(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
I am guessing 80% of the player population are mentally challenged?
I guess that happens when a game caters to the most casual of casuals who ever casually played a MMO…
Beam skills will always require a target because it’s a beam that would go clear across the map without…
Also I AM SICK of all the ranger weapons having 600 or range BUT you must be at 120 range or closer to get the full effect of one of your skills! I do NOT want to see this on staff, it is a HORRIBLE mechanic in my honest opinion. Nor do I want to see condi on staff unless they do a HUGE rework on staff to make it MUCH more condition based. A weapon that burns 1s per AA that takes roughly 3s from end to end? No thanks.
If you really want staff improved have it so you activate the AA on teammates, increase the healing it does by 50% or buff its flat damage by 25% (either or, not both). I also pulled those numbers out of my bum, they probably would need some tweaking to be balanced.
There is much more I could say I would like changed about staff but you specifically asked for AA suggestions, so I’ll refrain from going off topic.
I know these…
Dying
Any transform effect (moa signet, enlargement trait, etc) while in CA
Being downed (even if not in CA)
Using Signet of the wild while in CA (a transform effect)
Any others I’m unaware of?
I’ve had a recent bout of nostalgia for GW1 and I keep thinking about our pets (I miss my rainbow phoenix Q.Q) and I’ve been thinking about how we could make more pets viable throughout the game…
My suggestion is wicked simple, would help buff the pets (but won’t actually fix their current issues) and make people bring certain pets they won’t otherwise back up to par.
I would like mechanic of “Elder, Dire or Hearty” to make a return.
For those who do not remember or did not play GW1 these are prefixes attached to your pet that actually impacted their stats. For example a Dire pet would have slightly less health, but a have more damage in return. Hearty pets had the reverse role being more health and lower damage, and I don’t exactly remember what Elder was but you can see where I’m going with this…
For me this would fix pets such as the Tiger introduced in HoT, it has super lower HP and armor so in PvP it dies rather easily. It has an amazing F2 which compliments our marksmanship trait line AMAZINGLY but in fight larger than a 2v2 it will die in seconds. Now imagine if we could attach a prefix to it that caused it to hit for 10% less damage but its armor and vitality was raised by 10% (would bring it almost to par with canines) and make the pet much more viable in team fights.
The same could go for our dogs, maybe we need them do a little more damage, but because the cats are better for DPS we are typically pigeonholed into taking them even if we like the dogs F2 better.
There would of course be people who think “I’ll just take the DPS prefix for the cat for uber damage” but it could be simply made so that max DPS pets (cats & birds) can’t take that prefix or maybe they would just die super quick as they are squishy already, dunno, that’s what testing is for. Same could possible go for tanky prefix for bear/drake types, I’m really just coming up with this off of the top of my head.
Any feedback good or bad would be fun… I know the likely hood of the this ever being implemented is super super low, but it’s a fun idea that would make some pets viable again I think.
Oh also, these stat bonuses would make up the difference between ranger and other classes who are wearing ascended armor, so yea, this possibly closes that gap.
FYI camoflauge wouldn’t be a new mechanic, it would be reviving an old mechanic that ranger had back in the day (from a trait think). It wasn’t useful from what I remember but that was back in my early days of ranger and warrior/guardian was my main.
Secondly, I don’t want ANOTHER ranged weapon… We already have 2x bows, axe, and staff. What I really want is offhand sword or hammer (BUNNY THUMPER!!!)
For those who don’t know what bunny thumper was back in the day… It was a ranger running with warrior as secondary class with a big ole hammer… The goal was to spam knockdowns with your pet and your big hammer and punish anyone you caught. Think of hammer warrior but with more knockdowns, more sustain, and more punishment (and a giant rainbow phoenix!).
Another option would be a play on the old GW1 “Touch Rangers” where rangers could gain a life steal in melee range type play with strong damage and strong sustain… Or maybe we could finally get a condi spec that gives us access to torment, confusion, or something else we don’t already have access to (w/o a pet f2 that is) maybe scepter?
