Guild Wars 2

drgast.1469:

Namica.2951:

Let me start by saying I love my ranger to death. I love its skills, its utilities, its look, even the pets I kinda like even though I think we should have a no pet option.

But I would also like something new after so many months playing Ranger. Was hoping the changes in HoT would rekindle my joy for the class. Instead we get a staff which, imo, is a clunky weapon to use and, while effective, isn’t really fun. And we get glyphs, which ranks up with mantras as the worst skill type in game.

I really dont know what anet was thinking with Druid. But for me its garbage and simply doesn’t fit ranger. Glyphs are slow and clunky, and when I think ranger I don’t think “heal bot”. But apparently a-net does, so I’m now looking for another class to main.

Honestly, completely disagree. I love the glyphs and it’s such a refreshing change and I’m beyond thrilled to have some utility skills that are useful and can be slotted in a wide variety of builds. +10% party damage? AOE knockback? AOE daze? AOE condition bomb that cripples/poisons/weakness? A 1/2 second induction heal that’s really useful? Not to mention some really solid group condition cleansing, crazy awesome healing, surprisingly good ranged dps with staff, great new pets….I could seriously go on all day.

Of all the new specs, Druid is easily my favorite and I feel the best all around. I feel like it adds more to the profession than any other elite spec does for their respective profession. The build opportunities, whether you are using Staff/Celestial or not, have opened up tremendously for us.

So no, I’m definitely not quitting ranger.

You really should try other classes then..

AOE KB/ daze/ small conditions is nothing new.

Engi has the AOE LAUNCH (a superior KB+KD) on their gadget, yet no-one really use them because there’re far better things to bring than this.

AOE small conditions? Mesmer and Necro do much more than this through their wells, with HIGH DAMAGE, HIGH UTILITY, and also GROUND TARGET.

Daze? Try Mesmer’s Mantra of distraction, a daze that can use 2~3 times in a roll and range 1200.

10% damage boost? Nope, on average this is 3% damage boost if you consider the CD.
6 sec 20 CD = 3% overall damage buff in 20 secs.

You overestimate Druid’s utilities. They’re uninteresting and subpar.
Even the animation is extremely boring compare to something like Chronomancer, Dragon Hunter, and Herald.
They seem like those last minute ideas come out of nowhere that doesn’t really fit the class like, at all.

It’s hard to give constructive feedback in ranger forum section, because it seems 30 pages of constructive feedbacks on Druid BWE3 experience is not enough, that they have to literally just ignore everything people suggested and adding some random kittens that no-one ever mentioned (like AF degen OOC, smokescale f2 swap place), and straight up nerf Druid to oblivion without compensating it with anything.

Rev staff actually has high burst dps, good control, on demand blast finisher and cleanse and better projectile block.

The superior 3 4 5 is more than compensate the lack of AA damage. Use the crucial skills and then swap back to other weapon.

Not all weapons are meant to have high average dps through AA. If you want strong AA, swap your weapon to sword and here’s your high AA dps.

I didn’t give-up my ranger at all.

All I give-up is Druid. Lame AF Regen and Avatar, lame utility, lame staff. (Staff 3 is bugged and stuck you in combat. Staff 2 still suck. Damage still low. The whole weapon is still boring. Guardian/ Ele/ Revenant staff is much MUCH better)

I’d keep using my “ranger” though, as if the elite spec does not exist.

Hunter.4783:

If you think a dragonhunter is “great” give a reaper, scrapper, or herald a try. You will soon change your opinion

Hey “Hunter”, try Druid right now and you may change your mind again.

I am glad Guardian got a last-minute buff post BWE3, despite the community is trash talking it for quite some time, but Druid got totally rekked post BWE3 lol..
Funny how given that there’s only one BWE3 for Druid and Scrapper, Druid ended up getting gutted while Scrapper got buffed more lol.. Fate of ranger, the bottom class of all time.

Narth.6094:

It seems like in VB, no one ever does the Ordnance Corps event chain and its a shame! Its one of my favorite in the zone. Even if I bring it up on the map, people just ignore it. Not sure why exactly…

Same thing goes for the other canopy bosses at night. Everyone goes straight to Wyrven and then quits…

Because everyone is too busy doing Hero Challenges on 9 of their characters before the hype died down that they can’t find people doing the challenge anymore, and are unable to finish it alone, that they’d never be able to get to use their Elite spec?

Go blame Anet for this.

Dojo.1867:

Unpopular opinion here but are you aware that the smokefield does not blind? All it does was enable stealth combos and from playing ranger with this pet the last few days I found this VERY situational.

Being able to control the burst on the other side seems like a mayor improvement. I am sure it can be used a lot more frequently now aswell.

