Showing Posts For Tempus.9540:
While a Dev’s on the scene, can we talk about the more broader issue’s – i.e. A large amount of Traits being in the wrong place, ranged weapons always being weaker than melee weapons, the belief that Rangers should only have sustained damage… (Is a 2 second Hundred Blades on a 6 second CD considered burst or sustained?)
At the moment what we really need now is detailed opinions on where you, the Anet Devs feel the ranger is performing poorly, and why. Obviously a fairly large amount of posters feel that their are huge issues. I’m getting the impression that Devs feel there are only minor issues. (Maybe because balance is done around SPvP, and thats the only gamemode where Rangers aren’t way waaaaay behind other classes?)
If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:
Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.
Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.
Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.
So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.
Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.
Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.
Also would Love a responce, but seeing as it’s just turning 6pm Seattle time, I guess we are waiting another day. Not to be harsh, but due to the percieved large amount of problems the Ranger has, and the massive amount of input given by users, this is the CDI that should be getting the most red responces. Fractals/Ladders have been getting a lot of Love – though I realise when you are facing a 25 page thread of suggestions it must be daunting.
Dear Allie,
What can we talk about that will get done? So far, all I have seen in this CDI are topics that have been denied.
1. Perma-Stowing – This idea was shut down and sent to make another thread because it was too intensive / difficult to program and goes against the dev ideal that Rangers are a pets class.
2. Pet AI Fix – Fixing the pet AI so it actually hits, dodges attacks, avoids AoE’s, and generally is not a drag on the class was deemed too intensive / difficult to do.
3. Improve Ranged Weapons and Raise Damage / Burst / DPS – These ideas were denied because other classes currently are too strong at DPS, burst damage, and any other measure of damage. This is considering that other profession’s autoattacks outperform Ranger’s DPS, burst, or damage most of the time across any scale of time (short or long term). Burst was also tossed because it does not meet the dev ideal of the Ranger.
These issues are the main focus of the Ranger CDI because the Ranger is a poorly done class. The Ranger pet has poor AI that hits nothing unless it remains stationary. Because of the pet, the Ranger has some of the lowest damaging weapons period. The Ranger does not do more damage by any measure. Similarly, the Ranger is not an exceptionally good bunker class. Its survivability is mediocre, at best. This does not include the pet, which can never survive unless the most basic of pve situations.
It appears to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that the goal of this CDI was to provide small and simple ideas to tweak some numbers to improve the Ranger, similar to all other balancing patches to date. This type of discussion is appropriate for a competent class, like Warrior or Guardian. But, as I hope Anet can see by these discussions, the Ranger is fundamentally broken and will require some intensive effort to fix. Especially before we talk about bumping up the power to some shout or signet and call it a day.
Again don’t think it’s your fault personally Allie, but this is the crux. In 25 pages we’re just going over the same ground now. We now need Red posts. Good Luck
It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.
To be honest, I am against this train of thought for GW2. (even though these days I play a melee class in PvE – like we all do I guess) I understand where it comes from, but in a game with dodges and active defences, it will always be possible to be in melee, admittedly sometimes with great difficulty. Making it so things are not balanced to do similiar DPS between melee and ranged means that no matter what they do, if you bring a ranged weapon, you will be seen as a bad player. For good or ill, DPS is currently the metric by which we are judged, and by saying ranged should always do less just means half your weapon options are unsuitable for Dungeons.
Ranged weapons should be rebalanced to do similiar damage as melee, but melee still need some bonus for being more likely of getting attacked*. What this bonus consists of, being more access to boons/shields/evades/control is hard for me to say. But fundamentally, we somehow need to address the divide of players expectations of wanting to play this class ranged, the perceptions of the Devs on how damage should be split between weapons and how the PvE Meta currently is today.
Thanks Nike for the Madlibs, I’ll take all the fun from this thread I can get.
urgh. It’s not like I’m trying to be a pain here with my stress relief post, but when it hits you how very different the Dev’s perception of what the class currently is, and your own…I think I got Hope Whiplash. I need another cup of tea.