Anet will not do it and they have already said they do not plan to ever implement this type of feature (and I agree with their decision). There is no real benefit to this and personally I would just advertise my personally owned TS server in team chat b4 the game.
AFAIK there is only a single game with this feature “EVE Online”. 99% of the corporations (basically guilds for that game) use a VOIP such as vent or TS due to it being rather terrible. It would be the EXACT same way if GW2 had one, it would either be laggy, very non customizable, likely no way to turn some people up or down, and very little support to go with it.
All in all I say it is an AMAZING idea in THEORY, but in practice it has always proved to be more of a mess than anything. How about we wait for anet to finally make a raid tab in the LFG before suggesting whole new systems lol
I was suprised I actually enjoyed watching it (never liked it before). Watching the abjured thief made me realize how much I missed playing it and now I’m running a nearly identical build in SoloQ and having a blast… can’t wait to see the new things people run, maybe I’ll find something new to enjoy.
Personally I really like moa… My only issue with it is that you lose your heal/utilities… Another option is to increase the damage we do as moa so we have atleast some kind of recourse other than mashing 5, dodge, dodge, 2 to leap away, and hope we aren’t dead.
Edit: Also having the ability to jump would be nice, it sucks that we can hardly move in certain areas such as mid point in khylo. Show me one bird that isn’t hobbled and can’t atleast hop. Also I downed a mesmer yesterday, he moa’d me, I pecked him a few times, he tried to run, I leaped w/ #2, downed and stomped the bugger… Revenge is sweet…
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Honestly… just go zerk dagger/wh with secondary as axe/focus (if you need range) or GS…
Run SR, Spite, and reaper… Bring might stacking sigils, runes of strength, and run 2 wells, spectral walk, consume conditions, and w/e elite you want
Since this is PvE any defensive stats are useless, just go balls to the wall zerk and you’ll face roll anything… d/w is extremely LF generation as well as the best form of damage outside of RS or GS (when enemy below 50% hp).
Edit 4got to mention you can upkeep perma swift with spectral walk and wh 5, even easier if you trait for wh…
Basically its my go to weapon when I want to farm nodes… Just GS and Staff 3 all over the map moving at decent speed with perma swiftness… warrior might be slightly faster but <3 ranger…
Must be 15 characters
Edit: Remove original log as it was pointed out to me that it contained my email…
edited the log by only removing my email and the "*"s that were there to represent my password. thanks for pointing it out
Attachments:
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
I assume you mean my crash.dmp which it will not allow me to make an attachment.
If not you’ll have to be more specific what your asking for.
And crashed, and crashed, and crashed some more…
I start up the game, select my character, crashes before it even loads the map…
I start up the game again, manage to do one game of pvp, afterwards it crashes…
I try to leave HotM, it crashes…
I go to WvW, 5 minutes later it crashes…
Had zero problems before the march 8th patch… Do you even have a QA department?
Ele has massive aoe, ranger not so much… Also ranger damage is screwed over due to our damage being split with our pet…
On the flip side, we have massive damage buffing skills that affect up to 5 players like glyph of empowerment and frost spirit… but personally I’d give up the boring heal/buff bot role for something that required more than two brain cells…
Edited b/c gw2 forums are stupid and had to fix it…
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Also don’t forget to watch for the imob, if they land it use GS or staff #3 to completely evade the attack and shatter that is going to follow.
Edit: If using GS #3 make sure your not targeting the mesmer or a clone or you’ll complete the attack too early and likely still take some damage, takes practice.
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Zerging? Reroll to a GWENR class (guard, warrior, ele, necro, rev)
Roaming? anything works tbh. Just find a stat combo you like and stack it non stop
I would do apothecary shortbow + sword/dagger billion bleed, endless healing build as ranger. Take the survival trait for plenty of fury and condi removal, wouldn’t even need druid trait line. Would be along the lines of nature magic, beast mastery, wilderness survival. Could maybe toss a couple pieces of viper/sinister armor in for the precision, up to you really.
