Guild Wars 2

Daemon.4295:

I would be happy just to transfer a portion of my pet’s power to me while in passive mode, but again, sigils and shouts are IMO the way to go about doing this.

I always advocated this. When the pet is in passive mode, the missing potential damage should be folded back in the ranger. Like a pet aura buff. The moment you command it to attack you lose the buff. The moment it dies, you lose it and the moment you stow the pet, you lose it. It’s a simple solution to get around the pathing issue and for situations where pets are not feasible, like when camping castle walls.

There’s zero reasons to target a pet in pvp and this would give actually people a reason to.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I like the recommendations about the f1 key being more versatile. I certainly think there is something more to be done there with it. When we talk about these things internally, I will be sure that we take a long look at all the F-key commands and see what improvements can be made. I personally favor toggles that allow you more control (what if F1 was both “attack” and “return!” that got toggled? What does that free up? Could F5 be a thing?). There are lots of options to explore.

If you do F1 as toggle for attack and return, you can streamline the system even more. In fact, the pet dodge mechanic, if implemented, could be folded into the “return” side of the toggle. That way, F3 could be used for a bindable active/passive pet mode.

Alternatively, what would be REALLY good is if F3 could be a selectable Shout skill. The Shout skills always felt like it’s something that should’ve come standard with pets instead of being separate utilities. If you let F3 be a selectable Shout skill, it’ll greatly benefit a lot of builts and put more diversity back into the class.

While on the subject of Shout skills, I always felt “Guard” was unnecessary. That should come standard with the pet being in passive mode. Saying you can’t make your pet guard is like saying you bought a car with no radio. You shouldn’t have to pay extra to get something that basic. You can take the associated buffs away if you wish but the act of guarding should be a basic task doable by default. During the beta, which had no Shout skills available, my initial assumption was that putting a pet in passive mode would enable the pet to guard a small radius around me, essentially the current “Guard” skill. It makes far more sense to have Guard by default in which the pet will protect me if necessary instead of it watching its owner being attacked. Something like this also changes the flow of fights so you can dictate the terms of the fight instead of having your pet to try and chase down the target.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I am still here and watching. I’m currently composing a list of ideas and statements from this thread to bring to our balance meetings (held multiple times per week), that I can present to at least talk about with the group.
I go to the meetings as a representative for rangers and dungeons, since I play both of those things extensively. Here’s how my list is looking so far:

Core problems: (Note: we are very aware of both of these things)
-Pet AI.
-Pet management tools

Things to investigate:
-Pets auto attacks only hitting a single target.
-On “return” command, your pet gains swiftness so it can escape out of red rings more easily.
-A button that makes your pet momentarily not take damage. A sort of “Dodge” button for you to control. This is mainly due to us making sure players know how to use their dodge-roll or damage mitigation skills, which pets don’t have, and don’t always know how to escape properly when recalled without a direct pet swap. (NOTE: This is a springboard idea for pets being able to avoid damage)
-Pet/minion AR that is shared with the master’s stats.
-More defensive pet skills.
-Vigor applied to pets turns into swiftness or protection.
-In dungeons, pet’s get more health/armor.
-Lick wounds not always working. Pet just runs back and stands on your body.
-Search and Rescue buggy
-F2 skills activating faster.

Good list.

I would suggest this as a start before all that though: Change F1 to a toggle between attack and retreat. That way you free up F3 to do pet dodge or any other pet function that can be implemented. Even if you added nothing new, using F3 as a bindable active/passive pet mode is a better use than the current layout. Using F3 as retreat only is wasted real estate.

Majik.8521:

how about reworking the ranger to where they are not so dependent on the pet? Rangers lose around 40% of their dps from 1)having to call back the pet, 2) keeping him on passive(to keep him out of AoE) 3) when pet dies 4) fighting from walls of keep or tower or fight enemies that are on walls.

IMO the best thing to do with the pet is rework the numbers to the point that the pet is around 10% of the total dps.

how many other professions automatically lose a huge portion of their dps if they make a mistake and time their F1-F4 abilities wrong or for trying to defend their keep?

QFT.

There’s no future for this game as an e-sport if you expect viewers to spectate a bot. The more you tip the ratio towards the pet, the more imbalance, randomness and skill debasement you introduce to the meta. That is not skill. That is not exciting to watch. You guys are shooting yourself in the foot not just with the community but with your end goal.

Make pets change your attack style, change your stats, do combos, CC, a combination of the above, anything but focus on DPS.

Durzlla.6295:

Aridia.3042:

Durzlla.6295:

Aridia.3042:

Prysin.8542:

another issue is our dodging ability, we either have to burn all our attacks (Sword 2, greatsword 3, dagger 4) + lightning reflexes, or we die.

Our endurance regen is far too low to provide effective dodging (or rather, the endurance drain for dodging is way too high)

Other then that, the pre-mentioned faults have covered most of it.

This is where Anet failed miserably in the design. If they had played Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls, they would’ve seen a stamina bar that’s affected by equipment weight. If you wore heavy armor with shield, you tank better but can dodge less and have worse stamina regen. But instead we got a warrior/guardian in heavy equipment but they still have the same number of default dodges as another class that has worse armor. Does not compute….

