I’d really rather run FT/Nade/ExS (because FT and Nades are the pinnacle of Manliness IMO and 1500 range is just fun)
but I just can’t handle thieves and warriors at all with nades, I need that EG cripple and reposition for them and the poison cleave doesn’t hurt.
I fully trait nades and use the fast targeting option but perma evade thieves just laugh at them anyway. Off node point battle pressure is great until the other team sends something after me with FT/Nade.
The BD mines do create red rings, I’ve fought enough engi on other class to know this.
Any good player just walks around them as their radius is small even traited. I don’t disagree with your logic on ele point charges and this type of thing though.
Intelligence sigil is interesting on FT and I might give it a whirl.
Just a minor quibble, but you’re not using the term ‘skill ceiling’ correctly.
You mean skill floor…the minimum skill needed to be effective.
Hambows, MM, PU mesmer all have a low skill floor. Full turret engi has a low skill floor. Any engi besides turret, even some hybrid turret builds have a high skill floor.
A skill ceiling is the ultimate measure of the classes potential based on what it can do and who it can win against if played to maximum potential.
A d/d ele in this game has nearly unlimited skill ceiling. It also has a high skill floor.
Interestingly non turret engi has a medium skill ceiling, hambow has a slightly higher one.
Full turret engi along with MM necro and PU mesmer have a low skill ceiling. You cannot play them to much potential over their skill floor.
This is all from an SPVP standpoint.
I’m sure your math is fine but once things become practical:
IP can be forced onto someone with the first hit, and it doesn’t have to be FT’kitten. Proper engi play does not involve camping FT. I camp FT when running up to a point and build some stacks there, after that it is what the situation demands. 200 tough doesn’t matter much out there at all but the might stack does and it is used to set up for killing them with decap-rifle chain combo into EG as they run wounded. In fact its good to open with EG on some classes due to weakness.
Relying on only the (ten!)th hit of FT. fire wall and even IA to create burns in a real SPVP situation is going to create far, far less burns than having IP. I see your logic for IA but I feel like you can easily miss a hit opportunity, those burns can go onto a rune of the pirate bird or mes pet instead of the target using FT cleave etc. IP is always there and reliable insofar as a crit proc gets.
You cannot expect people to step in even a third of your mines from BD but you can force IP upon people just with regular hits.
Your build has 200 tough and some more healing but mine has near perma swiftness (actually it is perma but I think in practical worst case scenario terms) and vigor upon swiftness for added defense through speedy kits and invigorating speed.
IP is random but BD is also random. I can barely find a situation in SPVP where I would be allowed to sit still long enough to stack 5 mines for a burst without dying. So not only is BD random activation but it is also in your opponent’s hands of whether they will step on it…you rely on unforced error from your opponent. IP is more reliable in this way as you force damage on them.
As a side note, speedy kits could be removed from my build and replaced to BD, swapping out strength rune for traveler rune again. However getting rid of the might stacking is just like forced vs. unforced error situation as described above again. Opponent will eat more power and condi dmg on average with strength rune without relying on unforced error for them to step into a mine.
I’m not saying BD is useless but I still can’t weigh the opportunity cost as you are. I do like the idea of the tankier BD build so I will be running both variations but mainly I believe inventions trait line is a waste of points. Power shoes vs. traveler rune for instance.
The problem with a math based approach to theorycrafting is math is linear and if you aren’t imagining enough lines to calculate in the first place it’s not the final answer. It takes a lot more math than most are willing to do.
For instance, how about empowering adrenaline vs. forceful explosives in the BD build.
Also you seem to be more of a WVW player so I can understand max hit calculations more in that environment where dolyak and lord targets are predictable. Players are not going to let you stack 5 BD mines and step in them in SPVP though at any decent MMR.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
Other posts above you already said they usually change it to elixir S for serious fights, pretty sure I don’t have to explain why..
Please do explain.
I do not concern myself with what they suggest are reasons they do or do not use it. They did not suggest it meant anything “passive”, you did. So I am asking you. I would like to know what you define as “passive play”?Simply because a player does not jump through multiple kits for the very scattered, single condition cleanses, in no way defines it as passive play. Particularly when you require a double button application for both the cleanse of the turret and super elixir.
Elixir C is not ‘passive’ but this is just semantics anyway and a stupid derail of this thread for chest thumping about a less than optimal skill. Bottom line: it still sucks when you are comparing it in a regular build to Elixir S. A 1 time condi cleanse in no way compares to an invulnerability mode which will let you secure a stomp, secure a res, escape, or even defend against multiple conditions (and any other pressure). The opportunity cost of Elixir C is far overboard for what you get out of it when you could have S in that slot and conditions can be insta reapplied while you’re waiting forever for the CD as the prior poster stated.