So unless they would also change the smokefield to actually pulse blind I MUCH prefer the new installment. You can hate me now.

Except the burst damage are gutted into half, that it’s can barely be called a burst?

Around 4k damage is like auto-attack twice with your main character.

I were angry way back when Druid detail were announced.

After the “post-BWE3” announcement. I were getting depressed. The fact that community hyped about it makes me more depressed. I also got flamed and an infraction and banned for 3 days for posting my disappointment, and got insulted by certain “fake rangers main” here.

Now all my prediction comes true, and all my insult from others, as well as my prevous acts of defending ranger are all in nigh.

Seeing this thread, I almost feel sad I got an infraction in other post saying Druid is very bad in PVP after Irene posted his changes post BWE3 in top thread.

People were flaming me so hard for saying Druid would be somewhat useless in PVP.
Now see what’s coming to you guys.

On to my Revenant (Btw, these guys are really proven to be RIDICULOUSLY STRONG. Insanely high dps and very wide range UA, and also very bunky)

ps: I watched your linked video. Hahaha, you did exactly what I did here, using Barrage on bunch of unmoving / non-dodging npc/ dummy. Yes, I recharged the bar in around 12 secs. But this situation would NEVER happen in PVP. (Aside from maybe strong hold?) Keep dreaming.

Mo Mo.1947:

If you’ve been playing the game for a while your main characters should be good to go to unlock all the new trait lines. Yeah it won’t be too fun farming hero points, but that’s why you should just not farm hero points and play your alts as much as you enjoy them.

If your main character(s) don’t have enough points right away you’re pretty new to the game. The elite specs are for enhancing your fully developed level 80. Spend a little more time fleshing out your characters and you’ll be running that elite spec in no time.

Did you even log in and try it yourself?

With 210 points (ALL THE POINTS YOU CAN GET FROM TYRIA), you’d only able to unlock to ADAPT TRAIT for your specialization.

It’s totally unusable before you acquire all 400.

My worst nightmare come true.
I am someone with all 8 professions all lv80, and most of them have 150+ Hero Challenge Points.

However, even with 210 Hero points, I can only use adap trait after spending all the points, which is literally an unusable trait-line.

We have to play-through the whole Maguuma on all our characters, rush the map as fast as possible, just to unlock kittenable elite spec.

This is very bad. If it’s gonna cost 400, we should be able to CUSTOMIZE the way we unlock, like choosing which to unlock first and such, that we can actually have a USABLE ELITE SPEC while exploring the jungle.

Now you basically tell us to use the old spec and play through the entire HoT new maps before we can test our Elite Spec. Everyone would be rushing over the maps, ignoring everything, just to get the Hero Challenges so they can actually start playing the game regularly later on.

In my opinion, this is the worst design I’ve ever seen in an expansion.

I’m curious is it actually launched?
Or is it just pre-update?

If it’s pre-update, when would the real thing come?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Puck.9612:

” I’m a ranger main and hate to see nerfs”…. But I’m going to go ahead and suggest them anyway….

Could you kittening not? Can we please go one kittening week without some ” ranger main” coming up with some hypothetical way that we are overpowered and claiming we need a nerf?

This.

There’s been a bunch of the so called “ranger mains” around lately, arguing to nerf this, nerf that, even before the release of HoT.

Ranger mains my kitten .

Haha, ikr, its like every day someone we have never seen (not that that is an issue, welcome all) before comes here claiming to be a Ranger main, yet asking or questioning for something to be nerfed.

Funny stuff.

He may be telling the truth.

I saw his forum post history and the oldest one is one month old.

He could very likely be a new player who start maining ranger last month :P
It’s “ranger main” to him despite he’s new, because that’s all he ever played

He’d be surprised many other classes actually do ALOT of CC too. Slick Shoe is much worse than MoC back then lol..

PopeUrban.2578:

Aomine.5012:

I hope they actually expand the CORE class, like add NEW WEAPONS without forcing you into a new trait-line.

This should take much less work than designing a whole trait-line to synergize with weapon/spec. This should also make the core class less inferior than the shiny Specialization.

They’ve explained multiple times exactly why they are not attacking it this way.

Adding to core classes means the thing you added has to be balanced against an interact with all the things you already have as well as all the things you will ever add in the future

This was a huge problem when it came to balancing GW1, and one of the main reasons GW2 was designed the way it is in the first place.

The elite spec system was designed specifically so that they can design new traits and skills in a bubble, only having to balance them against a never-moving target of the core class. This actually makes it easier to add these things to the game, as with each addition you are not also making the next addition harder to balance in terms of potential character build power and controlling power creep.

