Guild Wars 2

Fluffball.8307:

If others here feel the same way I do, we’re not posting because we’re not qualified. It’s not so much that I refuse to post in the thread, I just wish the devs would refuse to listen to the people in that thread. The community can suggest problems with rangers, but most of us just don’t understand the behind the scenes balancing enough to suggest solutions. That’s why the CDI thread is a big pile of garbage suggestions. The devs are getting paid a lot of money to balance video game classes for a living because enough people think they’re good at it enough to manage hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fan money. I get paid to do something else entirely.

The fact that certain person has been chosen for a job by some group of people does not make that particular person great at that job by default. It doesn’t even make that person sufficiently competent by default. The history of mankind has proved that plenty of times already.

The only thing that results from such fact is that such person is left to prove her or his capability at the job the said person has been tasked with.

On the subject being discussed here: I was curious about how the CDI will turn out as the tool for brainstorming. However, the very beginning of it was a confirmation of the current Anet’s strategy of avoiding dedication of resources into major projects. Takes away large part of fun that resides in such brainstorming.

But more importantly, it places most of the ideas that people can come up with in the “not going to happen” zone. Take the aspect idea as an example. By itself, it’s not the worst way to provide solution to the problems that ranger’s class mechanic generates, even if Anet’s motivation here is clearly “we don’t want to bother with fixing the mess”, rather than “we do realize that some people are not fond of pets”. However, thing like this has to come with major overhaul of traits, utilities, maybe even some weapon skills to adapt them to the new shape of the class mechanic. Consequently, the whole proposal changes into a complex project. Otherwise it’s going to be another half-baked bandaid more than anything else.

I probably should not put it beyond Anet to try to deliver it that way, but still…

jcbroe.4329:

From what I understand, and from my own assumptions, the pet AI is basically using the open world monster AI, down to the point where they stop to attack the same way. It is assumed then that necro minions and mesmer summons behave in the same fashion.

So, I gather that what I’m suggesting would mean that they would have to literally recode ranger pets entire AI system. Essentially, the game would have to be overhauled to allow for this new “object,” aka the updated pet, to exist within and interact with the environment. How it takes damage and does damage and everything would have to basically be coded from the ground up.

It’s the way I understand the problem as well. And I still think that whoever has made the decision to use copy-paste method to provide AI for pets did not think it through at all. Honestly, it should’ve been already obvious back then what problems will result from this.

Sadly, it’s also the reason why I doubt we’ll see any significant improvement in the area of pet AI in the nearest future. So far Anet has been very keen to avoid devoting major amounts of effort or resources into balancing, and nothing indicates they may be planning to change that policy.

The problem is that nothing else than creation of new, separate AI for pets will work in the long run. As I already stated in another thread, even if they find any way to fix the pets without dealing with core of their problems, it will not be that different from a temporary band-aid. With every piece of new content that Anet will introduce to the game in the future, pets will be at risk of becoming inadequat for one reason or another.

I’ve ceased to wait for any meaningful changes to the Ranger in the foreseable future after it has been admitted that pets share any part of their AI with regular mobs.
The pet itself may not be the best idea for a mechanic in a game that relies on movement and positioning as much as GW2. But it’s nowhere near being as bad of a design choice as some people make it sound. The problem is that someone at the Anet HQ got increadibly lazy. Or simply wanted to conserve resources. Any of the two makes that person highly incompetent to say the least, because it should’ve been already obvious at that stage, that utilizing the same AI for both the mobs and the class mechanic will cause tons of problems.

The only reliable way to fix anything now is to create Pet-exclusive AI from scratch. One that they’ll be able to tweak and balance in sort-of sterile environment (which is the way they manage large part of this game’s balance anyway, at least that’s the impression I’m getting when I look at the results). Otherwise, even if they somehow find a way to fix the current situation while leaving the core of the problem as it is, the moment when they introduce any new content that will somehow make the pets inadequat in any way, we’ll be back at the starting point.

Consequently, I doubt we’ll see any improvements in the nearest future. Creating new AI would require time and resources they clearly try to avoid spending. But the alternative solution, removing the pet, is no different at all in that aspect. It would require coming up with a new class mechanic (enough with the Preparations already, various successors of them are already in the game as utility skills, so a class mechanic like that is most likely not going to happen). Moreover, a major rework of traits would be required, including complete transformation of BM line into a line to support the new class mechanic.

To sum it all up – the class is screwed, and unless Anet changes its policy radically, it’s going to remain like that for a longer time.

The thing that kittenes me off at this point is something slightly different. That they’re actually working on some changes in AI of mobs (hence the Toxic Alliance soldiers being able to dodge), but instead of using it where it counts, they put it into the Living Story.

Norjena.5172:

I start to hate WvsW cause of this stupid brainless Zerg Gameplay the only alternativ to our sword will stay useless in ALL other gamepart´s.

And GS is a horribal bad Zerg weapon btw. It´s better the ranger will do smallscale, less player´s, less lags better then a 100 dps GS ranger. I can´t understand this argument.
A Zerg cannot win without killing other players. And the GS can´t even help here.

If they will buff the DPS onpar with sword + the evade. Ok im happy. But i think this won´t happen.

Sigh… Because we should all support a change of our only melee weapon that can be effectively used in zerg fights, knowing that this change will greatly lower that viability, only so we can hope against all hope that this will convince Anet to buff damage of GS AA.

Show me one proof that this is not naive, wishful thinking, and we can talk. Otherwise this debate is pointless.

Norjena.5172:

Not only GS, swoop (jump), horn (blast) sword (jump) possibel drake (blast).
5*1k healing would be strong.

You would still have to blow your weapon swap for that. And the pet swap as well, as that’s pretty much the only way to provided reliable Tail Swipe when it comes to Drakes.

It’s like claiming that GS can’t get blast finishers, because Rangers have access to fire fields. Sure, they have. But trade-offs for combining both of those things together are substantial.

Ariete.6509:

I don’t think it’s realistic to ask for a blast finisher on the GS, since it already have two: leap on swoop and projectile on 2nd chain of #4 Crippling Throw.

Although i do agree current Maul could as well be added on auto-cast, it’s just one of those abilities which you hammer down whenever is off cooldown… yawn

That projectile finisher on GS #4 could as well not be there really. There is hardly any use for it.

I think the major argument against the blast finisher on Maul has always been the access to water field Ranger has, rather the number of finishers on GS itself. With the original 15 s duration of Healing Spring, Blast Finisher on Maul would mean being able to execute 2 blasts in every HS.

However, duration of HS has been since changed to 10 s, what, in addition to limiting its usefulness as a group utility, also means that only 1 Maul can be executed within that time frame.

I still doubt we’re ever going to see the Blast Finisher added to GS. But that doesn’t change the fact that at this point it’s the only finisher that can actually improve the weapon.

Norjena.5172:

1, If the dmg was OP, why the sword stayed untouched? I calculatet with Maul 1/4 avoid.
Even if only the AA is buffed my a small margin, it would be the same.
Buffing AA and using it only would be:
- about 5 or 10% lower DPS then sword but 1/3 of the time evade. Still OP.

Because damage of GS #1 was not 30% higher back then, but 40-50%. In addition to that there was also GS #2 as the source of spike and extra bleeds. GS was able to outdamage Sword back then. It was the damage that caused the community to demand a nerf. Not evade.

And again, Sword has only 1 source of damage, GS has 2. Two weapons, two different approaches to damage balance.