Yes, but we have more evades and have easier access to vigor, and can trait for better endurance regen, which stacks with vigor, scholars and soldiers do not have this benefit because scholars have more active defense, and soldiers have more passive defense, where rangers (and other adventurers) have easier access to evades + faster endurance regen…

Granted, like in Demon Souls if you get locked out of dodging you tend to get boned unlike the other two…

Interesting theory, except fights are never 1 vs 1. Vigor is worthless because every encounter in spvp and wvw is a zerg fest. Your stamina bar will never fill back up before you get burst down.

And I’m tired of hearing people saying this class has more evades. So basically every ranger is obligated to run sword now?

The design in this game is a joke.

Um, sPvP isn’t a Zerg fest, only hot joins, and if you want a lot of evades sword dagger is the king of “On Demand” evades, great sword has the most passive ones (every 3rd attack), and then you have WD to counter ranged attacks, short bow has evade + swiftness giving you an effective 3 dodges, an if you’re not using melee attacks you should be kiting and thus not needing to kite as much anyway, and if enemy ranged are your bane you can 1) use your pet as a meat shield 2) take one of the 2 invuln skills we have because if ranged are a threat you’re clearly not building around your pet or being sturdy yourself or 3) take axe/axe or sword/axe and use WD as its supposed to be used, as a DEFENSIVE skill.

Way to miss the point. You should not be forced to spec a certain way to make a class viable. That’s text book definition of bad designs. And you speak of as if other classes don’t have invulnerability skills. One extra dodge is not going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Again, go look at Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls if you want to see proper design.

And to say only hot join spvp is a zerg fest basically means 90+% of the matches are zerg fests. No one plays 5 vs 5 and WvW is a joke right now.

Durzlla.6295:

Aridia.3042:

Prysin.8542:

another issue is our dodging ability, we either have to burn all our attacks (Sword 2, greatsword 3, dagger 4) + lightning reflexes, or we die.

Our endurance regen is far too low to provide effective dodging (or rather, the endurance drain for dodging is way too high)

Other then that, the pre-mentioned faults have covered most of it.

This is where Anet failed miserably in the design. If they had played Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls, they would’ve seen a stamina bar that’s affected by equipment weight. If you wore heavy armor with shield, you tank better but can dodge less and have worse stamina regen. But instead we got a warrior/guardian in heavy equipment but they still have the same number of default dodges as another class that has worse armor. Does not compute….

Yes, but we have more evades and have easier access to vigor, and can trait for better endurance regen, which stacks with vigor, scholars and soldiers do not have this benefit because scholars have more active defense, and soldiers have more passive defense, where rangers (and other adventurers) have easier access to evades + faster endurance regen…

Granted, like in Demon Souls if you get locked out of dodging you tend to get boned unlike the other two…

Interesting theory, except fights are never 1 vs 1. Vigor is worthless because every encounter in spvp and wvw is a zerg fest. Your stamina bar will never fill back up before you get burst down.

And I’m tired of hearing people saying this class has more evades. So basically every ranger is obligated to run sword now?

The design in this game is a joke.

Prysin.8542:

another issue is our dodging ability, we either have to burn all our attacks (Sword 2, greatsword 3, dagger 4) + lightning reflexes, or we die.

Our endurance regen is far too low to provide effective dodging (or rather, the endurance drain for dodging is way too high)

Other then that, the pre-mentioned faults have covered most of it.

This is where Anet failed miserably in the design. If they had played Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls, they would’ve seen a stamina bar that’s affected by equipment weight. If you wore heavy armor with shield, you tank better but can dodge less and have worse stamina regen. But instead we got a warrior/guardian in heavy equipment but they still have the same number of default dodges as another class that has worse armor. Does not compute….

Quarktastic.1027:

Aridia.3042:

Leaf.3156:

And @Aridia, not only does that solution not make sense, it’d be horribly broken as well to be able to make your pet teleport at any given moment.

Reread my post. You never addressed as to why you should waste a dodge on the pet.

Every player has 2 dodges. So you want to use your dodge so that your pet will evade? No thanks. Not everyone is melee. Just because the attack will hit the pet doesn’t mean it’ll hit the player.

Rangers have far more than 2 dodges.

Are you being dense on purpose? The dodge I’m talking about is the default one, which uses the little yellow stamina bar above your HP, which there are only 2, like every other class.

Again, not everyone is using melee. You cannot assume or force someone to spec a certain way. LB with Axe only has the 2 default dodges and not everyone runs Lightning reflex.

This proposed fix is worse than the problem. Fix the pet instead of asking something that’s actually a nerf/cop out.

Leaf.3156:

And @Aridia, not only does that solution not make sense, it’d be horribly broken as well to be able to make your pet teleport at any given moment.

Reread my post. You never addressed as to why you should waste a dodge on the pet.

Every player has 2 dodges. So you want to use your dodge so that your pet will evade? No thanks. Not everyone is melee. Just because the attack will hit the pet doesn’t mean it’ll hit the player.

I honestly don’t know why people want this. You’re basically asking the player to take a 50% hit in the number of dodges he or she has. You’d be crazy to waste your dodge on the pet. Pet goes down, the fight goes on, albeit at a crappier dps rate. Player goes down, the fight ends. So why would I waste a dodge on the pet when I should be saving it for me? Damage mitigation via dodging is what separates this game from other MMOs. To ask the player to share that limited source of mitigation to get around a pet problem is such a cop out.

