Guild Wars 2

Sagat.3285:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Elitist.8701:

To prove my point, the other day I decided to become god mode and so I dusted off my ele. I went into the KOTH arena and won every one of my 1v1s for a good 15-16 rounds straight until finally Booms beat me with CELE engi.

#Balanced

You tell me a plan on how to nerf d/d in sPvP without affecting WvW and PvE at all.

Just add new pvp modes. Simple and efficient.

easy:
Slightly reduce healing power scaling on Healing Ripple (sPvP only)
Slightly reduce healing power scaling on Cleansing Wave (sPvP only)
Add an internal cooldown of 5 seconds to evasive arcana (sPvP only. This would also bring said skill more in line with other effects on dodge)
reduce vigor duration on Renewing Vigor from 5 to 3 seconds (sPvP only)

Now you still have good sustain. Just not an ridiculous abundance of it.

Solandri.9640:

Alex Behemoth.4952:

I’m new to Ranger and I main Mesmer.

Welcome to ranger!

So how do you guys deal with conditions.

We complain to Anet to give us more active condition removal.

Seriously.

Yes, seriously.

Right now your choices are pretty limited.

• Healing Spring (removes a condition on everyone inside each pulse – 6 pulses in all) is the obvious one, but leaves you vulnerable for 20/30 sec. It is the only reliable active condition removal rangers get.
• Signet of Renewal is the other active – removes a condition every 10 sec, active pulls all nearby conditions to your pet (60 sec cooldown). But your pet has to be alive and in range for the active to work.
  * Empathic Bond – grandmaster wilderness survival trait which transfers 3 conditions to your pet every 10 sec. This is slated to be “fixed” so it no longer works if the pet is dead.
• Brown Bear F2 – pulls 2 conditions from everyone nearby. Again, the pet has to be alive and in range for it to work.
• Spirit of Nature – elite that can clear nearby conditions. Mostly used to revive allies, but can be used to clear conditions in a pinch.
• Evasive Purity – a trait which removes poison and blind upon dodge. Yeah, nobody cares about those.

You probably haven’t heard of the following because nobody except ranger has to resort to them to remove conditions:
* If your character is human, Prayer to Kormir will remove 3 conditions. Most of my characters are human, and ranger is the only one I’ve ever used this skill on. Because active condition removal on ranger sucks.
* Again if human, Avatar of Melandru (elite) can remove conditions. among other things.

• 6 runes of the soldier will remove a condition on a shout.
• 6 runes of Lyssa will remove conditions when using an elite.
• Sigil of purity can remove a condition, 10 sec cooldown
• Sigil of generosity has a chance to transfer a condition to target, 10 sec cooldown
• Various poultry soups have a chance to remove a condition (100% for the most expensive one)
• A medical kit consumable you can buy can give you an antidote which clears a condition.

Feast or famine. 10 sec you have the best condition removal in the game (Healing Spring – even works on AOEs which reapply conditions). The next 20 sec you have the worst.

removed some of the useless/completely horrible ones. The human ones ain’t directly useless, but the CD’s does not warrant the effect.

Your most reliable way of removing condies, on demand, is brown bear and shouts + soliders runes.
If you do not use shouts or a brown bear, lemongrass + melandru runes or runes of lyssa will be your only choice.
Personally, i do not care about conditions, mostly because they do not pose too much of a problem to me with the builds i run in WvW. Most builds in WvW does not run high enough condition damage/duration to melt me faster then i can heal (shouts FTW)

Also, most players that run condition builds do so on condition classes, like necros, mesmers, thieves and engineers. Some try to roll warrior or condi guard, and while they are decent condi bunkers, they do not even come close to the real condi professions when they wanna bunker down.
A good tip is to apply lots of pressure. The more you push them, the less time they get to apply/reapply stacks. In some cases, like bomb engi or trap ranger, you seriously do NOT wanna push. It will backfire on you, almost immediately.

Also, either i am just way too skilled, or people in general just suck, the latter is more likely. So most people think that as long as they roll a “meta” profession, they will be good. Therefore, when facing “Meta condi professions”, especially in a power build, just go at them. Swing your greatsword/sword/axe around, CC and burst them (those saying we don’t have any real burst are lieing, we do have them, but only 3).
Necros, thieves, mesmers and engineers will in most cases back down or try to run if they realize that they will die too fast.

thefantasticg.3984:

I PLAY HOW I WANT

AND THE OUTPUT OF YOUR TOON IS DECIDED UPON THAT MENTALITY!

CrossFire.8037:

My warrior hammer.

Dear warrior, even though the hammer is a good weapon, i cannot but laugh at how you keep using that hammer when i dance around you with my sword and dagger while spamming poison and CC on you. You get tossed around by my pet, your healing signet get’s hard countered, and you can only hope to hit me once or twice.
So please, try some other weapons, I heard you guys can use swords and axes, both of which is nice weapons with sharp edges that can hurt others, i know, because i also know how to use swords and axes.

Sincerely, SD BM ranger

Also, i think if we go for this “Aspect” thing, we should clarify something;
Aspects should give US (the ranger only) Bonuses to enhance existing skills, while the Pet should be made into a reliable, efficient and versatile group utility tool. Meaning Pet Boons need to be buffed, activation times must be reduced and or AoE must be increased to allow for fast paced dynamic play. Pets should apply more then a single boon, and granted the CD’s of most pet skills, they are horribly underpowered compared to their effect and/or compared to similar skills on other professions utility/weapon skill-sets

aspirine.6852:

sminkiottone.6972:

Prysin.8542:

SilverWF.4789:

Prysin.8542:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQFADDlsWxiDLctGYPoWHAFwZztDGBfbBA-TJBFwACuAA12foaZAAPAAA

This is how you set up a ranger for max LB damage. Rune of Pack give 2% less crit chance then Rune of the Ranger, but offers 175 more power, this power in turn bumps up your damage more then the added ferocity from ranger runes.

