thief can only enter stealth once every 30 seconds.

Seriously, this is what the other classes would look like if they had the same handicap that we have had to put up with for the last year and a half.

But you know what, I take a step back and have been reviewing previous posts from dev’s and i’m looking now at the timing of this thread and the statements the dev’s are saying on this thread and have come to a conclusion. This thread is more of a marketing scheme then an honest attempt at trying to fix the class. They have ESO coming out in a month and they know there will be an exodus. They think that if they do this and show an ‘attempt’ of trying to fix the class that they could slow down that exodus from GW2. I love this game and don’t really want to leave but if they do not either fix pets or give ranger’s 100% of their damage back, I’m gone on 4/4. And no, you can’t have my gold because I will not allow my hard work ingame going off to someone that will continue to support the people working in Anet who, up to now so far, for the last year and half, have done nothing but dangle a carrot over our heads promising us everything if we wait till ‘the next patch’. They know pets are broken and with serious trouble yet the nerf the pet damage? yea, that really seams like they care about us. Longbow is lackluster against the shortbow so they nerf the shortbow to make the longbow look better. Yup, feeling the love there aren’t we!

5.) What other class in the game has to wait 60 seconds, a full minute, before they can use their class mechanic? What other class in the game has to give up 30 to 40 percent of their damage for 60 seconds? For a year and a half now we have struggled with this broken class mechanic. We waited patch after patch after patch for a fix. We’ve been telling the dev’s about the broken class mechanic since day one, and the forums can prove this. We have put up with Anet’s ‘vision’ of range’s being a pet class. Anet has not been able to deliver this effectively. All we ask is to put your pride aside for one minute and put yourself in our shoes. All we want, is a class that works, a class that we can be competitive without having to put twice as much work into it as other classes. If you do not want a permastow then please consider removing the 30-40 percent damage from pets and giving it back to the ranger. Leave pets in as a utility for buffs and KD’s and fear’s and stuff like that. If the pet lands a hit let it be like a bleed, 250 damage for that one hit, something that can get laughed at. If you want them to have a bigger role then increase the amount of utilities they offer. Just doing this one thing alone fixes every single problem I mentioned above and you get to keep the pet in the game. It’s a win win situation for you guys and for us. Your vision of us being the pet class is still there, we keep the pet next to us until we need that knockdown, then we can call them back to us to keep them safe from harm. You need to give us something, please! a fix to the f2 does nothing for us if the pet won’t land that hit. you need to be flexible and give somewhere, otherwise I don’t know what will happen to this game. And I don’t mean this in a threatening way or an ultimatum or anything like that but in a business perspective, if you don’t give, coming 4/4/14 you may see an exodus in the game which will really suck for those who wish to stick around. Especially WvW will be hurting since number’s will dwindle.

We are giving you great idea’s where we can keep the pet and keep our damage, I just gave you one now. Please be flexible and work with us because I for one would like to stay here and not move on but so far it feels like your not giving me much of a choice.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Hi Allie, First, hope you are feeling better and it’s good to see you back here with us again.

Second, I understand that the Dev’s do not want to give us an option about permastow so perhaps you can answer some questions for us on how exactly they plan on fixing aspects of the pet. My questions come mostly from a WvW perspective since that’s all I do.

1.) What do they plan on doing to allow pets to hit a moving target. Right now as long as your opponent doesn’t stop moving, the pet won’t hit him. If the person stops for a second and then moves again, the pet tries an attack but the animation time is so long that by the time the animation is done, your opponent is out of his attack range. You lose opening strike and DPS because of this. As long as your opponent is moving, you are loosing out on 30 to 40 percent of your dps, and in WvW, if you stop moving, your dead, so no one stops, everyone is always moving.
2.) In zerg’s, the pet doesn’t last more then 3 seconds due to the area effects. If you keep your pet by your side so he doesn’t die in 3 seconds, you lose 30 to 40 percent of your damage due to pet inactivity. If you send your pet in and he dies and call your second pet and he dies, you are again, for 60 seconds, loosing out on 30 to 40 percent of your dps. How are the Dev’s planning on counteracting this problem?
3.) When fleeing an attacker, if he can’t hit me but he can hit my pet, putting my pet in combat mode, my movement get’s reduced, restricting my ability to ‘run away’. Same thing if he picks up agro on an NPC while I’m running away from an opponent. His agro from a poor AI program just caused my death in game because he couldn’t avoid the ‘agro point’ as well as I could.
4.) In keep defense and offense, I lose 30 – 40 percent of my damage because my pet will not scale up or down the walls. Not even my birds will fly up or down the walls, almost as if they where afraid of heights or something. Again, this puts me at a 30 to 40 percent damage handicap. We use to be able to use guard to send our pets up and down but Anet effectively removed that option from us. In one of the patches they made it clear that they fixed it so pets no longer scale walls. This puts us at a disadvantage compared to all other classes.