Fix the pet instead. Make F3 responsive by overriding all actions in the queue and make pets dash when you F3. Like when you hop across the floating platforms on the asuran fractal, your pets will dash across the gap like it’s almost teleporting. Do that when you F3.

Anet is basically Dean. The community is Lex.

Expiatus.4210:

I keep reading the theme “players are side stepping shots in WvWvW!” but I’m curious. Most players have only two dodges until the dodge regens, during that time a LB will hit them unless they use a skill that has a dodge inherent to it. So how are so many shots being dodged? Just asking since it sounds very subjective.

Just side strafe side to side. Virtually all LB 1 shots could be dodged that way.

Atherakhia.4086:

Question: Is the Ranger Longbow the only weapon in the entire game with an auto-attack without some secondary effect built in?

It doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t bounce or pierce, it doesn’t shoot 2 shots, etc. The only thing it has is the ability to do less damage than the short bow at anything but max range, and barely do the same damage at max range?

If the Shortbow is the ranger’s condition weapon of choice, why can’t the Longbow be the ranger’s power/crit/anything weapon of choice?

The better question is why are there LBs with conditional dmg stats on them?

For use with sharpening stones so I can land 5 stacks of bleed every 30 seconds? LOL.

LB1 needs a chance cripple badly, where conditional stat should increase the duration of the cripple, and precision should affect the landing rate for the cripple.

If Anet expects people to only do max damage at the 1k+ killzone, there should be some way to help keep the target there for the ranger to take a meaningful second shot.

No Walking.6349:

And it will probably never be mounts…..ever.

Probably a good thing. With the amount of culling in this game, all that would amount to is a bunch of characters doing gangnam style on the screen cuz their mounts won’t load on your screen.

Durzlla.6295:

In a camp he can just do what he does in all of his other videos where there’s no walls to stop him -_-’ camps are also something us rangers can solo cap, so that’s not something you would be taking with a zerg.

Zergs hit keeps and towers, he was fighting at keeps and towers, he was down on the floor in a bit of his videos and throwing his pet up ONTO the wall. This is a position where he can very easily have been ganked by thieves, or a warrior, etc.

You’re missing the point. If you face someone out in the middle of no where like a camp, you have to make your pet run to him. It’s the travel distance that makes pets pointless against WvW zergs which is why we get all the QQ about not being able to hit moving targets. So no, you’re not going to get the same effect, especially when they have a zerg to focus fire on your pet. You might surprise a few guys with a jag onto a wall, but again, it’s very specific and controlled conditions and not at all indicative of the full gamut of what actually happens in WvW. Putting a jag onto a wall during a mini siege is completely different to making your pet run through fire towards a target.

And I hope you’ve noticed. There was probably hardly anyone in the keep. If there was a real zerg in there, they’ll come out and face roll the whole group and people who wander off. It’s a complete different lvl of threat when you’re attacking a keep vs facing someone in an open field because you know either side will camp the keep until the tide turns in their favor. Until one side moves, it’s pretty tame and there’s no real danger of being swallowed by the zerg.

Not sure what server you play on, but if you play on Tier 1, you often don’t have the luxury to flip camps solo, especially on EB. More than half of the fights involve 2 zergs pew pewing each other until enough foolish people wander off/get over aggressive and get picked off and one side gets overpowered. Which makes claims that you and your pet could flank even more dubious.

irishhaf.1692:

Ive asked this in every one of these threads Ive seen… my main is a Ranger… WHAT can I do to extend a fight let alone win a fight 1 on 1 with a thief?

For every single move I have to gain distance thieves have a move to close the gap almost instantly… on and if its an unload spamming monkey I just die…
So give me a clue here.

Edit: as it stands I do not see a single downside to a thief in WvW, if there is please let me know for curiosity sake.

Random points to keep in mind. Have a conditional removal since most like to immobolize you to start.

Use your invulnerability if you have it or even roll in place to weather the first burst. Then cc him and attack with zephyr. LB 4 or wolf fear work wonders to set up your burst. LB 2 will home in even if the thief stealths as long as you started firing when he was visible so let the whole volley finish. LB 5 will hit also even when he stealths, entangle him and use it, it should hit even when they manage to get out of the root. You should be able to use both LB 2 and 5 in one zephyr cast.

Xsorus.2507:

Aridia.3042:

Xsorus.2507:

I have entire videos showing that’s incorrect

If you send your pet into the front of a zerg firing on you it will die, But so will most people running solo into that zerg as well.

Key is getting your pet to hit from the sides or rear

I’ve never seen you roll with a zerg in your vids. His point stands. A lot of people in this thread are testing it in really controlled environments. 1v1 with melee no less…well if you’re rooting people with sword of course your pet could hit.

Make a video running LB with pets against zergs and see how well the pets perform.

They’re little more than buff bots/distractions in that case.

Ehh, the entire Natures Ninja video set is me rolling with a Zerg.

If you’re going to do Longbow setup and fire shots back and fourth between a zerg I recommend Range pets for that, just put your pet on passive so you can control it better (and less likely to run in and die) You can do a Beast Master Build with this, but a setup like that is more useful to use Bears/Spiders Combo (switch to Bear when being attacked for Protect Me) and Spider when you’re fighting.

If you’re wanting to actually flank though, any of the high dps pets will work quite well.

