Only the ranger forums are so stupid they think their prof is broken, despite the sPvP forum saying good rangers are completely unbeatable in 1v1 when they’re using a trapper build…
Keep trying to make everyone else believe it’s the profs fault bad rangers, but it’s not working.
Only idiots who don’t know how to play can’t defeat a trap ranger, or any ranger for that matter.
Right, we only fight idiots and you fight pros, even though we all play the same sPVP teams the same tPVP teams and a wide range of players on WvW servers (T1 and 2 in my case), makes perfect sense. thumbs up
The sooner you admit you’re just bad with the ranger and move on, the better for you.
And yet I’d still beat you 1v1.
Only the ranger forums are so stupid they think their prof is broken, despite the sPvP forum saying good rangers are completely unbeatable in 1v1 when they’re using a trapper build…
Keep trying to make everyone else believe it’s the profs fault bad rangers, but it’s not working.
Only idiots who don’t know how to play can’t defeat a trap ranger, or any ranger for that matter.
I think the greatsword should be buffed with physical and/or condition damage or boons e. g. regeneration, protection, fury, might. And i don’t think that it is defensive. It looks rather offensive if you look at the skills but lacks in damage.
Number 1 has a build-in evade, #4 is a block, and #5 is a daze. It’s definately a defensive weapon. The only pure offensive attack is #2. #3 Is a gap-closer.
If you want to see what a proper, offensive greatsword looks like, check out the warrior’s and the guardian’s.
You’re saying that necros > engi/ranger? always??
Not when the engineer/ranger is glass cannon and the necro is bunker.
In any other case, yes.
Rangers and engineers are at the bottom of the barrel. Necromancer will easily outdamage both in both PvP and PvE.
The culling issue is sucking all of my enjoyment out of WvW.
Most of my deaths are due to culling. Entire zerg fests descend upon me out of thin air.
For the love of god, Anet. Fix this.
Agree with all but the last one, as I don’t dabble in sPvP.
…and would subsequently force every single ranger into going 25 points into Beast Mastery.
Bad suggestion.
How would that force such?
Because a 75% damage reduction to ‘non-direct damage’ (which I assume to be AoE) for pets is what pretty much every ranger craves for. This one thing would boost pets up to an almost viable level. They still wouldn’t be able to hit moving targets, but at least they wouldn’t die that quickly to random AoE in both PvP, PvE, and WvW.
Chopps, I think it’s about time for you to step back and cool down. You’re getting too emotionally involved. You wish the ranger class was a good class. So do I. But you wish it so bad you’ve deluded yourself into believing it is, but it’s not.
Just… accept that, and move on. We’re with you. We all share your pain.
The off-hand axe whirl finisher is also the most obvious and easily interrupted cast in the entire game, and it also roots you in place like a shining beacon of dung. I advice you to stay away from it.
…and would subsequently force every single ranger into going 25 points into Beast Mastery.
Bad suggestion.
Or make it so spirits are invulnerable and make their passives and abilities weaker.
Even weaker?
They might as well not do anything at all besides looking pretty then.
Without wanting to write much, I will just say I think the ranger is fine. What some of you claim as broken, others find success with, so it’s hard to agree with you. It’s like:
“My pet sucks it never hits.”
Me thinking Huh? My pet hits just fine? There’s no way I took out that bunker guardian alone, I was specced into defense? I didn’t make those 2.5k hits?
I’m sure at one point in history, a soldier managed to survive a one on one with an enemy by flinging dung in his face.
Point is that while flinging dung can be effective, you’ll much rather go to war with a firearm. It’s just that much more effective.
Likewise, while a ranger can be effective, you’ll much rather go to war with a warrior, thief, mesmer, elementalist, guardian, or necromancer.
Long range melee, Tiriel?
While we work hard to keep updates going on all professions, not very build us going to contain fixes for everyone due to the nature of software development. One problem with rangers is the lack of build diversity created by a number of sub par utility skills. Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements. Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons.
