Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to learn Tempest in higher level fractals, and I’m pretty new to it. I was fighting the champion ettin and shaman bosses, but couldn’t see anything with all the spell effects going around.

Since I’m a zerker tempest, a rogue attack can one-shot me from near full health. How am I supposed to react to something that I can’t see? I’ve been relying on intuition or the rare opportunity that the bosses aren’t plastered with visual effects, but that can only get you so far.

Is there something I’m missing? L2P issue? Anything I can do? Thank you.

Starbreaker.6507:

Ehecatl.9172:

I often feel like I’m handicapping myself if I am soloing open world content on anything but my druid. The pet is a life saver and the amount of healing you have on top of decent damage output makes you very hard to kill. You also have perma swiftness from a druid trait so you don’t need to waste utilities building for mobility.

I echo that sentiment.

I also like all the tools to help break the bazillion break bars that every mob in HoT has when you’re out in the open world.

I never truly appreciated that until I hit Auric Basin!

I’ve swapped to tempest for open world stuff, and I find it pretty laughable that I can out perform my ranger, a profession that I’ve put over 1k hours into, by a profession I’ve only put less than 30% of the time into.

Survivability is not a valid reason either, learn to use your active defenses on other professions. And again, for the sake of outing the problems with this profession, the damage is NOT decent. Buff the damage output of all our weapons by 50%, and we would barely be mid tier in the DPS department.

On the contrary, I feel like I’ve been handicapping myself with the druid.

1.3k hours on ranger here.

Yes, our damage sucks in contrast to any other profession that is not Mesmer. The benefit though, is that we have a lot of damage modifiers that we can share with others, as well as emergency group heals.

If you are soloing in open world, yes, a ranger won’t be able to slaughter the trash mobs as fast as other professions. If you want to solo champions, just roll viper necro. Power ranger has a lot of upfront damage, but quickly falls off after. Condi ranger is alright, but it has a big caveat. That is, the enemy has to be stationary for you to do your thing.

This seems pretty contradictory to what most people picked up a ranger for pre-HoT(except for some unique snowflakes), I too never expected this kind of elite spec, and if I had known, I would have never invested so much time in this profession pre-HoT ;_; .

Tragic Positive.9356:

It doesn’t activate when you are at full HP.
You have to be below in order to activate the field.
Or enter it when below full HP.

Thanks.

Still won’t activate when I set it down. Or Am I doing something wrong?

sophiewhite.3149:

g2a sells it for less than 30$ just saying. its where i got myne.

That site is known to sell a lot of codes that have been generated using illegal means. I.E someone buys a code using a stolen CC and sells it on the site for much cheaper. If the purchase gets back charged by the actual owner of the CC, you will get perma-banned if the code was applied on your account.

I assure you that the amount of rangers using the sword will exponentially increase if they fixed the terrible auto-attack.

We have no way of knowing Anet’s most current stance on this often REPEATING complaint because they do not communicate with us.

RedZebra.2345:

And unfortunately i’m a solo player so legendary or diamond is out of my reach

Except people have gotten to diamond solo.

Try playing a tempest in PvE, then go back to your ranger. The damage difference is insane. Though for sPvP, I have to disagree. Druids are really good in sPvP atm, plenty of us here soloQ’d to diamond using only druid. They are really strong 1v1 and respectable in team fights.

Though, I have a feeling they will drastically reduce our daze duration numbers [though it is well deserved].

This is what I said since they revealed the druid elite spec, no one has ever rolled a ranger pre-elite spec thinking that they will play the healer role, they probably picked it for the bow-archetype and some others for the pet.

Ranger is a mess of a class, and why should the devs restrain themselves while working on the class when the premise of the class is faulty? The class needs to be reworked from the ground up, but we all know this will never happen.

Lets see what balance changes and PR comments they have to save grace after new years first. You can’t just release this mess and not communicate AND expect your game to be successful.

kzar.3079:

Well, for me ranger will always be my main, no matter what. I play for fun and immersion, not to go along with what some “meta” says it’s better. The differences between damage potencial are not so big to disregard any profession. Besides, there are no damage metters in this game so most meta advertisements are just guesses and supositions.

You show those elitists, ruining the immersion and fun of the game!