You made a video wall hopping with pets, while entertaining it’s not what I meant by rolling with zergs. Like I said you are using it in very controlled conditions, in this case hiding behind a keep where you have little chance to be jumped. Again, try it with LB preferrably while you are trying to flip a camp against 50 guys. There’s no way to get that kind of burst with ranged pets and by going so deep into BM the LB dmg will be pretty weak.

Xsorus.2507:

I have entire videos showing that’s incorrect

If you send your pet into the front of a zerg firing on you it will die, But so will most people running solo into that zerg as well.

Key is getting your pet to hit from the sides or rear

I’ve never seen you roll with a zerg in your vids. His point stands. A lot of people in this thread are testing it in really controlled environments. 1v1 with melee no less…well if you’re rooting people with sword of course your pet could hit.

Make a video running LB with pets against zergs and see how well the pets perform.

They’re little more than buff bots/distractions in that case.

nerva.7940:

thief runes are best actually.

Not for LB it ain’t.

Someone please send a copy of Dark Souls to Anet.

Akisame.9508:

awe extender.1908:

Haakkelberg.2460:

LB is only weapon I use, sword and horn if really needed, bad dbs. As mentioned in up, some make 1200-1500dmg at max range, I get avarage off 1500dmg on closerange and high as 5800dmg, so why not spam #1 it’s best dmg y got! Whit max range off 1500 I hit opponent whit two arrows and downed, didin’t even see me comeing Hope I hit 6000 crit today, backitem upgrade will give me 119 crit dmg

Best hits sofar:

1. rabid fire: 18.200dmg hope to hit 20.000 after upgrade
2. barrage: 2000-2500/hit x10 that’s allready 20.000dmg total

SB rpm is double or so compared to LB, sb hit about 200-300 on #1 when crit and my LB will hit 1500 when crit at close range (my cc=65%) (attack=over 3500)
Someone calculate how mutch faster I kill y and if y run away…

What build and gear do you use?

umm, yea, I second that, what armor/weapons/runes are you using? If your not exaggerating Then I wanna be like Haakkelberg! (doesn’t have the same ring as I wanna be like mike…or am I showing my age again? Dohhhh!)

He’s probably running full zerker gear, Divinity rune with ascended rings crystaline and RROD while using squash soup. That should get you to around 118 crit dmg.

I’m not convinced divinity is better than Scholar though. Because if you use steady weapon in the mist, Scholar out damages Divinity even without the 10% bonus.

I use LB exclusively, outside of spvp, which I don’t really do anyway cuz it sucks.
I like the look and feel of the LB more. Plus I like bigger damage numbers. Taking fewer shots to get the same damage is always a plus in my books.

I never really tried SB in end game and I don’t really care if it does out damages the LB over time because LB is more bursty. Burst is what wins PVPs generally. It’s way more threatening to take 4.5k off with one hit than it is having to fire 4 to 5 shots off to achieve the same thing because you’re giving your target more chances to mitigate the damage.

I run axe/horn in slot 2. Once I’ve stacked bloodlust fully, I switch to sword/horn.

Ursan.7846:

Aridia.3042:

This was originally a discussion about multiple vs single payload for physical damage in the context of the longbow so it’s not about conditional dmg. Not sure why you’re trying to change the subject.

Ursan.7846:

So, one of the assumptions I make (that I did not mention) is that sustained dps usually does more damage over a longer period of time, when compared to burst damage.

One of the yardsticks I use is Killshot vs Volley. It’s the same concept. One big hit vs channeled long hit. Killshot, at lvl 3 adrenaline, does 792 damage in one shot. Volley does 11kittenage after a 2.5s channel time.

What does this mean? It means that in situation A, when the target has more health than the Killshot can burst down, the channeled skill is usually better because it does, overall, more damage. It might not even take that much longer when you consider the channeling time for Killshot.

Also in situation B, if you dodge the killshot, you do 0 damage. If you dodge the first half of Volley, the latter half still hits and it still does a bit of damage. Thus channeled skill is again, better.

Let me distill that for you. Numbers based on Warrior Rifle shots, because it’s the best example we have for single-attack vs channeled attacks.

Situation 1: Where target has more hp than burst dmg.
Killshot + 1 autoattack will hit for 155 + 792 = 947 dmg
Volley will hit for 1160 dmg.

Volley wins.

Situation 2: Where target dodges.
Killshot + 1 autoattack: target will dodge Killshot, hit autoattack. 155 dmg.
Volley, if target dodges half of it, will do 580 dmg.

Volely wins.

Aridia.3042:

Again, sustained DPS is what’s associated with PVE…people care about this, particularly in other mmos because they want the most efficient way to lvl. PVP is not about dragged out fights, it’s about incapacitating the opponent in the quickest way. Which is why spiky moves are preferred.

Bunker builds don’t change this fact because you can’t solo them anyway so when another teammate shows up, it’s still burst that’s preferred to sustained damage when you gang up on him.

I’m not sure what kind of time scale we’re talking about here. In 3 seconds, you’ll fire off a killshot + autoattack, or you can fire off a volley. Volley does more damage over 3 seconds. Volley + autoattack will do more damage over 8 seconds compared to Killshot + autoattack. And 30 seconds. And a minute if you’d like. And this is completely ignoring differences in mobile channeling vs stationary channeling, differences in CD, the need to charge adrenaline (or devote utilities/traits to adrenaline skills) etc. etc.