Ok I can’t type more with tiny phone finger keypad. See you in game!
Jon
Thanks for the signets. Where are our spirits? This was in November. Much love.
P.S. The one-handed sword attack chain is still frustratingly difficult to use.
What are you thanking him for? As far as I know, signets haven’t been touched at all.
Rangers are a great class and a big class to have in all WvWvW groups.
That gave me a good chuckle. Good show, sir.
Back to your old rhetoric, eh, Agadar? Don’t you have a thief to main? We’ve given up on motivating you to actually play the class and improve. You’d rather have ANET give you no pets with an F2 “kill shot” instead. I really think you are playing the wrong profession and all you do is drag this forum down so why don’t you make like a thief and stealth?
Keep the bumpain levels to a minimum, please. We’re trying to stay on-topic here.
(edited by Agadar.4931)
Rangers are a great class and a big class to have in all WvWvW groups.
That gave me a good chuckle. Good show, sir.
Thanks for the extensive answer, Kar.
I forgot to mention the necromancer in my OP, that is true. However, I do not like their style of AoE. When I click that skill button, I want to see the pain happening. I don’t want to have to wait until someone happens to step on a mark. It’s the exact same reason why I am not all that fond of traps on my ranger (despite them being the only decent utilities that class has).
Greetings. My main is a ranger, and I always feel like my spot in WvWvW is wasted because hey, I’m a ranger. The only ranged AoE I have is on a half a minute cooldown, and it doesn’t even do any kind of respectable damage.
So, I decided to find an alternative. I wanted to find a class capable of being effective during sieges, which is what WvWvW is all about.
This pretty easily eliminated a few classes. Ranger, because they’re worthless. Thieves, because although they’re the kings of 1v1, they contribute little to sieges. Mesmers, because besides their portals and a utility or two, all they can do is cast Chaos Storm every half a minute. And finally the guardians. Even though they’re mad good for supporting and healing and generally keeping entire zergs alive almost single-handedly, that’s not what I want to do. I want to deal damage. AoE damage.
This left me with three options. The longbow warrior was the first one which caught my interest. Its longbow is far better than the ranger’s and I do love me some longbows, but it still did not have enough AoE to satisfy my needs.
The second option was the staff elementalist. Pretty much every single attack on that staff is an AoE, and you can cycle through all four elements, laying down new AoE’s, and by the time you’ve ran the circle your first AoE’s are off cooldown again. But the problem is that I don’t really like casters all that much. Or at least, GW2’s elementalist. I loved my mage in WoW, but the elementalist just isn’t doing it for me.
Now my third option brings me to you guys. After glancing over your list of skills, the engineer seems to be almost crafted purely for WvWvW. The grenade kit allows for bombardments during sieges both while defending or attacking. The flamethrower can absolutely melt people underneath gatehouses or tunnels. You have kits dedicated to dropping heals and condition removal/boon giving, allowing you to switch to a more supporting role on a whim. You can lay mines, which are effectively area-of-denial weapons. And to top it all off, one of your elites is a god kitten MORTAR.
The engineer class sounds amazing to me right now. You have so much different stuff, it makes my ranger jealous.
What do you guys think? Are engineers effective in WvWvW sieges?
@Electro
Yea, I was afraid it would sound too powerful. I was thinking of more along the lines of their abilities having more synergy with the ranger itself and others, but it does sound too powerful.
A shame we can’t get Lightning Reflexes to leave a lightning field instead of the raw damage it causes. I mean might as well right? Has lightning in the name AND in the icon after all!
But that would be an improvement. It’s clear we don’t deserve that.
Electro, the reason I picked a devourer as a beastmaster is because it seems that the WvW community has learned how to avoid getting hit by melee pets (running in a straight line already makes you avoid most damage. Run around in a circle and you become untouchable). The devourer however manages to hit reliably up to 600 yards, and up to 900 yards he still manages to land a hit every now and then, mostly because his autoattack fires two projectiles instead of one.