A lot of weapons don’t make sense on some professions. I’m seriously of the opinion that Anet needs to release a MAJOR patch that looks into the design of every class and addresses the issues that the community have pointed out.

Huge.5891:

Oh. I haven’t been in there in weeks. Might see if people are interested in trying again.

Yup, a lot of strategies around the web now. Also, as another player said, try to find yourself people that actually care to improve, or are not ignorant enough to know that they have to change the way they play to do well in the raid [proper builds, mechanics , etc].

The vale guardian is considered easy now.

NikeEU.7690:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Cameron Rich.3905:

Mor The Thief.9135:

So how many buckets have you already filled with our tears thanks to those raids XD?

We’ve lost count, but there should be enough here to feed the team for about a week.

Wow talk about a “Lack of Professionalism”. I just happened across this from a link from another forum. Is this the mindset of ArenaNet as a whole towards their “Clients/Customers”……

Remember folks you aren’t the only show in town and with the debacle known as HoT going on you might want to try being nicer (or do like normal and ignore the issues).

Talk about a “Lack of Sense of Humor.” I just happened across this necro’d thread from a month ago. Is this the mindset of people too dense to see that Anet prided themselves on the relative difficulty of the raids and were making a joke about it causing tears?

People will always find something to be offended about.

It would be cool if they weren’t targetable and actually followed the ranger around like actual spirits. Also, they should just round up the percent chance proc for frost spirit to 100% to just make it consistent.

Would have been nice to get a huge overhaul before the winterbreak : P, its back to college when they start discussing the new changes with us ;_; .

And yes, I agree. There should be a limit to how much you can block/evade/invuln spam. Like a 3-4 second timer before you can use another one like stealth for instance[I don’t know how bad this would be].

Wolfey.3407:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

I can say ‘X’ is crap in contrast to Y. In this case, X is the fernhound or any wyvern in contrast to the smokescale/bristleback combo.

NOTE 1: I can change my opinion on a matter, im not here to argue for the sake of arguing and im not arrogant. Calling someone[not accusing you] an idiot , troll or any other insult just because they do not agree with you is a really bad practice.

NOTE 2: Just a personal opinion[feel free to refute it], but I feel like the people that try to justify something that is really weak and niche are actually holding that thing back. If they instead called on Anet to buff/get it in line with other things, we might see change.

So everyone should shut up on their opinions and listen to you because mettabattle has your back. OK

You are here for the sake of arguing or you would have let people post what they felt with out insulting other pets and slavishly the people who talk about said pets.

Let’s discuss the flaws of your favorite pet combo since you enjoy constantly bringing up both Electric Wyvern and Fernhound.

1) Bristleback
Part of the meta = almost every new ranger/druid is running it.
Down fall, people should know how to counter it by now…
It’s f2 is a ton of projectiles, all you need is an ok placed reflect to watch the other team whipe from that ranger/ druid not knowing what they were doing. This goes back to a fundamental policy of Risk >< Reward. If you’re facing another rdruid, all they have to do is place Sublime Conversion then type “thank you” in map chat as you have just healed up that druids team. The animation for bristle backs F2 is very easy to spot…

2) Smoke Scale
Part of the meta = almost every new ranger/druid is running it.
Down fall, people should know how to counter it by now…
It’s F2 while nice for 1v1 and roaming, is complete garbage for team fights…. It lays down a smoke field which you can not control the location of. Because of this, you end up cancelling out vital water fields or strategic fire fields. Not to mention if it lays down its smoke field, you run the risk of it being blasted on point and having your team being stealthed on point…. thanks for the partial decap or full decap depending on the state of the point….

Now lets look at Electric Wyverns Faults:
Tail Lash: Range is 130 and does not always hit
F2: Seems to be the further away the pet is, the less of a chance it has to knock down.

Electric Wyverns faults in team fights:
Chance at lightning field over writing a water or fire field if it’s end spot lands on those fields. On the bright side, unlike smoke scale, you don’t jeopardize your teams hold of a point.

As it stands, Electric Wyvern is in a way better place than most pets for PvP.
It does have a couple of things that need to be fixed and only one of them is semi urgent…. that being Tail Lash.

I feel that people who promote a meta over anything else is really holding a class back when it comes to PvP… You’re forcing anet to craft the small class based on 1 build instead of diversifying and trying to find other niches for the class to be good at.