Note: The reason why I bring up condition damage is because from the sound of it, you’re talking about timescales that range from 30s-1 minute…In which case Channeled vs Single-Shot comparison is really moot, and it becomes more of a condition damage vs physical damage argument. But I digress….

Now, this doesn’t mean I’m saying Volley > Killshot. Just as I rage at how saying “Killshot > volley always,” Volley is not always better than Killshots. In different situations, different skills will be better, and that is my core point.

Aridia.3042:

And Killshot has an 8 second refresh if you missed. It’s not that long…

Volley also has a 8s cooldown, with a trait that all Wars who use Rifles as their main weapon has. Killshot has a 8s cooldown only with a 30pt Grandmaster trait that not all Rifle Wars have. Your point is moot.

EDIT: All numbers taken from GW2 wiki.

So you’re saying rifle volley does more than killshot? Sorry I stopped reading right there. You should go play the game sometime.

Mmmk, I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead as I’ve wasted enough time on this thread.

Recycle.5493:

Aridia.3042:

Recycle.5493:

Kill shot is never good for 1v1 or small fights, anyone with decent skill can see it coming a mile away. It’s only good for larger fights as you doing the sniping pose is only telling your opponent to apply protection or get ready for a roll, and for his friends to swarm you because you can’t move during that sniping position. Also in PvE when traited piercing arrow, rapid fire is way more useful than a single sniped shot.

Try fear me/bullrush as a set up. Or if you have the trait that turns cripple to immoblize, or bolas, and frenzy, that works great too.

And you’re not sniping properly in WvW if people can jump you easily while rooted or knows you’re aiming at them. If you think those are problems, how will you ever use barrage in a zerg fight?

Guess you didn’t really read my post; also, we’re talking about ranger here, no fear skills or knock downs if we’re taking point blank shot away.

You said killshot. But regardless, canines have knock down/immobilize. Wolf’s F2 has fear also.

Ursan.7846:

Aridia.3042:

Well, none of the situations you’ve mentioned is rapid fire better than a single payload snipe. In fact, it never is because even if you substitute rapid fire for snipe in your cases, you’ll get even worse outcomes. Moreover, no one cares about constant DPS aside from PVE, because people are not dumb like mobs that’ll sit there and eat your whole volley. All things being equal, single payload is always better in pvp because of the faster time to kill.

So, one of the assumptions I make (that I did not mention) is that sustained dps usually does more damage over a longer period of time, when compared to burst damage.

One of the yardsticks I use is Killshot vs Volley. It’s the same concept. One big hit vs channeled long hit. Killshot, at lvl 3 adrenaline, does 792 damage in one shot. Volley does 11kittenage after a 2.5s channel time.

What does this mean? It means that in situation A, when the target has more health than the Killshot can burst down, the channeled skill is usually better because it does, overall, more damage. It might not even take that much longer when you consider the channeling time for Killshot.

Also in situation B, if you dodge the killshot, you do 0 damage. If you dodge the first half of Volley, the latter half still hits and it still does a bit of damage. Thus channeled skill is again, better.

This is not even considering conditions, which isn’t burst damage, which goes through protection/toughness, and is much better than burst in situation C.

If a skill like Snipe is implemented, I imagine the damage will be balanced to be similar to Killshot/Volley. If it’s going to do more damage, it’s going to be balanced with a longer charge time, which is even more negative to this skill.

Aridia.3042:

All things being equal, single payload is always better in pvp because of the faster time to kill.

I hate hate hate it when people say “always.” Because things never are that simple. I play Guardian for sPvP. I’ve laughed away many killshots with Aegis/dodge. I smile as a thief tries to backstab me with all my toughness and protection. And I cry when a Caltrop thief comes in and bleeds me to death slowly. As a bunker, I run away with fear from Necros/Rangers who I know will slowly condition me to oblivion, because my protection/aegis/toughness will be absolutely no help to it.

Are there situations where burst is better? OF COURSE. Is is most of the time better? Debatable. Is burst ALWAYS better? NO. It is not.

This was originally a discussion about multiple vs single payload for physical damage in the context of the longbow so it’s not about conditional dmg. Not sure why you’re trying to change the subject. Again, sustained DPS is what’s associated with PVE…people care about this, particularly in other mmos because they want the most efficient way to lvl. PVP is not about dragged out fights, it’s about incapacitating the opponent in the quickest way. Which is why spiky moves are preferred.

Bunker builds don’t change this fact because you can’t solo them anyway so when another teammate shows up, it’s still burst that’s preferred to sustained damage when you gang up on him.

And Killshot has an 8 second refresh if you missed. It’s not that long…

Recycle.5493:

Kill shot is never good for 1v1 or small fights, anyone with decent skill can see it coming a mile away. It’s only good for larger fights as you doing the sniping pose is only telling your opponent to apply protection or get ready for a roll, and for his friends to swarm you because you can’t move during that sniping position. Also in PvE when traited piercing arrow, rapid fire is way more useful than a single sniped shot.

Try fear me/bullrush as a set up. Or if you have the trait that turns cripple to immoblize, or bolas, and frenzy, that works great too.

And you’re not sniping properly in WvW if people can jump you easily while rooted or knows you’re aiming at them. If you think those are problems, how will you ever use barrage in a zerg fight?