Hence, overall, unless I’m fighting an idiot who’s standing still, my devourers seem to outdamage every single other pet.
I’m pretty sure the next patch will give pets AR.
If not, then I don’t know what they’re doing over at Anet.
Stardrift, the ranger’s greatsword does the lowest damage out of all of our weapons.
You’re also severely overestimating a ranger’s ability to keep an enemy at bay. A stance dancing elementalist is impossible to keep at a distance, especially with the longbow.
I’d wager the skill, at its core, is the exact same as longbow’s #2, only with different duration, damage, and animation. Hence why it can be obstructed.
It’s lazy programming, basically.
Reusing code for multiple scenarios if often a function of efficiency, not laziness. If you do that, however, you have to be sure there are no unforeseen issues and adjust accordingly.
Being efficient and being lazy are sometimes the same thing.
Am I suffering from dementia, or has Healing Spring recently been changed? I recall it removing all of your conditions on activation, and both practice and the wiki agreed with me. Yesterday however I noticed that Healing Spring was no longer removing all conditions at once but rather one per pulse of regeneration. I checked the wiki, and now the wiki says what I found out in practice!
When was this change implemented? Why didn’t I read anywhere about it? This completely changed Healing Spring’s application.
Yep, it’s bad design. I was floored when they announced they were buffing the Elementalist’s and Ranger’s signets to 25%. What they should have done is buffed them to 15% and nerfed ours to 20%. That way they wouldn’t feel as necessary and wouldn’t render other movement speeds buffs as obsolete. And, Thieves would still be the fasted class, which they should be.
The thief is still by far the most mobile class. Stop whining. Only the mesmer and the elementalist can come close to the thief’s mobility.
That’s not really the point. The more important point is that it’s bad design. It’s bad design because it forces you to use a utility slot to get something that should either be passive or baseline, and that the skill brings you close to the movement speed cap by itself, rendering lots of other things pointless and obsolete.
I agree it’s bad design. If it were up to me I’d remove any and all signets providing speed buffs. Hell, I would remove any and all traits providing any sort of passive speed buffs as well. The only speed buff I would allow would be the swiftness boon. Nothing else.
I thought the December update specifically sped up our LB? At least I recall a thread in which Mr Peters said that it was getting buffed.
Saying something and doing something are two entirely different things.
John said we would be receiving significant improvements.
John did give us some very minor bug fixes, some which only partially fixed the bugs (arrow speed and pet attacks).
The most significant buff we received was that you can now walk around while blocking with greatsword’s #4. Meanwhile, the elementalist recently received a leap finisher. Yeah.
Yep, it’s bad design. I was floored when they announced they were buffing the Elementalist’s and Ranger’s signets to 25%. What they should have done is buffed them to 15% and nerfed ours to 20%. That way they wouldn’t feel as necessary and wouldn’t render other movement speeds buffs as obsolete. And, Thieves would still be the fasted class, which they should be.
The thief is still by far the most mobile class. Stop whining. Only the mesmer and the elementalist can come close to the thief’s mobility.
Here’s my (first question) does the + boon duration extend the length of invulnrability from the activated signet?
Don’t quote me on it, but it’s fairly safe to say they don’t. Boon duration only extends boons. The invulnerability is technically not a boon.
I run them for months now. Since my main build hasn’t got any points in BM I like devourers most in WvW. They’re tough, keep themselves alive well enough and provide decent (condition)damage.
You wouldn’t like devourers if you were BM? How so?
Ranger is meant to be jack of all trades, master of none. However, in its current state most skills are just useless so we can’t use our “trades” so Ranger is not fulfilling its role. If we are meant to be jack of all trades we should be able to build more than two viable builds, signets and traps.
There are more builds than signets and traps. There are BM, Power/crit GC, axe power, condition damage, stun, spirits, etc. I have seen all used before, they are all viable.