Secure stomp is priceless against good teams and no other ability can really compare just based on that alone. Then add in tool belt stealth (which can be a SECOND secure stomp or protected rez) and you can easily see how S blows everything else out of the water in serious TPVP when competing for the precious utility slot.
I’d only put tool kit against it in a 3kit build due to the flexibility of a block and pull but even then…no. I don’t care for 3kit anyway.
That said Elixir C might have a place in HGH focused build but I still prefer to run elixirs with less cooldown in those. HGH sucks anyway, elixirs in general are on too high CD for what they do and 2 might for each is kind of sad.
On topic, further getting away from bunker down in the OP build, not only can you put IP into it but you can work in speedy kits, freeing traveler rune for rune of strength and might stacking.
Here’s my TPVP version which I believe is the best iteration of this build strategy:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpWrtbx+KseRCbBNqxAyJcBRuxh8xHGAA-TJRGwAAeAAJuAAg2fYZZAA
Pros: Respectable cc at 34 going to 84 cc due to target the weak and high hit frequency of FT and EG poison field equals a lot of fire from IP, bleeds from dip into sharpshooter line and very high might stacking in a celestial build for power and condi damage. EG can sustain condi pressure that FT lacks. FT can set up decap scenario with rifle to apply EG/blunderbuss/leap damage pressure.
Flexibility with 2 leaps, several heals, 2 secure stomps out of elixir S.
Good defense/kiting with celestial healing, speedy kit and vigor on kit swap.
The overall package gives a ton of counterplay. Strong in 1v1.
Cons: lacks high range option for real pressure at range but EG at 900 isn’t too bad and rifle fills some of the gap. Suffers the same weakness of most engi build that being a lack of stability making them a fast focus target usually after the necro and before the ranger. Is a slightly above average on node fighter in TPVP: due to the flexiblity of this build they can stay on point which is saying more than most engi condi builds. Off node, the limited range hampers a bit.
I wanted to use bunker down badly but I can’t see the opportunity cost of a mainly defensive ability that deters melee a bit being worth the tradeoff of everything I was able to work into the build by giving up BD such as extreme might stacking, IP, bleeds, high CC from the CC trait line etc.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
Arleon,
I made a modification to this build for TPVP, namely I moved the 2 traits in the lackluster inventions line up to explosives for IP and forceful explosion (to improve bunker down radius) and of course changing elixir C to S for secure stomps.
To make up the loss of power shoes, I picked up traveler rune, which goes well with celestial build anyway IMO. At 41% crit and having IP back in the build this is much better than a fire rune alone.
I ran this on a balanced TPVP team this morning with one other veteran besides myself and three guys that did fractals regularly but never PVP and we had a pretty strong run. Got shut out by some extremely good teams later but we had 5 wins in a row before that so I think our MMR went way up. This build performed pretty well allowing me 1v1 a few classes and lock enemies down with the built in rifle-ft decap potential. I think it’s a solid build as long as it has IP for the pressure EG and FT lack on their own. It’s definitely very flexible.
The puns are really getting old guys, stop being ursinine.
I can’t bear these kind of topics.
Sorry, that’s 1 ranger-forum demerit.
I don’t think you’re koalafied to hand out demerits.
-What class are you playing?
-Are you actually building in condition defense? Even on engi which probably has the worst condition defense conditions are manageable unless you are just putting yourself in stupid situations. Provided you built right of course.
-When autoattack torment goes live everything you said will be correct and it is time for everyone to quit all GW2 PVP because it will be stupid so this post is only good for another nine days.
Ele and war are the core of the current meta for the reasons you listed. Every ToL team recently has had a d/d ele and a hambow at the core.
That said, Ele are not first on the target list but necros , rangers, and engies are due to lack of stability and less ranged defenses. They’re just far easier to lock down and kill than ele. (Depending on whether you’re d/d or s/f but that’s besides the point)
As you said, you can hold 1v2, some eles can hold 1v3. Albeit they are using lightning to take off heal and return but no other class has as much recovery, mobility, cc and defense in one package. Saying you have no abilities that will save you no matter what is false when you have lightning flash and a natural mist form.
Hambows are similar or you can make a sword warrior and kill people with torment, or axe/warhorn shoutheal and never die to anything. Hambow has the most tournament value though.
I believe Ele, while you say it is a Jack of all trades, the thing is in GW2 this translates into unlimited skill cap because you have a response to anything a class can throw while retaining high damage, tankiness, cc and mobility. Counterplay is way more important than 100 extra points on your pure damage build, or 100 extra points on your pure bunker build.