Remarks:
1)Dude why are you so angry? We are only discussing a game. I ignored your initial response because your points were just there for the sake arguing[They were pretty bad], and you were so blinded by anger and arrogance that you said that I was flexing my “kitten”, though I only stated what my rank is because you said that I did not know what I was doing[To add credit to what I was saying]. Heck I didn’t even mention it at all before you said that I didn’t know what I was doing.

2)Yes, I think your pets are terrible. My opinion, entitled to it. So I’m only arguing if I don’t agree with you? I try so hard to comment by using “[commentary]” so people like you don’t misunderstand, but I guess it doesn’t work.

*Points: *

1) Do you not think that the fact that an enemy player actually has to be careful and play around a pet is good? Now, on to the point. Yes, everything has a counter, and projectile reflect is the bristlebacks. Though this assumption is that there will always be a tempest which is not true, AND that there will always be projectile reflect up. This is why the smokescale compliments it really well, and actual planning on using the bristleback burst.

—>“but but if they see the F2 tell, they will just avoid it!”
A) GOOD, they wasted some of their defenses on your pet, and this will allow your allies to potentially land another important attack.
B) You do not just use it off cooldown, you set up a stunlock then unload the f2 in their face. The combo is rewarding.

2)
A)Might stacking for you, and burst is never bad. Its knockdown also triggers ancient seeds. Yeah…Not that bad right?
B)You control the smoke field, and it can be used with staff #3 for a stealth stomp, or to prevent a stomp. Yes, the smoke field is bad if the point is small, so I avoid using it there. Again, your point is all about human error, and can be prevented easily.

Here, let me give you some counters to wyverns:

1)Don’t stand still [I just made the pet useless o.o]
2) RNG for the electric wyvern charge

This is my final comment on this topic,and I will enjoy my continuing success with these pets until Anet nerfs them or buffs some of the others. I recommend people use them and get used to their strengths, I can’t imagine playing without them atm[in sPVP]. Wolf/tiger/birds can also be a viable swap for one of them.

TL;DR:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

1. Bad use of a pet doesn’t make the pet itself bad (you can always cancel bristleback’s F2 if neccessary).

2. You can control the smokefield. If it accidentially interferes with other fields, it is player failure and has nothing to do with the pet being bad.

3. Wyverns are even easier to counter than those two pets, even if players are less familiar with them. Just move arround and you can ignore them 99% of the time.

4. If you try hard enough you can find niche uses for everything. So the game is perfectly fine and balanced and nothing has to be changed, right?

Archon.6480:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

Archon.6480:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Wolf can do the similar to Electric Wyvern and can do it more reliably. You can even control it’s knockdown up to some point.

The electro Wyvern’s Charge is an insta-cast Launch and it’s on demand. What are you talking about?

F2 misses a lot, even on stationary targets. Wolf leaps at the target to knock them down (mostly guaranteed).

It misses if you use it at an inopportune time. It will hit every time if you use it at the right moment. Wolf has such a small health pool that its usefulness has been diminished. Especially in this current AoE heavy meta.

I am not going to say Wolf is useless, or smokescale. I could easily make good use of both. I am only saying I find Electro Wyvern to be very useful. I am sure Wolfey would agree. I find it annoying when the local forum trolls show up and start spouting nonsense. X is useless, or Y is crap. If you look back you’ll see that’s what started this. I can assure you Wolfe and I are not the only high level Druids giving this pet a close look.

No, it can miss, even if the opponent is standing still/downed. You guys can say that it is good, and I can provide my counter arguments[I already have]. The only point that is given [feel free to provide more] is that it can provide a safe stomp , and that is assuming that the enemy does not have teammates that can still CC you.

I can say ‘X’ is crap in contrast to Y. In this case, X is the fernhound or any wyvern in contrast to the smokescale/bristleback combo.

NOTE 1: I can change my opinion on a matter, im not here to argue for the sake of arguing and im not arrogant. Calling someone[not accusing you] an idiot , troll or any other insult just because they do not agree with you is a really bad practice.

NOTE 2: Just a personal opinion[feel free to refute it], but I feel like the people that try to justify something that is really weak and niche are actually holding that thing back. If they instead called on Anet to buff/get it in line with other things, we might see change.