Sorry need to make this post for slight stress relief:
- Day 1, Make Ranger main
- Slowly becomes apparent how poor DPS/Support is in PvE
- Switch mains to remain sane.
- Watch King of PvE Warriors get buffed patch after patch, much to incredulity of friends/spouse (Warrior need these buffs because of Spvp!)
- Watch Rangers actually get nerfed – try to forget about it
- See CDI about Rangers. Glimmer of Hope traitorously forms
- Devs now worried that all Warrior Meta bursts through PvE too fast, thus reluctant to buff Rangers due to power creep.
- Hope Dies. All is Vain.
Like, we are going to have a massive problem here Allie. If you are directly linking what changes should be made to the Ranger to a different vision of PvE than what we have now (Damage is king, Stack, Melee Weapon>Ranged) and instead to some theoretical vision of the future that Devs have of PvE balance, we need to be more informed of what that vision entails.
Is it going to be Trinity? Removing Defiance but weakening conditions? DPS consistent across all weapon types? Whichever it is, I can give suggestions for, but tbh this CDI is near useless if we are not trying to fix the problems Rangers have now in PvE – as that is what the 20 pages of suggestions people have put some serious effort into are all relating too.
Sorry, I’m still not convinced that Rangers in PvE do sustained DPS – lets not make this a gospel truth we don’t question – I agree we don’t do burst. I also think Rangers don’t do sufficent sustained DPS, with possible exception of the Hokey Kokey Sword.
To those asking how far we would redesign…
PvE Hat on
Out of interest, would you redesign it so Ranger’s long range weapons were nearer the DPS of other classes melee weapons. Across all classes we have that ranged weapons are much, much lower than the melee weapons (with the possible exception of Ele) which had lead to a complete melee dominant PvE Meta – bring melee or go home. If you say that you wouldn’t redesign it in this way, half of the posters here can go home now – bows are a big draw (HoHoHo) to the class, but if they are going to be suboptimal/unwanted for Dungeons, none of the changes to the Ranger will matter if we don’t get to play the archetype we’ve envisioned.
Marksmanship/Skirmishing Trait changes here!
Wilderness Survival Trait problems
A lot of traits in other lines I have placed here, so this trait line may require some pruning in the end.
Off-Hand Training A very nice trait for a lot of builds, but stuck in a traitline it has no particular attachment too. Move to Marksmanship or Skirmishing.
Oakheart Salve Possibly this is absolutely fantastic in PvP but a part of me feels it’s cooldown should go down to 10s. Either way, it suits Nature Magic as a traitline more.
Martial Mastery 100% a generic power trait. It screams to be in the Marksmanship tree – how it lasted so long stuck here is frankly silly.
Some of these traits to me, someone who does not play Ranger in PvP, definately look like they could be combined without causing the Forest of Niflhel burning down. Hide in Plain Sight/Shared Anguish seem very close in purpose. This would give more room for the incoming mass of Trap/Condition damage traits arriving from their exodus into other trait lines.
Nature Magic Trait problems
Concentration Training A large part of the little love I have for pets is their ability to give party wide boons. This seems more fitting for Beastmastery.
Spirits seem to have big problems anyway. (Fun Fact: I submitted a bug report in Beta Weekend 2 that spirits did not work as their tooltip implied, in fact discovering through testing that they had an ICD, which I thought surely, surely, must be a bug) I won’t list specific changes to traits then, as to be honest, I think they require a complete overall – more so than the pet.
Evasive Purity For this high invested into a very healing orientated line, I expect more than Poison/Blind removal. Either remove any one condition, or remove a bigger list of conditions here.
Two-Handed Training Even more cuckoo in the nest that last time, this Trait would fit better into Marksmanship or Skirmishing.
Nature’s Voice I understand that it applies Regeneration, but attaching it to Pet shouts seems to suggest Beastmastery more than Nature Magic. Also is this worth a Grandmaster trait slot in any game mode? If the GM is to be filled with applying regeneration, it at least should get some more use – changing it to “When you use a Pet F2 skill, you and your allies gain Swiftness/Regeneration” would at least mean that it would come up more often.
