Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the tips, lads. As for playing a thief myself, I have recently begun leveling one. They have always seemed to be the most interesting class to me right after my ranger.

“The point is that our opinions on this class are not accurate anyway, since we don’t do anywhere near the testing A-net does.”

The notion that you believe that the entire ranger community as a whole does less testing than those two guys over at Anet is hilarious.

Thief light on CC? You’re kidding.

Their ‘final decisions’ are pretty bad. From what I have heard, they have managed to kill the Guardian’s spirit weapon build by making spirit weapons vulnerable to damage. Color me nonplussed. I’d wager they will kill the elementalist’s bunker build next to balance out the buff they got to that one bugged skill.

And before you know it, it’s our turn again.

Karolis.4261:

Agadar.4931:

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?

That was crits. And no its not fair, becouse agains a rly good player its close to impossible to land a backstab.

And how would ‘a rly good player’ know where to aim his back towards to prevent the backstab?

Lofat.2406:

How is it not fair, you beat him. Not sure of the backstab build he was running if he wasn’t critting. But if he was able to get several backstabs off you didn’t do too well of a job positioning yourself. But then again, you did beat him.

It’s hard to position oneself properly when up against someone who is invisible half the time. I was swatting my greatsword all over the place and I never hit him once while he was stealthed. Kudos to him I suppose for managing to avoid my sword like that, but still.

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?

If I had a copper for every time someone brought up this obvious design flaw… I’d probably be in charge of Anet by now.

Different teams, Bro.

That would make that trait mandatory for any ranger build, Ast.

It should be available as a vanilla skill.

And now they went and broke Guardian’s spirits as well.

Anet: destroying their own game one patch at a time.

Too hard for the guys over at Anet, apparantly.

That’s nice and I hate to burst the bubble of joy, but the spirits needed at least a 100% increase. A 25% increase still leaves them incredibly fragile.

slingblade.1437:

Agadar.4931:

HaO is our burst heal. If your defenses are fragile, HaO is the heal for you.

TU is our efficient heal. If you’re a bunker build, TU is the heal for you.

HS is our group heal. If you’re in a group (and your group knows to stay within the radius to get the regeneration boons and knows how to utilize the water combo field) HS is the heal for you.

Those are good, concise rules of thumb, but HS does have advantages besides being a group heal that make it appealing to any ranger, IMO. Condition removal and a combo field for for the ranger and his pet can be very handy, plus, I like the short cast time. I like to use HS with swords, for the leaps, and also firing into the spring from outside with a bow, for the regen.

I’ve found that for WvW, where mobility is key and you often have to run away from zergs, that HS is the worst heal out of the lot.

During static sieges however, it easily outshines the other two heals.

So yeah, swap those babies out depending on the situation, and you’re set.

kesuh.3891:

Agadar.4931:

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 xD

So 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.

deepwinter.9015:

Posting to confirm that despite the cooldown overlay, the F2 ability still fires off after a swap.

This seems to be less about an actual nerf and instead a GUI glitch.

Either Anet broke our pet UI, or they tried to remove the cooldown resets but failed.

Either way, it is pretty embarrassing.

iCryptik.1496:

Agadar.4931:

iCryptik.1496:

While this is a small step in the right direction, this is an extremely small step.

With as much fine tuning as all the classes, with rangers and engies seemingly in the worst boat, the devs need to bring back on a few more class designers to help rework and fix the majority of the bugs. There is a huge laundry list of things that need to get done, and at their teams current rate, it might be a year before we see any good, quality changes.

A year? A little birdie told me that some things in the original Guild Wars which require fixing are yet to be fixed, and that game is seven years old.

Can’t a guy have high hopes?

No. Hope is for the foolish and the meak.

A real man, nay, a real ranger, accepts his mediocre place in the world, but continues to kick buttocks and take names nonetheless.

HaO is our burst heal. If your defenses are fragile, HaO is the heal for you.

TU is our efficient heal. If you’re a bunker build, TU is the heal for you.

HS is our group heal. If you’re in a group (and your group knows to stay within the radius to get the regeneration boons and knows how to utilize the water combo field) HS is the heal for you.

iCryptik.1496:

While this is a small step in the right direction, this is an extremely small step.

With as much fine tuning as all the classes, with rangers and engies seemingly in the worst boat, the devs need to bring back on a few more class designers to help rework and fix the majority of the bugs. There is a huge laundry list of things that need to get done, and at their teams current rate, it might be a year before we see any good, quality changes.

A year? A little birdie told me that some things in the original Guild Wars which require fixing are yet to be fixed, and that game is seven years old.

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.

There are ascended backpieces which have the skins of quivers.

Better start grinding dem fractals, son.

I will never understand what goes on in the minds of those who focus their attacks on your pet.

Throw it all in beast mastery and have your pet butcher everything for you.

Leveling is probably the one thing rangers are actually good at, and it’s all thanks to the pet.

Make sure your pet has a higher toughness than you, though. From my experience, NPC’s tend to prioritize the enemy with the highest toughness.

Ursan.7846:

Agadar.4931:

If they have programmed it in a sensible manner, they literally have to remove one single line.

Er, you don’t know this.

Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘if’?

Stoneslammer.3650:

Agadar.4931:

It’s the most requested thing in the entire game.

I’m pretty sure Anet is aware of this, unless they are as ignorant of their community as I fear they are.

Umm I am no programmer but maybe somone in the know can tell me how much more difficult it would be to say “stable” a pet as opposed to just stowing it. I would be all for leaving a pet or even both of em at a keep if it was the only way but many other games with similar classes had no problem implementing this feature right from launch.

If they have programmed it in a sensible manner, they literally have to remove one single line.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

It is very simple pet are as part of the ranger class as thier other weopans are. Untill they add a function that stows your weapon away in the same manner that you desire for pets this should not be add.