Correct DPS rotation is: RAO, Signet of the Wild, Quickening Zephyr then use Rapid Fire. End result should be around 13-15k max on the heavy golem, upwards of 17k on light golem, depending on how lucky you are with critical hits.

PRO-ranger here, all go away!
Ranger runes gives you 7% of raw damage output! You, ranger-hater.
Also “RAO, Signet of the Wild, Quickening Zephyr” sure, you can use it every time just on demand. And only noobs will use QZ, because you need 2 dodges to avoid RF completely, but with QZ it’s enough only 1. Genius, just genius.
Also, do I need to say, that QZ do not increases your damage – what point in placing it to rotation?

hey, there PRO ranger.

The reason to take quickening zephyr, IS TO KILL EM BEFORE THEY REALIZE THEY SHOULDA DODGED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It is also a handy thing to have, WHEN YOU WANNA MAUL PEOPLE BEFORE THEY KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD DODGE.

It is a stunbreak, so unless you expect massive hammer stun spam, it can more often then not prove more potent then LR, because you can use it both offensively and defensively.

The more you know.

That can only work against a very noob player, or one of those people that have some serious reflex problems.

You mean like most people in a zerg. this game

fixed it for you

With the upcoming “how to fix rangers CDI” i figured i’d post the current working ranger builds for WvW. These builds are proven to work beyond a doubt. They are both focused on teamplay and DPS. Some are roaming builds, others are group/zerg builds.

Zerg DPS Frontliner;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBhODbkoqxOxywi1OQseQo9PImC+XInCU5pTe1uWB-jUDBoeJD3RQmgAioAhsIYEIwpqFRjtMqIas6aYqTLqW5CwiOYuDLqWKAmUGB-w

Zerg Support; (to be effective you need 1 ranger for every 10 players)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjYD7koiugbswrCWLDItHai5devCzi7RpcKh4JvaSrA-j0CBoNCykDQEEAE1wZRFRjtyqIasqZCyKbY6SJ1ieQzuEJVKAmUGB-w

Backline Destroyer; (LB should do stable crits at 3-6k depending on the targets toughness)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJATRjAVB2JWGWs2Bg1DC7bw+BO5MMkxTe1kWB-jEyAYuARQgILAJ/ioxWJLiGraBTvSEV7TKiWtUAMpMC-w

Trapper;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjAV11xVuVo2BiVBA1eoJzfe2DD5oHlyVGRUrA-jUCBINDimWAgoAikO0pQFRjtaqIasaGYqUER1OEFRrWKgFVWB-w

BM Bunker (Conditions);
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAVN2VWCWs2Bi2DOZeMxKco3jYp+2nyVSQUrA-jEyA4MBZaBMRJQ5xioxWULiGrmBTtSEV7TKiWtUALKMC-w

Some more builds will follow later on

Razor.9872:

Keep in mind, they want to make longbow a power weapon. Don’t add stuff like bleeds to it. Also, they actually can’t make 1500 its base range, considering there’s a trait to buff that. They stated in SOTG that anything over 1500 range is gamebreaking.

I agree the skills still need more work, but those suggestions won’t cut it.

yes because the current LB range is NOT 1500, its 1800 if fired manually. Only 2 skills stop working at 1500 while traited, Barrage and Knockback shot.

The only way they can “not” break the game is to increase range to 1500, and remove the trait that gives it 300 additional range. It is not hard to do. But it would allow the longbow to outshine any other ranged attack in the game, from the moment you used it. That is the issue. Low level content with a fully traited longbow does not behave/play out properly

PLAYERS PLAYING PVP RUINS BALANCE. Please nerf players.

Sincerely
Professions

not to mention durrz, do not forget that warriors can easily outheal the whole condi spam…. oh wait, they can’t. Their regen got nerfed by poison uptime

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I go to the meetings as a representative for rangers and dungeons, since I play both of those things extensively. Here’s how my list is looking so far:

On that behalf, would you be bothered to make a video of a few dungeon runs? Given that you have experience in pet management, and range use in dungeons, it may help a long way to actually improve our situation if we can actually see a “professional” ranger in play, rather then being told “you aren’t useless, you just need to work harder”.

It is hard to improve when the few mentors around rather log a different profession, or simply goes off making frag vids in WvW, when alot of us would rather see some “suggestions” on how to play a “proper” high-end dungeon.

Dungeons that may be of interest would be;
Fractals (20+)
Arah
Waves
CoF
CoE
—————-
Optional, making a pet survive even a simple run through Orr.

Would be very appreciated if we could atleast get some insight into how to manage a pet better.

Thank you for your time.

i prefer a cat (mostly snow leopard) and wolf… the wolf is there to rescue my friends or myself in a tight spot. couple of days ago, i got downed by a guard. First i struck him with the downed 2. Then when he came back – Wolf knockdown. Then when he got up, Wolf F2. During this timeframe, my Downed 2 and 3 were ready and i had managed to get a little self healing done between the stomp attempt… so i recalled my wolf to heal the remaining 15%. Struck the guard with downed 2 a second time and got revived…..
That wolf saved my hide that day

Terravos.4059:

Prysin.8542:

sMihaly.1492:

Prysin.8542:

Terravos.4059:

Yea..Venomshare is incredibly powerful in a group, surprised its not picked up more

its not used much because it does not grant three or four digit crits nor does it summon a wall of tears and frustration every time you stealth….

