Guild Wars 2

Its almost as if there are 10 devs on balance team and 9 say to the 10th guy:
- Rangers are posting doomsday threads all over the place. Quick give them something good.
- Ok, gave them good stuff.
- This ain’t no good, now 8 profession forums are whining. Nerf it to the ground.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Man, and rangers, as a rule, are usually so nice! Well, all I can say is "HUMPH!!*

I’ll just leave this here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDh4qk1Tl8k

Also I really like how you made a distinction between humans and rangers. Way to keep our spirits up (no pun intended).

;)

Snow owl: Owl Rly
Jaguar: Kitty Goes Boom
Lynx: Commander Zazzles
River Drake: Eddie Lizzard
Wolf: I’m With Stupid
Krytan Warhound: Dög

I saw a ranger in PvP with a balck widow called Zsazsa Gabor.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The heals themselves seemed to be working at decent values, so I’ll be tweaking the base heals down and coefficients up some in order to better reward selecting healing power stat combos as a druid.

Can someone send this man back in time 3 years with a delorean please?

Chokolata.1870:

They will nerf it 100%

I think the correct term is “They will Roy it 100%”

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Ehecatl.9172:

But if the elite spec was just a straight upgrade to ranger DPS there’d be no point in anyone ever using ranger, and that would be sad.

I paid for the Druid just like I paid for every aspect of HoT. I want the elite spec to at least be useful to me in dungeons and fractals. I want to get my money’s worth out of the elite spec that I looked forward to the most… Sadly, there’s just too much of a DPS loss taking the Druid spec for my tastes. Maybe if there was party wide offensive support it’d be worth it, but it’s not. I mean, I expected the Druid to be support, I just didn’t expect the utter lack of offensive support in the traitline.

With all due respect, become a more concious consumer maybe and don’t buy something you know nothing about.

Kailee.8790:

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

What makes healing druid completely worthless? Poor healing power scaling, or healing not required in this amount in pvp?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

mistsim.2748:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

mistsim.2748:

I’m against the range increase for the SB. I think it should be a deadly mid-range weapon. it just goes with the theme.

If we are talking thematically, then it needs to be 1200 range. You can’t throw a torch, axe or dagger further than you can shoot an arrow from a short bow.

longbow is 1200+ range. SB should be medium range. thematically.

Here’s me thinking that LB was 1500 range. My point still stands, thematically, you cannot throw an axe further than you can shoot an arrow from a shortbow.

I agree on the thematic stuff, but also agree with Mistsim on the SB being a deadly mid range weapon. Problem is, its not deadly at the moment.

I’m also strongly against any decrease in attack speed…. just dont!

SkiTz.4590:

nagymbear.5280:

Ranger community:
I have to mention the ranger community as well. I think we set a trap for ourselves with Druid as expectations were too high, and a lot of pressure was put on Anet. I think Druid became what most rangers expected it to be and yet I see a lot of negative feedback.

NOTHING in regards to broken pet was done (ranger remains the class with the worst mechanic, which is why anet had to create a new one – cele form)
NOTHING in regards to medicore/subpar DPS
NOTHING in regards to subpar group utilities (frost spirit/spotter STILL the only options)

Thank you for proving my point.

My impressions on the Druid reveal (my apologies for wall of text in advance):

Irenio/Anet:
First and foremost I would like to thank Irenio and all devs working on Druid. Regardless of reception and state of Druid I feel that more work has been put into Druid than a lot of people give credit for. Being included in a tight deadline project myself IRL at the moment I appreciate that there are people working at Anet are people too, and no company has unlimited resources. Thank you for your work!

Theme/Niche:
Unlike some other people I like celestial avatar as a concept, I like the transformed look and some effects look really nice. As for Druid being a heavy healing class with AoE CC abilities, it is a step up in AoE CC (as we already had some of that) and a huge step up on the healing part. Some people call it uninspiring and boring, but based on how raids will play this might be rewarding and interesting to play. If for say raids would include encounters where crowd control is important because it is not preferred/possible to remove swarms of creatures or there is a need for heavy healing Druid might be popular, and I’m interested to see that happen. On the other hand Druid seems to be to Ranger, what Celestial avatar is to Druid. While the reveal was pretty dense and we just have to see what possibilities Druid brings it seems that it has what ranger doesn’t. Lots of aoe on low cooldown (20s 10 slot skill?!), seemingly no focus on/synergy with pet, no sustained damage with the spec concentrating on putting out healing instead. Lots of possibilities for group support and just teamwork in general. We pretty much only saw that with spirits and healing spring (maybe spotter too) before Druid. Druid being this impactful might harm the percepsion of future specs methinks. Hope I’m wrong.

