Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

You and yours have an awfully quirky way of showing it.

Chopps.5047:

Boomstin.3460:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

Sounds good. Now is there any plans to stop breaking already bottom of the barrel class in dungeons and wvw so you can get the spvp balance right?

edit. any plans to make pets able to hit moving targets?

Moving targets in wvw:

that’s why ranger can cripple, chill, and stun all day long. That’s why we have swiftness / fortifying bond. That’s why we have guard and sick em or aignet of the hunt. There’s so many options for a faster pet. And if you don’t like those options, run a dog. Dogs have been proven to land attacks at a flat pace as opposed to cats/birds who really need speed boosts.

Dungeons:

Read up on my high level fractals build. It’s basically permanent 15+ might stacks in addition to repeated 25 might stack spikes. It’s way better than what we had before and it uses shortbow which is still one of our premier weapons. Turn that frown upside down brotha. It’s really powerful. Better than before no doubt. Sometimes a buff comes in the form of boon stacking or traits.

- Every class can cripple, chill, and stun all day long
- Dogs don’t hit moving targets, I thought they did but they do not, ever
- Sick em still doesn’t catch targets, neither does a pet on guard either

None of these matter anyway when the pet is dead. The only way your keeping the pet alive in WvW is either:

A) You keep it out of battle completely on passive
B) You spec as a BM bunker build

If you’ve traited into BM bunker, then your drastically limiting your potential in the group. Your either going to get run over solo roaming, or you going to be next to ineffective in a group.

With that said, with the SB and LB no longer being viable at all for reasons not even stated in the patch, it seems to me going the BM bunker route is really the only thing left.. even though your WvW effectiveness is in the tank.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

If this is true, can we then please have some communication from your team? As you can see, your community is feeling very angry, a bit mislead, and extremely confused. It would be very helpful for one of you to sit down and detail to us what your actual vision of this class is. Right now we can’t really find anything we are better than anyone else at, no role that we can fill that others can’t fill better. People are actually being turned away from parties in some cases because of their class, because the vision of what role the ranger could fill in any group setting is very cloudy.

All we have to go on is a months old developer quote saying that Ranger is probably the most broken class, and the writeup on your professions page on the main site. The skills/traits given along with the adjustments to traits and weapons over the past 9 months does not reflect in even a small way the class that is presented in that write up. So clearly that descriptions is wrong. In it’s place, we need a description of either what we are, or what we are going to be after you are done carving us up.

And we would really appreciate some comments on these pet changes as well as the absolutely crippling problems many of us have with pets in larger encounters in WvW. How does ANet feel about these problems, and do they even view them as such? Do you plan to address them?

Even if the answer is “We don’t have an overarching vision, we feel that you are as powerful as you need to be and that your role is fulfilled. Live with it.”, it’s better to know where we stand so that those of us who are angry and disappointed can move on either to a different class or a different game rather than sitting around wondering what happens next…

Chopps.5047:

Puandro.3245:

Dexter.3459:

Puandro.3245:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

1) Then why did pets get nerfed instead of being split in PvE like mesmer phantams? Pets actually needed to be buffed in PvE.

2) Any plans to make pets hit moving targets, AKA attacking while moving.

Hah, the moving target thing is great! I absolutely love when my pet runs by an enemy then has to turn around to get them. If you take a trait to make them faster it isn’t as big a deal; it helps you catch runners and get your pet out of trouble too.

I run Perma Swiftness build for my pet, pet has issues landing hits on enemies with swiftness or even speed signets.

Sounds like you need a Predator’s Instinct or a greatsword/frost trap for your BM build. Let’s see them outrun you in frost trap…hehe

No sounds like they need to fix pets hitting moving targets. Me and my pet has Perma Swiftness and the enemy is running away. If i use sword so i can perma cripple my pet still has issues hitting the target about 50% of the time if the enemy has Signet or Swiftness. If the enemy uses a leap or port i swap to GS and swoop. Pet catches up and im landing all my GS hits but since i dont have sword to cripple my pet misses most of his attacks.

If i as a player have NP hitting the enemy my pet shouldnt. They nerfed pets because apperently they hit more reliably now but that only works on stationary targets.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We also care about all the classes equally.

Nonsense.

Well, while the ranger ins’t useless…. wait, what am I saying, There isn’t anything they can do that something else an do better. Hell, a warrior with a bow does more damage with a bow even if the ranger can get further away. Rangers are apparently are meant to be reliant on their pets for damage, but then they went and nerfed them. Why is it only rangers are so dependent on their class mechanic? Why would anet nerf them? My main is gonna be on the shelf for a while.

We should make a list of all the Rangers Anet killed with this patch.
I think my favorite quote so far has been Rangers are like Piles of Putrid Essence: Rare and useless.