Crapgame.6519:

Funny thing about damage meters is look at the history of other MMO’s that had API’s built in to support them. It actually caused more issues around class balance because Class A was top one patch, then Class B was on top the next patch, and Class C felt left out because it was the top several patches previously and now at the bottom…oh, and Class F, not to be left out, was adjusted down or nerfed because, well, its class defining ability made it invulnerable to damage and no one else had that…

The best thing going for GW2 is no inspection or damage meter. The golems or targets give guidelines. It works. And regardless of what side of the fence you are on it is true that dead players do no DPS. And death can come from player ignorance, network, and all around bad luck.

Yes but a lot of people use it in the wrong context, to justify their builds that are built upon using the least amount of effort to succeed.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

No, the reason why the developers don’t touch us is because rangers can’t figure out what we want. I mean, look at this thread. Look at the fiasco with smokescale.

But I’ll tell you who does know what they want from rangers: our enemies and opponents in PvP.

And thus, the nerfs and ‘balancing’ you’re seeing.

With all due respect, FriendlyInvader, you seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. I guess that was proven when you somehow thought I linked your response as the ‘answer’ to the OP’s original opinion.

Hope I don’t have to explain how those two are actually linked.

No its fine, you do not have to explain anything. If you think I know nothing, then you are entitled to your opinion, and I respect it, though I don’t agree with it.

Though I would not really blame the players for the clunky ranger profession, this would be a case where I blame the designer and not the player. In fact, I firmly believe that they need to release a major update where they look through all the base professions and give weapons identities and fix their design flaws. OR at least make it an iterative process.

Back to the original point of discussion:

The damage isn’t as bad as the meter puts it out to be, though I firmly believe we need a personal DPS boost in all honesty. The A/T viper build is pretty good, BUT on the condition that the enemy is standing still in the bonfire. I really I want an alternative that gives good damage, but does not have such a limiting factor to it. And the sword…on second thought, I wont beat a dead horse : P.

Archon.6480:

Well, suffice it to say, there are at least two PvP vets, each having played several thousand ranked matches that say electro wyvern is useful. There are some others who say it is broken and doesn’t work. OK, we can just agree to disagree on this. The minute it gets added to MetaBattle, everyone will fall in line like good little lemmings.

Haha, that is pretty true. Electro wyvern can be useful if its attacks can land, and can be a viable option if smoke scale and bristleback get nerfed, because I’m seriously of the opinion that this combination is IMMENSELY powerful : P. I’m REALLY surprised that Anet released the wyverns in a bugged/terribly designed state. These problems can seriously be seen within a few minutes, I’m surprised their QA team didn’t pick up on it.

Wolfey.3407:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

Wolfey.3407:

People who complain about Wyverns generally do not main Ranger or Druid for pvp…

Here is my take on Wyverns within PvP

Electric Wyvern:
-Awesome safe stomp from their F2
-1/3 of it’s skills is a 80 range Knockback
-1/3 of it’s skills is an aoe cripple
-Nice round stats with 1,868 power, 2,211 toughness, 2,898 vitality
The power stat can be a little higher but it’s not vital to make it an awesome pet.

Fire Wyvern:
-Consuming flame is hard to understand for rookie rangers and druids, this is an f2 skill that you can NOT spam in 1v1’s and win with. This skill is a channel skill which is it’s biggest weakness. When channeling, it creates a fire field that pulses 6 times dealing 2 seconds of burning for every pulse. At the completion of the channeling, the aoe becomes a fire field that can be blasted by you or allies (staff 3 anyone?)
The best way to use this skill, is towards the start of the game at the initial mid fight. Generally in any type of fight that is > than 3. That way, your pet is able to apply all of that nice burning to the enemy team.
-1/3 of it’s skills is a 80 range Knockback
-1/3 of it’s skills is an aoe cripple

Really for the fire wyvern, removing the channeling and increasing its condition stat would make it a viable pet for rookie rangers and druids within pvp.

I have two different builds that I run, both of which are pretty successful imo.
One variation, I end up using: Fern Hound + Electric Wyvern.