Ursan.7846:

Aridia.3042:

It’s not rocket science. Single payload is always superior to multiple because of the spike. You can’t out heal or out pot a single burst because you’re not giving the opponent a chance to mitigate the damage. Spike is what wins pvp generally.

(e.g. Target has 7k HP. Snipe hits for 7k, he’s dead. Rapid fire hits for 1.5k each. He dodges 2, heals part way through for and runs out of range. Target lives.)

No, it’s not rocket science, but it’s not so simple either. Burst damage is not always better to sustained DPS. There’s certain situations where it’s better, and there’s others where it’s not. I wish people would stop simplifying things and making blanket statements based on simplified situations.

E.g. Target has 10k health. Snipe hits for 7k. Target proceeds to heal and laughs as you do pitiful damage because your Snipe is on cooldown.

E.g. Target has 7k HP. Targets sees you charge Snipe. He dodges snipe. He laughs as you do pitiful damage because your Snipe is on cooldown.

E.g. Target has 4000 toughness and protection buff, your snipe does 3k damage. But your bleeds kill him because hey, it isn’t affected by toughness/protection!

ALL these situations happen. Now I’m not saying Rapid Shot most definitely >>> Snipe, but saying “Snipe (theoretical) is always better than Rapid Shot” is silly silly silly.

Well, none of the situations you’ve mentioned is rapid fire better than a single payload snipe. In fact, it never is because even if you substitute rapid fire for snipe in your cases, you’ll get even worse outcomes. Moreover, no one cares about constant DPS aside from PVE, because people are not dumb like mobs that’ll sit there and eat your whole volley. All things being equal, single payload is always better in pvp because of the faster time to kill.

It’s not rocket science. Single payload is always superior to multiple because of the spike. You can’t out heal or out pot a single burst because you’re not giving the opponent a chance to mitigate the damage. Spike is what wins pvp generally.

(e.g. Target has 7k HP. Snipe hits for 7k, he’s dead. Rapid fire hits for 1.5k each. He dodges 2, heals part way through for and runs out of range. Target lives.)

Remove AOE cap.

Remove crossed swords AKA satellite feed.

Double the damage the player gets when he’s ressing someone.

Give a score multiple to any structure you hold the longer you hold it. Flipping camps repeatedly should make the score come to a virtual stand still. Make people defend and pick their battles instead of being able to flip a whole map.

Tulisin.6945:

Reviving already does this to professions who have mobility based defense, implementing a statistical debuff would detriment those with stat based defense as well, but double down on the pain for those with mobility based defense.

That’s the whole point. There should be a penalty so that numbers cannot simply overwhelm the other side so decisively…

And that’s what you have mesmers and guardians for.

Avalon.4809:

Aridia.3042:

Avalon.4809:

Aridia.3042:

No, res should stay. But the logical solution should be people who are ressing should take twice the damage because they’re essentially letting their guard down as the apply first aid. They’re literally weaponless and on their knees.

There should be checks and balances. A small group should not be able to stand under an AOE and res someone with complete disregard. If they want to res, there should be a down side to it and take some coordination to do it.

Aaaaaand, after this fix, ppl start to not ressing anyone…

Well, that’s too bad, then. They’ll just get wiped.

Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Not only they, you will get wiped too since ppl won’t res you…

That’s working under the assumption that you can’t outplay the other side. The original argument is predicated on the fact that the current system favors the side with more numbers. The implicit argument is that a smaller group finds it hard if not impossible to “outplay” the zerg due to the res.

Doubling the damage of the people ressing is a means to address that. It gives the smaller side a way to outplay the other side.

As it stands right now if, nothing is changed, the smaller side will get wiped anyway because there’s no way to out kill the zerg faster than they can res, so I don’t see how your argument is of any concern.

Avalon.4809:

Aridia.3042:

No, res should stay. But the logical solution should be people who are ressing should take twice the damage because they’re essentially letting their guard down as the apply first aid. They’re literally weaponless and on their knees.

There should be checks and balances. A small group should not be able to stand under an AOE and res someone with complete disregard. If they want to res, there should be a down side to it and take some coordination to do it.

Aaaaaand, after this fix, ppl start to not ressing anyone…

Well, that’s too bad, then. They’ll just get wiped.

Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

No, res should stay. But the logical solution should be people who are ressing should take twice the damage because they’re essentially letting their guard down as the apply first aid. They’re literally weaponless and on their knees.

There should be checks and balances. A small group should not be able to stand under an AOE and res someone with complete disregard. If they want to res, there should be a down side to it and take some coordination to do it.

Rapid fire should be replaced with something called Dual Fire.

If you tap it, it comes out with Rapid Fire. If you held down the key, it should go into the charge shot like skill 4 on the slingshot.

Use Kormir if you’re human.

Katostrophe.3274:

I dont even think fractals gear gets you 103% increase.

2 Ascended rings gets you to 104% without food IIRC.

More if you run Divinity but the damage is not as good as Scholar.

Loki.4871:

Aridia.3042:

I hold these opinions because they’re supported by facts.

I’m still waiting to see them.

I called it obnoxious because I used a pet in pvp and pve. It was good in both, and well balanced in pvp: you could focus entirely on the pet, however that would make you vulnerable unless you took the elite Heal As One.
Then Anet decided to buff the pet stupidly in pve and… yeah. Obnoxiously powerful, not that many other people ever seemed to notice. A ‘side effect’ of these buffs was the pet became viable even if you didn’t max the trait line. It also had Scavenger’s Strike, which was one of the few energy management skills for rangers.