Norjena.5172:

And why by hell are u now defending this avoid? That does not make any scense.
The main argument, is doing dmg while dogding. But the dmg is so low, all the time even if don´t need to dogde.

I defend it for two fairly simple reasons.

First – because none of the things that were offered in exchange is on par with that evade, which saved my kitten more than a few times in those elements of game’s content where it really shines. Whirl finisher is a laughable utility. Additional source of endurance regen will most likely end with a dev coming here in two months saying “we still think that Ranger has too much endurance regen, so we’re going to nerf the regen on GS #1 by 50%”. And I really don’t feel like we need that source anyway. Literally the only thing I would be willing to trade the evade for is condi removal. Simply because it could actually help solve single biggest problem for power builds we’re facing now.

I’m perfectly aware that you presented more than one idea. But here is the problem – what you’re proposing is a complex rework of the entire weapon. Anet is not going to do that. We can only discuss changing separate skills, or swaping some elements between the two of them.

And the second reason – because supporting flawed idea of removing the evade will not convince Anet to increase damage of GS #1. That’s one hell of a misguided belief. They never said anything about any plans to even look at the AA numbers if they remove that evade. In fact, it’s the community that keeps pointing out that damage deficite is the key problem of GS AA. So far, they have never even comented on that.

Norjena.5172:

Increasing (and don´t removing the evade) the weapon´s DSP by about 15-20% (what´s it rly need, with! Maul and interrupting AA 3 as often u can) will resulting in a few scenarios.

1. Increase DPS of the Chain by about 30% (or more). U will do Sword/Horn, or Warrios Axe or Guardian Sword DPS.
But still avoiding 1/4 (with Maul) of all incomming dmg, without! using any defense skill, or knowing what u have to do.

That looks a bit wiered or? I would say OP. Endurance per hit or 2/3sec vigor on swoop (no avoid here) can be better. For defensive (more dogdes when they are rly needed), and offensive (dmg when u want dmg, an not forced u use a weak AA) without being op.

2. Buff Maul to increase Weapon DPS by 15%, that means another…uhm 50? percent dmg on this
…AoE low CD…spamming Maul will be insane burst, ok dps.

Awful gameplay (never! NEVER! using AA3…..) but no defense.
Or spamming AA…low dmg, and the same we have now. But still “OP” Burst…
Avoiding, avoiding, avoiding, oh no he/she is immoblized! BAM! MAUL! haha Noob! l2p……

OP Burst or useless “avoidence dps”. Is this a good trade?

Or the damage of GS #1 chain could be increased by a % lower than 30 and keept below Sword #1 chain, while GS #2 could receive another small buff as well, to fully compensate for the Bleeds it lost a while back. Weapon’s damage should be balanced around the whole skillset it offers, not around the AA exclusively. GS is designed to be a spike damage weapon, with damage coming primarily from both #1 and #2 and Sword to be sustain damage weapon, with damage coming primarily from #1. GS AA should be stronger than it is now, but it will never be equal to Sword AA, nor it should be.

But really, buff or not, that evade on GS #1 will hardly ever be OP, because you still have to time it for it to be worth anything.

Besides, if you think that it’s the evade on AA that stops Anet from increasing GS damage further, you’re naive. GS problems started back between the BWEs when it has been butchered by an overnerf. If the evade was the problem, it would’ve been dealt with back then. Instead, it was the damage that was overnerfed by a large margin, while the evade remained untouched. There are two key problems now. First – larger buff to damage would require devs to admitt they have made a mistake back then. Unfortunately, that’s not something that comes easy to Anet. Second – finding the right % for the buff, to avoid repeating the OP state GS was at the beginning of BWEs. Sadly, those two issues will probably result in GS not seeing any improvements to damage in the nearest future at all.

Norjena.5172:

WvsW Bigscale is never balanced, rangers suck´s with GS or without, why should be the weapon stay useless cause of this? In PvE>useless PvP>too weak Small Scale>too weak.
If a gamemode is not balanceable, why should a weapon/class be balanced here? I know this argument is a bit foolish. I don´t like it, but it is a good question.

If you know the argument is foolish, why do you even use it? By your logic if it is impossible to achieve perfect balance in a particular game mode, it’s perfectly fine to ignore it and make decisions that will gut one class even more in regard to that mode? Tell you what, as long as sPvP is about condi meta, GS will be useless in that mode too, let’s ignore it as well.

It is a stupid claim, pure and simple. Sure, perfect balance in zerg fights is impossible to achieve. But there is a difference between providing balance and providing certain minimal level of viability to all the classes. The latter is absolutely necessary, period.

Norjena.5172:

Whirl finisher too aa3
>more utility (defensive or offensive) and support. Makes it a bit more viable in PvP and WvsW too.

Again, what utility? Whirls are hardly useful now. The only finisher that could improve group utility for Rangers at this point is Blast on GS #2. Which will probably never happen anyway.

Norjena.5172:

Sollith.3502:

Wait, when did they say anything about this change? This would absolutely ruin the ranger GS unless they made the other skills more powerful than the Warrior GS skills.

I mean the only reason I use the GS at all is that evade for fighting off mobs; everything else on the ranger GS is really just underwhelming…

Rangers need endurance and evades as it’s our primary survival tool; thieves have stealth and warriors have greater damage and higher base vit and armor (not to mention access to just as much endurance regen).

I mean even the nerf to natural vigor is a poor decision on their part (and again; warriors get the better version of a something we have…).

“We think rangers have too much vigor”

Oh, really now? Warriors have access to almost just as much if not more and have higher base vit and armor. They can get 10s of vigor every 20 seconds, have signet of stamina, Building Momentum (burst skills restore endurance), etc. Warriors also have many more defensive/survival utilities than the ranger and on lower cool downs! (endure pain + the endure pain trait + a shield invuln + all their vigor/endurance etc…. Rangers essentially only have their evasive qualities: why nerf that?)

I am just becoming more and more frustrated with Anets sense of balance…

I get to tiered to explain why pro GSAA Evade arguments are all foolish….this weapon suck so hard cause it don´t do dmg.

Block is strong, Swoop is strong.
Hilt Bash needs a fix to hit targets better. Maul is ok.
The only thing that´s bad is the AA Chain, there are alot of possibilitys to “buff” this weapon in dps/dmg and giving it enough utility to make it a viable weapon.

U shouldn´t compare with warrior GS only, it is NOT so strong, it can´t be a stand alone weapon in PvP/WvsW and in PvE it´s DPS is about 5% lower then Axe/GS rotation or 2-3% then fullbuffed pure Axe.
It´s a good viable weapon, but not god under weapons. Ranger GS should be this too, and a stupid rnd evade will not help here.

U´ll get 30% less dmg, but dealing 30% less dmg…now tell where this should be usefull?
Dead enemys don´t make dmg anymore, in PvP/WvsW and PvE dps/dmg is important.
A low utility low dps weapon with a little bit extra defensive can´t be viable.

Warrior Mace for example is a strong CC/Def weapon, lower dps but warrios have 5sec weaponchange if traited. We have to stay for 10 seconds with this weapon where all enemys get tickled from. And healing themselfs with passive heals…

Try to play a warrior with Mace/Shield, and stay for 10secs this too use the AA Chain.

Again… The issue is weapon’s damage. The way to solve the issue is to increase weapon’s damage. Removing the evade has nothing to do with that (slow animation will stay as it is no matter what is attached to it). At the same time, that evade is pretty handy when zerg surfing in WvW. Last thing Rangers need is something that will make them even worse in zerg fights.

