Guild Wars 2

Porknails.3415:

Ah, i wasnt paying much attention to conditions, so much cleanse they are pretty much useless.

There is a lot of cleanse, sure. But the condis the Necro provides are on pulsing fields so they just reapply in many cases. Dropping Darkness on a melee train push that pulses chill and blind is quite powerful.

The wells do more than just damage. They also strip boons. If you take chilling shadows they also spam AE chill. As does plague form. The Necro is also very sturdy thanks to 40+k effective health.

Staff allows for AE regen, a poison field, a AE chill, unblockable fear. Blast finisher etc.

Has quite a lot of utility.

Necro provides A LOT more to the group than just piercing life blasts.

But to your actual question, a Ranger could. The downfall is retaliation though as RF through a crowd will end up getting you killed surprisingly fast. It doesn’t have the same impact on Necros because they’re in Deathshroud and generate life force with life transfer.

Ranger is faster, sure. But few classes are actually capable of catching an Ele.

And I hope I didn’t give the impression Ranger is bad in zergs. The pet is, but any class with a 1 button (and the Ranger has a 2 button!) are fine. It’s organized WvW (GvGs and guild groups) where the class suffers.

And by suffers a case could be made that the class isn’t necessarily bad (it is imo…) but rather the niche it fills isn’t wanted/needed.

It’s not ranged classes get hate. No one hates Eles or Mesmers. No one hated Mages or Warlocks in WoW. It’s the pet. Having a pet makes leveling quite easy regardless of how the Ranger plays (and lets be honest… a lot of Rangers made one specifically to pew pew) so a player never really learns how to play until they’re at max level at which point the learning curve is quite steep to be trying to figure out how to play a class properly and competetively.

Now as for the hate… GW2 has a DPS handicap for ranged classes. On top of this, they have a DPS handicap for the pet. Since most players made Rangers to play ranged, and most players found little/no reason to use any other pet than bear while leveling, most players are using a Longbow and a Bear and expecting them to work at 80 in dungeons, Wvw, and PvP. It doesn’t.

The class is also not wanted because a lot of people know how poorly implemented pets are in this game. A lot of classes have access to kittenty AI elements just like the Ranger’s pet. When the majority of the class’s group utility is tied to this kittenty AI element that most players are familiar with, they don’t want the class around.

The last issue is the class doesn’t have a real niche to fill. Overtime the few things the class did excel at have been taken over by other classes (because they do it better with none of the tradeoffs the Ranger has to make) or they were nerfed with little/no compensation elsehwere. This is why the class isn’t attractive in competetive WvW and PvP.

So the hate is justified and both the players and the class are at fault. But the class still has a niche or 2 to fill… the question is if/when this niche will ever be valuable.

IMO of course.

Problem #1: The class mechanic is quite poor because the pet doesn’t work in larger engagements (large meaning 5+) or if there’s a sup arrow cart raining down on you.

Problem #2: Almost all group utility the class provides is on the pet. So this ties in to problem #1 plus there are other issues due to poor pet AI and balance.

Problem #3: The class is strong as single target condi bunker playstyle, single target melee, and long range burst. Now while these are all great, most organized teams don’t have a use for these so you don’t see many Rangers in PvP, GvG, or guild WvW.

Problem #4: Mobility is difficult to explain. It’s not awful. But it’s certainly not at Warrior, Thief, or Ele levels. The problem with this is the role the Ranger needs to fill competes directly with these classes and these classes provide more damage/utility/survivability. Especially when you try and build around damage/utility/survivability. You’ll find you sacrifice more of the other categories than most classes need to sacrifice making the Ranger far more specialized and less attractive to groups.

Good thing #1: The class is very straight forward and easy to pick up for new players. The pet mechanic allows you to play either melee or ranged very easily. This is also a bad thing as you never learn to play melee or ranged ‘well’.

Good thing #2: Damage is competetive with other top tier classes in dungeons. While you’ll want to use Sword or Greatsword, there’s no excuse for a group to drop a Ranger. Especially since the utility the class provides is rather unique. Now getting a group to accept a second Ranger could be difficult.

Good thing #3: If you enjoy unorganized PvP/WvW you’ll probably have a blast. The class does very well following a zerg or playing in adhoc havoc groups. PvP is similar with unranked queue or just finding a quick pick-up group.

So that’s my opinion. Now that you have a thread where no 2 posts agree with one-another, I wish you the best of luck. At the very least you should give the class a shot in PvP at 20 (I think this is when it unlocks now?). It has a lot of quirks you’ll need to figure out on your own (the pet, the 1 handed sword, just what ranger mobility is like in reality) that no forum poster is going to agree on.