It’s more like master of all trades than jack, so if you like ele already you are on the #1 class in PVP right now for most modes. I personally can’t stand ele style and playstyle.
Warrior by contrast has some weaknesses, putting them at #2.
Power ranger will not be viable after this patch for several reasons.
Firstly the amount of conditions we are going to see, from rangers, engineers, mesmers, and celestial ele will be greater than before and not bringing condition removal will literally make you a free kill to those classes that can out sustain you while spiking you with conditions. The damage of a power ranger isn’t anywhere near enough to beat these classes before they can kill you, unlike the burst of an ele or a thief.
Celestial with axe/dagger or carrion with either SB or axe will be the new meta for sure. There are many variants of condi ranger and most have adequate condition removal. Spirits on celestial with better might stacking will allow for greater team support options and using entangle with krait runes on more survival or trap oriented builds (carrion probably) will be extremely strong as you will probably be able to entangle every fight, and krait runes will be a huge AoE condition bomb. I also view celestial builds without spirits that focus more on regen and survival skills to be extremely viable as well.
In the coming meta I wager we’ll see fewer thieves and fewer warriors, but more engis, eles, rangers, mesmers, and necros (necros because they counter the new cheese options so well and will be better with less warriors around). But we’ll have to see what happens.
I heard necro is getting improved passive heal trait while in shroud along with the ability to res and stomp in shroud. That’s huge for them and they will be a popular home bunker. They’re one of the classes rangers can reliably kill also so it got a little bit harder for rangers there for instance.
My ranger build has plenty of anti-condi but torment on auto attack will cause it to be shelved. Already I’m not too keen on wvw due to perplexity runes. I think the new meta is going to be a lot like this meta with the addition of necro. Ranger & engi won’t be in it. Mesmer might be. It will still be war and ele at the core.
I really hate torment in the first place because kiting is a hard enough strategy to employ in PVP that you didn’t need something specifically anti kite and passive effort damage in a game already full of it. I feel like it was designed by a bad who raged at getting kited and it invalidates a lot of formerly legitimate playstyle out there while keeping the power in the hands of the bunkerish, evades and stealth.
I find signet of hunt is much better than giving up the rune slot. Signet of the hunt affects your pet too so you’re increasing your pet dps this way as well as mitigating their stupid AI a bit by getting them through their scenic route faster.
Black widow on pet 1 wolf on pet 2.
I play glassbow and this naturally works with the play style. You open as ranged with a slightly tankier ranged pet that is going to stay alive longer sitting next to you instead of running out to die. Then when you close to melee you have the melee pet on swap for the fear etc.
This helps to make sure you have the wolf when you need it and also makes your enemy change their dodge pattern when you swap from the range to the melee pet. The wolf tends to insta kd on swap too so it’s much better on pet 2.
Hambow warrior = free win, or turret engi, i hear those are the new op
Recently I was on a nice win streak with my balanced team consisting of a decap/condi engi, bunk guard, war, d/d ele, necro and we hit a 2 ham 3 turret engi team that knew how to play those properly and there was not a thing we could do.
I don’t imagine they would be beaten except by a really well coordinated spike potential using voice chat so that would faceroll 90% of the teams in TPVP at any given time.
I suggest you all comp this way until the APT nerf comes in and show ANET how stupid the current meta really is. Even TOL teams are backed up by ele and hambow every time but you don’t need ele when you have turret engi to beat all the lack of coordination out there.
While I certainly respect your enthusiasm, I’m not as optimistic as you are about these changes. Mesmers do quite poorly in group battles despite how powerful their clones are because of LOS issues. Rangers can avoid these LOS issues thanks to piercing arrows, but their attacks are largely single target in nature unless you are very good at positioning. But even then, you’ll likely never hit 5 targets and certainly not provide the type of AE pressure a zerg really wants or needs.
Conditions are also not something you can rely on others for. Especially at 1200 range. Why? Because why would that Guardian be sitting on the backline with you? The only hope for condi cleanse needs to come from other back line classes, but most of their condi solutions are on long cooldowns or self only. No, conditions are still the largest hurdle this class is going to face imo. Much like they are for most classes. It’ll be even harder now because you’ll have fewer survival skills on your bar thanks to the signet changes.
The next issue is having real burst. While rapid fire is certainly going to hit hard, and our auto is probably the hardest hitting auto in the game. It’s still sustained damage that only hits for about 1.2k damage on average. Criting for 5k is not common. Rapid Fire is only going to hit for 6-8k on average. Most classes can do this with ease and follow it up with more than an auto attack.