Norjena.5172:

Why it would get nerfed? Losing a “rnd” but high uptime Evade with low dps.
But getting a little bit more dogderolls when they are needed.
Lower evadeuptime, less dmg when u dogde, but higher dmg without dogding.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wild_Strike 10 per Hit, and Thief Dagger is attacking much faster then our GS. So we would get a weaker version of this.

On the other hand, GS gameplay could be improved by this. Imo…

DPS: AA 1+2, Maul/Swoop (Melee), interupt AA3 as often u can.
Avoidence: AA…….some times Maul

With this change, there will be a choice.

Ok, i have not full endurance, but possibel i have to dogde some big hits in a few seconds. So let us do the Full AA Chain.
Oh, i want vigor (or an Allie) well ok swoop.
Just for an example.

GS AA needs a buff about..20 or 30% (last hit, not the full chain). This+whirl+endurance per hit, could make the GS gameplay more fluently in a lot of Situations. 1 AA Chain 1 Maul 2 AA Chains and so on.

And at last. U can´t compare endurance per hit with flat endurance buffs. Cause u have to attack (cripple/chill/immo/stun or u have to use another skill, hilt bash for example).
If u get kited or ccd, evade on AA won´t help. But a little bit more endurance gain before u got controlled, can change something.

Edit: 1 Thing, Sword has got Might on AA, but GS has got Vul on Maul, that´s fair and balanced in think.

It would get nerfed because they’re already taking steps towards nerfing endurance regen across certain classes, and that included Ranger unfortunately. They nerfed Vigorous Renewal recently, and Natural Vigor is going to be nerfed with the December 10th patch. Adding endurance regen to GS would go against this policy, and it doesn’t really matter whether the regen is “flat” or “on-hit” kind.

Frankly, potential improvement of GS playstyle with all this would be marginal, if any at all. Yes, we would get more options. But most of them would be “meh” at best anyway. Issues GS suffers from are tied to its effectivenes above all else, not flexibility.

And no, Vulnerability on GS #3 is in no way fair and balanced in comparison with Might on Sword #1. In fact, Vulnerability could be moved to GS #1. It’s a condition that has been designed to enhance spike damage, not to be applied with it.

Norjena.5172:

DPS like Sword, and more dogderolls when u have to dogde.

Win=Win
And a way to make this weapon viable and balanced.

Evade on swoop will be too strong. It would get nerfed after a few weeks or month´s. And it is primarly a gap closer and it does this job well.

What GS need´s is raw DPS not Might. Might is easy to get and will help sologamer´s but in groups the weapon will still be behind MH Sword.
Conditionremove…not a bad idea, but a whirl can do this too. And would be a little bit uniqe utility.
Conditioremove should be on 7-9 skills, signets for example.

Endurance regen / vigor on GS #1 would most likely get nerfed sooner rather than later as well anyway. I don’t really get why devs themselves come up with such idea considering their attempts to tone the endurance regen down throughout the game.

I’m thinking more in terms increased base DPS + Might on every 3rd hit, in a similar way Sword #1 gives Might to pets. Sure, it would require some balancing, but would also help power builds. It’s still better option than endurance regen.

As for the condi removal – as long as Ranger’s signets work as they work now, Signet of Renewal will always be way less than ideal option. Make it independent from the pet, decrease CD and it may be a solution. Otherwise, not really.

Whirl finishers offer cleansing, yes. But they require Light Fields for that. Last thing we need here is being even more dependant on other classes, and especially on Guardians.

Norjena.5172:

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Norjena.5172:

Most of this ideas won´t help.
1. Endurance per Hit on AA 3, possibel a whirl finisher too.
2. A few seconds vigor+swiftness on swoop (possibel for allies 2-3secs should be enough).

I wouldn’t want endurance gain/vigor on the greatsword. Dodging and then getting back in range is time you’re not attacking, so it turns the greatsword too much into a low-damage high-defense weapon, and breaks the in-your-face feeling, which is the wrong direction imo. Plus acrobatics during combats fits the thief’s dagger but not so much the ranger.

And a freaking low DPS useless AA Chain with a rnd most times useless dogde is what?
Bad for defensive and aweful offense!

That´s it. Just a fact, nothing to argument about, it´s the truth.

And how exactly is exchanging evade for increased endurance regen or whirl finisher supposed to help with dps? The former is something Anet is trying to tone down right about now anyway, while the latter one is utterly useless.

Yes, GS #1 needs increased base damage. No doubt about that. But if the evade is to be moved to GS #3, it has to be replaced by something that is going to be more, or at least equally useful, not less. You want increased dps? Think might on every 3rd hit. Or some sort of condition removal on every 3rd, to increase viability of builds that don’t require 30 points in WS.

It’s refreshing to see all this developers – players communication recently. It finally feels like we’re getting somewhere.

Being a GS user myself, I’m really happy that you intend to improve it. However, while Vigor on GS #1 is certainly better option than the Whirl Finisher, but it doesn’t help the weapon in terms of its offensive capabilities. It has been mentioned more than a few times in this thread, but those are being hampered primarly by low base damage of GS #1. In terms of DPS, GS is not only far behind Sword, but also behind SB and LB, if the latter is used at the distance of 1000+.

Actually, I think it would be great if we could hear what Anet’s vision regarding GS, what you want it to be. So far it is a defensive weapon, with damage being somewhat secondary role. But now you plan to add “Fury on strike” to the Two-handed Training. It’s a potential change that I really like. However, its impact on the entire weapon is not going to be as big as it could because the base damage is still low.

And now for something completely diffferent. Certain traits that are aimed towards pets, such as Concentration Training, only work when the pet is in combat. It’s something, that at least in my opinion makes them more clunky than they should be. Is it completely intentional and there is some reasoning behind such decision, or are there any plans to make them work both in and out of combat? Or is it somehow limited by the game system itself at the moment?

Skady.5916:

*by PvE I mean dungeons, cause it doesnt really matter who you bring into open world content. No one can ever kick you or evaluate your performance anyways

Don’t be so sure about that. I got kicked from open world PvE while playing my Ranger once. For “botting”. ;p

I can’t really add anything to what has already been said here OP. Ranger has tons of issues and other classes have way better effort / performance ration, at least most of the time.

There is of course the obvious “pick the class that you feel is fun to play” though, because otherwise no matter how powerful it is, it may become painful to even level the character. I know for example that the one of the main reason I haven’t rolled a Warrior yet, and my Guardian is still stuck at low level, that for some reason I find both of those classes dreadfully boring (although my Guardian is Sylvari, and that may have something to do with the boredom as well…)

Balance is not irrelevant as long as Ranger’s problems are combination of both broken mechanic and balancing issues themselves.

Even if they can fix pets in terms of ai, pathing, survivability and the ability to hit moving targets, Ranger will be facing problems such as: lackluster utilities, weak group support and the “pet damage vs the introduction of ascended gear” problem.

And as it seems it still a long, long way before they actually manage to fix the pet mechanics (assuming they can do it at all…), while balancing issues are easier to address. No reason not to bring them up.

Substance E.4852:

Searban.5984:

bri.2359:

Searban.5984:

But if I had some doubts regarding competences of the balancing team back in July, now I just feel that they leave me no choice but to actually consider them fully incompetent.