They’re just playing with words.

In the end, Elite specialization need to balance around with other 5 traits too regardless of how you look at it. Most of the specialization actually synergize with other 5 traits, and makes it worth taking even for the core class.

That’s why I said sometimes just designing new weapons would be a better choice than developing a whole new trait-line to balance around. It actually takes more work.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Zaroua.2714:

I’m saying that I don’t want Druids to be the new PS Warriors: only brought along because of one trait. I want Druids to stand on their own in groups without having to rely on something as strong as GotL.

You’re saying you don’t want Druid to make the Ranger as effective as other prominently used meta PvE classes? Additionally, you want Ranger to continue not being used for optimal compositions?

The GotL buff is exactly what the Ranger class at large needed to justify its use in the meta. It’s unique, it’s powerful, it’s relevant, and it provides some very strong healing support that will hopefully be meaningful in raid content. As far as I’m concerned, thanks to the Druid specialization (and the GotL buff) Ranger is in the best place it has ever been for PvE usage. That’s a good thing!

One more thing, PS Warrior actually does very decent damage while providing all the banners/ 25 mights/ fury. So does might stacking Ele. (For ele they do top damage while giving offensive support). So does Revenant. (When Rev grants perma fury and high stack mights, they do top dps with sword too)

Druid does zero damage in avator aside from pitiful pet damage. (Also the pet steals might from group sometimes since almost all boons apply only to 5 targets max).
It’s harder to maintain all the buff too. You basically have to play like an idiot spamming heal no end and doing nothing else to keep up the damage modifier.

I hope they actually expand the CORE class, like add NEW WEAPONS without forcing you into a new trait-line.

This should take much less work than designing a whole trait-line to synergize with weapon/spec. This should also make the core class less inferior than the shiny Specialization.

1. You have to stick in Celestial 24/7 to keep up this so-called 15% damage, which is basically equivalent to one banner from Warrior

2. You can’t upkeep Avator 100% of time because there’s a 10 second CD after you exit it.

3. While you’re in Avator, you give up every possilbe DPS/utility/ support, and can only heal your party no end, despite they might not need healing atm. But in order to upkeep the damage modifier, you have to heal non-stop and do nothing else.

So how’s it OP then? It’d ONLY be optimal in raid, which you can afford not to do any damage. In any 5-man contents, this trait is barely useful at all.

Warscythes.9307:

The 400 points include the sigils/runes/skins mate, the skills/traits will probably be around 200~ points. You won’t need 400 to fully unlock the trait line.

Where’s the source to confirm this?
I never heard of this theory.
Could equally as likely to unlock GM at 400.

IchbinVol.5407:

I dont think it should be 1, for 1. Maybe 10-25, for 1.

Imagine you got 9 classes maxed.

It’d take a total of 3600 shards.

I played this game for 3 years, and my Spirit Shard count is around 4k with all my characters’ skill points combined.

Now don’t you feel like 1 on 1 is actually reasonable, consider some of my characters already leveled 1000+ times way before the expansion.

MarauderShields.6830:

Puck.9612:

It’s to make up for the fact that rangers are the only class that can have their profession mechanic shut down for 60 seconds by an opposing player.

Mesmer Class mechanics can be shut down with AoEs, Warrior/Teef class mechanic can be shut down with dodge/(interrupts) etc.

Ranger Class mechanic can be shut down with 15-30 k damage that the player doesn’t eat. Higher cd sounds fair to me

Cmon, all the strong classes now cleave like hell and use lots of AOE/ fields.

What do you mean 15~30k pet eats? Are you playing PVE or something?
Pet doesn’t protect you at all in PVP, and just passively getting killed by all the random conditions and AOE due to atrocious pathing / AI, inability to dodge, and inability to cleanse/ mitigate damage.

You can unlock all other 5 core trait lines by just leveling up to lv80.

You can get 400 Hero Points from Maguma Jungle alone.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Using lick wounds revives the pet, if it is dead, but if you kill the pet after is starts ressing, it can’t rez anymore until lick wounds is ready again (20 sec cd i think, not sure).

Necro usually wins downstate fight in 1vs1 against ranger (and most likely against every other class too). How strong the downstates abilities are, depends mostly on the situation. Ranger/Warrior can do nothing against stability/invuln stomps. If you have a portal or a thief for ressing or a nearby tower in wvw, ele downstate is by far the strongest. And so on …

I agree with this 100%

In “coordinate team fight”, one can argue Ele having the best down skill because he can reposition himself to somewhere favorable for your teammate to rev while staying invulnerable for some time to avoid cleaves.