If they were viable, I’d run into them more often.
The ones I did run into died all too easily.
Are there any rangers who use devourers in WvW? I’ve been running them for a little while now with a 0/0/30/10/30 bunker build wielding Longbow/Greatsword, and I have to say I really enjoy them. They seem to do the best single target damage out of all pets because most of the time they seem to be able to actually hit something, unlike our melee pets. They’re also surprisingly sturdy with their high toughness and retreat ability.
What are your thoughts on the devourers?
I’d wager the skill, at its core, is the exact same as longbow’s #2, only with different duration, damage, and animation. Hence why it can be obstructed.
It’s lazy programming, basically.
We’re also screwed in WvW. Pets can’t attack the quaggan power nodes.
After running around with drakes for a bit, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re excellent against targets which try to get up close to you, but horrible against ranged enemies who actively run around to avoid your pet.
Then again, doesn’t every single one of our pets suffer from that problem?
Drakes are still god-like in dungeons, though. Combos, combos everywhere.
. Here is a vid with footage from early december. It shows a lucky killstreak that i had on my roaming thief. As you see, the damage is totally sick. At the start i kill like 3-4 guys on my own.
. But.. The conditions get the best of me. The AoE flying arround get the best of me. etc! If i had retreated better, i could have made it myself a bit easyer but i got lucky and rallied a few times! That said, it shows you that full crit thieves are squishie as hell.
WARNING: You will hate me for this video.
Note: No food, consumables and only 1 bloodlust stack. Also, i was and am still not using ascended gear on my thief. So yeah, it can be a lot worse! ;]
Also, underleveled enemies are my favourite victims =p j/k, i don’t play my thief that much in WvW anymore. It feels a bit too easy at times.
Jesus christ.
That’s pretty much all I can think of.
Jesus kitten christ.
He activates it once he’s on top of an enemy.
Clicking the ability again will cancel it and triggering a short cooldown.
yet you asked if we thought the damage they dealt was fair in a way that made it clear you think it isn’t.
I am surprised by the amount of damage, is all.
Wow. Really guys? Really? Why so mad and offended? Not once did he said that thieves were OP. He’s not trolling, you guys are just spamming. To the thief that said 100blades was the OP skill: no it’s not. If you forgot, thieves have the luxury of stealthing, thus making bs more consistent then 100blades (even with their knockdown).
Hello. Lifetime ranger and newborn thief here.
Just over an hour ago in WvW, a thief and I engaged one another in the open field. I managed to defeat him, however after checking the combat log it appeared he had hit me several times with a Backstab of 5.8k+ damage.
5.8k+ damage, against my ranger, who has 1800 toughness and who gets the protection boon for a second or two on every dodge. How is this much damage even possible? If those 5.8k hits had been crits instead, how high would it have been?
What build was this guy running? And do you think this much damage is fair?
1800 toughness, using GS, dodging for protection, while taking multiple of BS? I call bunker build! What was ur 2ndary weapon? bow or S/D? and which pet were u using? Classic case of bunker vs glassy thief. 5.8k probably IS his crit damage imo. When you stealth, BS on autoattack is given to you on default, but the dmg increases if you can actually pull off BS the the rear. The backstab skill is pretty balanced imo. What makes BS hard to survive against is the setup. Most thieves would prolly go basillisk venom, cloak and dagger+ steal, (basillisk venom stunning for 1.5 seconds), then backstab. If the invader is still alive they’ll just Heart seeker to finish you off. Keep in mind all of this is being pulled off within 3-4 seconds on average.
If he was specced in stealth, and wasn’t able to kill you, it’d be vice versa too. That being said, it’s prolly typical 25 deadly arts, 30 critical strikes, 15 trickery.
I was running a bunker build (0/0/30/10/30) with two drakes which I was testing out after the update. Said drakes now have a blast finisher and I was testing these out with Healing Spring and Frost Trap – with great succes. My weapons are indeed the Greatsword, and Axe/Warhorn.