Now that all said, the changes are still quite good and it’s certainly a great first step to making power Rangers a real thing. But truthfully, the larger problems with the class relate to what they bring to the group and why people simply don’t want them. Mediocre burst on top of the pre-existing issues that weren’t addressed isn’t going to have much of an impact on the class’s standing.
Patch isn’t too far away though. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Power is ok but in many domination battles you’re better off being a glass staff ele and clean out the whole point with spikes AND CC at range if you want to play this way. I won’t say it’s undeniably better since you won’t be roaming as fast in a glass staff ele but just think about the comparison and note that there were glass eles in recent TOL along with the standard d/d celestial and hambow to take the heat off them (not many power rangers…if any?).
Also this buff is not happening in a vacuum but in a patch where many other classes are receiving buffs. The relative position of the power ranger will not change that much.
And Isn’t melee also a form of “range?” Like we have melee-range, short-range, and long-range?
I like this, i like that fact that the Ranger has a large choice of ranges to fight at every where from traited longbow to short sword.
@Prysin did you not see the sign the says don’t feed the Trolls
I saw it, i just like to feed em until they get constipated
/nerd
The fantasy ranger concept originated with Aragorn and Legolas. Aragorn used swords, Legolas used bows.
/nerd
Now kiss and make up.
Like they did.
For fun you should ask this again in the thief thread. Then we can all go laugh at the answers.
The good thing about experimental turrets is it makes your supply drop insane.
The bad thing about experimental turrets is if you are placing normal turrets properly it will be hard to get buffs from them all, that or they are easy to cleave down.
Have had results going into reflective turrets in a light turret decap style build (1 turret on a low cd and heal turret for 2 more KBs with accelerant packed) APT trait is getting nerfed soon though.
Flame turret and experimental turret by itself can be fun in a might stacking build with FT. Might stacking lends better to hybrid though and not pure power IMO..which FT conflicts with since it’s more of a power weapon…silly anet. I should try this in a PVT setup myself. I think the FT looks cool personally and don’t mind it but I know what you mean about the other kits.
Also I’m confused that you listed Soldier (PVT) stats in the subject but Knight stats (PPV) in the OP?
If it’s 1v1 in any form of PVP it’s not noob since getting your 1v1 down asap is important…you’re either capping a node faster or more enemies could be on the way or both.
To carry play a d/d or s/f ele really well.
You could also play a very good hambow.
These two classes are the core of the meta right now for a reason.
Wait..what?
D/D Ele – requires skill
Hambow – requires face
D/D and any flavor of ele (s/f is strong in the meta) takes more skill to run I agree, but you can also be a bad hambow or a very good lethal hambow.
In the end it doesn’t matter how much skill it takes to drive the class but the output that the class is capable of. You are not locking down the rest of the team with a d/d and you are not driving the dps home with just a hambow for instance.
To carry play a d/d or s/f ele really well.
You could also play a very good hambow.
These two classes are the core of the meta right now for a reason.
There is no job those two can’t help with and they dominate at most things. Think about it.
Home guard, far assault, you name it and they are at least as 80 percent as effective as say a pure bunker guard. In assault jobs they are like 120% as effective as most.
Its really disgusting to have people defending this change. It doesn’t take a genius to see how much of a detriment if this change was to go through.
People want their cheese mode. It’s not easy enough to win or stalemate 1v1s on PU right now I guess…lol
Goodbye roaming and all mobility based classes and hello to the new ele war mesmer meta in all modes if torment auto attacks go live.
Renaming hotjoin to Practice Mode would actually go a long way for such a low effort change.
Many new players click on the big shiny ARENA button because it’s more noticeable than hotjoin so you end up with a lot of inexperienced players giving and receiving a bad pvp experience in ranked.
Yes this will be a wonderful pvp game of ‘slap fight’ when everyone can apply 5-10 stacks of torment and no one can move anymore …lol.
You used to be able to kite entire teams with staff if you knew what you were doing on necro…not anymore since torment.
GG
Speaking of Rangers staying on the bottom of the power curve…mesmers are getting spammable torment on scepter soon apparently.
I don’t know what was worse about that ready up. The fact mesmers can now literally kill things by only using their auto attacks, or the fact elementalist’s have utilities that are more useful than their elites. The balancing team was on something really strange when they thought torment would ever be a good idea on an auto attack, and a clones auto attack.
Yeah I hear the clones get it too which will be ridiculous. This game was better before torment. It was introduced to give necro a balance in shroud between power/condi but it has killed kiting play on every class. People are already talking about dropping their X roamer for another mesmer or warrior in other class forum, assuming loading uber condi cleanse like a shoutheal with soldier rune.