It can be tanky as kitten with solder amulet, i could win 2v1 at mid against a bunker + no-idea-what, no big numbers are needed for wanting to play a build like this. The results are good enough.

What makes it unpopular is the reaction of peers… “oh u playing venomshare? we’r gonna lose because of u” You won’t ever want to play this in solo q.

Thats what i mean. Run settlers or Soldiers and that thief will do massive condi damage, however all the other people around you does not understand that it is strong, because it does not invoke a flood of tears or produce four digit crits.

EDIT; the fact that venomshare is as strong as it is, is just a testament to how little players know about classes, builds, build options and last but not least, potential of the game.
I bet there is at the very least 2-3 strong builds on all professions that is not being played because people think they are “unviable”. Now, unviable these days just means that there hasnt been a frag video on YT where said build is used to wipe 10-20 bad players

Oh trust me on this..I had the arguments with thieves back when I played that kept going on how bad venoms were.. and I was like “Ehh no they’re not…they’re actually pretty dang overpowered” I then made that venomaura video before I quit just to show how stupid it was. I said then..give it time… SPvP players will catch on and start running it, because its a bloody 9 second immobilize you can do not to mention you’re just adding a stupid amount of conditions for condition coverage on everyone as well as damage.

Granted….As nasty as Venomshare is right now, I think P/D thieves are better off abusing perplexity and their 5 confusion steal trait….That’d just be silly on P/D thieves.

used to roam with a VS thief for a long time, we ran 40604 boon rip S/D and me as trapper ranger. I know how strong VS is…. add venoms to ranger traps (unblockable) + a drake pet (Bouncing F2) and you got a condi nuke like no other.

VS used to be “normal” in WvW before, because the poison venom could penetrate Righteous Indignation and actually kill lords that would otherwise be protected. It was that or retal. So a LOT of thieves were running VS as they could then give it to lots of people and just perma poison the poor lord into the ground.

Once they patched that loophole, VS kinda died.

jcbroe.4329:

Does anyone know when this CDI ends because I feel like we haven’t accomplished anything in the past 10 pages.

It looks like a bust to me at this point. The developer presence in this CDI versus the others that are going on is just really lacking. They can take from that what they will, this isn’t a “shots fired” comment, I’m just stating facts.

i feel the biggest issue so far is not the lack of comments, after all this thread is getting a lot of posts very fast. I feel the issue is that the representative, or rather the devs at large, seems to have lost their enthusiasm now that the players are saying what they want. At the voting thread, we were presented with a rather optimistic post, but the responses we get here now is more akin to “Cant be kitten d to fix this or that because this or that may or may not possibly lead to a power creep”…. well rangers, as is, are as a matter of fact pretty much at the bottom of the power scale, especially so in power builds, so a minor power creep wouldnt hurt, they just need to look at where they can introduce a creep and where they cant. So far, i think all rangers agree that direct damage need a increase, and conditions are fine.

F2 attack – humiliating spit

The llama spits at the target causing a massive surge of humiliation. Enemy is dazed for 20 seconds.

Cooldown – 180 seconds

Chorazin.4107:

I think Rangers have a spot in small man roaming, but as soon as you push the numbers up around 10-15+ you will want specific classes for specific roles.

unfortunately Rangers(and other classes) cant really bring anything to the table in larger scale fights. Thieves are good for picking off things that get caught at the edge of the train, but unless it’s a priority target like an ele or necro(which are probably buried right in the middle of all those hammers) then its much of a muchness. And as a thief you cannot possibly go in and drop that target as you will melt in all of about 1 second.

I do see a spot for glamour mesmers in larger groups if they are well played.

It does boil down to how you “build” a zerg though…

Sure, rangers are not super tanky, but they do have tonns of mitigation on their weapons and utilities. They have -the- best access to CC in the entire game (dun argue. Rangers throw cripples, chills, knockdowns and immob all around em without trying).
What the ranger lack is a solid support and a solid DPS.
In 1v1, i can produce more dps then any other class bar ele and thief. Because if you actually use the pet (correctly) and build for pet DPS, you can do something like 2x 4k on AA, on each hit.
It is a horribly niche build (mostly PvE) but it works (cuz people dun see it comin).
Rangers do have a VERY good zerg weapon. The Greatsword is arguably one of the better zerg weapons there is. A 1 second evade on the AA rotation. A decent burst (its not great, but considering it is at least 30% weaker then any other burst skill in the game and still crits into the 40k region at max is not bad), a good gap closer, a handy block when you are low. And a short range cleaving stun (need a tight group to cleave).

The GS is further enhanced by two-handed mastery. Which boosts its damage by 5% (should have been 10%, but anet has yet to fix that) and give us 50% chance to get 3.5 seconds of fury, 10sec ICD.

The ranger does “suffer” a bit when it comes to build variety on the power side. And, many like to play power builds, as they in most cases offer more of a challenge then a lazy condi bunker does. However, that does not mean rangers only got 1-2 options when it comes to power builds. Far from.
You can build in several ways, in order to gain massive damage. Some builds are naturally easier then others to play, but that does not make the more “advanced” builds less viable.
Every profession can build for more functions, but more functions generally come at the price of a less forgiving build.

or getting rekt multiple times in a row before finally getting a good kill.

I know how it works, thats why i get so annoyed by videos only showing “when things go great”.