Part 2 End
It’s pretty difficult to follow the formatting guideline when it’s not a vague change such as “Remove Pets” or “Make Utilities better” so I’m hoping you’ll still read this as long as I keep it clear, and link all relevant info:
Marksmanship Trait Problems
Malicious Training
More suited to Wilderness Survival
Keen Edge
Once again, it’s a skill thats adding more bleeds – More suited to Wilderness Survival
Spotter
A good throughput trait, but +6% crit party-wide really fits better within Skirmishing traitline.
Piercing Arrows I’m really surprised that this isn’t default for Ranger bow skills. It’s hard to not compare against the Warrior in this regard.
Precise Strike To put everything into this one post, this non-optional trait synergises very poorly and becomes less valuable the more you invest in certain Trait lines/Armour. Remove this and stick Remorseless in it’s place.
The new slots in this traitline cry out for Sword augmenting Traits (which I’ll link too shortly) and the Grandmaster slot would probably be best served by something that gives the Ranger a bonus when hitting foes who have Vulnerability – a possible idea is an extra might stack on hitting a vulnerable foe.
Skirmishing Trait problems
Trapper’s Defence This one sounds like another Wilderness Survival Trait. Certainly no synergy with Skirmisher.
Agility Training To be honest, I feel this one’s too weak to even move. Really it should be combined with another Beastmastery Trait.
Trapper’s Expertise You are sick of hearing it, I’m sick of typing it – Another Trap augmenting trait should go to Wilderness Survival. I’ll add now that a few of these Trap boosts could do with being combined/becoming baseline.
Trap Potency As above. Sorry.
Moment of Clarity I sort of see what you we’re going for, but the lack of interupts we have, combined with poor bonus/Defiant mechanics make it unappealing as a minor, nevermind Grandmaster. As a suggestion for GM Traits in this tree, quite a few classes pack a plus 15% crit chance trait of some kind. (Guardian Right Hand Mastery, Warrior Heightened Focus) Would it be too powerful to give one of these conditional plus 15% chances to Rangers as well? Possible suggestions are: When Vulnerability stacks on target are at 10+ , While your pet swap is on Cooldown or While you are moving. All 3 options would synergise with some part of the Ranger class.
Part 1 End
Game Mode
PvE primarily
The 25 point Marksmanship Trait, Precise Strike, becomes less valuable as you gain fury or put more points in Skirmishing. It’s generally pretty weak overall for a non-optional 25 point trait. My proposal is to replace it with the Grandmaster Remorseless trait, and then have something a bit more exciting as the replacement Grandmaster trait.
Associated Risk
Is this a big risk to PvP play? Would this provide another cover condition for bleed stacks?
A big problem when I’m trying to think what changes would balance the class across PvE, PvP and WvW is that we are in a tricky place regarding class homogenisation. If we start sacrificing dodge animations for more damage and be more bulky in melee we start to drift into Warrior territory. If we gain more mobility, more ways to jump about and get into and out of combat, we start to spread over into Thief themes. I just raise this point because a lot of people are saying “Play an X instead then!” in regard to people raising points that push Ranger in the opposite way to the forum users class ideal.
I’d imagine for most this is our class defining skill. A skill with a near 40% uptime (traited) that not only protects the entire team from a huge amount of damage, but also reflects it all back is rightly to be feared.
Open World content for the majority is pretty easy. The skill is in fact so fantastic that for the bosses it would be useful for, they’ve changed it so missiles pierce through. Otherwise 3 Guardians could protect entire zergs.
Mesmer reflects are better though.
If guardian has anything special going for them it’s the hammer auto.
Is this in PvE? Wheras Feedback is very good, it’s still 6 seconds up on a 40sec CD, and I don’t often see people traiting to improve those numbers. Guardian Hammer is pretty nice, but in 90% of my PvE runs I’d rather not have a light field destroying my teams ability to stack might/heals. Different experiences of PvE I guess.
I’d imagine for most this is our class defining skill. A skill with a near 40% uptime (traited) that not only protects the entire team from a huge amount of damage, but also reflects it all back is rightly to be feared.