Kidding right? Scrapper, revenant, and elementalist are much better at the 1v1 situation.
I don’t feel like arguing your points, since we both have our opinions, but this one in particular… I very much favor my odds on druid against those professions. Especially ele since there is no way in hell it’s going to kill me. Scrapper and ele will take a looooong time, but druid should win those 2. Eles don’t even take a stun breaker often times… ya gg against a CC monster like druid.
Rev, condi revs will wreck a druid, but that’s 1 build. Revs of any variety get wrecked by necros, and so on and son on. Condi revs are also rare since the resistance change.
More than half my opinions are actually facts but okay (especially those pertaining to the aoe prot and condi removal).
The 1v1 vs ele would likely never end, 99% of ele’s run clerics and GL every winning the fight. If your running zerk you will not kill them, and they will eventually wear you down and force you off point. You call Druid a CC monster but I have ZERO clue to what CC your refering to. You mean our #5 gs? Maybe our #4 lb? Maybe the glyphs? Or maybe that staff trait that is NEVER taken in PvP? CA #3, yea its decent but meh, CA is bad…
Well lets get down to it, most rangers take GS or LB, not both so that is 1 stun. Most take zero glyphs but some still take tides, so that is 2, but still usually 1 because shouts are usually better. The staff trait is such a joke compared to clarity so yea… 2 stuns usually, sometimes 3 if you take double glyphs. Then ofc the Jesus beam CA #3, which has amazing daze duration, lacks any follow up outside of CA #5 or leaving CA altogether.
So uhhhh… CC monster huh? Even warrior has better CC than this w/o going out of its way for it…
As for the scrapper it has amazing access to stability (compared to our single signet and elite), huge amount of might, prot, retal, etc. We have access to uhhh, swiftness, regen, more swiftness and regen, and some protection (about 50% ish uptime, more if WHaO). Not to mention the scrapper also has just as much evade, just as much healing capability, just as much CC, stealth capability, and better damage application.
Sure we have some decent access to might (smokescale and RaO w/ WhaO) but we don’t compare to Rev or scrapper on this front.
As for the rev fight, that is a toss up imo, 50/50 shot at the 1v1. It’s all about who lands their damage better, but in a 2v2 situation, the rev is almost always better.
I just current pets to be decent before adding more clunky, non optimized, pets that I care nothing about because the would be useless and good for nothing but looking pretty next to me in LA.
1v1 indefinitely and is really good at small scale fights…
Kidding right? Scrapper, revenant, and elementalist are much better at the 1v1 situation.
group condi removal, group heals, AoE protection, protective CC, and so on. The old core ranger could do basically nothing for allies in PvP.
Group condi removal? You mean shouts + rune of soldier? You know that is bugged right? You don’t remove condis from allies, just you and pet… Or maybe you mean Signet of Renewal which has nothing to do with druid in the first place… Maybe you mean our seeds of life? Hey buddy, stand still for 3 seconds so I can remove a couple of your condis real quick… Oh did I mention Rune of the Soldier has a delay? It’s about .5~1s before the shout clears the condi after the shout is cast, so good luck clearing that condi before it gets another free tick on you.
The aoe protection? You mean our single utility? Yea, huge help there…
I mean just compare it, would you rather PvP 2v2 with a core ranger or a druid? It’s not even a debate. It’s like 0% ranger, 100% druid.
This would completely depend on the situation. I have played quite a few pvp games as core, non druid, condi survival/shout hybrid and done decently well in pvp. In a game type where it was death match 2v2? I sure as hell would take a core ranger if it wasn’t a stupid player. In current gamestate? Maybe, it would all depend on enemy team comp, but this also applies to any class/build so that is a moot point.
I’m not sure if I agree with the “we asked for this” and thus the Druid was born.