Another Variation, I end up using Lynx + Fire Wyvern

One variation I have been testing is more of a condi control build that uses both wyverns. Fire for team fights and Electric for stomps + constant knock backs,

No one is going to sacrifice a pet slot for a safe stomp. Bristleback and the smokescale combo is devastating atm, they give you the burst that you do not have. Wyverns attacks do not even land 99% of the time, and consuming flames is highly telegraphed and does not make up for the wyverns overall terrible design.

And why the hell would anyone use a fern hound in place of the broken duo we have? Scratch that, why would anyone use fern hound in sPvP period?

Double post but worth it.

1) I presume you do not have heart of thorns so you do not know what a druid is.
My apologies that you are commenting on a thread will little to no knowledge of your classes elite spec.

2) Fern hounds F2 is amazing for a supportive role. When I’m running a supportive druid role, I am able to constantly keep my team at around 85-90% hp through out the whole fight.

3) I am actually shocked you have no clue how powerful regen is, which goes back to your lack of knowledge of what a druid is capable of doing.

Maybe you should go to the wiki and read up on your class and your pets before posting, it may make you seem a little less idiotic on the forums.

I’ll take my infraction now please.

Remarks:
This is an open discussion[a lot of lurkers/players see this]. I honestly do not care if you agree/disagree, and there are probably a lot of people that agree with either you or me, I’m just giving my perspective.

Firstly, before I address your points, hurling insults at people and belittling them does not make any of your counter-points better.

Secondly, I have 1k+ hours on my ranger/druid, over 600 ranked games on the class alone and over 1000 games played, currently in ruby playing exclusively druid [though ruby is not amazing] and have experienced and am still experiencing a linear climb. I also have high MMR and majorly get placed against opponents that understand team fights, bursting down targeted players, and rotations.

Counter Arguements:

1) See remarks

2) Druid is sufficient as a support role. What it lacks is damage/pressure, which the bristleback/smokescale combination offers. If you lock someone up down with your team, you can aid in spiking them down IMMENSLY [game changing] with just the pets. Infact, most people complain about the druid’s pets, as they reason that the druid should not have so much damage on the pets. You are removing a very OP component of the ranger atm for a rather minuscule long CD small heal.

3)The overall flaw in your post is that you assumed that I didn’t use the BM trait line[traited shouts] to bring permanent regen already to my team

Ardenwolfe.8590:

This is the original post:

Balsalom.7218:

Using a legal damage meter (doesn’t break terms of service) I looked at my ranger’s damage over a decent period of time (several minutes). Simply put I was capping out at just a little over 5k dps. This isn’t enough to bring it to raids by its own. With frost spirit, sun spirit, and spotter ranger is just barely acceptable, but base ranger damage is not enough to kill the first boss with in the enrage timer. Don’t bring ranger outside of druid, and don’t play ranger in raids. I’m saying this as long time ranger main. Condi ranger basically isn’t any better either.

Now read this response:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

If you enjoy killing stuff slowly[but you kill it], slap a tankier armor set on any class and press any keys. Open world is a joke, and judging ranger on open world is even funnier! Reaper is millions times “easier” than ranger.

Skill floor boys.

Now let me share a secret: Killing fast ain’t the end all be all. Nor is huge damage. If you’re dead, your damage ain’t squat. If that requires an explanation, then yes, please play another class. This one ain’t for you.

Ranger earned the most votes for the best and easiest class to solo play and survive. There’s a reason. Please stop screaming wolf on these forums.

You remember what happened to the boy who did, don’t you?

Jasper Defthand.3018:

Are we really now arguing about which class can open world easiest… maybe I should just stop coming to forums…

Agreed. Seriously. Enough of this nonsense.

The irony is that I quoted someone else when I made that response, not OP. Now, let me redirect you to the first page. I knew that he used the open source legal DPS meter, and called him out on it, knowing someone else that has knowledge on the DPS meter will call BS on his post, which occured several posts later.

“If you’re dead, your damage ain’t squat.”
——> THIS is why the devs barely talk to us on the forums

Three years guys, and people are still saying this line.

Archon.6480:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

Wolfey.3407:

I have two different builds that I run, both of which are pretty successful imo.
One variation, I end up using: Fern Hound + Electric Wyvern.