Open World content for the majority is pretty easy. The skill is in fact so fantastic that for the bosses it would be useful for, they’ve changed it so missiles pierce through. Otherwise 3 Guardians could protect entire zergs.
Due to our lower health the warriors healing signet would make more sense on a guardian. Maybe our healing signet can be changed?
This I don’t believe to be the case. Warriors have a larger healthpool, so when they get hit once they can wait for this passive heal to bring them back up to 100% health without being in danger. Guardians with their low health pool need things like Shelter, because after one hit they are dangerously low – or dead. While I complain because what’s a class mechanic to us , is outclassed x3-4 times by a Warrior Heal skill it makes sense that the passive healing choice goes to the class with the HP cap to utilise it.
If anything, thinking about this only reinforces to me that Virtue of Resolve could do with a complete overhaul: Something more akin to a passive permenanent protection buff, with the active then giving protection and regeneration to the whole team (briefly) would better mesh with the rest of the class. However, while this suggestion doesn’t set off any massive alarm bells for me in PvE (occaisonal 33% reduction on that missed dodge) I worry that this sounds like too big a boost for SPvP, though I lack the man hours there as a Guardian to properly comment.
I’m not saying all shields look dire with Aegis* but it would be nice to have the option to remove its visuals in PvE. For things like WvW I’m still not super sure why it needs to be seen on the character – it still appears as a boon when you target someone, so removing the visual wouldn’t screw over the roaming assassins of WvW.
*Diamond Aegis isn’t too bad with it. So thats one.
Traits
Before I go into the problems of specific traits, lets look at the couple of issues that end up culling a lot of choices from the PvE Guardian. Firstly, Spirit Weapons, as I’ve already discussed are next to useless in PvE. Thus the 5 different trait options that augment them are effectively off the table. The second issue is more PvE specific – Retaliation is not very useful in an enviroment where you are trying to dodge very slow, possibly fatal, attacks and the damage it does is a pittance to compensate. About 5 trait choices are focused on giving small amounts or boosts to Retaliation, but in the PvE environment the only one thats going to be picked up is the forced choice of Virtue of Retribution at 15 points in Virtues.
Zeal
Normally the power line of traits on a class is a good one to take in PvE. However, with so many choices lost to the void of Spirit Weapons, it’s often overlooked apart from to secure Fiery Wrath
The Grandmasters traits are pretty poor: Kindled Zeal increases Condition Damage on a class with only access to Burning. The other GM Trait is about Spirit Weapons.
Radiance
A fairly great tree throughout, with a few oddities. Inner Fire gives a boon that DPS Guardians would love more access too, but involves having to take take damage from very specific kinds of enemies.
Honour
A great set of interesting traits makes it tempting to put points in this line, even if it’s tied to less throughput stats. The one trait I’d mention is Pure of Heart . Healing when the Aegis is removed, rather than say regeneration, would often mean it’s trying to Heal people at 100% HP. Secondly Guardians have only a very small pool of skills that apply Aegis, making it hard to justify traits that augment it, without additional Aegis skills being forthcoming.
Virtues
For this traitline, the only massive disapointment is Permeating Wrath which for a Grandmaster trait, you’d expect to at least be a fire combo field.
Virtues in themselves have a slight problem that as soon as you’ve added 5 points into this traitline, it’s almost invariably better to use the Active effect of Virtues. “Should I leave on the passive effect?”, becomes a very easy question to answer, when traits can boost them to cause blind, cure conditions, apply massive amounts of boons, break stuns etc while leaving their passive effects unsimiliarly boosted. It makes the class as a whole, a bit less interesting, and homogenises it a bit to close to Engineer kit skills.
I’d Love to hear some feedback from people; but hell, even if there’s not a huge amount, at least I can start linking to this thread when people ask what needs to be changed. Thanks all for reading!
(edited by Tempus.9540)
Class Mechanics
Virtue of Resolve/HP/Active Defence
Almost as a matter of course when discussing Guardian balance, we have to compare ourselves to the Warrior. Currently the match up between a Full Berzerker Guardian and a Full Berzerker Warrior, seems to highlight some of the imbalances.