Shouts pertain to pets, until we know what is happening with pets, we won’t know what to ask for when it comes to shouts. Perhaps you would rather talk about signets? oh wait, signets also pertain mostly to pets don’t they? well, I guess we’re stuck on trying to find out what’s going on with pets so we can see what direction to take this profession on shouts and everything else along the line. But since the dev’s don’t collaborate in a collaborative thread, we are mostly typing blind.

Even if the Pet’s where fixed to hit their targets reliably, the ranger will still be at a disadvantage in WvW during Keep Defense/Offense. Pet’s do not scale up or down walls, they use to, but Anet put a stop to that. Not even our birds will fly up or down a keep wall to attack it’s target. So during these situations, Ranger’s are producing 30% less damage then what they are suppose to be doing. Even with Pet AI fixed, we will still have this disadvantage. The best option so far is permastow, where the ranger can gain 100% of his damage if he put’s his pet away. For those who want to keep the pet, they can keep the pet, no one will take it away from you, (no pun intended off of Obama’s lies).

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that pet’s should be removed from the game because they don’t work and Anet already stated that they will NOT be fixing the pet. But to make those that like to turn their ranger’s into beastmaster’s (should be considered a crime), this option will allow them to continue playing as a beastmaster. Those who wish to play the ranger as a ranger, will now have the option to do so. And Anet get’s to keep their dignity by not removing the pet from their narrow minded view of the class. It’s a win win win situation I think. And it should be fairly easy to implement and not many traits will have to be touched since pet’s are still in the game.

Darksteel.8412:

In my honest opinion…the ranger doesn’t need any buffs at all, in general it’s pve player that complains about the ranger… but that’s only due to tunnelvision. in pvp/wvw the ranger is a very good class, and has some if not one the best condi removal traits in game and is quite capable of soloing any class. It might not be a toptier pve class…but it’s up to par with the so called toptier classes in pvp/wvw….imo stop the crying and play a little better

What game are you referring to? Best condition remover’s? on par with toptier classes in pvp/wvw? I only WvW and trust me, you can’t be talking about GW2. Do you even play a ranger? I see you only have two posts on here…EVER. Are you a thief or warrior in disguise trying to keep your free kill?

Atherakhia.4086:

I have no idea what’s going on… I think we’re just arguing over semantics here.

The 2 scenarios you mention have the same DPS. The backstab scenario is better though because no one is doing just backstab. They frontload the backstab and follow it up with their auto-attack combo twice, then C&D and backstab again. So this does basically 5k damage + 10k damage + 2k damage over 4 seconds. This is much better than the Ranger’s alternative of auto attack + rapid fire and repeat.

actually I think a thief is a bad example because while he’s done his 15-17k damage in 4 seconds, by the time you turned around, targeted, and started your own counterattack, he’s already invisible and lining up for another 15k attack since there are no cooldowns for him. so your dps is drastically lower then the thief because he goes invis and you can’t attack him while invis. All you can do here is pull out your GS and swing like a blind mad man

jcbroe.4329:

I haven’t ever seen anything that was nerfed unnecessarily, and for the most part, this a perception that is shared by people who play every other single class.

So if every class is getting nerfed every patch, since that would be the overall perspective you would find if you took the opinions of every profession and combined them together, it seems like overall, ANet is slowly pushing the game in a different direction by changing things they don’t like for every class.

Also, they are only human, they can make mistakes too. They can over-nerf and over-buff things but when there is an actual goal, or baseline in mind that they are balancing towards, those are the things that will get corrected and ironed out along the way.

Am I personally happy with the ranger class and some of the changes that have occurred? Absolutely not at all. But I am happy to know that there is an idea in mind for the class, and that these changes aren’t just shots in the dark trying to hit a target.

And, just in general, not directed at any particular person, I don’t think that is fair to make demands and then be unhappy when things don’t happen immediately. Not only does developing and balancing a game take time and the efforts of multiple development teams when the changes call for it, but there is also bureaucratic red tape and procedures that have to be met, along with a fair amount of QA, and then having to make the decision of whether or not it is a healthy time to introduce something into the game, or whether it would be too much of a kneejerk change that would end up hurting more than fixing at that time.