I expect you’ve probably read them by now, but in case you didn’t, I suggest you go check the patch sticky Sic ‘Em is being engineered to be the burst mechanic, and the design philosophy makes it clear that the ranger is supposed to do good damage with the pet. If the damage is mainly on the ranger, the pet being little more than eyecandy, the wording would be different. Besides, as I believe I stated before, the ’ranger with most of the damage, the pet doing largely token stuff’ was how the ranger worked in the betas, where it was very brutally ‘nerfed’ in the sense the damage was partially transferred to the pet.

You can regurgitate what you perceive to be Anet’s philosophy, but I really don’t care what their design philosophy is because as I’ve said already, it’s flawed at least for this class. The end result speaks for itself. Recognizing the philosophy is different from critiquing it. You seem to choose to drink their koolaid; I don’t. So I’ll guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

No matter what you say or think, there’s no proper balance in trying to allocate damage from two sources, especially when one source is heavily automated, because damage mitigation is mostly based on a single source for every class in the game. The more you tip the ratio towards the pet, the more imbalance, randomness and skill debasement you introduce to the meta. I don’t see how anyone can deny this. That kind of balance is hardly conducive for something that’s supposedly destined for e-sport.

Loki.4871:

Aridia.3042:

Loki.4871:

That’s your opinion. Mine is that until the pet issues are fixed there’s little point crying over them, especially when it’s a class specifically designed to work with and rely on the pet.

That’s a pipe dream. It’ll never be fixed.

I’ve yet to see a balanced bot implemented in a pvp game. Make them hit on the run consistently and it’s over powered because you’ve doubled the damage source but the target only has the same amount of mitigation. Make them dumb like they are now, and your DPS goes down.

It’s futile to try and find this “balance”. When you’re talking about a PVP game, it should be you playing the toon, not letting the bot do half of your work. Damage ratio has to and always should be put towards the player and not the bot.

I don’t know why Anet is trying to reinvent the wheel. LOL, no one will take this game seriously when you have to watch a person getting pwned by a bot.

And no, please don’t try to argue hitting attack and withdraw involves skill.

All your personal opinion again. The pet was always useful in GW1, even before buffs, and became quite obnoxious when used properly. The necromancer often relied on summons to do their job and (in theory-hello again dodgy AI!) they can do so in GW2. The “it takes no skill because it’s a drone” argument smacks of elitism. Considering how many people regularly complain their pets die in the first five seconds of a fight, let alone in a dungeon, while I can go almost an entire dungeon without a pet being downed unless I’ve made a mistake/not paid attention, I would argue there is some skill involved.
Do mesmers take no skill because they keep using ‘drone’ phantasms and illusions? Or ranged weapons on melee armed characters, because they can’t fight back? Those arguments make as little sense as “the pet takes no skill”.

By virtue, all opinions are personal so I’m not sure what your point is. I hold these opinions because they’re supported by facts.

Funny you called the pets obnoxious. So you basically agree with me. It’s either too effective or not at all. There’s no happy medium. No one likes to fight against a bot because it reeks of chance and not in a good way like Texas holdem because only your class has that much exposure to it versus everyone having to deal with the randomness of chance like in holdem. If a fight could be decided by whether your dog would CC the target and you have no control over it. How is that skill?

Sorry it sounds elitist. But that’s what’s involved in a real competition. If the ultimate goal of spvp is e-sport, which it is, you better have mechanics that showcases actual skill. Hitting attack/retreat/F2 and praying for a CC to come out is an extremely low skill cap and that’s half of the current class.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I don’t think my point didn’t quite hit home.

What I’m saying is sidestep these concerns entirely, by redefining the purpose of a pet in Conquest so that whatever damage there is or isn’t will be incidental because it only exists as a means to an end. I’m not calling for any particular alteration to the amount of damage a pet does (unless the ends requires it), only that this damage serves an ultimate purpose and not exist for it’s own sake.

It’s like you’re agonizing over the size of your apple compared to everyone else’s and I’m suggesting to eat a potato instead, and then somehow you’re talking about apples again.

When you say conquest, that means only spvp? Then what’s the point of them in WvW? And you can never balance something if you ignore the damage aspect. Even things involve no damage needs to be balanced, which is why something like fear has a cool down.

You’re merely trying to re-characterize the issue while ignoring the results. Saying an engineer turret is not to do damage but as an area denial tool, completely ignores the fact that you wouldn’t be dodging in the first place, if it didn’t do enough damage. Even behind that simple setup, there’s damage balance in that: down time on the player to patch up turret so you don’t have a constant 2 vs 1, and the class only having a shotty which has low rate of fire.

Pretending the issue isn’t there doesn’t make it go away.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I think what Ranger really needs is something like that in PvP, to use the extra entity to somehow allow them to accomplish something that relates to space or the capture points directly. So how pet damage stacks up against other classes is non-issue, because that’s just not what a pet is there for.

That’s the point. It’s flawed mechanics to allow a bot to account for 40/50% of your damage. It’s just a terrible can of worms to open. Doubly so when you cannot enforce specs, traits and weapon selections on the other side of the equation like an FPS so it’s like trying to build on shifting sands because nothing is even set in stone, so nothing is ever balanced.