Guardians HP is around 11k in this state at level 80, Warriors around 19k. This difference often means DPS Guardians have no room for mistake on bosses – if you don’t dodge/shield every attack, you’ll be taking a dirt nap.
The counterpoint to this would be that Guardians have more options in Shielding themselves: Aegis/Protection etc. However, Warriors are also seemingly are doing well in this regard, with things like Endure Pain/Shield Stance. While I’d probably agree that Guardians have more protective methods, I’d argue that it’s not by enough to be <60% of their maximum health. A multitude of other similiar unfavourable comparisons are available: Virtue of Resolves, a class defining feature, is absolutely dwarfed by Healing Signet. Guardian DPS being quite a bit lower than Warrior DPS played by the same player. The list goes on.
With recent pre-patch notes released showing changes to skills such as Vigourous Precision getting nerfed (and DPS Guardians needing every source of active defence they can get) and Warriors gaining more Active Defence options I worry about the long term viability of the DPS/PvE Guardian with the current direction.
Summary
These are my own opening points: While as a whole, I enjoy my class and will continue playing as a Guardian, I definately see issues that need addresing. Above have been some of my PvE qualms – I would love for us as a forum to get some agreement on what needs to be changed, and how it should be changed, by the time our incoming CDI rolls round.
(edited by Tempus.9540)
Well with the CDI announced focusing on specific proffessions, I thought it would be an idea to get everyone on the Guardian forums to put down their ideas about what parts of our class needs balancing. Even if there’s no way we could put ourselves in the bottom 3 asked for in this Dev Thread it gives me hope that they’ll get round to a Guardian CDI soon. Might be an idea to start discussing now, being careful to describe whether it needs rebalancing in PvE/SPvP/WvW or all of the above.
I’ll start with some of the PvE issues that come to mind:
Utilities
Signet of Wrath This skill’s passive is to increase condition damage, on a class which only has access to burning. Not really viable as many have mathed out. Either a change to the passive (Precision?) or a whole overwork of Guardian conditions are needed.
Spirit Weapons, with the notable exception of Shield of the Avenger bring too little, and nowadays when the fight is more chaotic (and you might need a spiritual companion) they are too easily snuffed out by a random cleave or AoE. Seeing as a large amount of Zeal Traits are tied to them it would be nice to see them get looked at, though admittedly I have few ideas in this regard. Shield of the Avenger gets a pass, as while very niche, does give us a poor man’s Wall of Reflection, when one is not enough.
Signet of Mercy, possibly this is just a PvE thing, but considering its CD, it’s passive buffing an undeveloped stat and it’s sometimes quite tempremental disposition to work, it’s long casting seals the deal in almost never being used. It only can revive a downed player (not defeated) but has a 3.5 second casting time – almost always being quicker to staunch the player manually, without giving up a utility slot.
Weapons
Offhands: At the moment, Focus is the offhand for PvE. The flaws in Shield/Torch seem to often mean that even Guardians who have 4 slots for one handed weapons opt that both are X/Focus. Shield of Judgement has a 600 cone that does similiar damage to an autoattack, and applies protection to Allies. While protection is a nice buff to dish out, it’s often wasted with Guardians typically leading from the front, andthe effect not having similiar mechanics to a shout i.e effecting all those in 600 range. Shield of Absorption provides a similiar niche role as Shield of the Avenger, that of being Wall of Reflections weaker cousin. However the CD is long on a skill that puts you in a vulnerable spot of being rooted, and often the prime target of a Defiant Champions claw or chomp attack. I imagine Focus was designed to be the solo offhand with it’s access to Regeneration and Super-Aegis and Shield to be the team choice, but Focus also giving Blast Finishers and Blinds means that it outperforms Shield in almost all aspects of PvE.
Torch, likely designed to be the DPS offhand, has sporadic use. Skill 4 gives Guardians a nice touch of ranged burst damage with it’s Zealot’s Fire, but the CD is still seen as a bit too long for this one trick pony. Skill 5, Cleansing Flame, is almost invariably a DPS loss over autoattacking and its condition removal is much beter served by an kitten nal of other skills the Guardian has at it’s disposal – making it a very unattractive choice over the safety/blasts of the Focus.