New pets:
Another thing rangers expected, the new pets look nice, I wouldn’t see why anyone would dislike this to be honest.

Balance changes:
I think that condition damage being added to pets is a huge change in itself, and people may call druid OP but wait till they meet Lynx-es on a bleed build after the change. Some bug fixes I can see in the notes as well and some buffs (spirits, warhorn). A lot of people expect more changes to ranger as well. We will have to see how Ranger plays in raids, but I don’t expect the icebow nerf to put ranger back into PVE groups, WVW zergs or any group content. Some people call it a perception problem with rangers but one cannot deny the lack of rangers in PVE, PVP, WVW (large group content).

Ranger community:
I have to mention the ranger community as well. I think we set a trap for ourselves with Druid as expectations were too high, and a lot of pressure was put on Anet. I think Druid became what most rangers expected it to be and yet I see a lot of negative feedback.

We will not have perma protection from guard alone, I’m sure there will be some balancing done to it to avoid that.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

“I want to be desired in groups” “congratulations, you’re a healbot”

Straight-up monkey’s paw kitten right there.

We only saw what staff can do. Not everything the druid has is around healing. It also has “retal” and aoe cc. I could imagine Druid taking care of a swarm of mobs for the party. That would work if the swarm cannot be nuked, otherwise the aoe dps guys are gonna just nuke them. If he is indeed correct and the new hard content will mean the end of zerker meta, then Druid with heals AND aoe CC should be more then just a healbot. I don’t think the wack-a-mole healing that was present in other MMOs will be ever present in GW2.

The dev hinted at balance changes to be revealed as well (for ranger as well judging by his smile).

In the reveal Ranger had 15k HP, so prolly cleric/settler, or zerker/rampager gear was used. We don’t know anything about the heal scaling (which will probably change till launch anyways). So seems kinda pointless to guess atm.

Wuselknusel.4082:

I am not talking about the Druid, I am talking about the Ranger in general. Irenio said that the Ranger needs niches. I am responding to this with the statement that we don’t need niches but a properly working profession mechanic and not more.

Well for a very long time rangers were asking what the class should be according to Anet. Last this was mentioned by Anet they talked about ranger being the best ranged damage dealer in the game. If you think of PvP there is also almost no role ranger can play (at least that’s the impression I get from PvPers). So yeah we need niches. The hard content probably will put players into niches anyways if it is required to bring certain functionality into raids (i.e. hevy heals, heavy cc, ranged condition damage dealer….).

He mentioned 3 aspects (1 was revealed), which was kinda the opposite of base glyphs. So not sure what the other 2 will do.

Although I appreciate Inerio (hope I got it right) planning on coming onto the forum and Druid seems to get a lot of stuff (also hints at balance changes with a smile when mentioning Ranger, revealed prolly Tomorrow), this is work in progress. The effects and cooldown might be toned down. This 1 hour reveal was very intense, we need to take this in and see how it plays I guess. I won’t play it for a month probably, as I’m not planning on pre-ordering. Seems very PVE/PVP/WVW friendly to be honest. Which is a good thing.

Sicarius.4639:

You’re a healer.

I dunno, the glyphs critted for 2k on 5 targets, and the elite?! 20s cd and it is basically a stronger form of retal (probably not even strippable).

Druid will have a lot of skills around cc and heals (a lot of them aoe), seems to have synergies as well. Druid seems to use an energie bar which has a “lifeforce” like thing going on getting filled by both heals and damage. They can transform into 3 forms (1 was revealed). The staff skills seem super short cooldown and I think something like 3 glyphs are 25s CD or under. However the staff skills (or the form) seem to drain the “lifeforce”. We get new pets as well, Tiger, Lightning Wyvern, Flame Wyvern, Bristleback and some dino (this one has smoke field).

dankid.9321:

This would make no sense. A two-handed weapon in one hand?