There’re so many ways to deal with CC type of downstate, especially during 1 v 1.
(Stability, blind stomp, stealth stomp, teleport stomp, invulnerable stomp, even Gyro from Engi is going to stomp now)
Generally speaking, CC type of down-state is not reliable.
Ranger and Warrior are in this category too.
Also revenge can actually give negative impact in 1 v 1 in PVP due to not able to cap the node while in this phase, meaning you’re wasting precious time that you could use to come back in real life instead.

I think the reason for the root is because of the short CD.

The CD is about half of the time an individual can regain dodge roll. (Without other modifier)

It’s like telling you to spam it until people are out of dodges, and then all your hits will land :P

Soilder.3607:

Fluffball.8307:

Because it has an evade in it. It is insanely defensive, GS is a defensive weapon on all but 1 skill.

I disagree. I view it as a utility weapon with a multitude of functions, including burst damage. Think of it like the guardian hammer. They’re both varied, but not entirely defensive.

To be honest, I think a fair change to help out the DPS of greatsword would be to reduce the cast time of the third skill in the autoattack chain to 1/2s. Not only that, but it would put an end to the abuse of that skill being chained in succession, allowing for ridiculous evasion uptimes.

Other than that, the damage on the auto should probably be left where it is, considering the evade. I do however think hilt bash needs an update. It’s too easy to miss or have your opponent strafe away.

Hilt Bash is one of the longest cast time interrupt skill (most are 1/4, this one 1/2..), and the range is actually SHORTER than stated range. This definitely need a patch.

Schurge.5194:

Puck.9612:

It’s to make up for the fact that rangers are the only class that can have their profession mechanic shut down for 60 seconds by an opposing player.

Why aren’t you swapping pets? Who is focusing pets? Why haven’t you killed the guy wasting his time killing two pets?

Because a Burn Guardian can kill the “useful pets” (please don’t mention bear.. it’s USELESS in PVP) in 3~4 seconds alone.

Ele can easily do the same with their burning since pets AI is atrocious and would keep enter in an out of fire field and unable to dodge.

And even with this so called “unfair advantages”, ranger is still the worst class in high-end PVP. (Go do some research yourself, I’m tired of explaining why)

ps: Necro is no longer in the league of “worst class” now thanks to the new signet build.

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

Currently, just leveling to 80 gives you enough to unlock all the current lines. —I’ve been leveling an engi for the past two weeks, and every few levels you get a lump of hero points as part of the reward for leveling up.

For the elite, you can run hero points in regular pact Tyria, you can do hero points in HoT maps, you can buy them with new WvW currency (maybe there’s a PvP currency too, I can’t recall).

Really, it’s not that bad.

No, they literally tell you to run the whole Tyria and HoT just to get enough Hero Points to unlock Elite spec.

The number of Hero Points you get is fixed from challenges. You can’t get more from leveling.

There’s only 210 or so Hero challenges. Let’s assume HoT would add another 200 Hero Points. (Consider the size of maps is much smaller than the whole Tyria, that’s ALOT)
You need to go through the whole HoT and Tyria just to unlock one Elite spec.

Imagine if you have 8 alts and 1 new Revenant.
That’s like asking you to run through the whole Tyria and HoT maps 9 times.

You call this ok?

Swagger.1459:

Just wonder how many “oops so sorry” moments druids will be faced with when CA form is on its 10 second cool down and staff skills just won’t be up to the task

Yeah, might even get rage kicked by noobs who can’t/ don’t bother to dodge/move, being called out “Useless healer who can’t do the job well!” because we couldn’t carry their incompetence of constant dying.

This has happened countless times in other MMORPG.
GW2 can be another one since they introduced trinity back again. We’ll see.

I think this is unfair, because I already spent thousand of hours on some of my characters, why do I need to redo all this once more just to unlock the new aspect?

I’m ok with the “unlock everything in Elite Spec” causes 400 points, meaning you can choose your priority of which trait/ skills to unlock first.

I’m not ok with unlock everything at once for 400 points, gating everything before I grind my way to 400 points..

Also I have 4k skill points wasted into Spirit Shard thanks for your update. How come all the “levels” (skill points) I earned suddenly doesn’t count at all, and I have redo all the challenges again?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

anduriell.6280:

i have to see yet if Irenio is working to fix ranger, but as right now my prediction is this one: Druid will lose it’s newness really quick and then will go back to complain how bad is the ranger and how useless is the druid that only heals.
Revenant will replace any spots the druid could get in the raids very soon. Druid will be like the ranger the class none uses except for casual farming.

I agree with the OP fully.

I don’t see this happening at all. Druid/Ranger is a better healer and support character than Revenant/Herald and has decent DPS with Zealots gear and multiple unique DPS boosting traits and skills. They will be wanted more than Rev/Herald who can only either heal or DPS or support, not do all at once like Ranger can.