(edited by Tempus.9540)
PvE:
1:Necromancer
2:Ranger
3:Engineer
Most unbalanced: Warrior (Highest Armour, Health, Best Healing Skill, Highest DPS, Some of the Best Utilities for Dungeons) It’s fine to be good, but share the wealth, guys. Even if it makes life easy when I’m playing my Warrior.
Ahoy hoy,
Would it be possible to have some sort of UI function (in PvE only if needs be) to remove the “look” of the Aegis which obscures Shields. It really removes a lot of the splendour of things like the Lovestruck shield, when it has a whopping great blue transparency covering it.
Before it’s mentioned, I also hope that Guardian Shield skills will be also buffed up in the semi-near future. Shield skill 4 probably needs a rework, and 5 could do with some seconds chopped off it, to compete with focus.
Greetings – I thought I’d just list some of the little quality of life improvements I’d appreciate, and see what you thought:
1) Perma-Elemental Potion Would it be possible to create a Mystic Forge recipe that allows you to combine the Permanent Warm/Cold/Charged/Hard potions found inside Lost Orrian Jewellry boxes into one permanent potion that randomly turns you into one of them, similiar to the Toymakers tonic? (I like collecting endless stuff, and would love to reclaim 3 bag slots)
2) Can we get an update about if you will be adding any effects to the existing Legendaries? Minstrel, Metrologicus,Howler and a couple others have beautiful base models but would appreciate a bit of snazzing up.
3) I realise you’ve (soft) capped Fractals of the Mist at 50 currently, hence your keeping maximum obtainable AR at 45. Would it be possible to allow us to upgrade the necklaces into there infused version soon- I feel a little dodgy adding any kind of Laurel expensive enchant, into something I plan on chucking in the Mystic Forge.
4)Is there any word on the “Gain Laurels for achievements” system you mentioned a while back? I saw that for the first time an achievement had a physical reward in the UI, (Forged Gauntlet ticket) and for me this is a great sign.
5) Any chance that the Permanent Trading Post Express item can be just used within the UI, similiar to the Perma-Bank, rather than like the Perma-merchant? No one else can use my Trading Post pick-up (unfortunately) so it seems it would be less faff to have the item simply open up the BLTP but with the pick-up items button enabled.
Have a wonderful day.
Ahoy hoy. A couple of recent changes to the Black Lion Chests (BLC) have made them considerably more enjoyable, but have also brought new frustatrations. I’d be interested to hear what people thought of these ideas, and preferably what a Dev thinks.
1) Mystery Tonics – The change from chests giving a specific tonic to a generic tonic was fantastic – Highly more stackable. The ability to then turn generic tonics into specific tonics as needed was great icing on the cake. However, me and a few others havn’t been able to capitilise on the space so much – We still have 200~ specific tonics from the pre-BLC update. Would it be possible to have a recipe to turn specific tonics back into generic tonics 1:1 (Such as 4 Floater Tonics becoming 4 Mystery tonics). I realise this may be harder to do than I imagine because of the amounts of tonic types, and the combinations they could have in the forge. Perhaps an NPC of some sort? This will allow me to reclaim an entire Bank Tab.
2) Having seen the possible new entries to BLCs, being a permanent Banker,Black Lion NPC, Merchant and Infinite Tonics I’ve been converting some gold each night to see if I can acquire any of the above. And all of them are ridiculously rare it seems – while I appreciate them being very special , and thus shouldn’t be easily obtainable, would it be possible to create some Mystic Forge recipes to help the unlucky. Perhaps by putting 250 Mystery Tonics, A consumable Banker and a few other things, you could forge one of the permanent items. Mr Smith seems a bit hot on when it comes to the economy so I imagine he can see what rarer materials need a boost in popularity, and would make good suggestions for the recipe
This way people would still have to open hundreds of chests, but at least if they didn’t get one of the lucky items they could feel some progress had been made.
Thoughts? Feedback? Possible abuse from my peers?
TQQ
(edited by Tempus.9540)