A Juvenile Wolf… because I relogged…

There are a couple issues…. for starters, WvW fails to attract new players because GW2 fails to attract new players. How would you attract players to WvW when the game hasn’t changed in 2 years? Sure we’ve seen some minor things like WXP and the borderland bloodlust, but the gameplay is still exactly the same as it was 2.5 years ago. Not to mention it’s an unbalanced mess.

On top of that there’s simply no reason to WvW. The majority of people do it because there’s simply nothing else to do. They burn through the new PvE content in a day or 2 and there’s nothing left to do in GW2 with your friends and family but WvW.

There’s also no lasting sense of accomplishment behind WvW. There’s very little server pride left. No one cares if they win or lose. They just go out there, run around like chickens with their heads cut off and try to eek out the last few ounces of enjoyment the game has to offer while they wait for something else to come out.

The above posters who want to pretend rewards don’t matter are naive. The only thing that matters in MMOs is character progression. GW2 has none in WvW so the game mode suffers.

Reward players properly for time and effort and they’ll come back.

Make their time and effort actually matter and they’ll stay.

So much has changed? I’ve been playing every day and haven’t seen much change at all. Certainly not for the better. Guess I should go find my rose colored glasses

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Copestetic.5174:

Just out of curiosity, as I must have missed the rant(s) about it on the forums during one of my numerous breaks. But what’s wrong with Spirit Watch? I’ve always enjoyed the map since it’s not just about capping nodes.

certain professions are able to ascend the spirit ball, much, much better than any other professions.

I doubt that’s the reason. Anet has done very little to ensure the classes are equally represented in PvP.

How is interrupting and/or dodging the attack passive?

As to the APM issue, a lot of skills have a .5 second cast time and are considered sufficiently countered. I really see no problem. Especially when you factor in the random nature of the F2 skill and the pre-activation of using forage needs to be compensated for some as well.

But if .5 is honestly too short, then we can worry about it after the fact. As if anything discussed on the Ranger forum will reach ANet’s ears.

Counterplay is easy. You simply put a .5 second cast time on it when you try and use the foraged item and make it have a distinct animation. Use the same animation when you throw siege for example but instead of a crate you have a glowy pile of muck,

Should change the mainhand axe into a thrown dagger with identical skills for the mainhand. This way main hand axe can be turned into a real, burst oriented melee weapon.

Staff is also a no-brainer given how terrible this class is with utility/group support. Since so little has changed to improve the Ranger’s useless status in WvW since the game came out, the only way to make it useful is going to be a new weapon entirely dedicated to WvW support.

I think the first attack should just summon fast moving spirit wolves (like the one summoned when 3x rangers use call of the wild) that has a fixed life span of like 5 seconds. So that way if you use the attack far away it may only hit the target once. If you use it point blank you could have a whole pack of spirit wolves on the target chomping away. Better still if you use QZ to get even more wolves.

That would be kinda unique in this game and could be a lot of fun. Would also allow a little versatility in how the staff is used (melee vs range). The only downside I see is it would have the same problem mesmer clones have in zergs where they don’t actually reach the target.

Another skill on the staff could actually sacrifice these wolves. Say you entangle a target in brambles, all the active wolves turn to ‘wisps’ and charge at the target detonating on impact just like a shatter mesmer.

But anyway, could be fun.

I’m not sure where the confusion is coming from…

Select Pig…
Press F2…
Pig Forages
F2 is changed to foraged item for 30 seconds while F2 Forage skill is on cooldown.
Press F2 again to use the foraged item. The item is shot from the Ranger instead of the pet for LOS/range purposes.
Once used, the F2 skill reverts to the Forage skill and remains on cooldown for the remainder of the time.

I think that’s broken down as simply as possible so there can be no more confusion. This is exactly what I said in my response to the OP (I didn’t make this thread btw).

something that would be very ‘engineery’ would be power gloves. One giant gauntlet hand and the other a claw.

Shoot the claw, grab someone and pull them to you. Gauntlet hand has a jet attached so you leap backward then fly forward hitting the opponent really hard. Would be fun.

Any pet with any ability, including the F2, that has more than a half-second cast time needs to be reduced to a half-second.

Any pet with any ability that is channeled, including the F2, needs to follow the player to remain in the firing arc just like a player would if he let go of their mouse and used a skill.

Any pet that drops a useable item should no longer drop said item and instead should just replace the F2 skill with that item so a player no longer needs to weapon swap or pick it up. The F2 ability can still be centered on the player instead of the pet when cast.

That cover most of the mechanical problems?

