Guild Wars 2

Killyox.3950:

Dalingrin.1035:

Xhaiden is right. This is one of the worst launches and the game has less features than any previous MMO at launch….oh wait, that’s not true at all.

This is easily one of the most feature rich MMO at launch…ever. I can’t believe folks don’t have just a little bit of patience to let ArenaNet prioritize fixes post launch.

They’ve said many times prior to launch that additional eSport features would come post launch. Either people didn’t get the memo or they have unrealistic expectations that a bunch of new features would be added a week or two after release of one of the biggest games in history.

I play mmos since 1997 and played MANY betas/releases of MANY games. GW2 had one of the best releases ever. There are people who expect AN to launch 100% finished game with features worth of 7 years bonus of developing.

Yes it has less features, it’s been 7 years less on the market than WOW… .

People nowadays have stupid expectations.

So +1 dalingrin

While I somewhat agree with you, there’s a problem beyond the patience that would be fair for a game like GW2. That problem is ‘timing’.

You see, GW2 basically had 1 month to prove to it’s gamers that it is worth sticking to. After that month, EVERY single player that was bored in some way or another and has played WOW before would go check out Mist of Pandaria. You might think now that, since GW2 is F2P, this might not be such a big deal. But it is.

People are not playing with the same fire when they have previously been bored or dissapointed. And while GW2 is a very good product, it does lack on what it has promised.

Let me give you an example: I’m in a very small guild, there’s only 6 people. We’re all WOW arena veterans, with numerous gladiator ranks and first places in different brackets in WOW. This does not mean at all that we’re good players, but it means we’re only here for the competition, for superior pvp and for the ladder. And GW2 has given us nothing so far. Absolutly nothing. And already we’re looking for something else.

Ranger is not weak, it’s just not as easy to play as it would look at first glance. Positioning is a must for this class, as is multitasking and the ability to dodge the important stuff.

As somebody else in this thread already said: No problem with running a ranger in tourneys. Precious TeamParadigm has no means to actually evaluate the rangers worth in tourneys, since they fight randomly matched opponents just as often as everybody else. We have an about 85 % win rate with our tourney team, but that doesn’t mean that the ranger as a profession is good, it doesn’t mean that our team is good and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I’m good. So how exactly should we be able to say anything about the rangers worth in tpvp?

Nobody can. But yeah, we got no 13k pistol whip, I guess we need some serious love.

-split-

For instance, if you play with a longbow, you can start by using a 1 skill to get the Opening Strike trait effect, and if your opponent blocks that, you still have Hunter’s Shot that can add the vulnerability anyway.

I’m pretty sure it’s a bug too. Still, it’s bad how it is. And just because we can inflict the vulnerability through a weapon spell – that should make up for the fact that it’s way too easy to NOT benefit from ALL three minor traits in the Marksmanship tree? No, just no. I would be fine if at least one of the three would do something different, I wouldn’t even dare asking for more. But no, all three of them. If you spend 25 points in the Marksmanship tree, traitwise you might not even be seeing a benefit from this if you for some reason miss your first shot in a fight. I won’t even start about how bad these traits actually are if you’re in for a full 3 minute midfight during tourneys in Foefire or similar scenarios.

I think you have misunderstood the Ranger. When playing a Ranger you are going to largely be a damage dealer, that’s what the Ranger is primarily build to be, just like the Guardian is primarily build to be a support profession. The majority of other professions weapon skills only has one skill that effect themselves too. I don’t know where you see all these fantastic weapon skills that are so amazingly different from the Rangers. The depth of the Ranger primarily comes from the pet.

At this point, I don’t believe we’ll ever be on the same page in this thread I never denied that the pet is a one of the defining mechanics for our class, but since I only get to activate 1 ability, that’s not really all that interesting. I hoped I wouldn’t have to bring this up, but compare it to a warlock in WoW: his pets had at least 2 abilites, apart from sending it to attack, sending it to a specific location and calling it back to your position. There was way more depth in using your pet than the ranger has in GW2.