You mean like Necro, Ele or Mesmer auto attack on staff? Yeah, makes no sense.

Supreme.3164:

Using burst tank build…

Wut? o.O

Looking at scrapper I can’t see how druid will impress me. Do your best Anet… -.-

They will present Druid at TwitchCon to an audience that couldn’t care less, it will be a 5 min video of someone clowning around with Druid in non relevant open world to show off Maguman with Ruby Bayer talking about how awesome and cute druid is, adding that she never played ranger. And youtube video will have horrible sound quality. Good tihs Anet, good tihs.

This was indeed very important…. /rollseyes

jcbroe.4329:

I don’t have any information on it and this will be pure speculation:

ANet got criticized by somebody who had something constructive to say about their practices that was more than the pay-it-foward circle stroke they normally receive, and the higher ups of TTH got worried that because of not saying nice things, somebody said real things, so they had the article pulled so they can still be in the running for exclusive information access and early reveal article rights.

Because why hold devs to a respectable standard and pay for a job well done when you can cup their juevos for them and throw money at the screen as they continue to do a poor job?

You forget the part where 2 weeks before the same writer praised Anet for their communication with the player base.

Ouch XD

islarose.7356:

nagymbear.5280:

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

It isn’t speculation on my part.

Well, you either “know” what has happened from a source via Anet, or you “know” what happened via a source from TTH, or you are speculating. Even if your guess was right, it is just that, a guess.

I don’t think not liking criticism is grounds enough to pull such an article from a site like TTH. IF it was Anet pulling the strings at the very least they would’ve needed to argue that the article was biased. But it is possible I’m being naive here.

At level 80 you should be able to retrait whenever you are out of combat. For free. So no worries. IF you have the money it makes sense to get green weapons from the trading post every 4 levels to match your level as you level up, but you should be able to level up with blue gear just as good (if a bit slower).

If you’re still leveling it would be safe to just use gear with points in power, precision, feroicty (in this order), go with longbow and greatsword. I’m not sure how the new leveling thingy works, so I’d put together something that you could use for a while. You can work on min-maxing later I guess.

Just don’t spam your Longbow #4, damage is in the auto attack and rapid fire.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjMqQHL2yCGsAVLG2Dq92DgE47gj4p7CuHGCA

I think for Anet to pull that article so quickly it would’ve needed some serious legal consequences on TTH. I did not read anything of the sort tbh.

What do you need to the build for? PvP? PvE? WvW? Are you still leveling or 80? What’s your budget?

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Wait… wasn’t this post deleted?

Sssssshhhhhhh…..

Okay folks, get your tin-foil hats out. This thread was probably not closed yet, because there are Anet devs sitting in an office somewhere reading this.

*awkward silence

Soo… uhm… I think the poision applications of Ranger are pretty lackluster at the moment. I…. uhm…. I think every poision application should receive +1 stack.

*clears throat

What.. uhm.. what do you guys think? Huh?

*slow wink

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

Did you guys read this article, where Lewis credits the Anet devs for their communication with the player base?

In all honesty – and no offence to Lewis – if the article was written in a different way which seemed less like venting and more like food for thought maybe it would’ve stayed. From the article it seemed that Lewis is pro ranger and anti Anet. Even if that may not be the case I could see why Anet would want such writings removed.

^ This

jcbroe.4329:

That’s all I’m trying to say lol. I personally don’t need or even want some over active ANet worker constantly coddling every time I or other players manage for to form a coherent idea or sentence, I want them to ACTUALLY DO something and prove to me they’ve heard any sort of feedback and intend to make meaningful changes (and not just a singular decent enough change to keep me from quitting per year).

Lightning reflexes clearing immobilize, merging spirit traits, poison master, increase of longbow damage for short range, increasing projectile speed, healing spring is now a trap triggering off friendlies, traits that use on evade mechanic, signet of the beastmaster becoming baseline. Hell, do you remember when signets had 90-180second cooldown? Even that they changed. I’m pretty sure these were suggested on the forums. Is Anet perfect? No. Are the forum users perfect? Hell no! Do you remember them calling an Anet dev responsible for dungeon content who frequented the ranger forums a double agent for posting on the thief forums? This is exeggaration of course. Anet ignoring the forums is as well. I think they do action suggestions (even if not as frequently as we would like).