To everyone who keeps saying I am calling thieves overpowered, you might want to reread all of my posts. I defeated the thief. It took some very quick reactions and button mashing, but I defeated him.
I did not once call thieves overpowered, nor demanded a nerf.
John, one of the guys doing the balancing, mentioned a while ago that the ranger would be receiving ‘significant improvements’.
If you want I can find you the source for that, as well as the source of the balance team consisting of this John and some other guy.
You’re right about the drake fix and the entangle fix, though. Two steps in the right direction. The spirit improvement however is only like a quarter of a baby step.
No disrespect meant, but hearing a thief call out another class for being too strong amuses me. The thief is a strong and solid class with great synergy between weapon skills and utilities. I say enjoy it while it lasts.
I am yet to be killed by Hundred Blades, and I play a Ranger, a contender for the most lackluster class.
If you as a Thief with all of its escape capabilities cannot escape 100k blades, you’re doing something wrong.
5.8k is weak, tryi 13-17k from warrior with hundred blades. Then talk to me about “fair”.
Hundred Blades? That incredibly obvious and easily dodged attack which roots the warrior into place?
Yeah.
I have hundreds of hours invested in this game, most of which on my ranger.
I think I know a deal more about how the ranger functions in practice than the two guys in charge of class balancing.
And I am not the only ranger who does.
Good for you. I have logged hundreds of hours as well, but still won’t match the credibility and knowledge of those who created and work for a living on the game. Despite what you think, logic would incline me to think otherwise. Is it really only two people who create and modify all of class balance though? I find it hard to believe.
That is what was said. I’m sure they receive advice from various sources, but in the end it seems to be really only two guys doing the actual programming.
But even then, assuming those two guys work on class balance and class balance only, they sure have taken their sweet sweet time introducing the virtually non-existant list of fixes and changes we received the day before yesterday.
I’ve been experimenting with drakes a bit, like you.
The blast finisher is unreliable for Flame Trap. The drake has only a 3-second window to swipe, which is apparantly too little upon immediate pet swap. The 5-second window on Frost Trap however seems to be just about enough: I am yet to notice the drake missing the finisher. Drake + Frost Trap = sending chivers down your enemy’s spine.
Drake + Healing Spring shouldn’t demand any explanation. It’s basically a free 1.3k heal.
The swipe itself also does some pretty neat damage. I’ve seen it hit anywhere between 1k and 2k, allowing for a little bit of burst.
As for the active drake abilities: most of them are completely unreliable. To be more specific, the ones who fire in a cone in front of them. They just never hit anything. However, the Marsh Drake and the River Drake are two exceptions. Whereas the other drake’s attacks have a range of 250 yards, these two have a range of 900 yards and 600 yards, respectively, making them much more reliable, while their damage is lower but still very respectable.
All in all, I find the Marsh Drake and the River drake viable for WvW now. I’ve had as much succes with them as I had with my canines.
The thing about rangers is that if the player behind one doesn’t know how to play, then they’re the easiest kills in the entire world.
That goes for every profession..
Ranger with GS vs Warrior with GS.. Ranger won, Awkwaaaard xDSo that statement goes for every profession and not just the ranger. If you don’t know how to play the class, you are an easy kill.
No. A bad warrior still has plenty of health and armor to survive for a good long time. A bad mesmer still poops clones like no tomorrow. A bad thief will still be able to land huge crits and still has plenty of escape abilities. Likewise for elementalist. A bad necromancer will still have plenty of survivability. And so forth.
The ranger has none of this. Out of all classes, rangers depend the most on their own skill, not the innate abilities of the ranger class itself.
Eng is in same boat.
Aye, though our engineering brothers apparantly have been buffed into the sky.
Pigs, too.
Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does…
I have hundreds of hours invested in this game, most of which on my ranger.
I think I know a deal more about how the ranger functions in practice than the two guys in charge of class balancing.
And I am not the only ranger who does.