Reverence.6915:

Jeknar.6184:

Reverence.6915:

10% warrior
25% guardian
25% necromancer
10% elementalist
8% thief
5% mesmer
5% ranger
2% engi

Probably a bit more Rangers nowadays and less mesmers

I’m pretty sure there are more warriors than necros… The rest seen reasonable.

Since the adrenaline nerf on warriors and meteornado nerf on eles, there’s been less of both. Main backline DPS is now double well necro with ele providing more support than DPS, with guards providing more support in the frontline than warriors. The nerfs hit eles a lot harder than warriors though so you still get plenty of warriors but hardly any eles these days, though it depends on the night so I’m assuming near equal populations of both. Some days you call for water field and nothing. Some days you call for banner and nothing. Call for wells or stability though? Plenty of those

Also the pew pew 1500 range LB ranger cancer. Low risk high reward broken balance BS

If it were as bad as you claim why isn’t the Ranger number higher? And is the 1500 LB cancer really any worse than the D/P Thief, Condi Engi, Celes D/D Ele, Medi Guard, or Condi Warrior cancer?

WvW/PvP is a joke in this game.

Is anyone else just entirely done with Marksmanship in PvP? I’m finding I just don’t gain enough by going into the tree in PvP. I still use LB+GS, but I’m using 04640 and 02660 far more often these days. Especially now that TDM is added to the mix.

There’s simply too much LOS blocking terrain and the engagements rarely allow you to stand at max range for very long at all. Against oblivious opponents it’s fine, but they rarely venture outside of WvW.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Garrisyl.7402:

30% Warriors
20% Guardians
15% Elementalist
15% Necro
5% Ranger
5% Mesmer
5% Engineer
5% Thief

Interesting. I’m surprise you see so many Necros and so little Thieves on your server. Maybe It’s just a perception bias I have against Thieves that makes me see so many more than there actually are. Playing almost exclusively staff ele a thief is specially bad news for me unless they really are at their beginning.

His numbers are likely because you didn’t specify what area of WvW you’re focused in. If you’re talking WvW overall I’d expect the class distribution to fall in line with the current meta which is Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer, and Elementalist.

But each aspect of WvW from zerging, to guild groups, to GvGs, and roaming will each have a different spread.

Jeknar.6184:

Atherakhia.4086:

Wasn’t the whole point behind EotM was to test questionable game decisions?

And how they are suposed to make WvW tests on EotM if WvW players hate EotM with passion and never step in there?

Also the players that turned EotM on K-train won’t help with any testing as all they want is their phat lewts.

All this change is going to do is turn WvW into a EotM k-train.

Wasn’t the whole point behind EotM was to test questionable game decisions?

I don’t agree with the OP, but balance is questionable at best at WvW. I realize that WvW isn’t meant to have ‘real’ balance as you can never count on each side having the same number of players or all being at maximum level. But I often question if ANet has even made an attempt to have a balanced game?

Have Rangers ever had a single reason to exist in WvW? Engineers? Any reason to ever have more than 1 Mesmer? These aren’t shifts in the meta that have invalidated these classes. They’ve never had a use other than yakslapper.

It’s much the same in PvP. Has there ever been a time when all 8 classes were represented at the same time?

Perhaps ANet agrees with the player community that it was a complete failure?

When was the last balance patch? September? And the January patch isn’t a balance patch either? So back to 6 months between balance updates?

It would need to have a 10 second cooldown then.

You all are approaching this problem the wrong way. The root of the problem isn’t PBS, but the Ranger’s pet.

PvE is supposed to teach new players how to play the class at a high level to prepare them for ever more difficult content at upper levels. The pet is what deprives new players of this experience. Where other classes learned to kite, save their interrupts as actual interrupts, and use their defensive cooldowns wisely, Rangers need do nothing but stand at max range and assist off a pet set to aggressive through 99.9% of all content in this game.

There’s no other explanation for why PBS is somehow a problem but similar skills for other classes aren’t. And considering the game has been out for 2 years, the pet mechanic still isn’t acceptable, and is easily the worst implemented class ‘feature’ in the game? Seems like a reasonable request to have it looked at.

I mean we all want more skillful play, right?

WvW has been boring for a long time for me because there’s no reason to do it. It’s literally the thing you do when you’re too bored to do something else and for no other reason than you were too bored to do something else.

No rewards, no guild pride, no lasting impact, no nothing.

Straegen.2938:

1. Per the devs: It is too resource intensive to make a new map. They did put in EotM but the WvW community doesn’t consider it part of WvW since it doesn’t directly contribute to the score.

2. Most players PvE. PvE is bigger by a large margin actually. Only a few thousand play WvW compared to hundreds of thousand in PvE. They prioritize their content around use.