Back in July??
You must be a new ranger player because the the so-called ‘balance’ team’s effort on this class stopped last November. This was the reason I leveled a guardian back in January.

Oh, quite on the contrary. I’ve been maining a ranger since launch. What is more, for various reasons I barely play anything else than my main. But I also have enough experience with MMOs in general to be able to tell that even if some decisions made around July were plainly stupid, quality of balancing, and what comes with it, size of the balancing errors, wasn’t exactly that much different from what’ve already seen in other games. Consequently, I couldn’t really say that responsible devs are less competent than their counterparts from other companies. Which says quite a lot about the state of the genre, sadly…

I wouldn’t say this is true at all. even the dev team that handled GW1’s balance, while not always on point and neglecting many major issues, would tack on explanations to their updates and what they hoped to achieve by changing said skills. It was a far cry from the vacuum of communication we get punctuated by inhuman prepared statements.

And don’t even get me started on EvE Online that not only would post updates a week in advance on the forums, but you would get devs communicate with players in the threads like human beings and discussing any issues that people could see since they have the intelligence to identify that crowd sourcing a group of people who play your game a lot more than you do is a good way to augment your own abilities.

Both CCP and 200x era Anet also cared enough about their player base to QA updates so they don’t get crap loads of broken tool tips or skills not even working at all.

Doing a wrong thing balance-wise and providing an explanation for it doesn’t make you less incompetent. It makes your communication with the community better, but that’s about it. And the quality of communication done by Anet is by far the worst I’ve ever seen, that’s something I don’t have any doubts about. And I don’t see point in discussing it anymore, as all it will lead is another deleted thread.

At the same time though, there are cases like SWTOR (a game I actually enjoyed greatly and still come back to from time to time). Notes were always posted weeks before the patches. There was a full-scale PTS running. People were voicing their concerns regarding the proposed changes. And devs usually followed with their decisions regardless of any complaints. You think Warrior / Guardian meta is broken, you should’ve seen what happened to SWTOR’s PvP when Focus JK / Rage SW became top of the food chain.

I’m starting to think that the biggest problem with balancing at this point is the fact that devs are ACTUALLY TRYING to stay true to their “not doing whack-a-mole balancing changes” declaration. To do that, balancing is done mostly with small and rather insignificant changes. But there are glaring issues present that require much more than small changes, possibly really large-scale buffs, that bear some risk of being too strong.

One of the of whack-a-mole approach is that FOTMs emerge. Theoretically, Anet’s approach limits the possibility and frequency with which this happens. The irony is that instead of having Flavors of the Month we have Flavor of the Year. FOTMs are not a good thing, by any standards, but because they are to some extend temporary, players can expect balancing to shift again within a couple of months, and, unless they’re the FOTM chasers themselves, keep playing the classes they chose. With FOTY and current approach to balance we can hardly expect anything like that to happen in GW2 at this point.

bri.2359:

Searban.5984:

But if I had some doubts regarding competences of the balancing team back in July, now I just feel that they leave me no choice but to actually consider them fully incompetent.

Back in July??
You must be a new ranger player because the the so-called ‘balance’ team’s effort on this class stopped last November. This was the reason I leveled a guardian back in January.

Oh, quite on the contrary. I’ve been maining a ranger since launch. What is more, for various reasons I barely play anything else than my main. But I also have enough experience with MMOs in general to be able to tell that even if some decisions made around July were plainly stupid, quality of balancing, and what comes with it, size of the balancing errors, wasn’t exactly that much different from what’ve already seen in other games. Consequently, I couldn’t really say that responsible devs are less competent than their counterparts from other companies. Which says quite a lot about the state of the genre, sadly…

I probably shouldn’t be surprised. I knew we’re probably in for some sort of a letdown after they made it clear that main focus of this patch is going to be group support. Ranger simply lacks tools that can simply be buffed to improve that part of the class, without being given a major rework. Which was particularly sad for me, as I do like to play around with support options. Still, there were traits they could’ve worked on. There were shouts that could’ve been at least fixed so one can use them without worrying about skill queue ovewriting them constantly.

But Anet still managed to impress me in this department. Slightly decreased CDs on F2s are the buffs towards pet support abillities you talked about? Really? Well, congratulations, Red Moa and Fern Hound will still be the only useful support pets. And not that much more useful than they used to be.

I don’t even see a point in commenting the lack of pets hp change in WvW. Even when it comes to a mere band aid, Anet couldn’t apply it properly.

But the picture my imagination keeps generating at the moment is a bunch of guys sitting in front of a big screen, staring at some numbers. For hours, not doing anything else. Just “looking at weapon numbers”.

Personally, I’m tired. I always tried to be civil on the forums, even if I understood where the frustration shown by some came from. I like to think I was to some extend constructive in discussions I took part in, especially when providing any kind of feedback. I’m pretty sure there is no hate towards Ranger as a profession, or any other conspiracy there. But if I had some doubts regarding competences of the balancing team back in July, now I just feel that they leave me no choice but to actually consider them fully incompetent. There is no other explanation for this mess.

I guess I need a break.

Astralporing.1957:

Donari.5237:

Noss.4105:

I hope for a positive surprise tomorrow.
If the stuff in stream was all the biggest things we gonna see tomorrow, I’m very disappointed. I mean, it’s been almost 4 months since last balance patch. I was expecting way more.

They said in the live stream that they were just giving highlights and there are a lot more changes coming than were previewed. It’s going to be interesting reviewing all the tooltips to see how traits synergize now.

If they had any good news for rangers, it’s unlikely they would have left them for the patch notes. And since the ranger community will have now until december to hope something gets done finally (which even then is highly unlikely), i expect lot of people to drop off the game. Or roll warriors.

To be completely honest, when it comes to Ranger community itself, vast majority of those active on the forums have already rolled 2 or 3 additional characters for the content Rangers are less than ideal for. The contents of this patch will probably not affect those who still main Rangers that much. But if the contents are bad, those who already moved to other classes will only be reaffirmed in their choices again.

Personally, I didn’t like the preview not because how Ranger was hardly talked about (again). I didn’t like it because it looked like there was little to no effort put into it. It lacked any time management. Sometimes I was of an impression the guys doing the stream weren’t really exactly sure what they want to talk about, and what they don’t. I appreciate the fact that Anet is finally starting to consider communication with the community an existing issue. But there is still a long way ahead of them.

And when you’re a dev dealing with balancing the classes, then for the love of all the gods, spirits and all the other possible transcendent beings, at least try to avoid showing that you have no idea whatsoever where in the trait lines that certain trait you want to talk about is located. It simply doesn’t make you, and your entire team, look good.

jcbroe.4329:

Searban.5984:

jcbroe.4329:

Lol I just can’t believe this garbage. I can’t believe devs are even wasting their time with this livestream. This at most is like, a youtube video you record before the game launches as a resource to explain to people how the game works.

Why is this dumb stream happening now, and how, in any way, does it take precedence over a patch preview?

This is the type of stuff that makes more disappointed with the devs. Not the content and balance updates, but the things that make me double take and say “wtf…”

My guess would be that they didn’t manage to get the update ready for the stream. Still, some kind of heads up couldn’t hurt…

Still. They have test servers, and we’re literally the rest of today’s work day and Monday’s work day away from patch. I mean, any amount of updates that are more extensive than that post with Sic’ Em detailed in it is better than just pushing the day back.

Heck, we don’t need a content stream. Do a roundtable discussion about changes being made in the upcoming patch.