Pets where nerfed several times last year, even their damage was nerfed by 50%. I’m not unhappy because things aren’t happening immediately, I’m unhappy because it’s been a year and a half and we’re still on the same exact problems since day 1 with NOTHING being done in that year and a half span. I think after a year and a half, if they can’t get the stupid pet working then it’s about time to remove that stupid thing! What’s it going to take, another two years before they get the pet working? Sorry, I’m not sticking around that long waiting for a change that should have happened last year! And I know many people are in the same boat.

I’m not attacking you so please don’t think that. But honestly think to yourself, it’s been a year and a half and we are still, to this day, regurgitating the same problems and fixes since DAY 1! Has anything been fixed in that time? NO, all we got was an answer saying that they know pets are broken but they can’t fix it without screwing other things up so they are not going to touch pets. This tells me that whether we like it or not, we will always have a broken mechanic. Them coming on here and saying that they will NOT remove pets, means that they don’t care that we have a broken mechanic. As long as this broken mechanic stays with us, we will always be broken! I am a paying customer, I paid for this product and it’s not up to par as the description claims and all they can do is say sorry, I won’t fix it! kitten them! They have this stick shoved so far up their kitten about ranger’s being a pet class that they can’t see that they are hurting the ranger class by being so single track minded! The pets don’t work, you won’t fix the pet, so remove the kitten thing already. up our damage to what it should be if the pets actually worked and we’re done! If they still want us to be a pet class then leave the pets in as a utility for buffs and KD’s and Fear’s and crap like that. I’ve never seen a company that care’s so little about it’s customers!

I’m not taking this out on you Jcbroe, and I’m sorry if it sounds like that. I’m normally interested in reading what you write overall, I’m just so tired of this crap already. we’ve been ignored for over a year and when I hear a dev speak here, I feel more and more assured that they honestly don’t plan to fix us…or don’t know how to fix us, so we’re gonna end up more screwed then we are right now. I would honestly love to know how many of them actually play a ranger as their main, I’m dieing to know the answer to this question, because it can’t be many…if any at all.

jcbroe.4329:

In the realm of risk/reward balancing, it only makes sense to have to sacrifice DPS for burst. Burst shouldn’t be a mechanic that increases DPS on top of what you’re sustaining, it should take the damage that is typically done in a given time frame, and with some setup the equates to “skilled” gameplay, condense it into a smaller time frame that’s harder to recover from for an opponent.

Burst should never be a “limit break,” and I think that what Allie is trying to say is that the intent and the direction that the balance team is attempting to take the game is to make certain current damage options that are too strong for how often and easily they are able to be used and reduce their capabilities and “spam” ability, and in that sense, once all of the details are ironed out, rangers will theoretically be able to do the same damage as any other class in a given time frame, but have less “instantaneous” damage, so that the damage is output consistently as opposed to in chunks.

With that philosophy in mind, it makes it so that “whiffing” any attack on rangers is going to be less punishing than whiffing a burst skill that can’t be spammed on other classes, because where rangers will be able to recover and pick up where they left off, so to speak, other classes are going to be made much more vulnerable when they expend their burst options, which means that during fights, rangers will have lots more opportunity to gain momentum and control fights due to how rangers output their damage.

I do not believe ANet is following that philosophy, because if they where, they wouldn’t be nerfing us continuously as they have been. They would be leaving us alone and nerfing everyone around us instead. But if you look at their prior patch history, ranger’s continue to get nerfed on their damage and survivability.

Prysin.8542:

Akisame.9508:

I still say if you want to fix ranger’s, REMOVE THE STUPID PET’S! Up our damage 30-40% which is what the pets are Suppose to do and we’re set. From there we can start fine tuning the profession and it’s weapon’s.

If we remove the pet entirely, what are we left with?
A warrior with less armor, less HP, more evades, the poison spam of a thief and the sustain of a guardian.
Upping ranger damage by 30-40% would make us ridiculously OP. All you’d ever need to do is spam LB AA at all ranges. As todays current LB in zerker does like 3-5k crits constantly, add 30% to that and you will be doing 4-6.5k crits all day every day, every 1.25 seconds.