Wanna make a video – please show ALL of the play, not just the “good play”. Your mistakes is just as valuable a learning experience for others as the times you do good.

hey people. I have a ranger build that is able to wipe any other profession with ease, just like any of the other professions sometimes wipes me with ease. Then i tought “why is it that i die to them??!?”
I realized at that moment, that there must be some invisible force that differentiate me from the others in that split moment, i do not know if this force has been discovered before, so i decided to give it a name. I called it “Skill”.
I will return to you folks later on with a deeper study into what “skill” is. For now, i am trying to devise a way of measuring it in some numerical or statistical value.

if there is no cap, then you’d be wiped by anything… How would you feel about uncapped earthshaker? or an uncapped engineer bomb? or an uncapped enemy guardian spamming stability? or an ele using uncapped geyser?

If you remove the AOE limit, you MUST remove the buff limit to make up for it, or else one will completely overpower the other in seconds. Removing the AOE limit will also force arenanet to quadruple the efficiency of healing skills and healing power scaling. Not to mention, if you remove the limit, all AOE DPS would have to be reduced by 60% or more to even make it remotely fair in “small scale vs big scale” fights.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Time played is not relevant to skill.

this can never be repeated enough times.

Gw2skills was updated in november, but no blog post was made. The update mostly brought with it new runes, sigils and foods.

I mostly piece together stuff in a build editor, I know by default what will work and what won’t, but fine tuning stats is always nice.

Sigil of Intelligence will be insanely strong with Axe offhand (100% crit chance on Path of Scars, knowing the skill can do up to 8k in full signet zerker, ONE WAY, that is potentially 16k total both ways)

I can imagine a combo of Axe Offhand + GS;
Path of scars – (with sigil of air or fire) – potentially 14-16k
swap during cast to GS, enemy gets pulled into a maul with 100% crit chance.

3-shot anything that is unlucky enough to not have stability. ALSO, please note, that if you use quickening zephyr, the axe “fire→return” animation (thus the attack itself) is made WAY faster (i have been using QZ/Zephyrs Speed trait for this function for a long time). So fast, that depending on distance, the enemy may not be able to move out of the LoS of the returning axe.

raGingIMP.8496:

hyjaxxx.1584:

Sadly the ranger class as a whole seems to be a haven for bad players ,moreso then any of the other classes. So while the class has some deficiencies the general lack of players experienced with the class tends to bring a ton of QQ posts and omg I’m quitting threads.

I find it really wierd that when you look carefully you find ranger actually has probably the highest skill floor of all classes and too many ignore ranger melee, or event Axe since recent updates.

the reason there is so many bad rangers, is exactly because the skillfloor is just way higher then most other professions. The sheer fact that you must actually CARE a bit about playing your class makes it night impossible for most people to play it. Let alone the fact that the vast majority reads the class as “epic WoW-hunter like archer” when instead they shoulda read “this looks like Aragorn from LotR”

i also think that the main achilies heel of WvW atm is that, for better or worse, free accounts cannot enter before level 80… this means that whatever new players that join the game for free, will take A LONG time to get to WvW….

especially since they will probably be bored of the game/die hard PvE fanatics by the time they even reach level 80

Nike.2631:

WATCH ME PULL A MOA OUT OF MY HAT…
While pet AI may not be entirely satisfactory, MMO combat is hardly a Turing Test. We can, with a little stagecraft, easily create the illusion of intelligent play.

Nothing Up My Sleeve…
Ranger companions gain an endurance bar, identical to player endurance bars in all ways. They gain Vigor any time their master gains vigor and they benefit from Natural Vigor if their master has that trait.

Any time the pet takes more than 20% of their maximum health in damage (a trigger we know the game recognizes due to traits like Nature’s Protection) and they have more than 50% of their endurance left, the pet instead takes no damage, evades for 2 seconds, and performs a dodge animation/movement towards its master (whom we can only hope is standing somewhere not stupid…).

Presto!
Pets now pretend to dodge, using their master as a reference point to give the appearance that they roll in a sensible direction when something massive is dropped on their heads. They also interact more consistently with the boon removal and corruption skills of other players, adding value to those skills.

Are even Players that Smart?
While I feel that triggering automatically when a major hit comes in is probably consistent with the level skilled players display, it would be possible to add an addition check with a <100% chance before the “dodge” triggers to simulate lapses. Also, because the trigger is damage-spike based, there are smaller attacks the pet will not expend a dodge to avoid. Finally, some of the pets with larger HP pools might be unnecessarily reluctant to dodge. Thresholds would have to be tuned following playtesting.

They dont even need to add a dodge animation, they can simply add some obscure blurred animation similar to Blurred Frenzy (Mesmer MH Sword 2)

Give pet auto – dodge
Give pet auto – self-heal independent of the player (system is in use by WvW guards, and it works!!!!)
Give pet similar HP in WvW as in PvE
Reduce dead pet respawn timer

Sounds like a good start while we wait for a complete overhaul.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Just to add some more, I guess I am talking about feeling important to a zerg… you know here are some examples:

Commander: “Alright mesmer, drop a portal down to get the rest of our guys up”
“Mesmers, viel please for the zerg on my command”

Commander: “Can necros please put their wells on the door incase the zerg rushes out”

Commander: “Gaurdians, blast finisher and might buffs please”

Commander: “Ele static fields please”

Like when is the last time (if any) that a person has heard a commander have a routine role (that another class cannot do) just for the ranger?

my old server used to rely on rangers, and you would frequently hear;
Rangers, drop waterfield on gate. or Rangers, get up in front and use entangle. Right before the S&R nerf, we had commanders calling out for rangers to always pick S&R. And it got used by the masses for zerg fights.

