Guild Wars 2

Over the last few weeks I haven been playing less and less. When the game launched I spent the majority of my time Spvp’ing (rank 31) and doing PvE (80 ranger+80 engineer). I also did some WvW but it never had a very strong appeal to me due to the nature of not being able to accomplish much alone or with a small group (2-3 people) outside of taking supply camps. These days I do zero SPvP and zero WvW.

I would like to specifically talk SPvP because this is my #1 biggest disappointment thus far playing the game. SPvP got stale so quickly for me, there desperately needs to be other game modes besides conquest. Furthermore the game “meta” if you will has not changed for a very long time. I understand Anet’s philosophy is to not put in drastic changes, but to me this is killing SPvP. The scoring systems in place promotes a silly playstyle in hot join SPvP based around node flipping/running around in a zerg. and TPvP is just a snoozefest and really shows off why certain professions don’t belong in PvP. I’m not going to make a long winded rant about profession balance because I think if you look around you will find one but I am not happy at all with how things are and leave it at that.

As far as PvE goes, overall the Lost Shores event to me was a pretty big let down. I thought the fractals of the mists were the best designed dungeons yet. The problem is the newly introduced grind and new tier of loot that is usable everywhere sets a poor precedent for things to come. I have ~30 gold and I can’t afford to make a quiver with the correct stats for my ranger. There is no way in hell I’m going to grind t6 mats to make this thing. Furthermore I have and actively played my other lvl 80 with a third alt on the way. I would have to redo this grind for each character, and individually run the fractals on each of them. Finally the new zone that was added has nothing in it. It serves no purpose other than grinding materials and doing jump puzzles.

I will probably log in to check out holiday events and other large scale events, but outside of a major SPvP overhaul/new PvE content or major Ranger changes. I think I’m done for now.

My experiences: They suck, and I play my other characters in WvW. I kill kitteny players and do mediocre ranged damage with no utility.

Ranger is my main, been 80 for a long time and I’m rank 32 in SPvP.

Ranger excels in no area. They are one of the worst SPVP professions, (the absolute worst in TPVP). They are not good in WvW, not good in dungeons and decent at solo pve.

On top of not being very effective they have no unique moves like – portals, teleports, aoe stuns, strong aoe boons (read as warrior/guardian shouts), or aoe heals (not regen).

There is nothing a ranger can do that can not be replicated or done better by another profession. Rangers are NOT BAD for these reasons, but they are NOT FUN because of them. They generally feel unrewarding and boring compared to other professions. They have no role and don’t fit the meta in SPvP which is why they are the least played in TPvP.

I’m happy for anyone that enjoys playing as a ranger because I don’t. However posting about how your level 12 character had no problems killing a veteran boar in Queensdale doesn’t mean anything.

Animosity.5231:

Dancing Dagger is more of a ranged chasing option given its cripple, and not really a damaging skill. DB only works well with condition, HS only works well with power, and C&D costs too much to spam despite it’s high damage potential. You nerf HS, what does a power D/D Thief have for damage? Nerf DB, same issue for D/D condition Thieves.

Bleh Dancing dagger crits for like 3k on people and bounces, how can you even think that it’s not a damaging skill? I’ve died to “dancing dagger” more than all other thief skills combined. Mindlessly spamming it 3 times back to back does more ranged damage burst than a normal ranged profession

Back to the topic though, I’m happy with the changes ANET has made but I want more. I don’t have a very positive view of balance in spvp these days and it’s only getting worse. I’m constantly just facepalming at how there is very little to no parity between skills/traits across professions. The fore mentioned dancing dagger is one, also cluster bombs from thief? Why are these skills hitting so kitten hard. It just makes it so nerfing backstab/pistol whip isn’t even tackling the problem of thief being really strong, you just end up punishing people who like those skills.

Cooldowns/amount of stun breaks are all over the place, you have some things like mist form on 75 sec cd, yet elixir S is 60, pretty much the exact same move? Thief shadow step two stun breaks+teleport+condition removal on a 50 sec cd, ele lightning flash, less range 45 sec cd, no condition removal, no secondary skill attached to it. Pretty much every profession would kill for shadow step since it is a better version of every other stun break in the game. I’m not saying everyone needs the same exact skills and utility, but at least make it comparable to what everyone else is working with.

Here is an exercise in thought, put shadow step and Hide in shadows on a ranger, wouldn’t take long for ranger to become one of the best classes overnight just from adding two thief utility skills most people don’t even mention because they can’t get past their death log saying C&D 4k, Steal, 5k, Backstab 12k.