I think you meant Rev/Ventari if you’re competing healing.

If you mean Rev/Herald, they’re on another league, being a support class with top 2 dps. They’d be needed as dps + support class in one pack, meaning they’d be needed in larger quantity because they do top-noche dps while keeping up permanent 25 mobile might/fury/swiftness.

Druid will be needed in Raid true, but Revenant would be needed in raid as well, and probably in bigger quantity because you only need 1~2 healer in your team.

Swagger.1459:

Tman.6349:

Swagger.1459:

skills should not be about learning how to work around poor design. If this design is so good, then let’s give it to all swords and see how the player base reacts.

Additionally, enjoy your rooting and wonky movement while a sword wielding Revenant tears you apart…

Ranger sword could be infinitely better and there is not a valid reason why only 3 skills can’t be fixed or replaced… 3

It’s not about ‘working around poor design’ BUT, rather choosing a weapon that is designed for what you’re trying to do. This sword is awesome and is perfect at what it does.

Yeah, those Revenant swords are pretty awesome and perfect!

Not to mention when using UA (Revenant sword 3), it EVADES FOR LONGER PERIOD OF TIME than sword 2 and 3, WHILE DOING MASSIVE DAMAGE.

Also the AA on Revenant’s sword does WAY HIGHER damage than Ranger’s sword AA, while doesn’t has to deal with the clunky self-root.

I’m not going to discuss sword 4 and 5 on Rev because despite each of them have viable function, shield still seem to be more powerful in difficult contents or PVP/WvW,

Legendary Stance: B**** Kormir

Summon the blind God of Lies: Kormir, that’d steal all the credit from your teammates, including all gold/ exp/ gears, when activated in this stance.

Skill 1: Do My Deeds!
You shout out “Do my deeds!” That force your teammates to fight for you.
Skill 2: Save My kitten
You steal all the HP from nearby allies to you.
Skill 3: I’m Blind!
You afk in the spot and keep shouting out the message: "I’m blind! I’m blind, I’m blind! " to the whole map that everyone in the map can see it. You’re unable to be hit during the process. This skill lasts for 15 minutes.

Elite skill: The Credit is Mine!"
You activate a debuff to all the players within 5000 radius. All the XP/gold/gears that the other players gain will go into your bag instead. This debuff lasts for 24 hours.

Azure.8670:

s/d Ranger is one of the only specs that can completely avoid a Revs UA without burning both dodges.

turn off auto attack and its fine, it took me months to get used to it now its whatever

It has nothing to do with auto-attack of sword being good though..

You’re using the 2 3 5 on s/d, not 1.

We can fix 1 while leaving 2 3 5 alone..

Also 2 need a QoL revamp too. The backward roll is slow, and the evade frame occurs too late.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Did they state somewhere, that pets not working in pvp was intended?

And of course i’m only talking about BWE3, since we don’t know, if/how the pets will change. But yes, i think (well, at least hope), they will nerf the smokescale. And then hopefully change/buff all those useless pets …

There’s a magic word called “logic”

If developers notice pet doesn’t work, they would have patch it asap since it’s not a difficult fix. They didn’t do so even when they clearly aware the issue, showing they didn’t intend to let you use them in PVP because they know some pets are over-toned.

We can always use our brain to figure things out. We don’t have to wait for Anet to say this, say that to know the data and how each skills/mechanic work. It’s not hard to notice Smokescale is stronger than every single pet in the game by a huge margin during BWE3

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Dojo.1867

I would not call anything broken before you actually played it versus other players. That wvw video someone posted here? You can do the same thing with drakes if you commit all your high cooldown utility skills to it and have opponents that cannot dodge or avoid damage.

Bristle doesn’t seemt that good at applying damage to players to be honest. Have to play it myself first. This seems like very avoidable damage. For smokescale a large amount can also be dodged but the pet as a whole is just a good package.

Smokescales unrelenting assault deals way more dmg than a drakes tailswipe (10k+ with zero! buffs), instant 750 range teleport, can’t be avoided by kiting, can’t be interrupted or blinded, can’t be fully avoided by a dodge roll.
To deal massive dmg with a drake (or other “old” pets) you have to use multiple cooldowns to stack dmg modifier, their dmg can be easily avoided by walking, dodging, blind, cc, and sometimes the pet just wastes those modifier because it autoattacks instead of using the special ability. To deal lots of dmg with smokescale you have to do … nothing. Or maybe just use Sick’Em, and enjoy 15k+ burst dmg.
I have tested the smokescale by myself against other players and i would call it op.

