Guild Wars 2

Been enjoying this matchup immensely. Lots of roaming parties and even (gasp) solo roamers on the field. Thank you for all the good fights, sweet lewts and even the humiliating roflstomps! See you out there o7

hyjaxxx.1584:

I think there needs to be passive abilities that works as follows

Skirmishers Prowl: (passive) for Every 5 seconds the ranger is moving without stopping they apply a +5% damage buff (stackable 3 times) on their target once 3 stacks are accumulated each shot has a 25% chance to apply a 1/4 sec cripple to target.

Marksmans Grit (Passive) every 3 seconds the ranger stands still (in combat) they recieve a 5% crit chance and 5% crit damage buff (stackable 5 times) Once stacks are accumulated Ranger has a 25% chance to knock down targets for 1 second.

I think a mechanic like this would give the rangers something of their own and add some much needed CC/buffs to the Bow skills.

In all fairness I think those proposals are way over the top on paper already. I feel that rangers are in a good place when 1vX is considered. If something I’d like to see some utilities added to the zerg side of things and the pet AI fixed but all in all I’m quite content with my ranger when www is considered.

That being said I liked your ‘beyond the box’ way of thinking and I’m all for some unique flavor. And no, pets acting like cretins won’t do for that

Fenrir.6183:

Funny. I thought you wanted to discuss rangers, not just SB and LB.
You do know we have access to other weapons, right ?

Instead of posting that you could’ve and still can post your experiences on your chosen spec and the tools that go with it. I opened the conversation with my perspective and chosen tools for that job – I invite people to share their experiences and ideas on the whole spectrum. So be a good sport and contribute please – or refrain from posting ‘witty’ one-liners on this section.

Theres a place for those and I see that you’re familiar with it already:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief

TL:DR This post is mostly about roaming/havoc in www after the patch and the raised points don’t apply to PvE. I know we got it bad in dungeons.  I try to bring up some suggestions in a constructive manner and I wish that we can have a proper conversation going. I’m posting this on a cell so I can’t link the build, gear or even stats for further info of my setup. I understand the info would be useful for the readers as my suggestions are based on it. I will update later on if the thread picks up. 
Please share your (post-patch) experiences in www and suggestions how the class should be evolving or what fixes are needed to make it more viable/appealing/fun to play. 

• * *

I was as shocked as the majority of the ranger community when the patch went live. The leaked notes seemed quite horrible as it was quite evident that the changes would not promote build diversity in any way. If something I predicted that if they were true we’d be pidgeonholed even more into bunkers and BM.  Well they went live and … the sky didn’t fall. Yes the changes were disheartening and reduced our (non-BM) pets uses to basically cc (a really unreliable cc if I may add). LB is still unresponsive, clunky and generally no fun to play with. Lowered range on SB forces us to overcommit in pvp/www as I now find myself hovering between PB and 500 range. After the changes I can’t dictate the range and control the fight nearly as much as I grew accustomed with.

All that being said I find myself performing nearly as good as pre-patch with only minor tweaks to my build. Granted I don’t run BM but a 30/10/30/0/0 hybrid with a wide spread of stats (GS/SB). It works wonders for me but is heavily dependant on movement and proper timing. I do miss the 1200 range on SB and that’s my biggest gripe when it comes to the patch (ofc as that and the pet dmg nerf were the changes that had the biggest impact on my preferred build and play style – it’s all about the perspective). All in all I enjoyed a  nice long stroll yesterday in friendly and hostile  BLs resulting in over 40 solo kills (1v1s,1v2s and one occasion of 1v3). Sure enough I got stomped a few times but the patch had absolutely nothing to do with it – I was outmanned and/or outplayed every single time. Also quite a few managed to leg it due to the reduced range on SB – no amount of swooping, (oor) cripples and swiftness could prevent them from getting away.

My suggestions based on my observations are:

1) SB range should be adjusted
Okay I can roll with the argument of realism on this one (that means I’m willing to accept that facetanking a dozen hammerblows from an aggravated hello kitty gone bad is also realistic as are magic, loldurgons and undead beings rising from the sea. The concept of realism doesn’t quite sit well in this context). I can see the reasoning behind the range nerf but on the same note I’d like to see the utilities on SB raised back to 1200. I’d settle for 4 and 5 even.

2) LB
I feel Anet went the wrong way with the changes. In order to promote the use of a neglected weapon Anet decided to nerf the preferred ranged weapon (SB) instead of addressing the issues with LB. The weapon is awkward, clunky and doesn’t offer the utility the class needs. Yes it should be fixed properly but I don’t have the answer how (I haven’t got enough experience on it as I have my LB gathering dust in one of my bags. Now I may need to equip it every now and then if I find myself defending tower/keep/SM in www). There have been some good suggestions on these very forums. Making the weapon feel more responsive, fluid even, would be a good start.

3) Pets
… That feeling when your pet misses a moving ambient critter. 

The pet AI is too unreliable, F2s are unresponsive and act all random. Add the tracking issues to this list and you have a companion that may or may not contribute some 15%ish of total DPS to the fight (I think that’s fair estimate for a non-BM pet). I suggest that Anet should either fix the AI or just give the pets bigger hit boxes and more responsive user controls. I know this is a work in process but in regards to the nerf this should have been resolved already.

All in all I wouldn’t say that the patch broke the rangers. However I can understand the frustration and disappointment in the ranger community as the patch failed to fix any of the major issues. Pet nerf may have been warranted but sadly it had the biggest impact on non-BM builds rendering ‘the other half’ of ranger from a potential threat into a mild annoyance (.. Annoying both the ranger and the opponent equally). 

Thank you for your time and no you can’t have it back

Thats cute Grevender as GH is dropping ACs left, right and middle <3

If any of our previous opponents from RoS or RoF are checking in on this – thank you for an awesome week. Makes it so much easier to go and hunt dem PvE pixels this time around. Too kitten blobby when even the camps are being flipped and guarded with groups of 10s.

Ta-ta o/