Another Variation, I end up using Lynx + Fire Wyvern

One variation I have been testing is more of a condi control build that uses both wyverns. Fire for team fights and Electric for stomps + constant knock backs,

No one is going to sacrifice a pet slot for a safe stomp. Bristleback and the smokescale combo is devastating atm, they give you the burst that you do not have. Wyverns attacks do not even land 99% of the time, and consuming flames is highly telegraphed and does not make up for the wyverns overall terrible design.

And why the hell would anyone use a fern hound in place of the broken duo we have? Scratch that, why would anyone use fern hound in sPvP period?

I would pick a pet in order to facilitate a safe stomp, or to set up a chain hard CC to gib opponents. There are also several reasons one might pick fern hound in PvP.

That being said, the combination of bristleback and smokescale do work very well on many Ranger/Druid builds. The passive damage output on smokescale is impressive. There are better choices if you are trying to stack hard CCs.

You have immob, pet taunt and multiple dazes. No need for more CCs, and if you have them crowd controlled, a bristleback f2/smokescale swap can instantly down them. You are gimping yourself running anything else. You can use the smokescale f2 for a stealth finish, or rampage as one for a safe finish. No need to sacrifice a huge damage component for a “safe stomp” [the enemy team can still CC you].

Also,the only victims of the fern hound are the players who use it and the team that gets matched up with that player.

Mouse.3608:

FriendlyInvader.3126:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Sometimes, it’s not the class, but the player behind the screen. I know a lot of rangers don’t like to hear that, but ranger is the easiest class to play . . . but by far the hardest to master.

ehhh I disagree. Every class is easy to play [in open world].

There are other classes with a minimum viable skill floor of “afk and my bear killed it”?

If you enjoy killing stuff slowly[but you kill it], slap a tankier armor set on any class and press any keys. Open world is a joke, and judging ranger on open world is even funnier! Reaper is millions times “easier” than ranger.

Skill floor boys.

Archon.6480:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Wolf can do the similar to Electric Wyvern and can do it more reliably. You can even control it’s knockdown up to some point.

The electro Wyvern’s Charge is an insta-cast Launch and it’s on demand. What are you talking about?

F2 misses a lot, even on stationary targets. Wolf leaps at the target to knock them down (mostly guaranteed).

Wolfey.3407:

People who complain about Wyverns generally do not main Ranger or Druid for pvp…

Here is my take on Wyverns within PvP

Electric Wyvern:
-Awesome safe stomp from their F2
-1/3 of it’s skills is a 80 range Knockback
-1/3 of it’s skills is an aoe cripple
-Nice round stats with 1,868 power, 2,211 toughness, 2,898 vitality
The power stat can be a little higher but it’s not vital to make it an awesome pet.

Fire Wyvern:
-Consuming flame is hard to understand for rookie rangers and druids, this is an f2 skill that you can NOT spam in 1v1’s and win with. This skill is a channel skill which is it’s biggest weakness. When channeling, it creates a fire field that pulses 6 times dealing 2 seconds of burning for every pulse. At the completion of the channeling, the aoe becomes a fire field that can be blasted by you or allies (staff 3 anyone?)
The best way to use this skill, is towards the start of the game at the initial mid fight. Generally in any type of fight that is > than 3. That way, your pet is able to apply all of that nice burning to the enemy team.
-1/3 of it’s skills is a 80 range Knockback
-1/3 of it’s skills is an aoe cripple

Really for the fire wyvern, removing the channeling and increasing its condition stat would make it a viable pet for rookie rangers and druids within pvp.

I have two different builds that I run, both of which are pretty successful imo.
One variation, I end up using: Fern Hound + Electric Wyvern.

Another Variation, I end up using Lynx + Fire Wyvern

One variation I have been testing is more of a condi control build that uses both wyverns. Fire for team fights and Electric for stomps + constant knock backs,

No one is going to sacrifice a pet slot for a safe stomp. Bristleback and the smokescale combo is devastating atm, they give you the burst that you do not have. Wyverns attacks do not even land 99% of the time, and consuming flames is highly telegraphed and does not make up for the wyverns overall terrible design.

And why the hell would anyone use a fern hound in place of the broken duo we have? Scratch that, why would anyone use fern hound in sPvP period?

Jahroots.6791:

Malediktus.9250:

Rewarding the bad players with undeserved rewards will just lower their incentive to optimise their builds and equipment.