What’s the difference between us doing that and a thief spamming the same skill with no cooldown’s? usually the thief spamming the same skill (heartseeker) can normally take you down in 3 to 4 hits, not crits, HITS, less then 5 seconds. And no, it’s not overpowered because the pets are suppose to account for 30-40 percent of our damage, and since pets don’t hit moving targets, that makes us handicapped by 30-40 percent. So no, we will be at the level we where intended to be at. This also gives us the opportunity to gear effectively. Right now if you want anything close to the resemblance of burst, you have to go full zerker gear. This gives you no protection and guarantee’s an easy death. By doing this we can now equip some protective gear along with our zerker gear to have somewhat of a survivability setup while still being able to do good….ummm…‘sustained’ damage. Or you can stay in full zerker being able to kill people just as fast as a thief can or a warrior with 100blades

Durzlla.6295:

Not to mention burst isn’t NEARLY as useful as sustain is, burst can be completely nullified by a good player with relative ease thanks to the dodge mechanic, sustain can not. If you want to weaken sustain damage you’ve gotta run a defensive build, and if you’re running a defensive build you’re good vs burst damage too.

For example, if the enemy pops a CD to go invuln for 6s as someone’s bursting, all their damage is gone, where if they popped it vs us sustained damage dealers it’s hardly an issue because we deal the same damage at a constant rate overtime.

I usually agree with you Durzlla, however I don’t fully agree with you here because your not taking the weapon swap into account. Once your burst run out on your main weapon, you can swap to your secondary weapon and start all over again. 99% of the time, that’s all you need to finish the job in the example you gave. In PvP and WvW, Burst is king. The fact that most classes can burst 15k damage within 5 seconds is telling you that burst wins, mainly because the majority of classes have less then 15k hp’s. Sustained will never beat out burst in this game because of weapon swap…or if your a thief, because of the majorly overpowered stealth.

I still say if you want to fix ranger’s, REMOVE THE STUPID PET’S! Up our damage 30-40% which is what the pets are Suppose to do and we’re set. From there we can start fine tuning the profession and it’s weapon’s.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

Because of ranger pet’s poor AI not being able to hit moving targets, the ranger’s class is being handicapped by 30-40%. So I doubt a 20% increase to our damage would be much of a ‘power creep’ since we will still be handicapped from 10-20% because of the pet. I understand that you guys want to fix pets but honestly, it’s been over a year now that we have had to deal with this handicap with no one bothering to fix pets. How much longer are we going to have to put up with this handicap?

And when you mention sustained DPS compared to burst DPS, Burst is KING. In your example, you said that the DPS class can do 15k damage in the first 10 seconds? honestly, its usually more like 5 seconds, anyways, what you have to realize is that most classes, we only have 15k HP or LESS. And some of these classes do these bursts so quick that there is no time to hit the heal or even after the heal what little damage they can do is just enough to finish the job. Thief’s can take you down in three hits, no cooldowns on their abilities and if they fail, they just invis, which pulls them out of combat and heals them and they can just start all over again while his opponent is still in combat, unable to run at normal speed because he’s still in combat mode. No risk there with great burst. It’s funny how they said all classes will be able to go healing, damage or whatever route they want, but they never showed the disclaimer saying except for ranger’s, they have to be sustained damage only.

Which comes another thing, why, in order for a ranger to do damage, do we have to use melee weapons? Your own description of ranger’s emphasizes that we are suppose to be able to take down our targets from range, which means we are suppose to be a ranged class, yet our ranged damage is poor compared to our melee damage. This professions needs a lot of help and by suggesting that you guys are afraid of a ‘power creep’ just tells me that I shouldn’t be looking for any meaningful, needed changes anytime soon, which is a real shame since we’ve waited for over a year for change and haven’t seen anything worthwhile! I don’t mean to be coming off negatively here but we have waited to long for updates to this pathetic profession and every time I read something from the devs I feel more assured that no one in the company even plays the ranger. The gap difference between ranger’s and all other professions is just mind boggling and your talking about a ‘power creep’. Hell, if the ranger’s receive a power creep I’d say GREAT, it’s about time the shoe is on the other foot! work us down from there, but I’m sick and tired of these minimal changes that do absolutely NOTHING for us, and we’re still dealing with the stupid pets! Can’t you use the Necro’s as your pet class? Sorry, I’m just frustrated and after reading your posts I know for a fact not to look forward to anything on the next patch.

Bran.7425:

So what I am gathering from this is a lot of skimming while reading is going on.
If we are going on the assumption that the flavors text are correct then Warrior will have to remain a better archer as he is a “master of weaponary” and a bow is still a weapon.