Actually I worked myself into fits writing this, I am not happy with all the changes ANET made. They nerfed every phantasm on mesmer besides Berserkers. The only one that didn’t get nerfed is the #1 worst offender for lamest skill in the game, it needs no line of sight, works through walls all you need is a target lock to make a lame kitten ghost that does 4-5k damage and cripples? Imagined burden can eat kitten all that did was cement shatter builds (already were better before) as the #1 mesmer spec and it’s as bad as ever.

The problem is condition builds have a hard time competing. Condition ranger/necros are far less survivable than their power build counterparts? Why is it like this, both builds are missing huge amounts of vitality/extra utility skills that can be used for defense compared to power builds. Most popular condition builds for necro sit at like sub 20k life and are usually locked into epidemic/corrupt boon/plague signet. Trap condition rangers sitting at sub 17k life and forced to burn all their utility slots for traps to make the build function, instead of quickness/whatever+stun break+stone signet (much better defense).

There is no cond/vit/toughness amulet in SPvP, yet there is a power/vit/toughness one?

Maybe I’m just a conditions fan boy, but it just seems burst builds are completely outclassing condition builds by miles right now and condition builds just tend to die before they can wear people down.

What role do condition/steady dps classes have in the game? They just die to burst damage and can’t kill bunkers any faster than burst classes. They aren’t tanky enough to fight for extended periods of time so….? When you are bringing a conditions necro you are just bringing corrupt boon to kitten guardians, you don’t really give a kitten about the conditions let’s be honest.

Interesting stats, but it doesn’t surprise me actually. My friend and I both talked about how we score a lot of points on the “crappy professions” compared to when we play mes/thief ect. We have a phrase called “roadfighter” because you see a lot of mesmer/thief players just trying to kill people in the middle of nowhere since they can, instead of on points. When I play a conditions necro or trap ranger for example, my build just sort of sucks for dueling people in the open and to get the most out of my character I want to hit multiple people with conditions and put traps/marks, use epidemic ect on a heavily trafficked area like a capture point. When I play my backstab thief I just kill anyone on sight because frankly I can. It just comes down to actually playing the game properly (playing on points and fighting over secondary objectives instead of playing deathmatch.

Who the kitten knows OP, I play a lot of professions and thief has to be one of the worst offenders (mesmer is even lamer). Don’t listen to all the bullcrap people say about low survivability, on my backstab build I have multiple stealths and shadowstep to get out of anything.

My thief: http://i.imgur.com/y8TwU.jpg

Yeah I worked hard for that one, I hit like 3 buttons to do that. Notice those 5k shots from shortbow… too bad my build is only good for hitting people with backstab I don’t know how thieves can die unless caught completely off guard/zerged down by 3+ people. Stealth is probably the most broken thing in the game until necros learn how to master death shroud ;D

People are still missing the point. You have to look at the context of how these classes are being used and then compare them with the rest. If you want a damage dealer, you don’t care about how much hp/toughness a thief has you just want them to deal damage and have a nice defensive move (stealth) so they can avoid getting focused. There is no better profession for quickly dispatching another player in a short amount of time than a thief. Thief damage output is the best in the game and hardest to counter, there is no easy way to avoid getting teleported on and backstabbed for 12k+ damage in a span of ~1 second. You either have the amount of life/toughness to survive that or you die. If you are in a 2v2 ect, and you aren’t at max life and don’t have a move that literally makes you invulnerable, stealths you or teleports you away you will simply just die almost instantly.

Guardians are simply the best bunker class, the entire point of a defensive character is to stand on/contest a point. They have multiple ways to blow people off the points and the way their defensive abilities are set up they can “stand their ground” so to speak right on the point. Now an ele is hard to kill and has great survivability but an ele is highly mobile and can’t stand in one spot when being focused down. That is a huge caveat in SPvP when the objective of the game is to capture and hold points.