Reading the forums – even just parts of it – most definitely takes more time than a few seconds. These guys have actual tasks which HoT depends on for success. Replying to more posts on the Forums might be further down the line on the priority list. Anet could have all the good intentions in the world if the price of success in the industry is this amount of effort required.

jcbroe.4329:

But that’s what people want to see, what position is ANet going to take, and ANet has to decide now, are they going to be greedy soul-less developers that are out to make a quick buck, or are they going to be quality developers that gather feedback and try, in a balanced and logical way, to improve the quality of their game in that way (which also generates revenue, albeit in a less immediate way).

That’s a bit of a leap, I don’t think the reason they don’t communicate more via the forums has to do anything with moneygrubbing. I think it’s more treading on eggshells. They are so affraid to promise anything (not just them really, but most game developers), that we end up with game developer’s “having to alienate themselves” from users. I recall Nigel DeJong breaking Hatem Ben Arfa’s legs and the witch hunt that followed. And I also recall someone saying that football (the European version) was allways violent, but now there are cameras everywhere and everyone sees everything.

I find it more interesting that the end of the article states the supposed reason for the lack of communication, i.e. developers being overworked. That certainly won’t go away. Its not a choice of being greedy or considerate, its about staying in the market. Just look at how much anticipation surrounds new content (which was awaited for a looong time now). These expectations and GW2’s cash model won’t make it any easier going forward for sure.

But good luck! May these forums get the attention everyone would like it to receive.

I followed the link and there was indeed an article. Good thread.

But on a more serious note let me play a bit of devil’s advocate here. Whether the article and Jcbroe’s thread holds much truth or not I think there is a lot of energy being put into something negative here. Put your hands on your heart and tell me whether any of you really think Anet will change their stance on communicating with the playerbase forum users based on this article and the referenced (closed) thread? I certainly don’t think so.

Now I’m not saying that people should not voice their concerns with a product/service as consumers. However I don’t see how the article in question is anything else than venting.

I too feel there are a lot of glaring problems with Ranger and other professions are overtaking them in a lot of aspects (which is why I couldn’t be bothered to log in for the most part of the last 5-8 months). However I wanted give a different perspective, as I don’t think there will be many people in disagreement with the article.

I can’t help but think that…

Bryzy, if you wanted to start a fun thread about rangers complaining it went straight over everyone’s head except for Mcrocha.

Did you want to do something like this?

>my condi ranger and engie get downed at the same time, lick wounds gets interrupted by engie, had to win with downed #1

#RangerProblems

Does that still work with traps not throwable anymore?

People don’t hate rangers because they have pets. They hate them because of bad players playing rangers in dungeons.

I used to play zerker shortbow, sword dagger just like you, but then I got an ar…

sorry about that. On point. Viable? No. Fun? Yes.The way I used to play it was with warhorn actually, and might to pet on crit. I ran chilli pepper poppers with it. If I wasn’t getting might, I was giving chill, which was super useful as zerker. It was a gimmick build with quickness on pet swap. You enter the fight with your pet stowed and instant quickness, then swap pet and quickness again. It only worked as a gimmick build though. I lured players to attack me. They ate cripple and chill because I was trying so hard to stay away, and concentrated on getting in my face. When they did I swapped pets and pressed F1 if it was to wolf, or F2 if it was to owl. Almost instant high hitting skill from pets with no running required, and I just evaded with my weapon skills as long as I could. It only worked sometimes but when it did it was hilarious. In the hand of better players it could work wonders.

Right now I run something similar with rabid and LOTS of posion and bleed. It works for yak slapping, and you can pewn newbies and scrubs with it, but shortbow as viable… I don’t think we will see any. Dat 900 range…. still turns my stomach when I think about the podcast where they practically said they take away range because everyone runs shortbow instead of longbow. Bleh…

I’m digging the vigor on evaded attack though. That’s a nice touch. Sword dagger shortbow ranger with energy sigils…. yeah. Evades for days.

Not anymore, cause they will split traits from stats. You still have power options in there in peak strength, SotF. Will WS be standard for roamers? Probably. But they don’t need to have Tougnhess and condi damage stats for going into WS. I’d say its more about survival now than conditions.

The depressing part is where these warriors run around with multiple legendaries and feel OP. And at the same time ranger is no skill, noob class. -.-