The real question is why haven’t we seen crossover content added to the game in 2.5 years. This would include new weapons, new skills (more than the handful put it) and most of all a new class. 2.5 years is a LONG time to go without a significant expansion of some sort.

The problem with this argument is PvP is smaller by far and yet sees significant more attention from the devs. Despite ANets assurance that they want to improve communication with the players, the PvP forum is still the only forum that seems to be read on a consistent basis and is actually responded to. PvP players also get rewarded for their time and effort (not their skill…) whereas WvW players see the least rewards for similar time and effort. Heck, EotM gives more rewards than WvW! We going to pretend the reason for this is because of eSports? For a game as horribly balanced as this?

It’s a shame how little interest ANet has in WvW. This game really could have been special.

Since last season? WvW hasn’t changed much in the past year. I think we’ve seen the addition of Golem Mastery? Colored Commander Tags? That about sum up ANets interest in WvW over the past year?

If your hope is to join the game and experience grand new things in WvW you’ll be very disappointed. If your hope is for more of the same, tired pointless nonsense then WvW is the place to be!

If this were removed Rangers would definitely be 100% useless. They’re already 99.9% useless. Think of the Rangers!

Blast finisher makes the most sense imo. May need a longer cooldown though.

Considering I just came from a 3v5 in courtyard with 40 second respawns and only yielding 50pts a kill, I’m all for this.

On top of this, whenever a game is at a disavdantage within 30seconds of game starts, all those who finish should still get full reward.

It really comes down to knowing what you’re queuing for when you decide to join the queue. While having the ability to save multiple builds to hotswap between would solve some of the issue, I’m sure I’m not the only player out there that wouldn’t even bring the same class.

TDM needs to be on its own queue. Just make an options panel on the PvP pane that lets players choose the game mode they want to queue for. Players can choose to queue for both TDM and Conquest at the same time that way if they honestly don’t care. You could even allow players to ‘sort’ their map choices on this screen so they don’t even need to choose a map anymore. The system will auto select based off their options screen.

But all this shouldn’t preclude ANet from introducing a second (or third, or fourth…) template to swap between per character.

What did each team play?

Three major things to look for:
1.) Do you have a lot of hybrid attacks? Ones that have good power damage and a secondary condition applied on hit.

2.) Do you have access to more than just your heal skill for healing? Can you really use the healing power stat effectively?

3.) Can you stack boons like might on yourself reliably?

If you can answer yes to these questions, then chances are celestial is a reasonable option to consider. This is why Engineers, Elementalists, Warriors, and, to a lesser extent, Thieves make good use of it.

If not this meta it would only be another one. There will always be a ‘best’ when talking about PVE. For nearly 2 years people thought Rangers were the worst class in the game for PvE and I managed to do nearly all PvE content without issue or complaint.

You have 2 options:
1.) Find another group to PvE with.
2.) Adapt to fit into the meta.

See no reason they shouldn’t do this.

You guys desperately need to consider a CDI forum. While I imagine the goal is to have the CDI threads in their respective forums, a forum that acts as a link list to the actual CDI discussions would really help imo.

The OP doesn’t make sense.

Once the system ages some, wouldn’t ‘unskilled’ ranked players just get paired against other ‘unskilled’ players? Eventually you’ll just have tiers where unexperienced players are at the bottom, experienced players are at the middle, and pro players are at the top.

Right?

better watch yourself. ANets solution to this will be to make life force decay overtime when out of combat so a necro always starts at 0 life force.

I don’t play an Engineer, but can’t they double blast and double leap through their own water field? An Ele could blast it 3 times as well? If so, at least it’s not unheard of for a class to have that kind of power with their own Water Field.

It’s also worth noting that a Ranger doesn’t have the kind of sustain an Ele or Engi have. Especially not with a power weapon or a build that would actually use the Greatsword.

I’m honestly on the fence still if giving Maul a blast finisher would be the overpowered given the current state the class is in.

But as to the original topic about bringing the bleed back, I think it would be a waste. If I had to choose one or the other, the blast finisher would obviously be it.

Dhuumfire: When exiting Deathshroud, the Necromancer explodes knocking all targets away 600 units and burning them for 2 seconds. Once burn fades, they are immobilized for 1 second. 20 second cooldown.

If unblockable, will daggerstorm still reflect them? I could see that being a bit overpowered if not.

Hunt needs to just change outright. The class already has a DPS increasing signet in Wild, there’s little reason to have another one. Especially when Hunt just feels like a lazy option in comparison. Ideally it would be some defensive/utility oriented thing so the Ranger had something valuable to provide its group.