So, as a new engie I began weaning myself off turrets with 2 turret builds, then 1 turret, then I looked at the trait investment for that one turret, said screw it and went to FT/Exgun/ExS with might stacking and juggernaut trait. Finding more success than turrets overall and I can counterplay much better.
FT is a better weapon than people give it credit for because it’s on tap cleaving. I really think it’s meant to be the counter to pet and ai builds, very easy to cleave down other turrets or mm necro or mesmer pet fields for example.
Speaking of Rangers staying on the bottom of the power curve…mesmers are getting spammable torment on scepter soon apparently.
The concept of autoban+ autoque needs to be addressed. Noobs like to think it is rage quit but in reality rage quits are rare and alt tab or otherwise engaged in real life while queued and disconnects are common.
You can’t just blame the victim and expect your pvp game to be more popular. It’s senseless.
No one wants to do nothing but watch a ten minute queue and serious pvp’ers don’t want to spend any time in HJ.
pretty sure the the hotjoin system and dishonorable are mutually exclusive.
I might have been in a waiting queue for solo arena during that, but if I was, I was disconnected without ever entering the solo arena and unable to reconnect until well after it was over. In any case, whatever automated system is responsible for this contrived debuff didn’t care either way.
Yep, the forced queue system led you right into the jaws of the autoban!
Same as if you had disconnected from your ISP while in queue! Or went to the door for pizza, or if your grandmother had caught fire and needed to be put out! Or alt tabbed to type in a forum instead of excitedly watching a queue timer tick for up to 10 minutes! The queue system needs to be changed just as much as the autoban!
Post here if you’re a member! This time should be remembered in history for how lame it is for a game to hand out autobans!
I got mine in Skyhammer! 2.5 days!
Whee!
Case in point people getting ddos’d out of matches today due to the servers being down are getting 1.5 day bans.
This combined with the silly auto queue system is costing anet players.
It’s costing PVP’s community health when those players can’t play for days.
It’s time to fix the current victim blaming queue system and auto dishonorable Anet.
In SPVP you have a couple of choices:
MM which is the lowest skill floor option. It doesn’t have a high skill ceiling either so there is only so effective you can be with MM. This is a bunker class which will sit on (home usually) until your allies come to help you. The reason it is preferable for home bunker instead of say mid is because it has no buffs to help allies and the minions are susceptible to being aoe’d in seconds in a big zerg fight. At home you will typically get less assaulters before help arrives. You can see by this is that is one of the weaker bunkers, not the weakest though.
Recently I have seen pure bunker spec minionless necros with 0 damage and shroud for days which was an interesting bunker to beat on for a consistent 3 minutes with three people. I could not stand to play such a thing personally. A decap bunker or any guardian would always counter this one easily though.
Condition necro is an anti tank weapon in SPVP, with your tanks being guardians and ele who rely on boons with fear spam and condis you are pretty good at locking someone down if you get the drop on them. With low mobility it is difficult to get the drop on someone as necro but you always have your insta fear to lead with from shroud. The main problem with being an anti tank weapon is tanks are universally good against a lot of targets and anti tank weapons have a lot of weaknesses, warriors in particular can easily ruin your day or any class with access to a lot of condi defense such as ranger.
Power necro is a mid point assault class with wells and lich form able to secure mid initially many times.
Just know that in any team fight as necro you are high on the hit list as you are always able to be targeted without evades, stealth or stability. It is possible to build to minimize these as well as your skill in juking. The only necros that can ever kill me as I main power ranger (which are very, very few) are the ones HIGHLY skilled in juking even then I can kill them usually if I have a good opener. I have spent a lot of time on necro as well I’m just not into it these days.
I don’t play the rest of the game modes but that is what you are in for as SPVP necro.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
I challenge the base assumption that PVE players in Heart of the Mists is a Bad Thing™.
-Mapchat is already full of pointless conversation and trolls on the Chuck Norris level. Plenty instigated by myself :P
-PVE players might actually be enticed to PVP more by hanging around the hardcore PVP crowd, thereby growing the PVP side of the game.
-Mapchat being empty is pretty boring while waiting for a queue anyway.
Dear god please do this.
I PVP nearly 100% of the time playing and having to screw around with walking on a level 1 new character to bank or even an 80 character is so annoying with pointless load screens detracting from PVP time.
Your PVP experience should be able to be purely PVP in game if you want it. I still have enough incentive to go into PVE occasionally for new models or WVW gearing.
Every load screen, every auto ban decreases the available pool of players PVPing keep in mind. If you want to grow this portion of the game you will cut out these time wasters.