For years the overwhelming majority of complaints about rangers were that we had little group support in competitive modes. After spirits were killed, that’s a main reason why you never saw rangers in PvP. Now we have some really amazing support, especially with S&R. I don’t think druid gets enough credit for answering the complaints.
I for one never once asked for any buff to support other players, plenty of other classes already did this extremely well. What the MAJORITY of rangers asked for was better damage application, class mechanic improvements, and QoL changes. Just because you can find a handful of posts about people wanting rangers to be healbot damage multiplier types doesn’t mean that was the majority.
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Each shout clears a condi from not only yourself but from all allies.
It is bugged unless it was stealth patched in yesterdays update. We do not cleanse from allies, only ranger and the pet are affected by rune, gg anet.
Edit: To just make sure ppl understand, the runes work on EVERY OTHER CLASS with shouts as intended, except ranger…
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
My main 3 classes have always been ranger, engi, and mesmer (in that order) and I have nearly 2k games played across the three in PvP.
In the current gamestate power mesmer has been nerfed into the ground and not worth using, I agree with this 100%. Druid isn’t much better due to the consistant nerf and HUGE dependency on staff or aoe regen just to use our new specialization mechanic (and being pigeon holed into a bad weapon or shouts isn’t fun). Engi by far got the best deal of the 3 with the extreme condi cleanse, huge damage mitigation, aoe stealth spam, etc.
Not the mention the HUGE list of both ranger and mesmer glitches that have exsisted since launch and has never been touched on. Anet has no clue how to balance and I only play the game for PvP. Due to PvP being my focus I’ve basically quit playing altogether and only log in and only play 3~4 games a week max due to the terrible game state.
Signet of Humility is also rather over the top. Due to being locked out of a heal for 10s, no utility, etc. This wasn’t an issue back when not every single class did huge damage spikes and condis took time to ramp up. Not to mention this skill is basically on a 90s cd (at absolute most) since chrono came out.
So maybe signet isn’t the issue and continuum is, dunno, dont care, something just needs to give. Maybe just have continuum not affect elites? That would alleviate a huge amount of ‘mesmer elite x is too op’ I see plenty of.
On the flip side of mesmer being too strong I also know mesmer lost lots of burst in the power department… GS lost burst and didn’t gain any sustain or even have more damage over time, which is of course bad design and some devs need to lose their job over consistently doing this to multiple professions (just worse for power mesmer since the damage over time was always trash).
As for a few of the things in the list above:
“Mirror Images: Decoy is far better in almost every situation”
It is used by most condition builds for even more condi spam, using it with continuum shift is 4x clones with no cast time on a 30s ish cd, it’s plenty effective for what it does.
I agree with most everything else in the list.
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Sorry to say but your suggestions are useless, not because they are bad, but because anet does not nor have they ever cared about rangers.
Updating:
-Jungle Stalker F2 (and some other pets) goes on full cooldown if interrupted before any effect took place
-Healing Spring spawns at place of ability activation, not at the end of the cast
-Healing Spring trigger check upon spawning is set for people entering the trap, not people present in it
-Staff #3 is still bugged in terms of pathfinding. It sometimes roots you in place
-Pet Stats are bugged upon entering a match and need to be re-called for refresh
-Quick Draw is still bugged on OH Axe #5 and Underwater Spear #3 (ability made of 2 IDs and Quick Draw sets only on the gap closer, not the damage)
-Quick Draw still bugged with entering CAF close before Weapon Swap CD refresh
-Warhorn #4 still bugged (if initial hit is negated – whole ability is negated but sequence hits can be negated even if 1st hit landed)
-Sick’Em still cancels pet abilities
-Enlargement still forces you out of CAF and depletes all astral force built
-Verdant Etching has a different timing on different glyphs and if I’m correct – delay is random even when a single glyph is recast… Dunno, could type a few more but meh.
We are rangers, none of these are bugs, only features. If these were bugs any decent gaming company would have fixed them by now. I mean they’ve only had 4 months to fix the Druid features and YEARS to fix many of the Ranger features. Since they haven’t been fixed, they obviously aren’t bugs.