But this? It’s poorly timed and a poor allocation of resources. Instead of streaming this nonsense, these guys should just go back to working on the patch for Tuesday.

Oh, I’m not disagreeing. It’s just inconsistency of their approach to communication with the community showing again. I never understood in the first place why they want to do a stream instead simply discuss the changes in writing, it would be more than enough.

jcbroe.4329:

Lol I just can’t believe this garbage. I can’t believe devs are even wasting their time with this livestream. This at most is like, a youtube video you record before the game launches as a resource to explain to people how the game works.

Why is this dumb stream happening now, and how, in any way, does it take precedence over a patch preview?

This is the type of stuff that makes more disappointed with the devs. Not the content and balance updates, but the things that make me double take and say “wtf…”

My guess would be that they didn’t manage to get the update ready for the stream. Still, some kind of heads up couldn’t hurt…

Well, apparently that stream has changed into “beginner’s guide to PvP”, and the patch preview will be on the 14th. Sigh…

MeGaZlo.9516:

Searban.5984:

…
Playing support is not only about skills and traits, but also about weapons as well. I feel that Rangers still suffer from low number of meaningful finishers, such as blasts. Though I do understand reasoning of those who claim that blast finisher on Maul could be OP. Nevertheless, lack of those finishers is something that hampers viability of our class in some aspects of the game.

All in all, as much as I’m happy with the attention being given to support-based playstyles, I’m worried that Rangers may get the short end of the stick again, simply because how the class has been designed so far. We don’t have too many tools, and most of those we do have require much more than simple buffs.

Why. Guardians have blast each 4 sec. And could stack endless protection and retaliation to themselfs and allies. Why couldn’t rangers have something like this but with water fields? Given the fact that the support skills on ranger’s weapons are almost absent.

I said I understand the reasoning. I never said I agree with it. As a matter of fact, I don’t. The fact that Ranger have access to fire and ice fields in addition to water field doesn’t really matter, as those are tied to condition builds, and GS is everything but condition weapon (unless you play that 1 spec with perplexity runes where it works as a hybrid weapon, but it’s a niche thing anyway).

Therefore, the only major problem that may result from blast finisher on Maul is the potential healing the Ranger can get from using that skill within the range of Healing Spring. However, if the Healing Spring durations is going to be cut down to 10 seconds instead of 15, as the leaked patch notes indicated some time ago, then the potential healing from blast finishers on Maul will also go down, and therefore I do consider adding this feature an idea that should at the very least be seriously considered.

Imaginos.3756:

Your suggested Ranger changes are irrelevant and lackluster at best. So you reduce the pets hp in pvp and add a “i see you” debuff. That doesn’t do squat for the PvE player and as you’ve already increased the pets hp a few months ago it’s very unlikely that you’ll do that again….you then went and nerfed the pets damage by 25 to 50% without increasing ranger damage across the board to compensate.

Dude, what? They’re not decreasing pets hp in sPvP, they’re increasing their hp outside of it…

I’m going to start with saying that it has been great to see this kind of communication from You, Jonathan. I’ve been very critical regarding the quality of communication between the ArenaNet and the players, but I’m willing to give the credit when it’s due. I hope it has not been the last post of its kind too.

Now, with the new patch being revealed, it has been emphasized even more that the main aim of this balance patch is to buff support builds. I like playing those, so it should make me happy. But I’m a Ranger player, and it makes me worried instead.

Our only set of skills aimed at support consists of spirits. And while spirits may be fine in sPvP, they aren’t nearly as good in large scale WvW or those parts of PvE content that rely heavily on AoEs. Even 70% more hp won’t help them. The core ideas behind spirits simply don’t work well with the mechanics GW2 utilizes, hence an overhaul would be the only thing that can possibly help those skills.

In theory, some of the pets offer support options. But if you’re going to buff those options, those buffs have to be quite significant if pets are to be viable, effective support tool. And even then, until problems the pet system is plagued with are fixed, it will still be only partially viable solution. Even with the band-aid hp increase.

If you really want to make support builds on Rangers effective and viable, you could for example rework the shouts. I’ve never understood why our shout have to be so vastly different than those of Guardians and Warriors. They should apply boons, not just serve as glitchy pet commands. But even if the rework is not possible, you could simply move Nature’s Voice to the master tier. Adept could probably be too much. Sure, swiftness and regen are not the most sought-after boons, but it’s a start.

There are of course other minor things, like moving Spotter to the adept tier. Both Empower Allies and Strength in Numbers are adept traits for their classes, so I see no reason why it should be any different for Rangers.

Playing support is not only about skills and traits, but also about weapons as well. I feel that Rangers still suffer from low number of meaningful finishers, such as blasts. Though I do understand reasoning of those who claim that blast finisher on Maul could be OP. Nevertheless, lack of those finishers is something that hampers viability of our class in some aspects of the game.

All in all, as much as I’m happy with the attention being given to support-based playstyles, I’m worried that Rangers may get the short end of the stick again, simply because how the class has been designed so far. We don’t have too many tools, and most of those we do have require much more than simple buffs.

“PvP heavy” as in both WvW and sPvP, or only sPvP? Because if it’s the latter, I doubt we’ll learn anything meaningful from it.

I’m intending to watch it anyway, but to be honest, I feel like another set of leaked patch notes would be more useful. ;p

thefantasticg.3984:

Searban.5984:

Personally, I don’t like the idea of perma-stow in general. But what is even more important for me is that so far I’m yet to see any suggestion that would actually acknowledge that introducing perma-stow is not a simple case of solving all the problems by adding one button to the game.

Easy… Perma-stow pet and get this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Preparation

Perma-stow pet and get preparations instead. So many more possibilities than just pets. We can have two class mechanics, right? Like thieves have steal and stealth (built around initative). And that’s why making perma-stow optional. Those who don’t want to perma-stow don’t have to. Nothing changes for you. That’s why I don’t understand people who are against it because they like having pet… it’s like they don’t like the idea of OTHER rangers not having a pet and that baffles me.

It has been said countless times, but still… Stealth is not a class mechanic. Steal and Initiative itself are. The reason behind Thieves having access to more than 1 mechanic is something I was always curious about. But if the Rangers are given a 2nd class mechanic, and all the other classes will start asking for the same thing, and not without a reason.

I don’t claim that there aren’t other options than pets. What I do claim however is that many people talking about perma-stow, and I don’t know whether they do it on purpose or whether they are completely oblivious, keep ignoring the complexity of the class overhaul that would be necessary to introduce it without screwing everything up completely.

Preparations could make great utilities. Sharpening Stone and Venoms are practically what preparations were, only limited by the number of attacks instead of durations. But a class mechanic? They would either be OP from the start, or toned down to the point of being barely useless.

Stooperdale.3560:

“But what is even more important for me is that so far I’m yet to see any suggestion that would actually acknowledge that introducing perma-stow is not a simple case of solving all the problems by adding one button to the game.”

Whoa! Perma stow isn’t good because it doesn’t solve every problem in the game? Perma stow solves a number of problems even if rangers have ineffective traits and utilities, even if rangers have no extra bonuses while the pet is stowed.

It’s a way of thinking that can be portrayed with a short story:

“Doctor, the patient has a nasty, bleeding wound on his leg.” – “We must cut the whole leg off!” – “But…” – “It will stop the bleeding” – “But we can’t even offer the patient a prosthesis!” – “Doesn’t matter, it will stop the bleeding!”