Don’t confuse tankiness with survivability. A necromancer is tanky, but a mesmer has higher survivability because they can avoid damage all together with stealth/distortion. It’s no coincidence that mesmers and thieves are hard to kill, and you know why? Stealth that’s why. No other mechanic in the game lets you escape combat like that. If kitten hits the fan you can activate a stealth and run in any direction, hopefully around a wall or something and leave the fight. This is why rangers suck so badly as a damage dealer, sure you can pop some cd’s and tank up for a brief time period but once that’s over you can’t deal with the damage you are taking anymore and you can’t escape the fight. Ele’s can escape the fights via huge mobility/invun but they hit for some of the crappiest damage in the game in those specs. Necros have no way to avoid damage, they are the only profession that can’t avoid or block damage with a skill. The only thing that keeps them up is high life and death shroud, which frankly is not enough in the current state of things. Engineer’s have above average survivability and good utility usually not much damage unless you make some hardcore hipshot build but why do any of that when you can just play a mesmer. You sacrifice nothing as a mesmer, you get high damage and high survivability and strong utility all in one spec. Mesmers can drop combat, deal high dps, bring good teamfight skills like chaos storm/null field and can instant spike any downed players thanks to distortion which is just a class mechanic. Not to mention mesmers tend to be one of the strongest 1v1 professions if not the strongest, so any 1v1 you should probably win. Mesmers have the highest number of stun break skills, a class mechanic that gives them invun, stealth, teleports, two separate utilities that deal with conditions and they are the only profession besides necro that can strip boons.

Your build is very low on vitality/survivability and you don’t take a stun break or traited signet of stone. I’ve found that trap builds work exceptionally well in group fights on points, but only if people don’t focus me since you will die almost instantly. There are a lot of thieves and warriors who will just instantly burst you down in this type of build. I prefer frost trap/burning trap + 30pt marksmanship for the 30% condition duration and traited signet of the stone for utility. I use spider with deadly venom for long durations of poison, while I dish out most of the bleeding with shortbow and frost/burn/spike traps depending on the match. Don’t underestimate condition duration increase it actually gives more overall damage to condition builds than 300 condition damage from wilderness survival, not to mention it lengthens chill/immo/cripple ect.

Rangers are a pve powerhouse, you can kite mobs easily and pets are insanely strong and tanky. For SPvP for lack of a nice way to say it rangers suck compared to most other professions. Pets fall off badly against moving players and same with bows, you will lose a lot of attacks to people running around walls ect. Quickness is strong across all professions but it is easily counterable if the other player knows what he is doing. They can simply roll a few times, run around a corner or use any block/reflect skill to prevent most of it. Rangers don’t have a lot of CC to pair with quickness to make it a really good combo like pistol whip/devourer venom or bullcharge/hundred blades which usually force a stun break from your opponent. All that being said, you will not be disappointed with rangers in PvE they are very strong, able to tackle multiple mobs and veterans with ease. Also in WvW longbow shines with 1500 range and barrage being prettykittengood combined with nice damage.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Lol a parrot, would be interesting, its f2 ability is taunt :P Yea Greatsword is pretty weak, seems they over nerfed it by a small amount, its still not bad tho. I dont think rangers are amazing damage dealers, I just think condition damage is in an amazing place. Im assuming you were thinking about condition shortbow rangers being the amazing damage dealers, they are strong, but are no stronger than any other condition build which is good, its balanced. But aside from conditions rangers raw damage is weaker than all the other classes, and we gotta trait for signets just to be able to dish out competetive damage. I compared a rifle warrior to my longbow ranger and it was depressing.

Rifle warriors volley did probably a bit less than rapid fire but then I kill shot and it all changes, helps that rifle projectiles move extremely fast compared too the lolongbow, and faster fire rate, and pierces targets, sigh I still dont know why I havent lvled my rifle warrior up, probably because the medium armor is sokittenamazing and 1500 range is dead sexy.

Volley on war rifle does more DPS, yet it does less damage overall because it has half the channel duration compared to rapid fire. Overall I agree with most of what you said though.

Changes I would like to see-
-Lightning Reflexes – Additionally cures cripple/chill/immobilize on use.
-Signet of Renewal, make the condition transfer from yourself work globally so your pet doesn’t need to be right next to you for the skill to work.
-Make signet actives work for ranger as well as pets untraited
-Fix greatsword damage (it’s laughably bad right now)
-Fix sword responsiveness
-Improve pet AI, balancing, pathing and beast mastery trait line. Pet’s are very important to rangers and should be the top priority to get sorted out. There are still many weird issues with pets not being able to track/face moving targets. A lot of the pet actives are just not balanced with others. A significant numbers of pet actives root the pet, while they play a lengthy animation then air ball it doing nothing. I’m pretty sure drake pets recently got busted because for the life of me I can’t get them to use tail swipe in this patch. Pathing need to be looked at for ranger pets and necro minions as vertical changes often make pets run halfway around the world to meet back up with you.
-Whirling defense, allow rangers to move while channeling.
-General theme with ranger utilities is “put 30 points in a trait line to see any practical use from this” needs to go. Utility skills should be worth using on their own like every other profession. Thing like signet of the beastmaster, trap potency and spirit related traits give way too much bonus to the related skills, the traits need to be toned down and the base skills need to be buffed so we have viable utility choices without being overly specialized into one or two areas.
-Replace “Guard” with something else.