Edited for spelling.
This isn’t only a rev problem, affects mesmer GS #2, ranger axe auto, etc.
Basically any bounce attack, or non targeted attack that attacks closest enemy.
Remember, this isn’t a bug, this is a feature!
I see a couple posts about people being on necro when this happens…
Plague signet… Sometimes it breaks it’s 1,200 range and you can pull a condi from halfway across the map (tested this and it is true)…
Only happens in certain maps and at certain locations on those maps…
Just remember, this is a bug, anet doesn’t like to fix those, they just call them “features”.
We are rangers, anet does NOT care what so ever, either accept this or reroll…
I’ve already swapped back to theif after my 2k+ hours on ranger…
This isn’t common, but it’s not too rare either. Happens on both 64 and 32 bit versions (I run 64). My best advice when anything like this happens, just move the box out of the way and continue till you reach a point your fine with restarting.
Personally I’ve had this happen in PvP a few times and it is slightly annoying but I tend to play with no sound anyways so it’s not the worst thing ever.
My assumption is this is just the poorly coded game received some data (or lack thereof) and it thinks the game has crashed. There is no sure way to reproduce this bug that I am aware of, but I can confirm it exists.
As i said in my first post: The DCed Teammember never reconnected to the game. So that can’t be the reason.
This is gw2, this is also a bug. Those two things in conjunction means nothing will be resolved. Sorry for your loss.
There is no stow option because you can’t stow in combat. Sure it is annoying to have to click a button for some people (idc at all), but honestly, you’d only pressing the hotkey once every few minutes.
My advice, suck it up.
Edit: If you REALLY must have this option… just make a stupid macro and never bring this up again pls.
More burst bleed > Fewer longer bleeds
Burst bleeds beat out cleanse, atm cleanse is everywhere, so I’m happy with the way it works in current meta.
The simple fact of the matter is necro is getting a condi that does three different things, all of which are extremely powerful. Your way of justifying necro having chill the way it is that the rest of your condition application is terrible. The truth of the matter they didn’t fix anything by giving necro such an overpowered trait, but simply applied a band aid (usual anet tactic) instead of fixing the core of necro condition application.
If you honestly think chill damage is better solution than actually fixing core necro then I nothing more to say to you. Core necro is rather terrible due to fact reaper is just a flat upgrade to almost any necro build. Honestly necro has bee in a very sorry state for quite a long time. All reaper brought necro was a trait line your basically forced to take no matter what just due to it being such a huge upgrade.
Also as a side note, name more than two necromancers in ranked who are running reaper and don’t run a hybrid build simply because chill is so broken and it is not worth using anything else as a reaper.
You know what I’m talking about, fix it
When using soldier rune
A good thief will just keep poking you and force you into RS. At that point he will run away forcing you to either stay in RS to avoid his burst (which is passively killing your RS) or leave RS and face him with your RS on CD. It’s really a lose/lose for necro to 1v1 a proper thief. Your only real hope is that you can CC him and he isn’t running a stun break.
I personally don’t run a stun break on my thief but I still have zero issues killing most necros 1v1 taking 30~45s (longer if started at 100% DS). Also don’t leave RS and instantly go for your heal… Your just asking for an interrupt, backstab, and instantly deleted by their elite finisher.
Also don’t underestimate the power of your marks, most thieves aren’t running any real condi removal so 5~6 bleeds, given enough time, will add up to quite a bit of damage (thief can still clear chill from withdraw or DD GM trait).
So people keep saying chill isn’t OP, it is fine where it is, etc etc.
It is a condition with rapid reapplication, sigils that apply it on hit/swap, causes slower movement, and causes longer CD on skills.
Due to its rapid reapplication by the time you use 3~4 condition removals you will still end being chilled, having the cooldowns of your removals being turned from 20s to 33s, and taking 600+ dps while being unable to disengage (or barely move for that matter). In a single trait they increased the damage potential of necromancer by well over 40%.