Most players have a pretty good idea about optimization

They really don’t, you’re overestimating people.

Britstleback/Smokescale/tiger are REALLY good, so I’m using them a lot. The wyverns…leave it up to Anet to make tamable dragons suck.

Malediktus.9250:

Andred.1087:

skullmount.1758:

DeWolfe.2174:

Malediktus.9250:

Would be sad to see it nerfed. The game needs more challenging content. Even raids (with Eternal) are too easy.

No, the game doesn’t need more challenging content, it needs more FUN content. Challenge =/= fun

Thats just your own opinion. For some people the challenge is the fun part. I for one enjoyed it the way it was (after the nuhoch fix, before that it was a bit too much). It wasn’t a guaranteed win, but it was close (with a coordinated group). Now if what op and other say is true, it’ll be just as easy as DS

You guys are really missing the point here. I think we can all agree that a good challenge is fun, but the problem was that Gerent wasn’t challenging. It just had a ridiculous amount of health, requiring everyone in the event to be full-on DPS, and counter-intuitively avoid using CC just to maximize burn time.

Is it too easy now? Maybe. But now anybody can participate, even if they don’t run DPS builds, and it will still be possible to win, as long as nobody screws up the lane mechanics, and you don’t have entire groups wiping to the jelly donut.

People who dont run full DPS builds are a dead weight. Why should people who optimise their equipment be punished with boring encounters just because of some unteachable players? Because lets face it, if you arent running full DPS builds in anywhere in PVE (except niche roles in raids) you are doing it wrong.

If all the people who optimized left, and the unteachable “play how I want kitten you elitists” players were forced to play exclusively with each other, they would never be able to succeed, even after these changes.

Honestly, this is why I advocate that they exclusively move “challenging” and rewarding content into instances and promote better rewards there. Anet wants players to be inclusive, and are doing this by forcing us to carry the players that want to play how they want [who would normally get a boot if they tried to use their build in a dungeon clear].

I’m glad they nerfed it, as it makes the burden that these players bring really minimal, and thus less enmity and anger between the two sides due to the higher success rate. This is how open world should be, save the organizing and DPS checks for instances.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Sometimes, it’s not the class, but the player behind the screen. I know a lot of rangers don’t like to hear that, but ranger is the easiest class to play . . . but by far the hardest to master.

It’s a sad thing, but after so many nerfs . . . you must bring your A-game. Otherwise, yes, the ranger is dead . . . for you.

ehhh I disagree. Every class is easy to play [in open world].

Got to ruby using druid and MM/BM. There were some other ranger mains[I’m assuming because that’s all they used] that were ruby that I got matched up against a lot on the way up.

coax.2951:

It’s the only power based, viable mainhand weapon ranger has and I absolutely despise its functionality.
Sure, sometimes it works in your favor, but if I could, I’d change it in a heartbeat. It’s broken, the majority of the ranger players don’t like it and complained about it since more than 2 years, but since anet likes the “concept” of the weapon, it won’t change.

Functionality > Concept

Get rid of the kitten autoattack or at least give us another power based mainhand weapon. But hey, none of the devs care, so don’t expect any change, ever.

I agree completely. I stayed [mostly] silent, expecting it to be changed by now, but honestly, no one has an idea what the devs are doing since they do not communicate with us.

Also, for whoever actually likes the sword, please give your reasoning.

I’m aware of the past dev comments regarding the issue, but its been some time, and I was hoping to see if any dev can comment on how they feel about it[I know they barely communicate here but its worth a shot].

My feedback:

Honestly, its design is very restricting. Mainly[correct me if I’m wrong], the sword was designed to stick to a target. Though in sPvP, I barely use its auto-attack in a team fight situation, because if you’re caught at the wrong time, it can spell your demise[even more so the higher your MMR is]. Most people that I’ve seen using the sword in sPvP use it to evade and kite the enemy, more so than actually sticking to the target.

In addition to this, we also lose the ability to cleave properly, move around our opponents constantly, and most importantly, attacking at max melee range. Given that, I feel that the sword isn’t even being mostly used on the premise of its design.

If you still don’t want to rework the sword, what are the odds of you buffing the greatsword to match the sword DPS, giving us an alternative to the sword? Or do we perhaps have to wait for a new elite spec for a new main hand power weapon?