Hi frand Vee Wee,
Skyhammer: I don’t think it necessarily needs to go either but the skyhammer room in particular should be made with a wider area and less insta kill potential. It’s too easy to camp with a decap build and pure cheese. I think the rest of the map is natural enough if someone didn’t hug a wall at the right time they pretty well deserve to die.
“Leavers”
Most 4v5 are not based on true leavers but the terrible queue system initiating 4v5s due to auto queue of alt tabbed players. If you truly want to promote the game, punishing casual pvpers (and already an auto ban system linked to an auto queue system is very sadistic way to program) even more is not the way to go about constructing a popular PVP game because those casuals might transition to e sports and otherwise pay the bills. Handing out auto bans after someone was sucked into a match while getting the pizza at the door is a self destructive way to build a game.
Next up: a true leaver mid match may have been a disconnect, or may have been a true leaver. In either case, I don’t think it disrupts the ethics of sport to bring in a substitute. This is analogous to substituting for an injured player in NBA or NFL which teams are allowed to do. If a player just walked off the field in NFL he could be assumed to have a mental injury lol.
There should also be a vote forfeit option to promote more games in less time.
Celestial D/D eles are hardcountered by anyone with boon stripping.
Untrue because a skilled ele can reverse the boon strip with:
Invulnerability
Mobility
Heal
And return before the necro’s CDs are back to kill a no-stability punching bag.
For SOLO queue the following needs to happen:
First and foremost the queue system is horrible that it can suck an alt tabbed player into a game. It may surprise MMO players to learn that people have lives outside of a game and maybe the baby needs changing or the pizza is at the door or whatever. Then that player comes back to seat to find queue popped and he is 1/3 of the way to a multi day auto ban to compound things. That player may quit pvp all together in disgust which is not something you want to promote in a pvp game.
EVERY SINGLE OTHER PVP GAME confirms a join before just forcing a player into a match. If unconfirmed it just goes to the next in line. That is the main terrible component of programming design causing the majority of 4v5 because every match that starts 4v5 you can be sure was due to that.
Next up: disconnects mid match. For TEAM queue it’s a little murkier however even in the NBA and NFL if a player has an injury and is carried off the field the team is allowed to substitute in a new player. If ‘e-sports’ is ever to be taken seriously an ‘e-injury’ (crappy internet) should not result in a free 4v5 win for the other team.
Agreed, there is no excuse. There are more 4v5 free wins here than any game I’ve ever seen, and the forced queueing system is the main culprit.
I also agree there should be a forfeit vote option to allow players to get to more matches and out of unwinnable ones and allow the winners to not waste time in their lives. I suppose there is a farming concern with this though since it’s now tied to loot.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
You’re right, but it happens.
Staff Eles can kite Warriors and Thieves for days and days while still being able to maintain their offensive capabilities the group relies on. D/D Eles can sustain and provide tons of AE pressure. Thieves are highly mobile and do high burst when they finally create an oppenening. Warriors can tie up Thieves like no one’s business. You’d expect the Ranger to fit into this group of periphery classes because it has a 1500 range advantage, but it simply doesn’t. The burst damage is low, the sustain damage is single target, the ability to escape a group is difficult (and it shuts down your offensive capability for 10 seconds), etc.
Class just isn’t built to support organized PvP as a power build imo. Especially not in WvW where you can’t rely on a terrain advantage to be available 90% of the time.
I agree with this as the #1 defense of power ranger is mobility. A cripple or chill of sufficient duration kills you pretty well whereas near perma levels of stealth, evade, or multiple invulnerability modes are much harder to counter from other classes.
I land 95% of my hunter’s shots and use signet of stone, and my GS4 blocks and wolf kd/fear to great effect too.
If mobility is to be the #1 defense of power ranger they should have a bit more of it. A good thief should not be able to catch them so easily. I don’t believe in a class that is supposed to win 1v1s with impunity in every situation and of course I can get on MY shoutheal warrior and destroy or stalemate thieves all day with axe/wh hammer, ridiculous condi clear ability and cleaves and defense for days.
It’s not that the power ranger should have guaranteed wins of 1v1 it’s that his niche is not niche-y enough. Stealth and evades WORK in this game, high mobility and range…not so much. I keep the GS cooldown trait mainly for the extra mobility for example to boot. The power GS/LB ranger I think of like a scout in TF2, gets in and out, some 1v1 capability, some cleave (shotgun, whatevs) and is back out of a zerg before anyone can lock you down.
Their tactical value is so similar to thief yet their disengage and reposition ability is way worse for what tradeoff really? A crappy ai pet that’s mostly ignorable? Are people really happy with only thieves in this role of ‘assassin’? Yoloq and wvw are chock full of thieves for this reason and it’s really boring to see.