Simply introducing perma-stow can solve one problem – damage deficit Rangers suffer from when their pets are either dead or unable to hit the target. That’s it. But it will create a number of other problems: lack of the class mechanic, more useless traits, more lackluster utilities.

The longer I think about it, the more I get the impression that vast majority of perma-stow advocates are people who simply ignored all the class descriptions before creating their characters and now just want to change the Rangers so it fits their image of the class, regardless of the consequences.

I’d name mine “Feathers”

Although I always wanted to have a Dolyak pet too…

WyldKat.4712:

Searban.5984:

For all any Norn cares, he or she could wrestle whole horde of Jotun naked, if the sheer fact of him or her being naked would make his or her saga more impressive (and it most likely would).

I’m speechless. But impressed.

And that is exactly the point. I must be getting good at being a Norn. ;p

thefantasticg.3984:

We already have that stow option while we run to and from or while platforming… And, I will still hold out hope, while I play my guardian, that the Lead Game Designer pulls his head out of his bum and sees the light of logic and common sense thus ordering his minions to give us the perma-stow option making a large portion of the Ranger player base happy with the game causing us to want to spend money on gems making more money for NC Soft/Anet.

Since you keep extrapolating your opinion on certain “large group of people”, it’s only fair to mention that there are also players who would be VERY unhappy if Anet were to solve this matter the way you insist on.

But you also keep ignoring the fact that perma-stow is nowhere near as simple solution as you make it sound to be. Every class has certain class-defining mechanics, that are being utilized by players regardless of the build they’re running. Adrenaline for Warriors, Life Force for Necros, Virtues for Guardians, etc. Pets are this mechanic for rangers.

If they were to introduce perma-stow and give damage back to Rangers, pets would cease to be such mechanic. Consequently, they would have to come up with something to replace it, for at least 2 reasons.

Firstly, to keep, at least partially, the consistency of general class design in the entire game. If every class has unique mechanic that is present in its gameplay, regardless of build, then Rangers can’t be different.

Secondly, if the Rangers will be capable of doing 100% of its damage, but will lack any special mechanic, they will STILL be kitten in comparison with all other classes.

What is more, introducing perma-stow would also require a huge overhaul of traits, as many of them are designed to work for a pet class after all.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of perma-stow in general. But what is even more important for me is that so far I’m yet to see any suggestion that would actually acknowledge that introducing perma-stow is not a simple case of solving all the problems by adding one button to the game.

Certainly. I was planning to do that anyway, but overall lack of time for anything has been killing my activity lately.

The way I see it, the change to Sic’em it’s another attempt by Anet to make shouts attractive to rangers, just like the addition of Nature’s Voice trait was. It’s good, because that means that they see our shouts remain lackluster. On the other hand though, I’m not entirely convinced that simply adding new functions to the shouts is exactly the right solution. The issues that plague Ranger’s shouts may simply cause those changes to not be worth the work that has been put into them.

What I mean is that out of 4 shouts we have, 1 for unknown reasons functions as a pet command instead of a shout itself and can be overwritten by way too many things, and another 1 has a cast time that makes it somewhat clunky to use, especially for a shout. If both could act as proper shouts do, then it would already make them pretty good skills in my opinion. Especially with the incoming increase in pet hp and potential buffs to some of the pet species, both BM and Shout-based Regen stacking builds could become very interesting in the future.

Although I still can’t really understand why Ranger’s shouts were designed to be so vastly different, and unfortunately also inferior to all the other shouts in game. Screw the ability to buff the group, I can understand that they wanted Spirits to be our tool for group utility instead. But if our shouts could affect both the pet and the Ranger, that would really offer something fairly interesting to power builds, possibly solving at least some of the shortcomings power rangers have to face.

Nevertheless, I’m genuinely interested in Sic’em becoming potential hard counter against stealth. Lack of those so far, and the reaction of some of Thieves to sheer possibility of ONE hard counter being introduced into this game reminded me all to well why I wasn’t exactly thrilled when the stealth mechanics were confirmed for GW2 for the 1st time. I know that stealth brings a large number of possibilities to MMO gameplay in general, but sometimes it seems that the number of problems that it causes, primarily in terms of class balance is even greater.

thefantasticg.3984:

Well, true, I was paraphrasing… but what he said is “having too much control will scare away new players from the class.” So, they made the class for people who know nothing about it and refuse to give more advanced players any more control. That, sir, is purely offensive to my gaming abilities. Thus, I pray and hope for the day that he and the devs that agree with him get fired from Anet. Maybe then the Ranger will get better in a meaningful way.

Out of curiosity, do you take everything that happens around you so personally? Because I wonder whether it’s a matter of grudge against J. Sharp or a certain degree of “centre of the world syndrome”.

As much as I’m not a huge fan of many results of Johnathan Sharp’s work that we’ve seen so far (as it can be told from my posts on this forum so far, or at least those that did not get deleted), what he said back then is partially true. If we assume that its as Anet has claimed and Ranger is in fact the class that gets chosen by the new players most often (and I’m pretty sure Anet has access to statistical data specific enough to give them such info), then greeting those players with a pet controlled by a total of 7 or 8 keys is arguably not the best idea. It’s all about the learning curve, one of the absolute basics of MMO market. And like it or not, Anet will most likely prioritize the comfort of new players over demands of a portion of the older player base, because its more profitable and thus it is the sensible thing to do. Any other developer would do the same. After all, they’re all in it for the money.

To be completely honest, I doubt giving us control over pet skills can actually solve issues pets are plagued with. It may as well lead to even more severe problems. Pet’s AI is at this point hardly able to cope with 1 skill activated by the player, should we really assume that it would be better if there were 4 of them?

jcbroe.4329:

-snip-

All right, let’s get another thread deleted for venturing into this topic.

There are two things that have to be mentioned here. Firstly, the harshness and lack constructiveness is not something unique to GW2 forums. It’s more or less the same on majority of official forums of various games from the MMO genre. And because of that when you work in video games industry you should already be prepared to deal with that. If the fact that you get called an idiot over the internet by a dozen of strangers, about whom you don’t know nothing, and who may as well be 14 years old kids with piles of dung instead of brains can actually affect your work, you really should consider a different career path.

Humans are a terrible bunch when they are in a larger group and provided with a certain level of anonymity the internet offers, this has been proved countless times already. And there is hardly anything you can do about it unfortunately, other than just learn to ignore opinions and judgements formed under those circumstances. With that being said, I do believe strongly that there are lines gamers should never been allowed to cross (i.e. like they did in the relatively widely-known case of Jennifer Hepler), and people who do attempt to cross them anyway should be stopped hanged with their own entrails.

Secondly, the thread we’re debating about here has actually proved that coming to the forums and posting an update on what the team is working on may actually be received quite well. Yes, there some negativity there, but vast majority of those 14 pages is filled with what one may call constructive criticism. The thing is, the problem of not being received well is the problem devs created on their own by absolutely awful communication with their community so far. It’s not only about rangers and the fact that the only communication we got in the last 3 months or so was a witty, and rude, one-liner. It’s about simple things, such as the fact that patch notes are always being posted just as the patch is being deployed, leaving no room for discussion about planned changes. That discussion isn’t being encouraged after the patch is deployed either. While I agree that the current state of relations between the devs and the community is to a point the community’s fault. But, and I said it a few times already, fixing this mess is not something that community will do on its own, just by saying “ok, we’re not going to be upset from now on”. It takes both sides to do that.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Searban.5984:

Nature’s Voice: This trait no longer carries the effects of Evasive Purity as well as the on-shout swiftness and regeneration.