The thing is, most people got NO clue about the utilities rangers provide. All they see is a mediocre class that is easy mode in low level PvE. And to be honest, it IS easy mode in PvE. Until you reach the 50’s, the pet will be able to tank 80% of the creeps. While you just sit back and pew pew with the bow. Other classes can’t do that, and i honestly think their slightly jealous of us in that aspect.

Also, the vast majority of players, have little, or no understanding how this class works. They level one up to level 80, put on full zerker (cuz thats what their warrior has) and dies. They then proceed to deem the profession useless and tell everyone else to re-roll something else.
Then the next day they get rofl-stomped by a ranger in PvP/WvW and cry their kitten off on the forums how rangers are OP and need nerf.

EDIT: rangers are often called for to destroy cannons up on walls, because their heavy ranged DPS (and yes, no other class can fight the raw ranged DPS we do. Ele can do more AOE, but their range isn’t as long as ours)

his bleed damage is beyond what thieves can produce at max duration + condi damage + might stacks + corruption stacks + food. It is all blatant lies beyond belief.

Baldrick.8967:

Put me up against a ranger any day rather than a disappearing, teleporting around the map, venom using thief (or usually two or three of them at the same time these days). Unless you are completely asleep you can dodge at least half the damage from RF, but when a thief pops up on top of you insta- immob, 5 skills in a fraction of a second (no cooldowns on skills), 6-7k damage from one skill insta hit despite 1800 toughness along with a pile of conditions and 4 other hits then poof they disappear again, tell me again what’s OP about RF? Meantime you might just about be able to cast half a fireball doing 600 damage….

Maybe if RF made you invuln or teleported you 10 yards left whilst stealthing you it might be considered OP, but as it is it’s just fine. There are so many ways to counter it on so many classes.

As for other classes having to do multiple things to get their burst, I guess having to press ‘steal’ to teleport then mashing 4 buttons (or the one keybind for the macro) to output 2-3 times the total damage from the 2.5 second RF….

I love facing RF rangers, especially on my own ranger, as has been said- close the gap and most will panic (and be made of glass). Thief on the other hand, if they can’t insta-down you will disappear and come back with at least another thief and maybe two.

Porting 2100 or 2400 range on a thief is instant- thief uses IA, steal and you’re immob while the thief dumps on you- good luck firing off RF while you can’t even move.

a year ago, i’d totally agree with you, but now not so. Iv’e learned that the majority of thief attacks, ill go out on a limb and say close to 80%, can be negated by just looking around you while moving. You do not need to stop or do a 360 turn, you can just use the “look behind” key and scan for red names.
That or simply stay away/be extra aware in places that is good for ambushing.

Same with rapidfire. MOST RANGERS CAN BE SEEN PRIOR TO ATTACK. Only a tiny tiny tiny amount uses stealth from LB 3 or from siamoth pet to initiate their attacks. Those rangers are already so good at what they do, that seeing them would most likely not change anything.
However there is so many counters, and the only places where you are at a disadvantage against rangers is in places with open spaces. In which case – you are fighting a marksman, a sniper, a hunter, a ranged assassin, a archer – whatever you think of the ranger, this is “his/her” battleground. Open spaces is where they rule. If you fight a ranger there, you are fighting in a disadvantageous location. It can be compared to fighting a thief in places with lots of buildings. The thief will stealth and hide behind things so you cannot hit it. It will keep doing so until you either die, or the thief has to give up.
Or like fighting a warrior in narrow spaces, where you cannot just move outside its reach to avoid the CC and bursts.
Or like fighting a ele/necromancer in a dead end, a place where you cannot avoid the AOE damage and subsequently you will succumb to it.
Or like fighting a mesmer or engi in a tiny area, not trying to kite them will make you lose.

Rangers are only efficient when they can engage you in a area that forces you to “be visible”. A thief can stealth in an open area, but they cannot reappear without being vulnerable. This means they must be careful as to how to approach the ranger.

Good positioning is key, to all classes, some more then others. It is just another form of timing/skill. It is the skill of choosing when and where to attack, a principle of war that has been the basis for battles for over a millennium by now.
If you think that a person using the combined experience of thousands of years of humans fighting eachother, then you as a person, and a player, should log off Guild Wars 2 and go read some books before logging back on again.

styx.7294:

I think what would seem convincing that rangers are good is not stories from people who play them but stories from people who fight them.

You will never hear those stories. Because any self respecting player that does not play ranger will NEVER admit that he/she lost to a ranger in the first place. No matter how crushing their defeat.

You all ask for “map changes” and for major overhauls. But spend some time thinking. What happens if they do a massive overhaul on a map??
Please, let me remind you – ALL tactics goes out the window. Meaning that WvW will be a cesspit of Q_Q for a week or two while people adjust. Such a change, would favor only big servers, as they would just zerg zerg zerg like always. However the same changes would devastate more tactically based low-pop servers. Potentially sending the entire ranking system into dismay. Now, being from EU, i can only speak for EU, but the last time a T1/T2 server ended up with a T4 or less, it was NOT a fun week for that T4 server. They got steamrolled all over the place without a moments chance to recover.

The reason WvW updates are realeased little by little, is to avoid big unannouced shifts that can cause problems.
Another problem with big changes are that it usually comes with an equally big pile of bugs. Now, let us all be honest, we got enough bugs as is. If things changed drastically and we ended up with another pile of bugs, with todays “fix” timeframe…. All i could say to that is; good luck, ima go play PvE/tPvP.