It is part of the class. If you would like to fight with a petless class create a warrior and cut your trait point by 40%. That will give you a close aproximation of a ranger without his pet.

This topic is way over your head it seems.

It’s the most requested thing in the entire game.

I’m pretty sure Anet is aware of this, unless they are as ignorant of their community as I fear they are.

Is the OP even still updating his posts? The last update was three months ago.

Changing something like this should take five minutes at most.

They really do only have two people taking care of stuff like this.

I confirm that the ability icons show as if the ability is still on cooldown, but they’re still clickable nevertheless.

This makes me doubt exactly what Anet’s intention is.

Lockpicking was horrible in Skyrim.

Thief’s shortbow is amazing. It is exactly what I would have wanted from the Ranger’s shortbow, but alas.

Expiatus.4210:

Agadar.4931:

Worst patch ever.

Rangers now suck.

I’m going back to WoW.

Bitter party of one…your table is waiting.

next to the shark

I wasn’t serious. That was pretty obvious.

Stormleaf.1769:

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Stormleaf.1769:

What are you guys even talking about? Pet swapping is resetting F2 skills just like it always has, for me.

i’m guessing ur using cats or birds?

I use a wolf and a bird. The wolf’s fear resets on every swap, just as it always has. Are you guys just making things up to insult ArenaNet, at this point? >.>

No, it doesn’t.

Jazenn.7526:

Boomstin.3460:

Chopps.5047:

Agadar.4931:

You’re walking away? Good. Finally, we, the people who realize that the class is bad and keeps on getting worse, can continue our discussions without you.

Good, I’m glad. ANET wouldn’t listen to you anyways (because they’re professionals and you’re just some stranger writing on some forum no one cares about but us).

Quote from a dev months back I do still believe ranger is the profession in most need of improvement after this patch and we will continue to make those improvements.

Sorry but even the devs disagree with you.

As they have continued to make those improvements, the ranger is no longer the most in need of improvement. Engi and Necro are the most in need, in my opinion.

Necros more in need of improvements than the ranger?

Nice opinion. If only you were right.

“Pet gains 125 healing per second, no benefit from player’s or pet’s healing power.” – from the Wiki, on Natural Healing.

I also didn’t notice any difference with the fern hound’s regen. The moa’s AoE heal (which he by the way only uses when he HIMSELF needs a bit of healing, making it unreliable for you, the ranger, to depend upon when in need of healing) heals only for about 210 more (70 more per ‘burst’, of which there are three total).

Color me nonplussed.

Do you happen to know for certain whether compassion training even works?

No. The compassion talent doesn’t adjust the tooltips at all.

If anything that counts as more evidence that the tooltips take their variables from the ranger’s stats, not the pets.

Well, when I swap weapon sets, which have different amounts of +healing on them, the tooltips for the fern hound regen and the moa AoE heal adjust their numbers accordingly.

In other words, it’s still the same.

You’re walking away? Good. Finally, we, the people who realize that the class is bad and keeps on getting worse, can continue our discussions without you.

No. Their tooltips are still based off of the ranger’s stats. I just checked.

BroScientist.9875:

Well, here’s to another month of anticipation waiting for those “significant ranger improvements” we were promised oh so many months ago..

He never said ‘significant improvements’. He said ‘significant changes’.

Pet’s abilities no longer being reset upon swapping it is one of the first changes.

Prepare for many more like it.

Any pet with a cooldown higher than 20 seconds is now pretty much useless.

I bet we’ll be seeing a lot less wolves and a lot more fern hounds.

But we’ll probably be seeing quite some drakes as well due to the blast finisher fix, despite their F2 attack still being useless for PvP.

What I find even more saddening about this nerf is not the nerf itself, but the fact that it’s not even mentioned in the patch notes.

It’s the shortbow all over again.

Our pet’s F2 skill cooldowns no longer reset on swap. Test it out for yourself.

Is this a bug? I sure hope so, because if not then this is not only an undeserved nerf, but an undocumented nerf, the worst kind.

Can an official from Anet please shed light upon this matter?

Chopps.5047:

Agadar.4931:

If the drake has indeed been fixed, it could definately have uses for dungeons if your teammates are specialized towards laying down combo fields.

They’re still pretty bad for PvP and WvW, though. Their main attack is just way too slow.

Yes, their main attack is so slow. If only rangers had an elite skill that properly worked and also rooted enemies in place long enough for the drake to unload full confusion…

And if only every class did not have some way of instantly escaping said elite skill…

Waoh waoh waoh. Moas are not useless.

On top of being one of the friendliest pets around, they also taste delicious.

junglewolf.3957:

*Edit
i was wrong sword 1 still roots

I am going to find you and maim you.

What does running a bear in PvP have to do with one’s pet managing skills and one’s build?

At most it means that either the guy just loves bears, or that he doesn’t know or care that it does such little damage.

Also, that brown bear’s face gets me every time.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Agadar.4931:

You do realize that the pet-haters will now have found ammo to throw at us due to your revelation that the historical ranger was in no way a beastmaster?

You have doomed us all, TJV. Truly, you have doomed us all.

Its kinda true tho. Beastmasters are stupid, and are rarely ever successful in a game. Its w/e tho, Ill just wait and hope they do something worthy with the class or move on to a different game.

My beastmaster Hunter in World of Warcraft owned face. Back in the day, they had an ability similar to Rampage As One, only much stronger and with a much more intelligent pet. It was glorious.

If the drake has indeed been fixed, it could definately have uses for dungeons if your teammates are specialized towards laying down combo fields.

They’re still pretty bad for PvP and WvW, though. Their main attack is just way too slow.