And have you played other classes? I really can’t understand how you cannot see the difference in weapon skills between the ranger and most of the other classes. They are just more interesting. Again, I repeat myself, it’s not really so much about WHAT exactly a skill does, as long as it is a little more than 1 – “shoot”, 2 – “shoot faster”, 3 – “shot for low damage, but make more damage with future shots”, 4 – “pushback with your shot” ( at least that’s an interesting one), 5 – “shoot everything in a certain radius”. I simplify here, but you should get the idea. Most classes just do more with their spells. And saying “this is because we are, after all, a damage class” is not a valid arguement. The holy trinity doesn’t exist in this game, every class can do damage and every class should be able to do so in a certain style. Sure, we might be more suited for a roaming kind of style than a guardian, but after all, if you wanna go DPS as a guardian, you can. It’s not okay to deny us an interesting way of playing just because we are mainly supposed to be doing damage.

Yes, the pet AI is still not perfect. There are still times that the F2 skill needs to be pressed twice before activating, and the channel time on some of the pet skills are horribly long. But a lot of it you can play around. The Owl or Snow Leopard give chill that slows your opponents movement, meaning your pet then has a higher chance of hitting. Other pets like the Murellow casts an AoE effect on the ground that you can shoot trough to get bonus damage. There is also the Jaguar who has stealth, so your opponents can’t see it attacking. Or birds pets that are smaller, meaning that opponents often choose to ignore it, because it seems less dangerous. Increased movement speed helps to make the pet hit more often, while Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle helps to slow your opponent down.

Maybe I burst a bubble here, but:
- You got to actually land the chill to be able to benefit from it.
- It takes forever for the murellow to cast his poison field, he can’t move while doing it and you actually got to be able to stand correctly to benefit from the field. No easy tasks during a team fight.
- By now, somewhat decent players have learned not to judge the damage of the pet by its size. And will kill birds just as easily as other pets.
I could go on. It’s not about “omg, all pet abilites are bad!”. It’s about “Pets are freaking unreliable, but we desperatly need them, because they define our class, yet they are clumsy and miss as often as they hit with their abilites.”

It really doesn’t sound like you like the playstyle at all. Some of the posts in this topic (not just yours) makes it sound as if the Ranger is largely bad, when it really only needs some tweaks. The profession is completely viable, it’s just not the most reliable profession right now. But it’s a pet class, so that is to be expected. I have faith that the Ranger will be improved over time, though.

You misjudge. It’s exactly BECAUSE I like the playstyle that I wish for a smoother and better ranger with more depth. It’s not a bad class, it is viable, it’s just not the best at what it does. In no scenario.

-split-

Mixing profession playstyles together and saying it means one profession is worse then another, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Each profession has its own strengths, that’s what creates dynamic gameplay. The only reason why the Ranger seems so limited to you is because you’re forgetting the pet.

I think you misunderstood me there. I wasn’t asking for the guardian or mesmer skills or those of any other profession really. What I was getting at is that our spells are way too onesided and straightforwarded in comparison, since most of the time, they do not affect us at all, but only the enemy. Mesmer and Guardian were only used for an example. I just would like to have more depth added to our spells, similar to how other classes spells work.

I am not forgetting the pet, in fact, I rolled this class because of the pet. But, not talking about pve here, since in pve, the ranger is frakking kitten, in pvp, the pet is still to unreliable. There are a lot of situations where the F2-skill still doesn’t work. Often, the casting delay is horribly long. They are slow, even when traited, and their AI is easily fooled by every semi-decent player. Also, giving my pet swiftness with my longbow just isn’t really that much fun. If I actually had control over more of my pets skills, I would totally agree with you that the pet makes up for the boring weapon skills, but this is hardly the case.

If you think it’s boring to play with the Ranger, then that’s a personal thing. A lot of people are having fun playing the Ranger, including myself. I think the Warrior is really boring to play, because you don’t have to do anything ells other then buff your own damage. But a lot of other people love that playstyle. It’s simply about personal taste.