What is it supposed to do then, potentially?

Just what it’s tooltip says it’s supposed to. Granting the on-shout swiftness and regeneration.

Ah, right… I did read it wrong. My English gets surprisingly rusty at times, and it really shouldn’t…

SynfulChaot.3169:

Hepatolith.6389:

And i dont think that the increased health for pets is their solution by any means…. i think this is just a start or at least i hope so

Yeah. I think it’s just a start. Something to tide us over until the true pet fixes get found and implemented.

Frankly, if this is a simple temporary band-aid, we should have received it ages ago, seeing how long it takes them to fix those issues. But, well, better late than never.

The potential increased hp pool of pets sounds nice, but keeps me wonder. A year has passed. Anet has claimed to work on the pets survivability issues, in the meantime they also claimed that they can’t go for a blanket AoE damage reduction and that simplest solutions are not the way to go, that they have to delve into pet AI and so on.

Now, if this potential change is that solution (I kind of hope there will be something more in October patches), then if it isn’t even simpler than AoE damage reduction, then I don’t know what is. Which leads me to 2 possible conclusions about how Anet worked on Ranger issues, and I don’t like any of them…

On another note:

Nature’s Voice: This trait no longer carries the effects of Evasive Purity as well as the on-shout swiftness and regeneration.

What is it supposed to do then, potentially?

Ah, yes… The animations were always one of the reasons I’ve sticked to playing a ranger, simply because I find the class the most aesthetically pleasing in terms of combat. Well, that, and the laugh I have every time I execute the “jellyfish attack”.

Shinya.2598:

Thank You =)
And yeah, i was kinda inspired by Eir Stagalkin. She’s got a great ranger look.
I’m the more good looking version I’ve got tradition tatoo color, she’s got purple. Diffrent haircolor, diffrent armor dye.

Before I’ve changed the hairstyle of my Norn ranger people kept calling me Eir… Despite the fact that colors were completely different, duh. ;p

I always thought Eir’s tatoos are blue. Always considered this to be inspired by the Pictish warpaint.

jubskie.3152:

Also, great screenshots. Can’t help but notice the similarity of your avatar to Eir Stegalkin. Especially since I saw this thread about an Eir cosplay XD

Really well done cosplay aside, that photo of Eir on a bus made me laugh. For a second I was like “Eir on a bus, mounts confirmed for GW2!”… My mind does wander in strange directions at time.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Balance shouldn’t be done solely around PvP, you know. And in PvE that would be quite powerful.

Try thinking about all game modes more.

Stop spreading such blasphemies Synful, you’ll get another thread deleted ;p

In all seriousness, I would happily accept blast finisher on Maul in exchange for giving up the leap finisher on Sweep, for the sake of improved group utility which Ranger is unfortunately still lacking. Even Jonathan Sharp acknowledged Rangers can have problems getting into groups (although the logic that followed this acknowledgement was fundamentally flawed in my opinion).

Although cripple on Maul is not a bad idea either, if we can’t get the blast finisher. As for the increase of base damage, I’m not against it, I simply see this as the least probable thing that could happen.

Leuca.5732:

Searban.5984:

Leuca.5732:

Xsorus.2507:

Add Torment to Maul.

say 2 or 3 Stacks.

An interesting way to punish people for kiting, but GS is not a condi weapon and you will be wasting stats if you try to gear for that.

Well… Runes of Perplexity + Torment on Maul + Hybrid Build… Now, that does sound interesting. And fits the weapon to a point, with GS being half about damage, half about control.

No it doesn’t; that’s a completely niche use.

Well, I speak only for myself, it does look interesting for me, even if it’s a niche. Torment would still be better than those 3 stacks of Vulnerability we have now. GS is a niche weapon at this point anyway. It is power-based, but a lot of it is about defense and control, instead of spike. To provide spike, GS would have to see its damage increased, probably even across the board. And I doubt that will ever happen with the way Anet chose to balance Ranger weapons.

jcbroe.4329:

If people would prefer Maul to be a blast finisher, then that alone would be the secondary effect on top of damage, and the vulnerability can be applied to Swoop.

Third suggestion; Maul inflicts a hefty cripple. Remove the cripple on the Greatsword 4 throw, and replace it with an immobilize. Now, we have a weapon much more dedicated to control, which then justifies having a semi-low damage output on the autoattack. It would also help a ranger stick to the target better when using the greatsword, which would make it even more viable.

Are we talking about both cripple and blast finisher? Because as much as I like the idea, that would probably end with “it’s so OP” cry.

A lot comes down to the fact, that there is one major difference between RL religions and a lot of fantasy religions.

RL religions are, no matter whether you’re a believer or not, theoretical concepts. You worship a being or a group of beings that you believe exists. But there is no objecive proof of their existence. There are of course religions that don’t include transcended beings, which in a way makes them similar to the Eternal Alchemy of the Asura.

With large part of fantasy religions, including Human and Norn beliefs in GW2, beings that are being worshiped are objectively real, and usually exist regardless of whether someone worships them or not.

With the Spirits of the Wild that is probably the most visible. Sure, the Spirits contact the Norn, seek help, offer help, accept offerings and above all protect them for some reason. But beyond that they do seem to have lives of their own, their own businesses to mind. In certain ways they slightly resemble Shinto spirits.

And precisely because the Spirits of the Wild are like this, I don’t see why a human can’t revere them. The is of course whole part Human cultural code one has to leave behind and the whole part of Norn cultural code one has to adjust to, but there I don’t see why the Spirits wouldn’t answer your character OP, if they had a reason to do so.

Leuca.5732:

Xsorus.2507:

Add Torment to Maul.

say 2 or 3 Stacks.

An interesting way to punish people for kiting, but GS is not a condi weapon and you will be wasting stats if you try to gear for that.

Well… Runes of Perplexity + Torment on Maul + Hybrid Build… Now, that does sound interesting. And fits the weapon to a point, with GS being half about damage, half about control.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Kilger.5490:

I think you guys are out of focus.

The point of vulnerability is not just so you can have more damage, its so everyone attacking that target does more damage, which enhances the spike.

We know the point of the vuln. Unfortunately the amount of vuln that Maul applies is so kitten small that it’s not worth using. It does little to replace how much potential damage was removed with the bleed stack removal and it applies few stacks of vuln compared to the other ‘power’ weapon, the longbow.

This, and the fact that the classes are supposed to be self-sufficient to a point. In this case, vulnerability on Maul hardly enhances our spike, when Maul is the only potential source of such spike anyway.

I’m sorry I wasn’t more of assistance lately, but I rarely have time to log into the game recently, so I couldn’t check the set you came up with.

The current one looks very good. Nice choice of colors too. The WvW armor was always one of my favorite mediums due to the amount of details on it. Flaming shoulders were never my kind of thing, but the model itself fits the rest of the armor pretty well.

Translation: I have used many sophisticated words to indirectly describe myself to boost my self-esteem.