Sure WvW is important, but it is a niche. It is also a major headache, due to the balance department not showing any intent to split PvE, WvW and s/tPvP skills. And aslong as PvE and WvW is locked together, OP thiefs will be OP, because nerfing them in one department will kill em in the other.

Blind Jimmy.1634:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

The sort of definitive sustain damage in this game seems to be weapon skill #1, which has auto attack enabled by default, and typically has no real cool down. Skill #1 is what you use to “whittle down” enemies. Skills #2-5 all have cool downs of various lengths (or in the case of thief, they take initiative whereas skill #1 does not), which make them inherently bursty. So one would expect that a bursty class would have lower skill #1 damage and higher skill #2-5 damage, while a sustain class would have higher skill #1 damage, but lower #2-5 damage.

However, as pointed out in numerous posts above, Ranger weapon #1 skills seem (by our rudimentary calculations) to be significantly lower DPS than the #1 skills of more bursty classes… so much so that even if you add in an optimistic +50% DPS from pet, we still aren’t out-damaging the bursty classes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about this without hard math, which players don’t really have access to in this game. :/

Hard math says pet doesnt even hit 1/5 attacks over a 60 second period in any PvP/WvW encounter.

PvE mobs are immobile, and thus, hardly ever a issue

if rangers were given a trait that increased movement speed and/or endurance regeneration when using bows (like ele with scepter trait, or ele with dagger traits/ warrior with melee weapon trait) then we would be in a stronger position, overall, as a “archery” class.
Personally, i prefer to use a mix of melee and ranged. But i would be overjoyed to get a trait that gave +X% movement speed and return X% endurance when dodging while having a bow/ increased endurance regen while having a bow. It would make my life on ranged builds a whole lot easier.

Durzlla.6295:

That being said, thieves are made of tissue paper

explains why they are seemingly terrified by flame traps and torch skills.

Nuzt.7894:

Anything a ranger can do for a zerg another class can do better, they simply do not have enough utility. The only thing I can really think of that a ranger would be good for is the AoE root, thats it. They have a water field I guess thats something.

They just need more stuffs.

There is one thing no other profession can do as well as a ranger. No other profession can be as good of a decoy/distraction, simply because any other profession are seen as a potential threat, thus attacking it comes down to choice. A ranger is seen as a walking lootbag, thus it is always attacked (i love it when i get a 60 man blob to follow me across a map)

I like AC’s… especially poorly placed ones…
How to capitalize on AC’s (does not apply to eles manning them due to haxor mistform getaway).

1 – roll trap ranger
2 – stand next to wall below AC, use spike trap, then flame trap and poison trap
3 – If they try to “unmount AC” and run, use entangle.
4 – ??
5 – LOOTBAGS

Rinse and repeat whenever someone gets on that AC.

or 10pm GMT +2 for us more “civilized” folks :P

EDIT: ill be part of this stream too, i think… if i’m awake :P

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

‘the well’ but these groups are 4 necros, that’s 4 wells on top of each other, those 3 people can be hit by all 4 wells and be royally screwed over >.<

4 wells that are giving the venoms most likely, however, the necros can drop an additional well each, or 2… all while the people are trapped within it, with a death sentence.

still math is not that simple theoretically you are right. practically, you’d probably see less then 3 targets as unless the necro is careful and time their placement, their wells will burn all immob on first target. 3 targets ONLY applies if 3 enemies are perfectly simultaneously entering the well on a pulse.

Due to the nature of wells, the math behind, and effectiveness is much more questionable then the theoretical numbers assume. I know this due to running trap ranger along with a friend running venomshare for a very very long time. We duo roamed like that for 3 months straight every day or two.

When you use venoms with things that pulses, it does not outright act as effective as it looks on paper.

there is also the question about actual sharing. If the group consists of 1 thief and 4 necromancers (the ideal setup for venomwells would probably be 2 thieves and 3 necros for maximum applications and uptime). Then assuming every necro is within the area of venomshare, you got a potent setup. However, practical reality is another story. Unless the thief + necro group is exceptionally well synced, they will probably not achieve this max share effect, and may waste the venoms on something stupid like a ranger pet or a hammer guard/warrior.

however a party consisting of thieves and necromancers will have no stability and virtually NO group cleansing, thus in the event of being left behind by the zerg or ending up tailing, they will have few means of catching up to the driver when facing the enemy.

Straegen.2938:

Napo.1230:

1vs1 a skilled thief will always win

uhhh only if you count running away a win. In duels, thieves are marginal at best.

thieves are terrible. They STILL get rekt by bearbow power rangers if there is equal player skill. And bearbow power ranger has been around since launch, and it STILL works against thieves… just a testament as to how little has improved for the thief

A lot of servers are tanking hard atm to drop down to their desired league spots before the second season starts

Akisame.9508:

I still say if you want to fix ranger’s, REMOVE THE STUPID PET’S! Up our damage 30-40% which is what the pets are Suppose to do and we’re set. From there we can start fine tuning the profession and it’s weapon’s.

If we remove the pet entirely, what are we left with?
A warrior with less armor, less HP, more evades, the poison spam of a thief and the sustain of a guardian.
Upping ranger damage by 30-40% would make us ridiculously OP. All you’d ever need to do is spam LB AA at all ranges. As todays current LB in zerker does like 3-5k crits constantly, add 30% to that and you will be doing 4-6.5k crits all day every day, every 1.25 seconds.

Vermillion.4061:

The problem is it requires 0 skill to pull off a venombomb with 0 risk involved.

Any group can pick up venombombs and suddenly their bombs are massively strong.

i need to correct you here.
But first i will have to announce a tiny disclaimer.