Don’t worry, I still love the ranger! I still think the concept is great and I love the playstyle. But I just think a lot of things aren’t really were they should be right now and that some basics should be improved.

- 5 stacks of vulnerability is a nice bonus, 10 stacks is even better, but getting double critical on your first attack is great, when you consider the bonuses your pet can get from a critical hit (30% more damage, bleeding, might, or health), or the bonuses you can get from sigils with a critical hit effect.

1. Does only work within 900 range.
2. If your pet hits before you, your own opening strike is gone.
3. Can be avoided in numerous ways.
4. It’s still boring, considering EVERY minor trait in Marksmanship is about opening strike

While I won’t harp about the movement speed (never really bothered me too much and also, if you play tall classes like Norn or Charr, the animation seems to be slower, because they make bigger steps), but what really bothers me is the general straightforwardness of the the skills.
You don’t really notice it until you have played a few other classes for a few hours, but ranger skills are really….boring.

Take the shortbow for example. There is exactly 1 skill that benefits you, Quick Shot, giving you Swiftness ONLY if you actually hit your target with the spell. Every other skill is only affecting the enemy (and in some cases your pet).

The 1H-sword: if you actually chain three attacks of the first skill, you gain some might. Apart from that: evading and things that affect enemies.

The longbow: there’s not a single spell on there that affects you, the only thing that does not purely affect the enemy is Hunter’s Shot, giving Swiftness to your pet.

This goes on and on. Other classes have a lot of spells that incorporate a dual nature in their spells, affecting enemies while also granting benefits to you. Guardians block, get protection, build some kind of defensive abilities around them, while damaging foes. Mesmers almost constantly buff themselves in some kind of way while dealing damage and quite a few of their spells change throughout combat (Chaos Storm, Illusionary Leap, Blurred Frenzy etc. Necros depend on the clever use of spells that affect both them and the enemy.

But us rangers we…shoot things. Or we hit them in some kind of way. Most of our abilites only change, when we flank or shoot guys in the back, which doesn’t really happen all that often in a 1on1 and isn’t all that interesting in general (“Guys, look, I just put 2 stacks of Bleeding on that dude over there because for a short time, I could actually shoot him in the backs for two arrows!”). During fights, enemy players don’t really need to learn too much about us. Just don’t step into the red circles on the ground, mind the pet and don’t show the ranger your back and you are fine most of the time. If we start to glow red, we hit a little harder, but it’s pretty much a fire and forget thing. As are the roots. And the spirit just gets pummeled to death when ever you dare to put him up.

Utilities are also quite lame. Most of the pet shouts are either buggy or just not worth it, because pets still act to unreliable. And die too quickly. Why the frakk would I want to use one of my utility slots to tell my pet to defend a specific location? Or to send him to revive an ally for 200 HP per tick? Signets are freaking lame, even the good ones are more than boring. One third of our utilies are thus either absolutly useless or boring passive stuff.

To rant even further:
- all minor traits in the marksmanship tree are absolutly useless, horrible and barely noticed. Who ever came up with the idea of these opening strikes needs to…well…just…do something, seriously.
- Too many traits are too good, while others are too mediocre to actually allow for a variety of builds. Whoever uses a bow and does NOT pick up Piercing Arrows for example must really have a good explanation as to why he would choose so.
- There’s no trait in all of the trees that actually grants any !USEFUL! benefit on a dodge roll, something almost every other class has available to them. Don’t you dare say “Companion’s Defense”, because honestly, if you dodge, why would you need to be protected for 2(!) seconds after that? It’s just measly. You would need to spend !30! points in the Nature Magic tree to get a horrible “Dodging removes blind and poison from you (10s cooldown)”. You would also have to deny yourself the still at least decent “Spirits unbound” for that. How bad is that? Just some examples of what other classes can get on dodge: Guardian – Heal nearby allies, Mesmer – create a clone.