Thanks! Remember, this is just my opinion and observation after 1k+ hours on ranger. I’ve managed to get a really good hang of the sword, but I still feel like the design isn’t that great [more harm than benefit, and a lot more harm than benefit in PvE].

Pretty hilarious how they hot fixed the ranger shout “We heal as one”, but refuse to hot fix this mess of a balance.

Arutha.9874:

Could people stop these discussions please?
Of course Dedicated SoloQ is a stupid idea that is only around because people are Raging.

So could someone who is a defender of this idea please try to explain how it would work?
1. Everyone in PvP would Queue in SoloQ.
2. If someone wanted to play with a friend how would they fill the other 3 spots?
3. Ohh wait you can’t have a team of 4??
4. Okay only teams of 5 are allowed into TeamQ.
5. Now only the Pros play there with never proccing queue times except happy hour.
6. Lets nerf the SoloQ rewards so that people join TeamQ.
7. Now lets call it ranked Queue instead.

It is a stupid idea that they tried already before. The correct solution is to nerf the rewards for team so that diamonds in an average ruby group receive 0 pips for a win.

I am just so tired of people repeating incorrect logic just thinking short term.

All of your points are moot if they actually add good unique rewards to SoloQ and TeamQ.

Beautiful
/15 chars

Given all the complaining, they might drop a small bandage fix in the upcoming patch [this is just a guess]. The fact that they want to wait until February for the major balance updates just goes to show the major disconnect between Anet and the players.

Crapgame.6519:

Balsalom.7218:

The damage meter is the one that was posted about on Reddit. It isn’t perfect but it is within about 5-10% of the real value. The issue isn’t about people being able to clear the first boss, who is relatively easy. What I’m saying is that it gets harder. Don’t bring ranger if you want a decent time. They simply just don’t do enough damage to warrant bringing them.

Ok, let me retract my @sshat attitude since you clarified a bit more. Yes, Raid content gets harder. Let us talk about time though and the ranger.

Just so I am not putting words into your mouth – are you saying that if you want to get further along in the content to “not” bring a ranger? Because their DPS is low and that loss increases the time to kill. Therefore putting the raid into the enrage timer window?

Go read up on it, no way what he is saying is true at all. Given how that damage meter works, assigning a static value of correctness across all professions [the 10%-15%] should have been a red flag.

Ehh, we still haven’t got our full money worth of content yet. Still need to see how all the new stuff that will be added in the future turns out before judging [new raid wings, LS3, the rest of legends, etc].

The archer archetype. Though I would swap to DH if I wasn’t so invested in my ranger : P .

Balsalom.7218:

Too bad there actually is a decent damage meter that has been checked manually by several people. If you go into a raid you need to be bringing your full support. Simply put you CAN’T do that on ranger.

Are you talking about the one that was discussed on Reddit?

Thaddeus.4891:

1) Dungeon. They nerfed them for a reason. Either they don’t put any gold reward for raid and don’t buff gold reward from fractal, they add gold sink or they nerfed the gold reward from dungeon. They had no other option if they want to keep inflation in check and as a player you don’t want inflation to go crazy, that would be the worst possible outcome for us. That said, they could gave reward back in other form like material, token, rares, etc. In the end, people are kitten for now and occupied by the expansion. I tried dungeon again the other day and with a decent party you go WAY faster through them than we used to. The reward is still very good. People will calm down, finish their expansion and then people will want to get back into dungeon for the reward.

The main intention behind the gold nerf was to disincentivize running dungeons, It was barely about it being “too rewarding”. This being my first MMO expansion, I was expecting it to build up on the current content we had, not butcher it.

I fear that they will nerf its F2.

More like 8 weeks until base ranger has a chance of getting some fixes.

oshilator.4681:

I’m not even surprised anymore.

Please stay away from my Bristleback damage.

Galneryus.8372:

What do people want so much gold for? From the sound of it, people who claim they have little time to play wants to have just as much gold as the hardcore players. Which makes no sense if you are just playing the game instead of going for raids and high level fractals. Gold is not even a concern if this is the case, just play the game for enjoyment. If it’s not enjoyable for you then find something else lol

You missed the point entirely.

I have 1000 hours on my ranger, and I would not recommend it at the moment.