Yknow, the fact that Anet doesn’t even let you use new pets in PVP, clearly shows that they’re well aware currently some of those pets are too strong.

How can you expect Smokescale to be the same as BWE3, consider how they always treat ranger? It’d 99.9999% get a huge nerf ofc.

evnw.9324:

next elite spec will be legendary madwoman stance (Scarlet Briar) and we’ll get a rifle as a condi weapon

And we better use this weapon as smacking/ melee weapon.
Bullets are for wimps.

Defying logic! That’s Revenant yknow!

I want to get specialization for all 8 of my classes right after HoT.

I’m deciding whether I should go do more Hero Challenges base on how many Hero Points per Specialization. (This is including unlock all new skills)

Any news on such matter?

mistsim.2748:

Shoe.5821:

revenant looks more OP than it is

its got powerful abilities that are somewhat limited by the energy mechanic

right now its suffering from the grassisalwaysgreener effect but we’ll see how it works out in practice

this is a huge understatement. the Herald was completely broken in the hands of competent players during BWE3, and sadly I haven’t heard of any incoming nerfs to the herald or the chrono. but mark my words right here, herald and chrono will be totally OP in all aspects of pvp, and we will likely have to sit through an entire pvp season with these two as “required” top dawgs.

regarding OP’s concerns, the few rangers that are left in the competitive pvp environment will have to be very creative with their new tools, as per usual. while other elite specs will be able to whip up various OP builds without much sense or effort, we’ll be scrounging for crumbs in our druid trait line to make LB, staff, and GS work.

more specifically, we are in a dire need of reworking more than half of our weapons that essentially hit like noodles. and more than half of our utilities that are completely useless (spirits, half of the shouts, half of the signets, two survival utilities, and a few of the signets; not to mention most of our pets with overly situational ai-controlled abilities and f2’s).

I think our current devs may be up to the task, but we will have to wait a while indeed. in the meantime, I will be making a rev myself, and enjoying my druid casually in its limited role.

Revenant would also be 100% needed in Raid too, not just Druid.
In fact they’d be needed in larger quantity than Druid. (Maybe 4 of them at least)

They currently have the 1st~2nd highest dps in the game with sword + Shiro, provide MOBILE boons, and have some crucial tools to stay alive on their own. (Herald and shield)

Kitty.1502:

After running some numbers and looking at various builds I believe in high end meta PvE builds that druid will be meta for healing in raids, and as group support for buffs in 5-man fractals. They have the potential to buff every members dps by over 40% alone in a group, that is better than the warrior is able to do. Futhermore, sinister ranger is still VERY high dps and in high level fractals will shine still.

For core ranger in sPvP/WvW – I do believe they will not be viable in any situation with everything that is entering the field. They lack real burst damage and sustain damage due to pets locking away a good portion of their damage. As I have proved in videos I posted before dodging pet damage is very simple and easy to negate them. Pets are mostly a none factor in 90% of all situations. Until the multiple issues that plague pets are fixed core ranger will always be behind the curve in sPvP and WvW.

Read carefully.

His main complaint comes from ranger being shifted to Druid entirely as a mean to justify all the ranger’s stuffs leaving to rot, like sword, axe (both main and offhand have problems), warhorn (4), and stuffs.

They’d now focus on polishing Druid so ranger would become a true support class, while giving up other aspects of ranger because “Hey, now you have Druid to use over those crappy stuffs! Why not use Druid?”

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

This was the systemic change to help with pet survivability that I’d alluded to earlier.

I’ll be listening for feedback on the changes to see how the 95% damage reduction feels and whether we need to tweak the numbers some more.

Now would you please take a good look on Sword 1 and 2.

Axe 5, and Warhorn 4?

Sword 1 will be a fetal in more difficult contents in the future due to the horrendous self-root attack pattern (and the only weapon that can’t hit at max melee range because of how it attacks)

Sword 2 evade occurs way too late, and the whole animation is clunky and slow.
It should work like Daredevil’s staff 3.

Axe 5 still rooting yourself, while Engineer’s shield 4 and Guardian’s shield 5 all unroot themselves while blocking projectiles already.

War-horn 4 still has no function at all, long CD, low damage with no additional effect.
There’s not a single skill in the game is like this..

Kronos.2560:

nacario.9417:

The one to Rule.2593:

eh bows are usually bad dps with the exception of ranger longbow

If it’s the same as dragon hunter id take hammer any day :P I actually dont see how a bow could be better than the hammer, it would have to offer something new, and currently the hammer is quite unique in that regard.