This post has gotten longer than I thought, but to return back to the topic and for all those tl;dr:

- Most of our skills are bland and way too straightforward
- A lot of traits are too *ç%+£, therefore not allowing for a great variety in builds

Don’t really like most of the pve sets and haven’t done much there anyway, so pvp it is:

Hi there,

so I know that there are other threads adressing network lag and similar things, but I believe this specific problem deserves it’s own thread.

When playing sPvP, whether it’s tourneys or hot join, some guys of our guild get massive lags during matches. It’s not a frame drop, it’s just lag, serious lag, like people running into walls for 20 seconds.

This varies from server to server. On some servers, these guys have absolutly 0 lag at all, everything works fine. Then, in the next round, the same people are absolutly unable to play at all. 10 to 20 seconds delay, at least. What I think this means is that the lag is dependent on the specific server the map is hosted on. And on the routing to that server.

It’s gotten to the point where there is really no point in queuing up for tourneys at all, because our people affected by the lag no longer have any fun during these rounds, since they are almost completly useless.

What I would like to know:
- Is this a common problem? My guildies that are hit hardest by this are from Germany, anybody encounter these problems as well?
- Is ArenaNet aware of this problem? And are they doing anything against it?
- Is there a way to circumvent this? Any hints as to what could be done to avoid it from our side?

Thanks for reading!

I mostly agree with the OP and with mouse.

Those of you saying that necros are easy 1on1…well, you guys obviously have never fought a necro that knows what he’s doing. They have a kittenload of hp, they have 2 fears and they can condition you to death before you can kill them, if they play their cards right. Best chance you got is to go for pure power damage and not give him the chance to swap your own bleeds to you as well as his own, but even then, it’s hard.

Downed state is cool and a nice addition to the gameplay. I like it. Might need some balancing here and there, but otherwise it’s a very nice component for teamplay.

Really, really a BIG problem this one. Basically it comes down to some key abilities being totaly useless, because they’re just too unreliable.

Best example for this: the 2sec fear of the wolf. This would be an AMAZING pet ability, but I stopped using the wolf, because even if you are able to calculate the (horrible) animation of the howl correctly, you might still find that your wolf just ignores the F2 command and when he finally does use go through, it’s already too late. It’s almost impossible to interrupt something with the howl (a combo, a rezz, a stomp etc.).

The problem lies within the trait itself. If it would be too easy to keep the stack, there wouldn’t be any skill involved in keeping it up, therefore you’d actually be annoyed when you DON’T have the full stack. In the end, this would lead to the ranger player base requesting the trait giving a flat out permanent buff. Making it a boring, passive ability.

However, in the current form it’s just a kitteny trait. There’s really no point in going for it, since in order to use the profession to its fullest potential, you HAVE to get rid of your pet from time to time. Doesn’t matter whether it is by swimming, swapping or changing of the pet.

This trait needs to be replaced, simple as that.

First content patch!

Erik.4621:

It’s just a small recommendation. I know it’s not big deal/a priority and I do continue to play and change the keybind anyway. I just swap between character frequently and it’s something odd I noticed.

It is a little strange, I agree. And it’s also somewhat annoying, since you can’t save keybindings for specific characters. Which means that you basically have to change your keybindings around every time you play something else than your ranger.

It’s a small thing, but surely something that could be improved.

Just found this gem of a thread. Can’t stop laughing when I see people argueing that they lose DPS because they can no longer spend 20 seconds doing exactly 0 dps during a fight while they are rezzing their pet. I’m sure, once you have rezzed that precious pet it will make up for the UNBEARABLY LONG TIME IT TAKES TO REVIVE A PET DURING COMBAT.

Jup, you guys sure understood how this class is played.

Also, sorry to break your bubble, but balance changes like this are often done with pvp in mind. And rightfully so. And in a pvp scenario, accidentally starting to rezz your pet when you just wanted to stomp somebody or rezz a teammate was about one of the most horrible things that could happen to you during a fight.

ArenaNet was absolutly spot on with that change. And I’m already getting somewhat confused at people being able to actually WHINE about this.