Wrong, Being a master of weapons means he has the knowledge of all weapons. He would be just as good with a hammer as he would be with a sword, he is proficient in all weapons aspects because he has studied and learned how to use all weapons.

From Guildwars2 Website:
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

let’s start with unparalleled from the dictionary:
“having no parallel or equal; exceptional.
‘the sudden rise in unemployment is unparalleled in the postwar period’
synonyms: exceptional, unique, singular, rare, unequaled, unprecedented, without parallel, without equal, nonpareil, matchless, peerless, unrivaled, unsurpassed, unexcelled, incomparable, second to none; "

This means that warriors are not better then ranger’s with the bow because ranger’s have no equal and we are second to none with the bow. According to Anet’s description:
“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”
This is the reason why I, and I am sure that many others, Chose Ranger for our class. Because we wanted to be archers/ranger’s, a person that can take down their target from a distance with the bow. So everyone that keeps on saying that because ranger has the word range in it doesn’t mean we’re a range class, please, grab a napkin and wipe your mouth off because your talking kitten! According to Anet, which this is an Anet game, Ranger was designed with just that in mind, a RANGE class. All you have to do is read the description of the class to see that. Until Anet comes in and changes the description on their website to say it’s suppose to be a melee class, it is a range class.

Unfortunately, when they implemented the profession they screwed up and nerfed it’s range damage to the point that we are not second to none but we are now third to warrior and thief. And the implementation went wrong when they added the damage to the pets, reducing our damage, effectively handicapping the profession by 30-40%. Ranger’s have to work 30-40% harder then any other class in order to be effective in the game. This is why we are shunned from groups, this is why we are looked down upon, and this is why we are the punch line of every joke I hear in the WvW chat.

I stopped playing for about 4 months and came back to give it another shot, after two months of trying to get somewhere in WvW and having a tough time I rolled a mezmer and a warrior and in WvW I destroy things with both of those classes The mezmer is such a wonderful roamer, while the warrior can just run through zerg’s stunning everyone around them with the hammer…the TONS of bags I would get with my warrior. Ranger’s are so underpowered it’s pathetic and when you play other classes you realize this. It honestly does feel like ranger’s are the red headed stepchild of the game. I just finished purchasing ESO this weekend, I’m not big on the game play of ESO but at least archery isn’t as hindered as it is in GW2. Since GW2 is free to play, when and IF they ever do fix ranger’s, I’ll just hop back on again…but for now, I’m tired of being the free bag. I’ll stay here voicing my opinion because I want to see this game succeed and I would love to return, but not until the profession is working as the class description tells us it should work.

Chrispy.5641:

from this thread :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/3667926

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

whether they specifically reference this thread/other threads or not, the influence was obviously felt, since this has long been a complaint from many, many, many posters in these forums.

unfortunately this is still useless. Until they get the pets to actually be able to hit moving targets and until they can get pets to avoid area effect, effectively keeping them alive for something longer then 2 seconds in WvW Zerg, this ability is USELESS and a waste of time. This solves NOTHING for us at all because the pet can’t make contact with moving targets. We are still at a DPS loss, we are still handicapped until they either fix the pet correctly or remove the stupid thing from the game!

Why do ranger’s have to be penalized with pets? Do thiefs have to wait 60 seconds to restealth if they failed at stealthing? Do warriors have to wait 60 seconds to use an adrenaline move if they failed to make contact with their adrenaline attack? Does any class have to wait 60 seconds to use their class mechanic if they failed using it? No, but ranger’s have to wait 60 seconds to use their class mechanic if we fail to keep the pet alive.

Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage due to poor AI? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being up on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being on the ground while your on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage during the ENTIRE zerg battle in WvW? No, only ranger’s have to live with this handicap.

This update for the f2 is an attempt to quite the masses as ‘look, we’re working on it’ but in reality it does NOTHING for helping us with our core issues! If they where serious about working on pet’s they wouldn’t have wasted their time on this and they would have been finding a way to make pet attack connect with their targets. I still say if they can’t get pets to connect with their targets and avoid area effect’s then they should just remove the pets and give the DPS back to the ranger until they can actually get pets to work correctly, which probably won’t happen for another 3 years from the speed I see ANet working on this class.

I fail to see why everyone is so happy about? Pet’s are still useless because they can’t hit a moving target! What good is the responsiveness if they can’t hit the target because the target is moving? This is what should have been fixed first. I still say we are better off if they just remove the stupid pet from the game because this responsiveness is useless until they do something about the pet making contact with moving targets!

