Guild Wars 2

I have over 3k hours on Ranger. I’ve gotten all the Fractal Weapons playing only Ranger. I’ve pretty much mastered sword. I know Ranger. I thought it was in a fine place.

2 days ago, under peer pressure, and halfway as a joke, I made my first Elementalist.

Today, I did my first Fractal 50 on that Elementalist.

And suddenly my mind was opened to a world of possibility.

A world where skills had impact! Where when I used a skill, I could tell that I was helping my team. Where I could dodge and still maintain dps! Where I didn’t have to count and time my attacks! And what dps that was! Sweet Dwayna, the dps. It was more sustained than ranger at that! If they just spam lava font and fireball, they’re still doing more damage than the best micro’d sword ranger, in a 5 man aoe!

And merciful Melandru, it didn’t stop there. If my teammates needed some love, if they had conditions that needed clearing? I didn’t have to slot out a utility and waste a long cooldown! I could swap to water attunement and poof! I could actually heal my allies! I could put down a water field where my ally was heading and it would instantly start working! I could put it all down and blast it for more healing! And this was on the same build as dps!

And the swiftness from air that I could just give to people without swapping weapons! The on demand blast finishers from my utilities and heal.

Now, you’re thinking, it can’t be better than that. But you’d be wrong.

By blazing Balthazar, in the same build, Elementalists have access to the single best cc in the game with ice bow 5! And 25 stacks of vulnerability with lightning storm! Or perma blind with sandstorm!

Bear pet? What about Earth Elemental? That thing tanks just enough, without the hassle of dragging it around or swapping pets and renaming them.

And then I went back to Ranger. Where my damage was subpar. Where that subpar damage took so much effort to execute. Where I can’t really save my team, or make an impact.

The design philosophy is “The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.”

4th or 5th out of 7 isn’t even close to “some of the best single target and sustained damage”. (engi/ele on a tier above all else, then thief, then war/guard, then ranger, then necro/mes)

And it’s hard to argue that it’s a feature that Ranger supports its allies with Frost Spirit and Spotter when Warriors have banners that do the same thing but better. When other classes have much better support options across the board.

Rangers don’t even have the best personal survivability- that falls to warriors who also provide more damage and support.

It’s so frustrating and sad that I can spend 2 days on a class and instantly feel the massive increase in power, support, and control, compared to a class that I’ve spent the majority of my time on.

It’s to the point where I don’t think even flat increasing Ranger sword and longbow autoattack damage by say, 20% will even fix things.

Spirits really need a massive buff. Nature Spirit didn’t really gain anything in exchange for being single use. Nature’s Vengeance Grandmaster trait is literally a joke. 1/3rd a stack of might uptime on Frost Spirit is insulting. Give frost spirit quickness, give stone spirit aegis, give water spirit resistance- make the boons given actually powerful enough that 1 second of uptime every 3 seconds will have ANY impact at all.

What about the actives? What if Frost Spirit’s active ability made enemies that entered the aoe slip and fall like engi slick shoes? What if Nature Spirit cleansed conditions BEFORE reviving allies so that they could be rezzed through poison?

Halve the cooldown on Signet of the Wild, Hunt, and Renewal. Heck, make Signet of Renewal a 15 second cooldown! Signet of the Hunt’s active is miserable right now! What if it gave you and your allies within 300 radius 150% damage for 3 attacks?

What if Rangers had a trait that made activating a signet set off a blast finisher? Or made spirit actives blast finishers?

What if Rangers could move during Whirling Defense? (What if whirling defense did more than 1 (one) whirl finisher?)

These changes would bring Ranger to at least the level of guardian or warrior in terms of support, if not damage. It would give Ranger at least a fighting chance.

As of right now, it is really hard to justify playing my Ranger over my Elementalist.
On the one hand, I can worry about stupid pet responsiveness, bugs, and ai issues and precise timing with sword, or I can faceroll things and actually feel like I’m not only doing more damage, but also actively supporting my team, and having an impact.

Other than not being fun, there are 2 main reasons why zerg farming is bad:
1: Inaccurate data feedback
2: Community erosion

Inaccurate Data Feedback:

This is my main concern. The result of all this farming means that people who do not participate will not be receiving the largest in-game income. With all of the looming future updates such as ascended gear and new legendaries, there is high pressure on many players to farm these events, even if the events themselves are not enjoyable.

This results in a large portion of the community participating in the events, despite not finding it fun in the slightest. If Arena Net only looks at the player data, then it could be incorrectly assumed that so many players are participating because they enjoy the content, resulting in more, similar content in the future.

So many guildmates and friends have completely burnt out on the zerg farming. It’s the least interactive of content, but currently the most profitable. Cries of “I’m bored” ring out all the time now, and “I’ll just hit an event and afk for end credit” is abundant.

This sort of mindless zombie farming is not fun. It’s repetitive and slow, and any individual skill means little to nothing. You’re “forced” to stay for the entire event to receive your shiny loot bags, and all you do is run/waypoint around maps and kill masses of enemies.

It was fun the first couple of times- we all thought that completing the invasion was such a big deal, and the old Aetherblade scaling made it actually difficult to complete a couple of times. There was some strategy needed, and people couldn’t just abuse scaling to farm champions.

Now, with the reduced scaling, it’s a pure farmfest. There’s no major incentive to complete the entire invasion after your daily scarlet kill, so massive groups of players running around and steamrolling champions is commonplace. This leads to the second reason why this sort of massive zerg farm is bad.

Community Erosion:

Back in the earlier days of GW2, you’d always be revived when you got downed. It was common courtesy, and it was reinforced with exp. These days, however, it’s been many a time that I’ve seen massive zergs trample over a downed player to get to the next champion with not a single person stopping. It’s really pathetic.

Arguments in map chat are rampant over whether to farm the Aetherblade events or to try to defeat Scarlet. It’s frustrating. The influx of new commanders (from the large amount of gold added) is sizable, and arguments and drama often breaks out between them. Sure, it’s humorous to watch sometimes, but things do get ugly.

The zerg farms lead to gold being the single most important thing to players, over fun, over courtesy, and over community. This is ridiculous.

Content like the Zephyr Sanctum was amazing. There was a whole new map to explore, some pvp games for people who are into that sort of thing, and incentives to do jumping puzzles or mini dungeons that you might not normally do.

This content is the complete opposite. No exploration, no alternatives, no fun.

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a problem? Am I the only one tired of zerg farming being by far the most profitable method of playing? Am I the only one who wants to actually have fun again?