I feel the same hammer is just better. There just isn’t any new spin on how to use bows that they haven’t used already (fire lb on warrior,bounce shots thief, fast shots/condi ranger sb, distance ranger lb). If we are talking about a ranged condi weapon (considering hammer is power) I think a ghostbuster theme rifle would be sweet but even then they’d find some way to make it suck. I think I’ll just stick with hammer for now.

Hammer is a cool range weapon. (And unique too since no other classes use Hammer as range weapon)

Plus Hammer actually out-damage LB rotation if you spam 2 on CD (Roy buffed the Hammer damage coefficient like 20%~30% or more post BWE 1, which is huge)
LB of ranger is a burst-type one trick Pony burst, while Rev’s hammer is about sustain high dps with lots of utility.

Revenant has to avoid being in the trend and be as unique as possible.
If Revenant going to get LB, it should be melee weapon.

Fluffball.8307:

So random thought. Here is something I posted a while ago in the PvP forums.

Fluffball.8307:

For example ROM can chug a bottle of rum, be talking to viewers, and still dodge skills out of the corner of his eyes that I never even saw. I simply don’t have the reaction time to do what he does and have to get by purely on me having played a lot. And that hard caps me to a certain level of play. I know when a ranger is probably going to use PBS and be ready to dodge it, but I can’t just be doing something else and miraculously dodge the KB if I’m not waiting for it.

I wonder if people who like sword are just used to “planning ahead” rather than fast twitch, instinctive dodge type of players. And taking it further, I wonder if there is an age difference involved? Maybe most people over 25 likes sword and most people under dislike it. It would be interesting to see some numbers.

My current PvP build uses quickness and the sword autoattack to burst people down. It’s not something I just plop down, I wait until I feel safe.

You really should do a research then because your believes is so biased.

You’re referring people who dislike sword as immature right?
That’s the most biased and illogical assumption I’ve ever seen.
So hoping for a mechanic that doesn’t handicap yourself is an immature thought to you then.

As a reference, you need to also observe the general age group of GW2 and use the exact proportion of each age group to avoid bias.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

It took me like 1-2 months to learn every single encounter on the game and figured how to play with sword. There’s currently NO content where sword is not viable. You can melee all the bosses/encounters in game and perform as good as everyone else.

Yet here we are, 3 years after launch with people still refusing/are unable to learn how to deal with something that was here since day #1 and makes the class unique.

Unique as to people want you to melee bosses at max melee range but you can just attach to boss? Unique as to you can’t control your attack radius to cleave the way you want because you’re forced to attach to foes in one direction? (Other weapon can hit foes while not facing foes because they can control where they want to cleave)

We also have this unique off-hand axe that’d root you in place, while Engi’s reflection shield 4 is unrooted, Guardian shield 5 is unrooted, and so on? (All of them are projectile reflect related, so ONLY ranger hasn’t change)

We also have this unique war-horn 4 that does low damage, long CD, eats retaliation like breakfast, and has no additional effect right?

I really don’t give a dam about those unique but inferior mechanic…

Fluffball.8307:

Kitty.1502:

There is a lot of ranger apologist in this forum. This is one of the biggest reasons this class has been broken for so long, I think.

Why is it not ok for a lot of us to like a weapon? I find a lot of value in sword, and it’s one of if not the biggest reason I’ve got 3k hours invested in my ranger. People like different things, and it doesn’t make sense to take away something half of the ranger community dearly loves.

The only solution to this is that they give ranger another 1-handed melee weapon. I’ve been wishing for a mace for years. It would make everyone happy.

I’ve been dreaming to use Dagger mainhand as ranger for ages..
It’s so strange a ranger can’t go D/D. Most of the MMO I played, ranger can use dagger.
Not the petty staff thingy…

Let’s hope our next specialization lean toward aggressive melee fighting style, with Dagger doing massive damage. Then I can finally use off-hand at will w/o clinging to both of the awful choices ranger has (axe = weak dps, sword = clunky mess)

Also sword is the only melee weapon that can’t hit at “max range”

Other classes can actually stay alot further, even with the AA icon turning red, still hit foes while spamming 1 in a safe distance.

For ranger’s sword, it is the only melee weapon that’d make you basically “attached” to foes, and put you in serious danger in certain fights.

Also sword 2 is a clunky mess too. The backward part is way too slow, plus the evade frame is very short. By far the most clunky evade skill in the game. (GS AA doesn’t count though, it’s not on demand evade)

Yet after 3 years , no fix for Ranger’s sword.
Revenant’s sword auto got fixed immediately after people complained about the projectile part of AA. Ranger’s sword got huge complaints for 3 yrs and not a single change whatsoever.

All the attention are putting on Revenant now. Irene is just working on Druid, and the whole ranger core problems would be ignored for another 3 years like always.