I will keep playing it though because I love the style which is enough reason for me. I’ll be getting the most value out of these changes due to my playstyle which I’ve had for over a month now but I still don’t expect this to be some earth shattering change for people to QQ about.
At best it will put another class on the board filling the power roamer role properly which is perfectly reasonable and will hopefully will give this stale PVP some much needed variety. It may sound like QQ when the thief nerfs + ranger buff hit because the relative level of people playing thieves to power rangers is greatly slanted to thief, you can see people in this very thread talking about how they thief over ranger right now. There’s a reason for that.
Also, I like Vee Wee and had fun running with him in hj. His esports chant turned our team that was flagging around to a win. I was running healbombs and condi damage at the time but have since switched to 2 turret/elixir gun and p/s to be actual pressure instead of inferior bunker with mediocre damage in the case of healbomb type builds.
I find his builds too glassy for me mainly is my problem which runs counter to the idea of engi that I want to play, which is something more solid, preferably with some turrets or other unique mechanic that the other classes don’t have. I have liked turrets and pet stuff since EQ necromancer, DAOC Animist, and Warhammer Online Engineer. The concept of area denial is very interesting tactically.
Because 2 turrets and a condi build with elixir gun put out a lot of power and condi damage at the same time, is not totally reliant on turrets, and has a stun break.
I’ve played s/d, d/d and p/d thief for a few months.
I can kill bad to very good thieves on power ranger and this is a large amount of thieves so it’s not like I’m cherry picking examples to stoke my ego.
When I come across a thief that is as fast and skilled as me however I die. I don’t know about ‘hard counter’ but many of your advice you mention (which I already knew all of, not to be condescending just saying, and I do appreciate the effort to add to the discussion) just doesn’t work when you reduce the response time frame to your reposition and slower attacks vs. the thief mega burst that can stick on you just by spamming 3 and near instant stuff + constant blind. I don’t even have trouble with s/d and p/d anymore really..it’s still a d/p thing which I think the BP nerf will have a decent effect one as above. The extra stun time on GS will help greatly as will the LB autofire. The GS stun is also going to help land stun/maul combos before eles or engies heal for instance.
(esp. wolf fear for a slow attack..stupid wolf takes so long to cast it the thief usually has plenty of benefit from SR no matter what) It’s ranger reposition and slower attacks vs. thief instant TP back to the face and drop a smoke powder on your feet for the umpty millionth time to stack with the TP blind.
Just as one example, even if you land the critical first hit a thief in the middle of TP/steal can still warp to you and apply blind even though he is KD’d. You can’t followup with anything due to blind and you are still right there for the next round of burst.
It is mainly the constant blind spam that cripples our class esp with LB out and I had tried every permutation to mitigate it even as far as melandru runes and blind removal on dodge but the strategies of glassbow and power ranger become too compromised this way and versus all other classes. This is why I say the thief BP nerf will equalize the power roamer field possibly more than anything we’re getting except GS stun.
Yes I have no trouble with condi classes, my version of glassbow is not a stupid noob one with 6/6/x/x but rather 6/0/6/2/0 and ranger rune. 2100ish power 43% cc and enough toughness/healing and condi cleanse from WS line and greatsword cast reduction to boot. I am PVP rank 80 with champion hunter title.
Sic em is still a joke to me against skilled thieves since NPC attacks are so easy to avoid in this game esp when they can blind spam and TP. I will not give up SoH nor LR for Sic em leaving SoS as my current main option and it will just be better with the patch as I add RTW where I don’t run it currently, although I could switch back to SoTW right now and do so I just don’t have many compelling reasons to get rid of a powerful burst trade/stomp protection option that is SoS.
So, what is the purpose of glassbow in PvP?`To tie down the enemy roamer. Make the enemy roamer use time and resources chasing you. This effectively prevents far point captures, and also makes ganking less effective due to the enemy lacking a roamer.
I find this a bit lame since the thief roamer can do this and also usually kill the other roamer. It sounds like you’re not killing thieves and just wasting a bit of time for other inferior roamers which is not that much value.
This is the main problem currently with power ranger roamer..too easily countered by thieves and sometimes eles, however the ele can be tied up in point assault pretty often since LB ranger has better ‘mobility’ which is equal to their mobility and 1500 range for faster rotation.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
LB pew pew can be reflected, nullifed, or outright avoided, so there is certainly a fair amount of counterplay in some of these changes.
Im curious as to how you can avoid the longbow. I know you can just spam ADADADADADADA while moving, but that does not work against RTW, which every LB user should be using.
S/F ele is my current go to pvp build, so between magnetic wave, swirling winds, and a can of super burst, im personally not too worried.