As to the trap kit, I agree with the way you want to approach it. The only way to keep it balanced would be to limit the number of traps a Ranger can lay down at once with the cooldown as you described and have each individual trap have a separate cooldown so a Ranger can’t just spam something like frost every 10 seconds. For example, you use a trap and the kit goes on a 10 second cooldown and the trap goes on a 30 second cooldown.

A lot of the issues you describe in this thread are issues in WvW too. The Ranger does great when roaming with a group of Rangers or running in a zerg, but when you try to do something organized (GvG, Guild Groups, and Zerg Busting), the class just doesn’t work.

Alternatively they could either a.) make ascended gear easier to obtain or b.) change ascended gear to have variable stats like legendary weapons currently have.

Rangers are like paintball. A fun side activity that no one takes seriously.

The problem since day 1 has always been rewards. Why bother coming in WvW when PvP offers a far more balanced (lol…) playing environment and rewards you 10x better for your time and effort than WvW does? It’s the same excuse in EotM… same overall format, 5x the reward. And PvE too… invest half the time and effort, get more rewards for that effort.

Rewards…rewards…rewards…

The next problem with WvW is it’s worthless. The only reason to do it is for the lawlz. Not only because of the lack of rewards, but because there’s no lasting benefit for doing well. No lasting hindrance for doing poorly. Heck, there’s no real server identity outside of WvW anymore thanks to mega servers. The whole format is worthless. There needs to be more to WvW than logging in, playing for 30-60mins before you’re bored, then sitting around afk talking to people over guild chat. What made frontiers such a valuable part of DAoC? Why was sieging enemy towns such a driving force in Shadowbane? Why did we want to attack keeps and towers in WAR? Why don’t I care if I log into WvW or not?

The last thing is overall balance. I’ve played the game for 2 years and never once heard a commander ask for more Rangers or Engineers. I’ve heard them ask for a Mesmer (singular). I’ve heard them ask for a Thief (singular) to perma stealth to res said mesmer. Half the classes have nothing to offer other than yak slapping?

Rewards, purpose, and balance… that’s what we need most of all. Stale maps, stale gameplay, and stale strategy can be solved second.

Any pet that didn’t instantly die when I run with a guild group in WvW would be nice.

The numbers are the coefficients stacked. It’s easier to get a rough idea of the damage you’re trying to compare than go through the whole process. And no one is claiming Ranger burst isn’t great. It’s just not better than Thief.

Some of the stuff I agree with, but are you sure the main problem behind the Ranger not getting into the meta is damage? I’m more concerned with what the class is capable of doing for their group and how it defends itself on point.

I don’t think increasing 1h sword’s damage is a good idea. It already does great damage. Similarly, it’s hard to justify increasing GS’s damage if you don’t increase 1h sword because then they’d both do the same damage. I’d much rather see the utility on GS improved than see its damage increased.

Your other changes for 1h sword seem great though. It would be nice if Hornet’s Sting lost the delay in cast and it was put on Monarch’s instead (or perhaps Hornets had an AE, 1 second blind). But a burst skill on 1h sword is absolutely needed. With SS, it just needs to track better. I’m not sure the range is the issue. It just goes too far around.

For greatsword, I’d rather see a blast finisher on maul (but that’s unlikely because it’s probably OP), and also add additional range on hilt bash so it can be used more reliably. Would be nice if Two-Handed training trait provided Fury to the group as well.

I’m also curious if you have any strong opinions on Shortbow? It could really use a high power attack and some help in the condi coverage area. Increasing the stun duration to 2 would also be nice. Pick one of the attacks to triple damage on for some small burst potential.

Your trait changes seem fine. I’m not sure Rangers should need trap potency to get active boon removal though. Right now most classes either have strong ways to stack boons on themselves or ways to counter boon application in someway. Rangers really don’t have either (unless we consider stacking boons on the pet). I say make all ranger traps pulse as some don’t, but make them only pulse for 3 seconds. Each pulse removes a boon.Trap potency can double the pulses to 6 seconds.

On the Ranger forums some people suggested changing Strider’s Defense to simply reflect projectiles whenever the Ranger dodges. Seemed fun but I’m not sure how ANet feels about Rangers being the best counters to Rangers.

I’d also like to see something more done to allow a power oriented melee build sustain better on point. At least if maul was a blast finisher they could blast a poison trap for AE weakness. What if a trait existed that gave the animal attacks (Maul, Swoop, Serpent Strike, etc) a secondary effect? Perhaps in NM line?

The last thing I’m curious about is how prevelent spirit spam is these days? Is screen clutter still a problem?