Flytrap.8075:

Paulie.6215:

Flytrap.8075:

Still waiting to hear about these “amazing” changes.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you…this is Anet. I don’t believe they have any plans for the ranger. They just simply may not be intelligent or creative enough to figure it out.

They probably think that adding combo fields to other traps (something that should have been there to begin with) is going to be received as super awesome innovation.

Unless they rework the pet mechanic, bring Ranger utilities and traits in line with other classes, and/or streamline awkward weapon skills, I’m going to be disappointed.

Everyone will be disappointed, except for other professions, they get to keep their free kills.

Sorry, Guardian and Ele are the only two classes I haven’t played. So wasn’t aware of that problem that Guardians have.

hehe, we’re talking about LB ranger, not warrior or engineer. At max range, all he has to do is hit A and D, moving back and forth over and over again, the ranger at max range will not land a hit. If he does land it hit he’ll most likely be healed up in full before the next hit lands. I do not believe any other class has this problem. Rifle projectile moves faster so you can’t side step it like that, same for engineer. Thief bow is a heat seeking missile that follows you no matter where you run. And we’re talking LB max range damage only, no pet I’m gonna be 20 gold richer

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

This still doesn’t solve the issue of the pets dieing in two seconds in WvW zergs and keep battles (defense and offense where your pet can’t run up or down the walls, or the birds can’t fly up or down the walls) In these three instances the ranger’s are handicapped by 30% because our pets are useless.

For those that say Ranger’s aren’t suppose to be the best at range, ANet not only has the class description saying that ranger’s are suppose to take down their foes at range but in one of the talks they did, they said ranger’s are suppose to be the ‘best’ ranged fighting class in the game. (or something to that effect, if I find the clip I’ll post it).

hooma.9642:

another suggestion for powerranger:
the knockback on counterattack is unfortune. without knockback and simply a knockdown a powerranger could follow with maul. esp against as example who used blindfield + heartseeker to stealth.

Nah, the knockback is not that bad, because you can LB #5 to try and slow the target down, when he’s half way to you #2 rapid fire, then #4 when he’s up close to you to push him back, switch to 2HS, Swoop on him, Stun him with #5 then maul while he’s stunned to increase your chances of landing the maul. For me this is the best combo I use many times in a 1vs1 situation. Sometimes you can’t use rapid fire because they use a gap closer on you, so you waisted your number 5 and jumped strait into the pushback.

apocalypso.4895:

If you want to do damage with a ranger stop using lB or SB.
Use Sword/Axe, Greatsword. You’ll need to also use your pet too (Jungle Stalker, Jaguar, Raven, Owl).
Maul can hit for 22k+ and Path of Scars can hit for 25k+ if both hits land however both are quite hard to pull off in real combat situations and anything you get out of your pet beyond 5 might stacks from jungle stalker you have to consider as luck.
If you play smart, it’s actually a fun build to run in a zerg, one shotting distracted people.

I have never seen a maul do 22k+. I’ve seen it do 8k, I’ve done 6k myself, but 22k I have never seen. I would love to see the video of that.

Dave Pare.2069:

Akisame.9508:

Anet already said they will not touch pets because it will break lord knows how many more things with NPC’s in game. That leaves two options, 1.) removal of the pet and the lost damage being returned to the ranger. 2.) rewriting the pet code which they said they do not have the resources to do right now. So the only option I see is option 1.) removal of the handicap!

I totally agree with you 100%. The fact is (unfortunately) Anet already made it clear that they’re not removing the pet from Ranger class nor will they rework the A.I.

The best thing I could think of was a solution in order to put this potentially 30% damage from pet to any use. The core issue with pets is that they die quickly and they do not hit a moving target, so buffing a 20-30% both attack speed and movement speed (with or without trait I don’t care at this point) will contain, at least, the problem of the pet never hitting!! (that would also be logical: a wolf or a bear or a jaguar runs definetly faster than a man)

Ok, to the first point you made about ANet making it clear that they will not remove pets from ranger. There is a difference here. They said pets are broken, they said that they do not have the resources to fix pets, which means they don’t have the resources to rewrite the code. However, them removing pets is not a resource problem, it’s a stubborn issue that they have. They won’t remove it because they don’t want to, not because they can’t. Big difference there. And it’s not even a matter of removing pets. We know they can remove damage from pets, we know this because they nerfed the pet damage once already in the past. So if they remove the damage from pets, pets will now be solely utility based. Now they can increase the factor’s in our weapons which they reduced in order to compensate for the 30% the pet was suppose to give. We know they can do this because recently they gave us a little bump on longbow. From here it’s just a matter of changing the trait line for BM. F2 refreshing faster, Skills lasting longer, etc. This is all doable with minimal resources. However, rewriting pet AI is long and intense requiring major resources. Big difference.