Guys, I’m handing out lube for everyone right now..So atleast when we get butt kittened we can be in as little as pain as possible

ProxyDamage.9826:

You needed to fix the things that were broken instead of breaking the things that were fixed…

Warrior main reporting in. I have an 80 ranger and refuse to play with a short bow because I always enjoyed the idea of longbow. I’ve played my ranger for probably about hours or so and saw everything you mentioned in this post. I quickly realized that a warrior is better at range with a longbow, and a riffle. I can safely say I’d prefer warrior’s LB and riffle to either the ranger’s SB/LB. I cannot agree with you more on everything you have stated and you have done a fantastic job with underlining the persistent problems a ranger faces. If this update was not proof that the devs truly don’t understand what they are doing, then I don’t know what is. I feel like they don’t even read the forums anymore.

Devs, if you’re reading, give this man a bone. He has been a loyal follower and devout subject toward your unfair ways. I feel his pain, believe me. Warriors have it bad as well, but not “ranger” bad.

When you see 2 seperate class forums, both engulfed in flames, you know you’re not doing your kitten right and you should get on it. Class balance is slow? “It should be slow”?? I have not read more slander in all my mmo life lol…. It’s nearing the 1 year anniversary of the game and you still have bugs and skill mechanics that are simply broken since launch. Fix your kitten balance team. You have a lot of players on the brink of uninstall.

Now, put that in the form of a living story update and then go sell content weapons for real money. If this was a kingdom, heads would be on spikes by now -.-

New ranger meta?
Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Below average archers, Rangers are capable of bringing down weaker foes from mid range with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of uncontrollable pets eager to wander off into AoE minefields, rangers can adapt to a few very specific situations, until those situations can be found and nerfed.

Guys. Guys.

It’ll be alright.

They fixed the icons on the Dragon Bash foods.

Shiren.9532:

I tried out the spirits in the new dungeon. I summoned the Sun Spirit and it literally died at the first group of mobs from a ranged attack (I think) before I finished summoning the other two spirits.

I also thought spirits were squishy until i watched Chopps spirit dungeon video. The trick is to place them so far from your group that they are out of range to give any benefits.

You thought it was hard to get in to groups for dungeons before? Well guess what now you’re presence wont even be acknowledge. I get people asking me about my class before letting me join and ignore me when i say im a ranger.

Substance E.4852:

So many delusional people in this forum who think nothing’s wrong and the update is A okay simply because they are able to participate and confuse being able with being excellent. There pretty much isn’t any reason to be a ranger in Teir 1 WvW simply because any role we can fit some other class will do better and bring more to the group than we can.

The new “10 seconds of aoe swiftness and regen on shout” that we may or may not get might help a bit but I don’t see any future for the Ranger at all in high end WvW until the devs wake up and fix things like spirits ect.

Not even. They revolve around Shouts and none of them are remotely useful in WvW groups. You’d be better off having Healing Spring pulse vigor with that trait in the Wilderness line… which is still all we do. Useless is as useless does.

There has to be some MAJOR changes to the way a vast majority of Ranger skills are designed for us to warrant a spot in WvW teams. That Axe change was a good example. It is quite unique in the fact it is a long range AoE pull. You could essentially pull smaller groups of foes off a larger group and take them out quickly with your team. Other than that though a vast majority of our skills (both weapon and utility) are so clearly not designed in any way for group play.

Maybe if Dust Trap was still around, the older version of barrage, spirit’s buffs weren’t pointless and didn’t have the range of a melee attack (ex. Last GW spirits), and even preparations that added unique effects to our attacks (like AoE damage, extra damage vs boons, etc.) We used to punish people for boons, were masters of poison, change the course of battle with spirits that demanded attention, AoE’d like gods, and more. They stripped everything that made the GW Ranger a Ranger and slapped us with a pet then punished us for it.

Right now we have:
-Signets that only affect pet unless traited with 30 points. Then they only affect you and Pet. (The exception is Renewal which wouldn’t you know, a must for all Rangers)
-Shouts that only affect a pet and have no affects remotely useful for team play. (Even the resurrect one is useless.)
-Spirits that die in AoE yet don’t have the effect range to avoid any of it on top of having RNG buff procs and useless ones at that.
-Survival skills that half of which are useless in any setting.
-Traps that are useless in PvP unless traited heavily for and even then don’t make up remotely for having completely sup-par weapon skills for group play while taking up all your utility slots.
-Slow moving projectiles.
-Main hand weapon whose every skill inhibits personal control of your character.
-Major lack of AoE

As a Ranger I don’t blame WvW players for preferring other classes at all. I personally feel pathetic and useless in a group. It’s selfish to play a Ranger in WvW and that’s not even debatable. I mained Ranger in the Last GW and I’m so disgusted with what they did to the class in this game. None of the long lasting staples of the last Ranger were carried over. Not a single one. Just pets which fell out of use when they couldn’t tank cuz AI is always useless. Yet they bring that back as a class mechanic in a game where you can’t tank and punish us for it? They don’t even seem willing to “fix” it either considering it’s been the same core problems for 10 months.

I love pets don’t get me wrong. It’s the way the rest of our skills are designed that I hate. 250 years ago we literally had the answers to today’s problems but are too stubborn to learn.
Pathetic

Rofl….at people who think losing 300 range on shortbow is made up by increasing the damage of 3 abilities by 15%, that all hit for less then crossfire in the first place.