How do you even account for the beastmastery line? If you pump 30 points into it, pets could in theory do more than 50% then if you run birds since they crit pretty hard, which means then your weapons side damage has to be capped.

If you don’t put any into Beastmastery, then because your weapon side is capped, you’re not getting nearly 100% of the damage just from using your weapons. It’s a catch 22. At the most, pets should only account for 20% or so of damage so you know your weapon side is going to do 80%. And stats you pump into the pet should give you other things and not just affect damage. What about if you pump enough points into it, a tanking pet like a bear or drake could physically block melee players from getting to you? There are far more interesting things to do instead of just making pets doing straight DPS; that breaks things in pvp.

Someone here posted a great idea weeks ago where if you change pets, you get different stats bonuses. Like a bear makes your toughness related stats go up, eagle makes your crit go up etc. So switching pets becomes like a fighter switching stance so you move and fight differently. You can even take it a step further and give different utilities or skill sets depending on the pet. Like a lightning drake would infuse your weapon attacks with electricity, or eagles giving your arrows faster flight or whatever bonus that’s unique and pet themed related. Give rangers 4 pets each on land and water and and let people play a fully fleshed out toon instead of half a toon and a bot.

Anet had it right in the description of the class selection screen. Pets should “distract enemies”, or be a walking utility/CC and if it gets in a few hits, then it’s a just bonus.

The current situation is a no win. Just watch the QQ come the next patch. If Anet overdoes it, people will complain that pets chased them down the whole time. The alternative would be the ranger community asking wth got fixed? It’s still not hitting enough when targets are running! They need to do something outside of the box as this is a futile exercise.

Danielle Mesmorie.7864:

Aridia.3042:

No name, no lvling, no permanent death, no attachment.

There is a name isn’t there?

If Anet introduces leveling or permanent death to GW2 pets, they better get ready for the kittenstorm thats coming their way from the forums! (OMG GRIND, OMG Ranger class is broken!)

You’re not naming pets in this game; you’re naming slots.

Pets have as much attachment lvl as a toothbrush ATM because they feel completely disposable.

I cared more about my wolf in L2 than I do all my pets here. I had to quest for him, lvl him, feed him, arm him and if I don’t res him after after a certain period, he dies permanently.

Loki.4871:

That’s your opinion. Mine is that until the pet issues are fixed there’s little point crying over them, especially when it’s a class specifically designed to work with and rely on the pet.

That’s a pipe dream. It’ll never be fixed.

I’ve yet to see a balanced bot implemented in a pvp game. Make them hit on the run consistently and it’s over powered because you’ve doubled the damage source but the target only has the same amount of mitigation. Make them dumb like they are now, and your DPS goes down.

It’s futile to try and find this “balance”. When you’re talking about a PVP game, it should be you playing the toon, not letting the bot do half of your work. Damage ratio has to and always should be put towards the player and not the bot.

I don’t know why Anet is trying to reinvent the wheel. LOL, no one will take this game seriously when you have to watch a person getting pwned by a bot.

And no, please don’t try to argue hitting attack and withdraw involves skill. This class is not only broken ATM, it’s extremely shallow. All the suggestions so far involves only sliding the class to the extremes of either Skynet bot going on a rampage or removing it all together. There’s a happy medium in there some where.

No name, no lvling, no permanent death, no attachment.

naediian.8569:

Ever Tried QZ with Rapid fire?

Not the same thing. You’re still firing 10 shots in the volley, only you do it supposedly in half the time.

Higher number of shots, the smaller the damage per arrow and the more opportunity for you to miss and for the target to dodge. It’s always better to take fewer shots and ideally to deliver your damage in a single pay load. Just look at backstabs on thieves or killshots on warriors.

I would go even lower than 8. Warrior rifle volley has 5…

Make this 7 so we can squeeze a few more arrows out when you stack rapid fire with barrage.

There’s a happy medium in there. If the pet is put onto passive mode, NOT stowed away, then the missing dps should be folded into the ranger.

Then it’s up to you to manage you pet to suit your needs. This class needs to be more complex. And stowing the pet away for a pure buff or making pets being able to hit constantly on the move is not the answer. Both are set it and forget it type of options and makes for very shallow gameplay.

Got Swift Flight quiver.

Of course, it’s only after I got it that they talk about lowering the requirements.

Hopefully, they’ll nerf the requirements for ascending it. 250 ectos is a bit outrageous at the current drop rates.

Wow, Christmas is arriving early this year.

Volundarhus.7815:

Generally people don’t switch from Rifle to Harpoon gun, whereas you could switch from Longbow to Shortbow – no problems, for great benefit.

Not sure I understand your concern.

You can currently use dual bows with those traits already. So are you suggesting a dual bow setup is overpowered?

It’s nice to see SotH getting bumped to 25%. Thanks for that Jon.

Well, here’s another quick fix suggestion that’s in the same vein which helps to bump the ranger back on equal footing with other classes.

Combine Piercing Arrow and Quick Draw into one trait so it’s the same as Crackshot on the Warrior. This is no different than SotH. If you guys are happy with Crackshot the way it is which gives piercing and 20% faster cool down in one trait, then logic dictates that an equivalent trait on the ranger won’t be unbalanced.

Any chance of this happening?