junri.5821:

Shortbow was overpowered as it is. Also, if you are saying Longbow is the worse weapon, you are wrong. It is amazing if you are coordinating weapon swaps with the shortbow. It has an interupts and two skills that can hit 18k crits, one of which is AoE… Not only that, it also has a skill that inflicts 10 stacks of vulnerability. PLUS, its auto attack does 1.8k crits and 1.3k normal and its speed is half of shortbow.

Ranger was OP before and as a ranger, I felt it was extremely overpowered being able to down warriors in seconds. Now its pretty even. Also, pets can still hit for 4k crits still, so whats the problem?

What a bunch of misinformation, longbow has one interrupt not multiple. There is nothing on ranger than crits for 18k damage or anywhere close. A full rapid-fire channel on light armor targets might do 8-9k damage in full dps spec with berserkers amulet and divinity runes. IF by pets you mean cats bite skill the dog leap they can hit 4k sometimes but they don’t auto attack people for 4k crits, and only if you have pet traits. There is no way you can kill a warrior in seconds, that is just beyond absurd, maybe if they take off their armor and hit frenzy you could pull that one off. I’m pulling my numbers from extensive SPvP play and testing, I have no idea what game you are playing.

Edit: I guess you are just playing wvw and shooting undergeared people who have 0 chance, regardless of whatever class/weapon you are using.

No offense to some people in this thread, but just because you got to 80 using GS doesn’t mean it’s “alright”. If you ever compared the GS to the other weapons you will see that it does terrible damage compared to 1h sword. 1-h Sword also has aoe, so there is no benefit of using the GS over it. Greatsword has block which is nice and that’s it. Swoop is interchangeable with sword leaps and anything else on the weapon can be more than covered by the variety of offhands you can choose from. The other problem is there is no benefit to using GS over either bow since the bows do more dps, and have similar utility. Short bow out damages GS, has the same 5 skill, also has evade, a better cripple, better bleeds and does it from 1200 range away? In SPVP there are very few rangers and barely anyone uses GS for anything other than messing around. This doesn’t even account for how bad ranger survivability is, you have to stack so much defense to make a melee build viable your dps output suffers even more.

TLDR: melee should be stronger dps than range or have higher utility, else there is no reason to bother doing it. Which is what is happening right now.

Shortbow does more single target DPS especially vs med/heavy armor targets due to conditions.

However I rarely use shortbow anymore because of retaliation and confusion doing obscene amounts of damage back to you while using shortbow, especially with quickness. It’s so bad that I had to stop attacking people if I got confusion on me, where long bow you only take minimal damage due to slow attacks and channeled moves. I prefer the extra range, AOE and blowback on longbow at the cost of some dps.

The first and foremost thing is to make sure you have defensive utility skills, if you aren’t stacking survivability stats because you need a defensive button to press. Most people use traited signet of stone.

Second you have to identify what type of thief you are playing against. The 3 main types are dagger/******, Sword/Pistol and Pistol/Pistol.

-For Dagger MH, this is going to be usually a backstab build and heartseeker spam. These thieves usually have heavy amount of stealth/re stealth and you need to be aware if how much damage backstab can dish out. It’s important to look for when the thief uses haste, and try to use Signet of stone, or use knockback/evade during this time period to prevent most of the damage. Also make sure you use your heal skill early/preemptively to make HS spam do less damage overall. Also it’s important to stay mobile to make it harder for them to backstab you.

-Sword/pistol theives: This is going to be pistol whip burst, usually combined with hatse+devourer/basilisk venom. This is all about just not getting bursted down. Immobolize is very hard to deal with on ranger because we have kitteny condition removal options. However, if you have stone signet up you can block most of this stuff. If you don’t have stone signet, lightning reflexes can be helpful for breaking the pistol whip stun. If you get immobilized lightning reflexes will not do the backroll portion of the move, however it will still evade attacks for a brief moment. This also works with shortbow “3” skill, you will still be rooted in place but you will get some evade which can really help mitigate the damage if you have nothing else.

Pistol/Pistol: Just watch for unload and take defensive measures when you see it. Simply rolling works, line of sighting and anything else for that matter. This type of thief should be the easiest type to beat as a ranger.