Lets clear something up here…

People who are trying to pretend that kitten sandwich you’re eating is chicken are kidding themselves…

There is nothing positive about these nerfs, There is nothing is going to make up for them in this patch, You’re going to be doing less damage and with less range… The Ranger as a whole is collectively worse then it was before.

Quit pretending that everything is puppy dogs and rainbows.

Chopps.5047:

They took some pet damage away and gave some damage back in the form of might stacking and weapon buffs. It’s a bit more in the player’s hands, now.

The only weapon nerf was a 900 range shortbow and that’s not really a big deal besides reducing the ability to pressure a point in spvp by 300 units. Shortbow actually got dps increases on a couple of the skill shots. It’s more DPS.

Spirits are looking a lot better, I mean spiritual knowledge is now a good adept trait. It was so painful to try and use spirits before because you needed the master’s trait to really make it worthwhile.

And sun spirit will get the blind off so much easier now. You’re doing more damage with both bows and a wvw shout build looks pretty good. I just can’t see how this is the disaster some of you make it out to be.

Also, I might add that many will start taking Enlargement as they experiment with nature magic line and will find their pet still doing spike damage when they need it the most. Just a thought.

No , we still have no might generation to us. Only our pet got more might generation, which will again be nice in PvP only where the pet is actually quite effective. WvW / PvE it will be the same but now they’ll do less damage. Besides it’s a misnomer anyway, in PvE / dungeons your pet was ALREADY getting might from your group anyway, the same in WvW if you zerg. Just dumb logic overall.

1 on 1 builds just got heavily penalized, including roaming rangers and most weren’t even running this stationary point bunker holder build as it blows in WvW. Let’s remember WvW isn’t confined to contesting points. It’s based on movement and mobility, something the pet is NOT good at keeping up with.

You don’t dumb down one build in one area of the entire game and nerf something every ranger build relies on regardless of build… No matter what build you run , you will be using your pet, whether it’s for CC , whether it’s for damage, you still suffer because of one OP point bunker hold build in sPvP only.

The more things change the more they remain the same….

Why does any step forward in terms of the Ranger come with 3 steps back?

You do not create build diversity by making the only viable builds not viable so they all are mediocre.

Daze.6914:

Is there a single thing that was “fake”?

There seems to be few fake developers working at Anet. Apart from that , not really.

So, the ‘fake’ notes leaked were not so fake after all …
Anyone who claimed ‘lets wait and see’ looks pretty foolish now!

So thieves get major buffs and our pet bursts are nerfed. Bravo ANet.
<slowclap>

Stormleaf.1769:

Anjo.3170:

•Man O’ War: The base recharge has been increased from 18 to 25.
•Counterstrike: The base recharge has been increased from 15 to 20.

That’s the most confusing change. Those two abilities were already terrible.

Haha Well , just proves further that they have no idea what they are doing.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Ugh, pet nerf wasn’t just spvp.

You can thank one OP build being overused in PvP as a bunker point holder for nerfs across all areas of the game for rangers as pets in WvW and PvE are subpar at BEST.

Sigh…

This was a huge nerf patch for us basically while everyone got major buffs, even classes that didn’t need it.

Couple things are atleast decent:

Wilderness Survival
•Peak Strength: Damage bonus when the player’s health is above 90% has been increased from 5% to 10%.
•Stalker’s Strike: This skill no longer loses evade duration when traited with Off-Hand Training. It now strikes targets more reliably in melee. It now functions with Off-Hand Training in PvE.

Mother kittening sad overall though and doesn’t even compare to the buffs other classes got .

Well, atleast the balance team is consistent in failing if nothing else. Think they are aiming for Warhammer quality of balance here.

jubskie.3152:

So many changes were made, it’ll be a fun month figuring out new builds

And if you succeed and are successful, it too will get nerfed in the next update. So good luck with that.

Wanze.8410:

Caid.4932:

Well, the reasons for using it are fair enough i guess. Still think it should be retired and let die with a new guild set up for upgrades if it gets dragged out every so often.
The original idea of it was to take the kitten out of people blobbing and zerging. Using it to blob and zerg is just … silly.

We have a really rediculously huge group on our bl atm all following one commander and there was 2 of them there able to split it up and it would have been far better to do so (we need someone to cut supply). No siege in any tower or keep, no upgrades running in any tower or keep, no scouts in any tower or keep.

Using the yolo tag ever just makes people play in the most idiotic manner its possible to play this game. Its kind of sad thakittens pretty succesful atm.

Dont mean to kitten on people’s cornflakes and i dont mean to ruin pug players fun. But i really hate fighting against groups like that and i wouldn’t want to inflict a rediculous group like that on people either.

Thanks for the update on yor BL, we will be there shortly.

I really hope you do. So many bad habits being formed that i hope they’re punished and people learn a lesson.

Riselight.3695:

It’s unfortunate to state that MS is no different from RS or AM after all…

It’s unfortunate to state that Gandara is no different from MS after all..

Lol dont need an update just knock on a gate and you will see just how a Gandaran prepares for battle

(if there was a sigh emote id have used that )