I do not play as thief, nor as necromancer. Nor do i play in groups or guilds that heavily utilizes this tactic. I play as solo or group roamer, and we got other things to do then drag along slow moving necros

That being said.
Almost EVERY tactic in WvW requires ZERO skill and ZERO effort, and close to ZERO risk. The whole meta is built around this principle of ZERO INPUT, MAX OUTPUT. So naturally this will be a popular tactic.
However it DOES carry “risk”. Thing is, no matter how much you try to build a tanky thief, you CAN NOT DO IT. Especially so in a group or crowd enviroment. This is primarily due to the design of the class. They are high damage, low defense. Their tools to mitigate damage is all about AVOIDING IT. Unfortunately for a thief, trying to avoid a whole zerg while staying close enough to actually help the ones in the fight is hard. Very hard. You cannot get CCd as a thief, especially Venomshare. Iv’e tried to play venomshare in the past, things have not changed much on the thiefs side, so my experience, while dated, still is valid.
Venoms take up so much utility, i “say so much” and you may think “it’s only 1 slot + elite”. However for a thief, one utility slot is big. Their main tools of escape and attack is tied directly to utilities, so using a slot for something with a medium to long cooldown is HUGE.
Venoms also have a long downtime, so inbetween venoms you either gotta hide, or try stay afloat.

Then there is the elephant in the room. Thieves want to tag things too, they want loot. And sharing venoms that does not damage, does not give you “automatic loot”. So that means they gotta dart around the battlefield with a class that is about as tanky as raw spaghetti, trying to spam cluster bombs and poison fields. Without dieing.
Then every 45 to 36 seconds, they must return to the slow moving necromancers that usually stay close to the fray due to their limited range but good tankyness with DS.

Now, a “outro” disclaimer for those who are still reading my post.
I play, primarily, banner regen support LB + sword shield warrior for zerging (tankyness + loot ftw), or power regen ranger for defending, or i play Survival condi bunker ranger for roaming.
That is all. I have a level 80 guard, necro, mesmer, engi, thief and ele. They are all good at different tasks.

scizwig.5492:

Specific Game Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
In short, I propose that you give Rangers kit utilities that function in a similar way to that of the Engineers of the game. Which, should focus on things like arrows and rune stones (of which can be placed on the melee weapons/war horn and torch.) maybe even traps.

Goal of Proposal
The Problems that this addresses: The fact that the Ranger can only seem to achieve effectiveness by heavily traiting themselves into one specific tree, meaning that the jack of all traits must become master of one. Kits would permit for more variety for a Rangers play style. As currently, it feels stagnant and dull.

Proposal Functionality
Arrow kits could function much like the Elemenatlist’s attunements:
Glass arrows- cause either bleeding or higher damage, having more skills focusing on burst damage.
Flaming arrows- burning AoE skills or attacks that cause burning to adjacent foes, maybe a reduced hit damage to compensate for the burning.
Poison arrows- much the same as flaming.
Water arrows- more focused on healing and chilling .
(these all sound like how the traps function, but for traps to be viable you need to grandmaster the second tree.)
Associated Risks
The risk is that my proposal sounds too much like a complete overhaul, rather than some basic improvements. Also a possible risk of over complicating the class or maybe overpowering.

Imho: Every other class is a better Ranger than the Ranger- you need to make it more FUN to play!

perhaps if we changed spirits to work like kits, so instead of a passive buff you get a specific skillset with both attacks and buffs?
Sun spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 party buff (AOE might?)
4 AOE blind
5 Allies next 5 attacks apply burning

Frost Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Frost Armor?)
4 AOE Chill
5 Allies next 5 attacks does 10% more damage

Stone Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Stability?)
4 AOE Immob
5 Allies next 5 attacks apply 1 stack of bleeding

Storm Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Fury?)
4 AOE Swiftness
5 Allies gain 5 seconds of Quickness

Water Spirit;
1 AA heals allies on impact (similar to ele ice bow AA)
2 Burst Healing
3 Party Buff (AOE Regen)
4 AOE Condition Removal
5 Allies next 5 attacks steals health

Spirit of Nature;
1 AA
2 Burst (AOE boonsteal)
3 Party Buff (Aegis + Protection?)
4 AOE Condition removal
5 Revive up to 5 allies and grant them aegis+swiftness? (skill only usable once pr transform)

This way, spirits will provide less screen clutter. More active play, party buffs and enemy debuffs, and a “kit” function too. Allowing us to have alternate skillsets at hand if the need arises.

which ranger has that?

6 sec from a 60 (48) second CD utility
3 sec from a BM GM trait on a 16 sec CD
2×3 sec possibly from sigil if RNG favors you…. (and if you use that sigil, you are dead)

i repeat – whatever ranger sets out for a xxxx6 2x invuln + QZ utility – you are such a bad scrub you deserve to get rekt. And if the enemy cannot kill you, they deserve to LOSE.

Apparition.1576:

Prysin.8542:

Apparition.1576:

warriorjrd.8695:

Apparition.1576:

warriorjrd.8695:

Apparition.1576:

Dahkeus.8243:

Apparition.1576:

Dahkeus.8243:

Apparition.1576:

In Guild Wars 1, rangers not only had poison arrows, but ignite arrows, and apply poison.

Too bad only rogues are allowed to apply poison in GW2… how i miss GW1 ranger..

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent%27s_Strike

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stalker%27s_Strike

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison_Volley

???

First skill is a sword ability, second skill is dagger, third skill is a 2 sec poison..

???