I wish I could tell you how to “beat” a thief, but let’s face it you won’t kill any thief 1v1 if they know what they are doing. Best case scenario is you stuff their onslaught and they switch to shortbow and run away. Not much you can do about it really.

I would also recommend getting 20 points in wilderness survival, for the two minor traits (50% increased endurance regen) and 2 seconds of protection at the end of a dodge. Combine with hide in plain sight this will give you a huge survivability increase in pvp.

Dallas.2536:

1) dodge should not be used liberally. if you’re dodging twice at the start of every fight and evading some useless autoattacks, and then you get blown up by evisercate…kinda on you right?
2) same as #1. if someone uses their CC breakers the first time they get slowed, or on meaningless fears, and then they dont have it up for when they really need it…its their own fault.
3) each class has at least 3 utility CC breaks, and they ALL have shorter CD than quickness burst skills
4) several players vs 1 player. who should win?

@1+2 I agree with you, however

#3, Rangers do not have 3 stun breaks, they only have 2. One of which is a 60 second cooldown which is not shorter than quickness (also 60 seconds). Actually a lot of cc breaks have equal to or greater cooldowns than 60 seconds if you actually checked all the professions. Just to list a few:

Eles: Mist Form (75), Armor of Earth(90),
Necros: All of their cc breaks are 60 seconds or longer cd (spectral armor, spectral walk and plague signet)
Ranger: Signet of Renewal (60 sec)

The other problem is even though some cc breaks have good cooldowns like Lightning Reflexes for rangers it still doesn’t give stability/remove conditions/give block/add invulnerability so A simple immobilize or chained CC will easily beat it.

My main character is a 80 ranger who I also do a decent amount of spvp on. I have a couple of things that really bother me about the class that I would like to see changed slightly.

-Lightning reflexes: I would really like if this ability cured movement impairing effects (cripple/chill/immobilize). It is the main stun break/escape utility that rangers get, and the fact it does nothing vs Immobilize is highly frustrating, especially in pvp.

-Signets: I’m not sure about other players but aside from signet of stone, I rarely (never) activate my other signets when using them. I really think the cooldowns/active abilities need to be looked at to make them more attractive to activate..

-Shouts: These are all very poor skills in general. Aside from protect me, none of the other shouts have any lasting practical application, or are completely underpowered and underwhelming. For example “Sick Em” shout which makes your pet run faster+deal more damage, actually does less dps than Quickening Zephyr on your pet, and that doesn’t even include the fact Quickening Zephyr affects the ranger as well.

-Under performing Traits:

~Sharpened Edges (skirmishing): chance on crit to get a 2 second bleed which is much worse compared to similiar traits from other professions.

~Moment of clarity (30 pt skirmishing): Gives your next attack a 50% damage boost after you successfully interrupt. This is just plain poor all around considering the criteria to activate the trait and how little the bonus is, on top of being a master trait.

~Companions Might (skirmishing): The might it grants to your pet only lasts 2 seconds long. It’s a complete waste of a trait considering you cant even keep more than 1-2 stacks of might up on your pet even with shortbow in a high crit build.

~Pet family specific traits from beast mastery, should be consolidated into one trait.

Overall/general: I’m not a fan of how powerful and build defining a lot of traits are. Things like Trap potency, Signet of the Beastmaster and Spirit related traits in nature magic are all but required if you plan on using any of the related utility skills. I think a lot of these effects, such as moving spirits, signets applying to yourself as well as the pet should just be given to the ranger by default and these traits should be reworked some. I think it would dramatically improve the usability of the utility skills and increase the amount of good builds for ranger.

Thank you for reading, I know that I listed pretty much all major buffs to the profession but I really think most of these changes would make Rangers a lot more enjoyable to play.

Mesmer is all around one of the strongest professions in pvp, mostly do to their solid dps and good survivability mix.

For thieves they do way too much damage, backstabs for 10k+? damage, not including like 6k steal crits. My ele has 16k hp. Literally the first hit I take is over half my health bar and I can’t even see it coming. It doesn’t even matter if I hit my stun break/defensive cd’s I have to use 2 skills on huge cd’s just to not die in 2 seconds. I just don’t see why I have to use moves on 75+ second cooldowns to survive every idiot mashing heart seeker with haste.

I just want to see Ranger/Ele/Engineer/Necro improvments and you can leave the other classes alone. These classes have some good perks/builds but they are just not as well rounded and give up too much to get what other classes get almost for free.