As for the second part you put down, if they can get the pet to hit moving target’s by doing those changes then fine, but that has to be done WITHOUT traiting for it because it’s our mechanic that should work to begin with. I can see traiting for avoiding area effect, but not as a grandmaster trait, that’s just BS.

CRrabbit.1284:

Aegael.6938:

I think the LB skills are all pretty solid. It’s an extremely powerful “burn down” weapon, where, if you don’t close the distance with the ranger quickly, he’ll kill you very fast.

How about you use LB ranger, I use what ever class, I stay in 1500 range from you and let you shoot me. Feel free to go full zerk, I won’t even bother to get close to you, I just run/dodge/heal etc, see how long you can take me down? Wanna try this ??

I got 20 gold saying after 2 minutes at max range, he won’t be able to take you down to half health with a longbow

Norjena.5172:

In PvE? NO!
Ele Staff can do more then 12k dps (yes DPS not burst, not a single skill). 6k AA + 6k Lavafont are easy to get. Fullbuffed much more.
Not including Icebow/Staff Fire 5.

Engineers can do more range dps just by using rifle 1. Grenades or SD + Toolbelt will do much more dps then a ranger can do.

Ele’s can do some insane damage. A couple of nights ago in WvW we where defending a keep and it looked like the zerg that was attacking had a line of zerker ele’s that meteor showered the wall and wiped about half of us out before we could dodge out of the way. It was nasty, I was down in like three hits from what I saw.

CRrabbit.1284:

The reason of the “hate in the community towards the ranger class” is becoz ranger is underdog since day1. Ranger has been considered as a free kill for so long time, then once any viable competitive build appears, it makes ranger not a easy kill. “Lose to a ranger” is the biggest shame to other classes — that’s where the hate comes from.

+1 I agree!

Dave Pare.2069:

First of all, the “almighty” pet:
• the A.I. isn’t very good, we know that, but I think there may be other solutions to fix the problem without having to rework the entire “pet system”. For example, the pet would have better chances to hit something (besides the air) if the attack speed of our omnipresent fellow was buffed by default or added to a trait or something.
What about the “agility training” Skirmishing trait (VI) would not only give a 30% increased movement speed for pets but also a…let’s say 10-20% attack speed for them as well?

No, Right now ranger’s have to trait into everything in order to make them viable, because without the traits, their useless. If we are going to have to trait into our class mechanic in order to make it viable, it’s USELESS! Either it get’s fixed right off the bat or remove the useless pets! There is no in between. I’m tired of having to trait into things to make them useable, I don’t see any other class having to drop their points into a trait they don’t want in order to make their class mechanic viable, we shouldn’t have to either.

Anet already said they will not touch pets because it will break lord knows how many more things with NPC’s in game. That leaves two options, 1.) removal of the pet and the lost damage being returned to the ranger. 2.) rewriting the pet code which they said they do not have the resources to do right now. So the only option I see is option 1.) removal of the handicap!

I have not found any better suggestion that will solve the pet issue then this because all suggestions are like what you just said, traiting. Or doing things that Anet already said they will NOT do because it will break NPC code’s so I don’t even know why they are mentioning those changes. Yes, Anet said they want ranger to be a pet class, which is why I said they could leave the pet in as a UTILITY! nothing more, nothing less. Have the beast master trait line improve those utilities, like instead of 35 second cooldowns you now have a 30 second cool down on the f2.

Bottom line is pet damage needs to be removed and given to the ranger, the pets are unreliable and Fail in their ability to provide the 30% damage they are suppose to provide. In WvW they fail in zergs, they fail in keep defense, they fail in keep attacks, they fail in AoE damage…overall, they are an EPIC FAIL and need to be removed or address in someway. we have dealt with this failure for over a year, enough is enough.

Xuven.2917:

4. Pets
Add more pet skills for each pet, giving us variety, choice and utility options in each pet. Allow us to equip it’s skill like a slot skill would work. E.g. The wolf can have Terrifying Howl OR his “new alternative”, Call Pack which could summon multiple weak wolves for a short duration.