It would have been much more acceptable if the damage was in the 300dps range (which is equivalent to about 4 bleed stacks). Just the sheer amount of damage it currently does with the effects is beyond insane. Another option would be to make chill no longer apply the CD or movement impairment in exchange for damage. My point is both at once is entirely too broken.
I also agree that they need to undo the nerf for PvE and seperate the trait for PvE & PvP.
Edit: To continue on the PvE side, a condition ranger would even out preform necromancer even before the chill nerf, mostly due to high amount of fire fields and ability to cause 40+ bleed ticks alone. Entirely uneeded change and I wish to see it reverted (and I don’t even play necro outside PvP or WvW).
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Basically just stand there and do nothing. I know this sounds stupid but it WORKS!
Just do nothing but use staff #5 & #3 for healing, dodge any shatters you can, and use CA after getting condi bombed. You do NOT need to fight the mesmer, just tank it by not using skills or moving.
The mesmer can not kill you with confusion if your using very minimal amount of skills, and they can’t torment you down if your not moving. It is however an extremely tough match if you start with zero CA but it is possible to just tank them forever and wait for the +1 or for them to get bored and leave.
Edit: I did forget to mention this doesn’t work very well against viper stat’d mesmers, it’s still much better to burst those types down as quick as you possibly can
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
Another person without a clue… Any skill that causes you ONLY ignore condition OR direct damage doesn’t cause loss of capture point progress. Only skills that cause you to ignore CC, condi, and direct damage cause that… AKA invulnerability (which SoS is not)…
Anet doesn’t treat endurance as skill that can just be ‘reset’.
When you die your endurance bar is still slowly rising (unsure if it is still affected by traits when your dead). The DD just has so much potential endurance that if you die with very little, it won’t be refilled on spawn.
It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.
Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!)
This is how I know you aren’t a good ranger. There are a few builds that can pretty much have cele state nearly full every time it’s off cooldown while in combat. Don’t talk about things if you don’t have a good understanding of the class. Thanks.
Thanks captain akitten, I was referring to a build setup that does not use staff, nor does it have AoE regen. How about reading what I’m posting about before throwing insults like a 10yr old.
It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.
Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!).
I’ve actually tried so hard to run sun spirit in PvP, it’s basically worthless as a theif will just AA it down in 3 seconds. I already gave up on anet actually making ranger decent (much less good) and am resigned to the fact that we will always be subpar at everything and always nerfed when it is not called for.
I’ve actually encountered this more and more lately, pet could be standing right next to ally auto attacking a baddie and not drag my ally to me. I’ve also used the skill, it delay for 3 seconds, and bring me a dead body (happened twice that I remember).
It only actually takes me about 15 seconds, shoutbow with signet of the wild… but then again your basically forced into support, using staff, and doing very little damage… and hopefully nobody needs heals before that time or they are screwed b/c u cant enter b/c ur not at 100%… stupid anet…
If you make Nature’s Vengeance baseline and change it to a trait that allows movement then it could be optional and be a win-win for both situations.
THIS THIS THIS
I WANT THIS!!!!
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, when I talk about balance or skills or anything really I’m referring to PvP. When it comes to PvE you can basically run anything anywhere (except raid & high lvl fractals) and have no issues.
For the pvp build it is not the worst thing ever but it is almost a all or nothing amulet with nothing offense that I hate being forced to run if I want to play condi ranger. The 560 toughness with only 16k hp just makes me feel far too squish, especially when fighting a necro who has a passive that just sends all 20+ bleed stacks and imob back to me >.>
Also don’t get me started on how slow you build AF in this build… If it wasn’t for ancient seeds I think I might drop the whole druid line all together >.<
Also just because I COMPLETELY forget to mention it, we only have access to 2 viable damaging conditions (bleed and poison) which can be cleared rather easily. We have some burn on trap, spirit, and torch but trap/torch is just a small field and spirit is meh. The only way ranger has access to confusion or torment is via pet/sigils/runes.