I think people thought they figure out the whole raid thing way too early.

All we know currently is one part of raid with one boss.
There could very likely be future raids that involve heavy projectiles, hard hitting one shot mechanic (boss does 99999 damage if not dodged/blocked), periodic area CC (promotes stability), and so on.

It’s way too early to judge whether a class would be good for raid or not.

Ghotistyx.6942:

merchantchuck.4875:

Lmao no don’t tell me this ;0 I don’t want to quit guardian ;(

Then Don’t?

I have a better solution here.

Use on all of them through transform charges :P

blokejoe.6590:

We are still going to be able to mystic forge the old legendarys if we have the materials after launch of HOT or are we going to have to use the tracker system only going forward?

You would only get PRECURSOR from masteries.
You still need all the other mats you used to craft Legendaries, like Gift of Fortune.

There’s no other way to get the 1st gen legendary other than using Mystic Forge or buy them on TP.

Swagger.1459:

It’s not only a “feature” Stale, the ranger sword was purposefully designed to be a “high skill-high reward” weapon that the devs have masterminded to teach players true skill, timing, patience, character, humility and honor. The devs truly slaved to make it a unique weapon that stands out among the other “boring” swords. While everyone admits that it is a “wonky” weapon to use, players see that their camera turning and keyboard finess really improves and that looks great on job applications…

Also, the frontal attack bleeding restriction from short bow is another well planned “feature”, and I sincerely hope that staff gets the same type of treatment. I think it would really elevate player skill if we could only damage and heal from the front. Doing so would create a beneficial opposing balance between these two weapons and that serves to help players learn and master the art of battle field awareness and positioning.

But I don’t see any high-reward from using sword…
Why do I use a weapon that relies only on spamming AA and some clunky evade spam? (Sword 2 is very clunky as well, the evade pops up way too late and the evade frame is super short, and it takes too long to finish the back leap)

With Revenant’s sword, they do high and consistent damage, block incoming attacks, pull enemies, long evade while using sword 3 (and high dps long range). That’s what I called high reward weapon for skillful usage..

I grab sword just to use my off-hand because axe is an even weaker option..

Personally I do not want a 2-hand weapon like staff. I’d rather be scepter for ranger so we can utilize our off-hand weapon and becomes a support class using Warhorn or mix hybrid class using torch, or dps class using off-hand axe.

Staff 4 is terrible and staff 5 has very long CD and short duration anyway, so I’m ok to give up those 2 skills. (Revenant’s hammer has 6 secs/12 cd mobile projectile block, Druid has 5 secs / 20~25 CD unmobile projectile block. See the double standard treatment here?)

Come to think of it, we have TOO MANY CLASSES using staffs already, and NONE of the new classes can use scepter… Why not give Druid a scepter, and staff to Revenant and Daredevil? If Anet can fix axe 5 and makes it mobile, we really don’t need staff 5’s clunky projectile block at all.

Vatlaaw Fierceshot.5713:

I might be alone by saying this, but please do not change the way it works. While I agree that it’s a little wonky when learning how to use it, I also believe it’s very rewarding once you get the hang of it and know how/when to use it. It has its own niche and I enjoy its play style very much.

So please, do not change it.

- A 1800+Hr Ranger Vet

It MIGHT be useful in PVP, but it’s terrible in WvW and Dungeon..

Demented Yak.6105:

I don’t like it when people say stuff like: “Nobody knows what to do, these professions are new” or: “You probably do too little PvP to understand”.

This is very pretentious. The game is not that complex. It’s very, very easy to learn well enough by PvP level 21 even if you’re not that smart. Veterans on this game and other similar games like to pretend that they know much more than people who’ve played less but I have to reiterate: the game is not that complex. There’s only so much to know and learn and actually I think most of us have a pretty good idea already of how to play the rev and other elite specs.

Like Ilharn said, there is counter-play. I personally promise you that counter-play exists. Stop whining and start thinking.

I’m not the one who started this argument anyway lol.

It is you guys who brought up the “95% people are clueless” theory.
Chances are the people who brought up those could most likely be that 95% too, yet they always think they’re that 5%.

Also if you really do pvp “ON A NORMAL RATE” (doesn’t even need to be hardcore, just a little bit everyday), you should be rank 80 ages ago.
The ranking is SO EASY now that if you really do not need to play much to get to rank 80. Since the game is out for a very long now, If you still stay in low rank by now, it is evident enough you’re VERY NEW TO PVP, and are most likely less experience and less knowledgeable about each and every classes.

Using extremely rare out-liars of low matches skillful players as an excuse for your own inactivity, and falsely thought you’re very successful/ experience despite playing so few pvp matches is just a false assumption.