All 3 are poison skills. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bow skill or not (apply poison could be used with all weapons). And Poison Volley is a 10 second poison without condi duration increases when you use it correctly (at point blank range) and it has a 9 second cooldown without traits. This actually makes it more efficient at applying poison compared to Apply Poison since there is no cast time associated.

But the point is you said only “rogues” (lol) had access to poison, when it’s pretty clear that rangers have tons of access to poison in GW2.

My list didn’t include traps, pet skills, or even the master trait that makes poison more effective.

lol…

Point he was trying to make is that rangers have plenty of poison, much more than a “rogue”. We can keep 100% uptime on poison with one skill if you trait into marksmanship, like 80% uptime if you don’t. Saying rangers can’t poison is pretty false when we probably have the most in game, maybe a necro beats us. Not only that but we have a trait that makes our poisons stronger.

Except by using a “Bow”. Which is why most people picked the class to begin with. (FOTM Meta Sword Rangers dont count). Now this is the part where my opinion is my opinion, but I am a ranger who refuses to pick up a sword because that is not the class that I rolled.

I mean I was a huge fan of HE-MAN, but he was a warrior.. not a ranger..

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/93/46/4f/93464fd97b8ae2ac060eac718aa3a0e0.jpg

So because you refuse to use better weapons they don’t count? Well if you want to hurt yourself by using only bows then complain about poison, what do you expect? Rangers have plenty of poison, you simply refuse to use it, so instead of wanting more poison on ranged weapons, perhaps you should branch out a bit and play the class to it’s strengths.

Sword is not a better weapon, its barely a rangers weapon. Lore matters, in Guild Wars Lore Rangers used bows. If you prefer other weapons more power to you..

However, I do not choose to accept it and play the class for its so called “strengths”. I will play it as a RANGER and maybe in time it will be fixed. Until then, I intend to use the forums for the purpose they were created. To discuss my concerns, to the community and to the game Developers.

Ranger =/= Archer

Your disconnect with the reality of class design is striking, young one.
inb4 you copy pasta that horrendously outdated pre-launch description – yes we are the best ranged damage users. That still doesn’t mean that our ranged option is the best performing weaponset. Not even remotely so.

This goes to the above poster as well as warriorjrd.8695…

Try this..

1. go to www.google.com

2. Type in Ranger in your search bar.

3. Click Images tab.

Q: What do you see?

Yes, clearly I am the one in “disconnect from reality” as you say..

Searchin google for “ranger” only gives you images of some ford pickups. This is what you need to search for:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1280&bih=214&site=imghp&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=yXUAVMKWEePO0QWe14CQCQ&q=d%26d+ranger&oq=DnD+ranger&gs_l=tablet-gws.1.0.0i10l3.98486.101968.0.103924.6.6.0.0.0.0.314.1427.0j1j4j1.6.0....0...1c.1.52.tablet-gws..1.5.1187.qNWtUNOt4AE

Why D&D? Because that is one of the core things this game, perhaps the entire MMORPG franchise is based upon. D&D is further inspired by Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and The Hobbit. Stories that, while popular now, actually was published in
1937, which apparently is a few years before the internet.

This info, is old, it is been stated indirectly by devs through various interviews and the wiki. So before you try to be arrogant you should read up on a few facts, perhaps even check up on info pertaining this game.

Yes, rangers are commonly seen as proficient with a bow, however that is not their one and only weapon.

i fought 2 terrormancers and 1 corrupt boon necro a few days ago, i never managed to reach a node before being ordered to run into a wall and die.
Don’t think rangers are the only one that is exceptionally annoying when you get multiple of same class.

just as a reminder – try have fun against 3 hambows or 3 minion mancers.

was thinking something along these lines XD. God that song is so merry.

EA compared to Nexon is like comparing a rich guy that has a foul smelling pungent cologne to a drug abusing mafia member.

I used to play Combat Arms (FPS), had sunk close to 500 euro into it over 2 years. They did an update and changed their password system, unfortunately, my password at the time included a symbol (shift + 4), this symbol was no longer avaliable for use and my password was corrupted. Asked customer support (they answered within 14 days) – got told to use my recovery info.
Told them that i had no clue about a few of the pieces of info and asked if they could reset my PW for me and if matching my current IP to the one being logged on their servers for 2 years (had static IP at that time) to verify me being me would be good enough.
Customer supports answer – Nope, cannot help. But you can always create a new account for free.

At that point, i didnt bother with their bullkitten anymore, left the game and went playing minecraft for a long long long time before starting with GW2

just use some skills/utilities with some direct damage burst. or god forbid, run a power build. Problem solved.

i like dis patch. because i expected far less.

you people never learn. EXPECT TO GET NERFED, THEN ANYTHING ELSE IS A BUFF.

urieldhynne.2743:

The future of roaming belongs to nike warriors.

Nobody can catch you > bunker in a position.
Nuke in seconds > high damage over time.
Reset the fight nuking-running/nuking-running > fight till die.

And warrior have everything, condi, CC, mobility, tankiness, immunities. The most versatile class in the game by far.

Shattered mesmer is going to be nerf and still without mobility and chasing power.
And more antistealth mechanic coming.

The mechanic of nuking and running is just SO good, and works SO great, letting you a free out of combat card that never fail.

For me, in the future, the same amounts of Thief and now more and more Warriors. Both with the same mechanic, nuking hard and resetting the fight.

please tell me how to land any “nuke” damage on any non-afk target with a GS. Im truly interested, cuz all i see warriors doing is print up to my ranger, try 100b through 3 seconds of evades then run off when it fails.