As for other classes, most can probably burst/pressure the ranger enough before it can do too much, especially if they have good gap closers. A thief only has to worry about sic em, but other than that shouldn’t have any trouble whatsoever. Condition necro can also blow it’s burst/CC cooldowns to destroy the LB ranger as most probably don’t have very good condition cleanse. I’d imagine staff/GS shatter mesmer to even have a good chance against them if they juke well with blink and play very offensively.
I feel like longbow ranger will be good against certain other builds though, particularly against more balanced builds with good to moderate survivability that either rely on damage at shorter range or need time to ramp up damage via might stacking, like hambot or DD ele. But in general I feel like other burst builds (with better survival mechanics) will keep rangers under control, of course that’s depending on other changes that happen. That’s just my humble opinion, so don’t take it too seriously. Im just saying that while rangers will be better, many things will give them a run for their money, as far as pvp is concerned. I don’t roam in WvW, so things could be much different there.
Condi classes are nothing even in glassbow with the right build. Empathic bond and healing spring go a really long way. I currently run SoTW on top of that but I don’t need it and will easily give it up for SoS with the changes. Condi necros and engies go down really fast and I can stalemate bunker PU mesmer (sadly can’t kill them if they’re built right and know what they’re doing).
Shatter mes can be bad if they’re skilled, mainly because LB 3 f’s up so much in the middle of a pet/interrupt pile and their lockdown move comes back faster than I can get real distance back. They are mainly a greatsword job but it’s also hard to stay in melee with the good ones.
It is ele that’s my biggest counter due to all the anti projectile/immunity, heals and mobility. Even turret eng with reflect turret is nothing after waiting out a couple of anti projectile shield.
Okay I deleted the “s”. Apparently if you add s at the end of 4.5, they’ll censor it lol.
In leet-speak
4 = A
5 = S
s = S
Laughing my @ss off
Ranger is pretty well on the bottom rung for PVP and PVE so this patch won’t change much relatively. Other classes are getting buffs.
What it will do in PVP I think is put them on the map as a viable power roamer since thieves are also getting some key nerfs.
If there is much QQ it will be from disgruntled thieves and players suddenly getting killed by an influx of power roamer rangers where they didn’t before. They won’t have much legitimate grounds for complaint though as I don’t see the cap and teamfight meta changing much from these changes and the same ol’ classes are going to dominate there.
Warriors I believe are also getting buffs so the relative game is going to shift upward. Whether rangers gain in the relative is going to depend on more things that a few power based moves. It is still very advantageous to ball up and throw buffs and condi damage everywhere in PVP for instance. It is still very advantageous to run unkillable bunker and heavy armor classes with actual damage. Engineers are also getting buffs.
TL:DR how much do you guys really see a few power based buffs advancing the total power of the class relative to other buffs and the status quo.
Players like to heap abuse on the afker but the reality is it is Anet’s terrible queue system at fault 9 times out of 10 for dishonorable debuffs which are not such a problem in any other game with a decent queuing system.
The system needs to not take players into matches without a confirmation. If it doesn’t receive initial confirmation it needs to draw in a new player from the outside queue. I’d go so far as to say it should draw in a new player if you have a dc midmatch to preserve the integrity of 5v5 …at least in soloQ.
-It is obnoxious and gets us killed.
-It is cured by allowing autofacing to work…which does require being a sitting duck.
-Thieves are getting nerfs to D/P smoke field, shortbow fire while invis, and Inf strike.
They’re the majority of melee in our face that is an immediate threat anyway.
Congrats on beating Easy Mode!
See you in Normal Mode!
Passive play means cheese to some degree to most people, it doesn’t matter whether it comes from AI, ridiculous passive buffs, constant heals in stealth, ridiculous passive defense, or even condi damage.
That said the meta is nothing but a big block of muenster right now so have at.
I main a zerk power ranger and their actual power lies in fast effective rotation to ninja fights and caps in your favor not literally ‘team fight with the whole team on a cap only’.
Spirit is going to be better support for that. Yes they are cheesy. Everything winning is cheesy to some degree. I agree with other posters here that it is relatively weak on the ‘cheese scale’. You know this because rangers, necros and engies are still primary targets on the hit list due to a low amount of defenses like stability, blocks, stealths and condi and projectile immunities to stop combo chains.
D/D Ele can do everything in this game by contrast including smashing a spirit ranger’s effectiveness (or turret engi or MM necro) in one-two hits and from a perspective of player skill it is not cheesy in my opinion but a class should not have an unlimited skill ceiling either.
Even hambow can cleave down spirit ranger pretty fast, so there you go.