Half of rangers condition application comes from being forced into hybrid precision/condition stats so in PvP we have to typically run YOLO builds like sinister/viper with very little payoff compared to other classes.
Also please note I’m not trying to compare Ranger to ANY class and I only compared to ranger to engi once with a single skill. I just want ranger to be able to play condi and not be forced into a build where you have to play perfectly, dodge every big hit, running YOLO stats just do be as good as any other condi class running far more defense than you but putting out as much/more damage.
Drop trap/field, hopefully land you imob and prey they don’t just walk out it like they just swatted an annoying fly.
For starters, lets look at our only 2 handed condi weapon, shortbow. It has a conditional bleed that does pitiful damage when compared to other classes, its power damage is in the trash, only has 900 range, and to top it off our #2 is only actually useful at about 180 range or closer. Our GM trait for shortbow is in the trash (compared to Quickdraw it is absolute garbage), and to top it off there is never ending projectile hate since HoT.
Lets look at our two condi one handers: ax and sword. Neither offer a damaging condition on AA, neither offers hard CC, and both are HYBRID weapons. Now lets look at ax specifically; once again we have a 900 range #2 skill that requires you to be in about 180 range for full effect, and a #3 that is linked to our pet (so if it happens to be downed you lose half the skill effect).
For sword I’m not sure where to begin, the AA is both good and bad (keeps you close but non responsive dodging if mid leap), a #2 that isn’t good for much but mobility (and you have to untarget to even do that), and a #3 with a huge animation with little pay off (but at least its an evade).
We have no good condi pets (so once again your forced into a hybrid role), all of our traps (minus spring) have no bonus effects for boons, stun break, etc like dragon hunters. The utility Sharpening Stone is on a kitten CD for only 5 bleed of 10 seconds each (compared to engis incendiary ammo of 6 burn stacks on 50s CD), and lastly sun spirit which glues you to a range to have its effect due to it no longer following you.
Now for the Skirmishing trait line; Sharpened Edges is forced to compete with Trappers Expertise which means you lose huge CD reductions or bleed on critical. Spotter is forced to compete Hidden Barbs (most bleeds from ranger come from crits so this is just a stupid design). Lastly ‘Light on your Feet’ which is another conditional effect that requires you to dodge roll (not evade) in order to get a pathetic 10% duration increase to your condition damage and 10% direct damage bonus on shortbow (which is almost nothing). When compared to quickdraw, LoyF is complete trash and not worth taking in any game mode.
On the other hand, atleast we have some of the better offhand condi weapons…
Edited for rewording
Also anet thinks forty-five second abrivation needs to be censored, gj
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)
I personally feel I got kitten’d with the druid spec. When I heard “Druid” I thought was sustain and condition application.
What I got was sustain, sustain, sustain, more sustain, and a single condi trait. Sure the single condi trait is good, but condi ranger has been completely overshadowed by nearly every class where condi is concerned (at least no where near the same level as condi survival pre summer patch).
I even went out of my way to make Bifrost to go with my Dreamer so I could have the ultimate rainbow spamming character. Instead we got a lazybeam AA, a 1,200 range #2 that requires you to be in melee range to get the healing benefit, and #4 that is simply useless due to the cast time and time it takes for the vines to travel (3 and 5 are actually done well). Also to point out I’m not saying AA is bad, I just wish it wasn’t a Mesmer gs AA reskin copy/paste…
The only saving grace of Druid is the sustain (via healing and condi removal) and ancient seeds (not counting pets as you can use them in core ranger). I just find it depressing that classes like Necromancer got a new shroud, LOADS more condition application, new condition damage, more sustain, condition reduction, and MOSTLY viable and useful utilities (Druid glyphs are a joke).
But hey, we all know by now ranger gets the least amount of developer time compared to any other class, what can you really expect? I know I expect to crapped all over every time my game says “new build available”.
Edit: Anet proved my point, starting the match with zero AF with today patch.
(edited by Allison The Strange.4519)