In all seriousness OP, have you ever considered career as a politician, or a priest (in some parts of the world there isn’t much of a difference anyway)? You may have a talent for saying a lot of things in a very pompous way, but without much merit. If I wasn’t educated in the direction I am, it may have even moved me. ;p

SynfulChaot.3169:

Searban.5984:

The thing is that with this reasoning we shouldn’t really consider both fire fields Ranger has access to as something that can work in synergy with GS either. The sources of fire field are: torch and trap. Both are strongly tied to condition builds (although some could argue traps can be used with hybrid builds), while GS is at this point a power weapon, even more than before since the bleed on Maul is gone (which I miss greatly ever since I started experimenting with GS as a hybrid weapon). Essentially Healing Spring is the only combo field that is not tied to condition builds.

On an unrelated note – mods took down 3rd thread in a row. I would be getting the “challenge accepted” vibe by now, if I felt it was worth the effort in any way…

No. We probably shouldn’t. The water field is about the only one I see rangers use with any regularity. And only the good rangers. Some dungeon rangers insist on Troll Unguent instead. I never understand them…

And I miss the bleed on Maul as well as I did use it with a hybrid build for months. You’re right in that it’s now solely a power weapon. But a weak power weapon as it really doesn’t have the power a power weapon needs. Mostly due to a weak #2 attack. The other attacks are either good (#1 and #3) or just need refinement (#4 and #5).

As for the deleted thread? I must not have posted in it because I didn’t notice. >.<

My guess would be that the reason some people choose TU over HS is the fact that HS is the only heal that won’t benefit the pet fully by default. For that you need to invest 15 points into Nature Magic. I admit I used to switch to TU in Fractals when my PUG was turning out to be a really bad one and I was finding out I’m waisting my time trying to be a team player.

GS is weak power weapon, no argument there, and that’s also generally consistent with how comparison between condi and power Rangers is, sadly. Even though I still prefer it over the 1-handed sword, for the reason of play style (which is a bit unfortunate, because I love warhorn, but can’t stand 1-handed sword). But the way I see it at this point to make it on par with others Anet would have to either buff the damage across the board, increase greatsword’s utility (by giving it a blast finisher, strengthening vulnerability on #3, and so on…) or accept that it’s going to be a hybrid weapon of sorts.

The deleted thread was that 1 about the previously deleted ones ;p

SynfulChaot.3169:

sorrow.2364:

SynfulChaot.3169:

I play one too. *Points down to sig.* Ele’s easily have the next best water fields, but no other water field lasts as long as Healing Spring.

And yes, they can combo well in their own fields, but their blast finishers are on pretty long timers. No sub-10 second blast finishers.

False, on staff they have Eruption which is on 6s cooldown. It is the main blast finisher of staff eles. Scepter eles have 2 blast finishers on fire. One is at 6s cooldown, the other is at 20s cooldown.

Was referring more to the melee weapons as we’re comparing it to a melee weapon on the ranger. And the melee weapons don’t have such short cooldowns. Their cooldowns there are much longer at 30 and 45 seconds on dagger or 25 and 25 for focus.

The thing is that with this reasoning we shouldn’t really consider both fire fields Ranger has access to as something that can work in synergy with GS either. The sources of fire field are: torch and trap. Both are strongly tied to condition builds (although some could argue traps can be used with hybrid builds), while GS is at this point a power weapon, even more than before since the bleed on Maul is gone (which I miss greatly ever since I started experimenting with GS as a hybrid weapon). Essentially Healing Spring is the only combo field that is not tied to condition builds.

On an unrelated note – mods took down 3rd thread in a row. I would be getting the “challenge accepted” vibe by now, if I felt it was worth the effort in any way…

From GW2 Wiki:

(1): +10 to All Stats; +2% Critical Damage
(2): +15% Boon Duration
(3): +10 to All Stats; +2% Critical Damage
(4): +10% Condition Duration
(5): +10 to All Stats; +2% Critical Damage
(6): +25% Movement Speed

Well, well, well… Sort of “celestial” rune. It does look like a potentially interesting option for hybrid builds. I wonder whether it stacks with Signet of the Hunt?

What, this is it? The whole post-PAX patch? I know I said I don’t expect major changes today, that they’ll rather come in the next one, but this looks like some kind of joke. Not even the spirits nerf, but just this lack of… well, anything.

Meanwhile, when Necro gets a nerf, they split the nerf between PvP and the rest of the game. So, you CAN do it Anet, can’t you?

What I meant by the trench coats is that essentially vast majority of medium armor sets are various kind of coats. And people usually either love this style or hate it, as this type of clothing may cause several problems in the graphics department: clipping issues with weapons on the character’s back, clipping issues with with weapons on character’s hip (back at the beginning with some chest pieces 1-handed weapons were almost invisible when not drawn. They tried to fix it by moving the weapons further away from the body, but the result is now that if a character is wearing a coat, the weapon is sort of floating mid-air and clipping with character’s hands), clipping issues with parts of character’s body, and so on.

Personally, while I don’t really have anything against coats as such, I feel that they look awkward on my female Norn, because Norn women, despite being humanoid, actually have slightly different body proportions than their human counterparts (unless you make a short female with the thinest body, but what is the point in that when she is a Norn…), and it doesn’t go well with large number of armor models. But that is simply my opinion and many people won’t even notice such issue.

Judging by the fact that you like the Magitech set however you probably don’t have any problems with coats. If you like the style of the Magitech set you can check the armor you can get through Honour of the Waves exploration mode. It’s Norn-themed too, and the chest piece itself is quite easy to mix-match with other armor sets. Same goes for any piece of that particular set really. Pants are a bigger problem, as there aren’t too many pants that are not, well, typical pants. You may try the Norn cultural t2. It is probably too revealing though. And unfortunately, those pants are difficult to use for mix-matching.

If you like the pants though… Not many armors with similar

The information you provided is a big vague to be honest. While I may not be the best person to answer your questions (I went for cultural t3, which shows quite a bit of skin, but I wanted to keep my Norn as close to her cultural roots as I could and provide a way to show the extensive tatoo pattern I chose for her during character creation), but I’ll try.

We’re talking about a Ranger, therefore we’re talking about medium armor, and you want armor that is not too revealing, so cultural armor is not the way to go. That leaves us at one key question – how do you feel about trench coats? Because if you like them, you have plenty of choices. If you don’t, then your choices are much more limited.

I believe saying that armor sets in GW2 are the most modest in MMOs at this point is a bit too much. However, at the same time there are plenty of titles that are much less conservative. Whole eastern branch of the genre. And some games from the western branch as well.

GW2 is by far one of the best games on the market when it comes to the variety of options. You want skimpy outfit? No problem. You want to cover everything, head to toe? Sure, there are outfits for that. There is plenty of middle ground too. Hell, there are even pants for magic users, they are not forced to wear big blue dresses some people call “robes”. And heavy armor sets that don’t make you choose between wearing a plate and chainmail swimsuit or looking like an offspring of an unholy union between a hedgehog and a scrap heap

The only part at which Anet has somewhat failed in my opinion is disproportion between trench coats and all the other armor models when it comes to medium armor.

And OP, you’re not complaining about a group of armor sets. You’re not even complaining about a single armor set. You have problem with literally 1 piece of 1 set of heavy armor (which, in fact, wouldn’t fit the rest of the set if it was designed differently). And you’re making whole thread about it, in which you accuse Anet of making the Norn females look like underwear models. Don’t you think that is the very definition of overreacting?

For example I think that female variants of both the Duelist armor set and the medium Human cultural t3 look both ridiculous and hideous at the same time. But you won’t see me complaining about it on the forums. I can simply choose not to use them, because there are other, better options.