As much as I would love to see this, as long as pets cannot hit their targets because their targets are moving, then this is useless. If ANet cannot get the pets to actually hit moving targets then the pets should be removed until they have the resources and time to rewrite the pet code. They have already acknowledged that pets are not working as intended and that they will not fix them. We’ve had this broken mechanic, this handicap for over a year now, it’s time to remove the pet until they rewrite pet code. Sorry, I’m tired of my ranger being the punch line of every joke in the WvW chat

for me the biggest problem we have right now is pets. If pet’s are not working and as ANet already acknowledged that they are not working as intended and they do not plan on fixing them, then that means it’s time to remove them. Sorry your idea for a pet class didn’t work but you need to pull the ranger out of the gutters and the only way of doing that is by getting rid of the pet. If you don’t want to get rid of the pet completely then please remove the pet damage and give it to the ranger’s so our DPS will no longer be handicapped by 30% or more, as it is right now. You can leave the pet in the game as a utility tool for all I care. Once that is done and we test it out we can move forward from there on what will need buffs and what would need nerfs. For instance, rapid fire on LB should have a shorter channeling time because as it sits now, we can do the same DPS using our skill #1. And please for the love of god, don’t nerf skill #1 just to make rapid fire look better, please, actually FIX rapid fire.

PS. Thank you for the response Allie, it’s much appreciated.

grom.5239:

Too many people who just don’t know say the damage is bad, it’s decent, check out Brazil’s build guide and 4 min cof1 run with only rangers, sword horn is ace atm… long bow every slates… and they are again wrong, LB has a purpose, long range, if you trait for it, berserker gear and stand max range to get the best damage from it you can hit for 3-4k per auto attack, and up to 16k Rapid fire. Don’t misunderstand, LB is not good in dungeons where you should stick with your group, but exploration, and esp world boss events it’s amazing. People also forget pets contribute a huge portion of rangers damage.

Short answer, Yes, if you do your research and play them right.

I wish people would stop giving false or incomplete information. Your auto attack does not do 3-4k damage, it can CRIT for 800 – 4k damage. There is a difference, you don’t always crit and not all crits are high because I’ve gotten some really small crits that makes me want to cry! Also, Rapid fire normally gives you the same amount of damage as you would get using skill #1 auto fire if you where using skill #1 at max range. This is why you only use rapid fire when your up close. Problem is as a range player, you should NOT be up close, you should be at range. Problem we have is we only have one skill that gives us breathing room, that will push the attacker away from us, this one skill is on a very LONG cd and is easily blockable and I’ve had it bounced back at me. Meanwhile, your target will normally have at least 2 gap closers. So, no matter what you do, you can’t keep your range from the target because there are WAY to many gap closers in this game. Hell, warrior’s have like 4 gap closers which is why they are considered to have the best mobility in the game. And for those that say this is not counting pet damage, please remember, pet’s can NOT hit moving targets. In WvW pets are dead in the first two second of any zerg fight because of area effect damages. Pets, especially birds, do not fly up keep walls or down keep walls to attack your target, so many, many, many, many, (to many) times, you have 0 pet damage when the pet is suppose to provide 30% of your damage in a fight.

If you ask “can ranger’s do decent ranged damage?” the truth is, in our current state, If you want to sacrifice survivability for higher damage, then yes, Ranger’s can do ‘decent’ ranged damage. We are not the best at the ranged damage but we are decent. In our current state, if you want some survivability, then the answer is No, Ranger’s do NOT do decent ranged damage. If Anet was to remove pets and give ranger’s back their 30% damage then the answer would most likely be Yes, ranger’s do decent and most likely exceed in ranged damage. However, that is a wet dream that would never bear fruit I’m afraid.

I believe engineer rifle turret does 1500 according to the tooltip

Wow, it’s so funny that if you put the word isn’t and then the word it right after, ANet picks that up as a bad word, isn’kitten Yet they let BS go through, LOL

Atherakhia.4086:

Substance E.4852:

Atherakhia.4086:

At least with it being a field now maybe it will hit 5 targets. Still worthless overall and no one will ever slot this.

I’d rather they fix bonfire so it hits the full 5.

Yea, I don’t understand it.

Spirit only hits 3 as well I believe? Same with Lightning Reflexes.

Yea, it’s funny isn’kitten When something is broken and it’s a benefit for us, they fix it really fast, like the longbow fury thing last month I think it was. However, if it’s broken and is hurting us or not doing what it should do, they don’t care and don’t even bother looking into it. For me this company is full of BS and I don’t think we should hold our breath’s for any fixes on this next patch. I have a feeling we’ll be getting more nerf’s then fixes….again.