Guild Wars 2

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Atherakhia.4086:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

DeceiverX.8361:

5 seconds is a long time.

So I will agree with LF berserker necro, as it will undeniably yield the highest damage throughput in that long of a period.

Otherwise, FA ele followed by D/D stab thief.

A d/d thief does not have higher burst than a ranger in 5 secs.

In 5 seconds a Thief will backstab twice, cloak and dagger, and go through 2 dagger cycles. If that’s right, it comes out to 10.32.

Ranger will RF, 1x Sword Cycle, and a Path of Scars + a pet F2? That’s 6.85 + whatever for the pet. And that’s not repeatable.

Even if you don’t want to factor in a second backstab, it still wins.

No sword auto on ranger or you lose damage. You start with barrage, rapid fire after, and instant path of scars. Jaguar does not have a “special ability”, its just an instant stealth for 6 secs where it has +25% crit.

That’s only 9.75 and I’m pretty sure no one would consider this burst or even practical :/

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

DeceiverX.8361:

5 seconds is a long time.

So I will agree with LF berserker necro, as it will undeniably yield the highest damage throughput in that long of a period.

Otherwise, FA ele followed by D/D stab thief.

A d/d thief does not have higher burst than a ranger in 5 secs.

In 5 seconds a Thief will backstab twice, cloak and dagger, and go through 2 dagger cycles. If that’s right, it comes out to 10.32.

Ranger will RF, 1x Sword Cycle, and a Path of Scars + a pet F2? That’s 6.85 + whatever for the pet. And that’s not repeatable.

Even if you don’t want to factor in a second backstab, it still wins.

Khenzy.9348:

I’ll play the devil’s advocate here: Will there be balance changes?

I highly doubt it, but you bring up a good point. Didn’t ANet say in the past that they want balance changes to be more frequent? We’re back in the 4-6mo time frame again, aren’t we?

Medi Guard and Shatter Mesmer are also high on the list. Discharge Engi.

A better question would probably be which class can deliver this kind of burst the easiest and most often?

Change it to launch foes like banish does with the same activation as PBS but melee ranged and allow it to do the same damage as maul. I could get on board with that.

Or we could just leave it as is. Your call.

If anything, maybe the changes will encourage other classes to stop running around in full berserker gear. Though even this is unlikely given how easy it is for the other berserker classes to rip through a Ranger and nullify the range advantage they have.

I’m honestly surprised that as powerful as RF now is, so little has honestly changed other than we actually see Rangers more often (but not any more successful).

They drop. Just rare.

I’m with the sigil and rune crowd. When these changes came in is when we saw the Elementalist skyrocket back into the meta. Celestial was just icing on the cake. Even if not for the Ele and Engi issue, these sigils and runes likely need attention anyway seeing as how nearly every spec for every class is using them.

Simon.3794:

I believe ranger’s longbow is way stronger then warrior’s, please buff warrior’s longbow on the way as well.

Is that why every warrior in PvP runs longbow and no Rangers even exist in PvP?

I think you’re approaching it in a reasonable way, but I’m not sure changing Vulnerability and traits would be enough to bring condis up to a level that they could compete with power builds in PvE.

There’s also the unfortunate impact all these changes would have on WvW/PvP where condition builds are already seen as a plague to the game and have been pretty dominant for the past 2 years.

Until power builds and condition builds require similar investments stat wise, it doesn’t seem reasonable to expect them to be competetive DPS wise.

I assume this is PvE?

Most mobs attack the target with the most toughness and the closest. Undead are an exception to this and I’m sure there are others as well but don’t know of any off-hand (and I’ve done none of the Season 2 living story stuff).

Properly reward players for effort. Why do PvPers invest nothing but time and they receive unique armor, PvE rewards, numerous free finishers, and tons of high value rewards while WvW players get nothing but 10% of the loot a PVE player gets with none of the bonus loot from dungeons etc?

Another issue is the fact that WvW is worthless. It has no impact on anything. There’s no point to do it other than boredom. It needs to have a lasting impact on the player/guild/server.

Finally, additional content. We either need new maps, mini games, something. ANYTHING to show this game mode hasn’t been absolutely ignored for 2 years. WXP, the failed borderland bloodlust, and the loss of a giant useless ocean in the middle of the map isn’t much for 2 years.

Control right click?

Gabe, why do you consider Guardian and Mesmer Staff to be weak? Is it the weapons are truly weak or is it more along the lines of the weapons not having enough to offer during the 10 seconds you swap to them while you wait to swap back out?

Both weapons are enormously strong and are not uncommon at all. But they are both more support oriented and suffer from any role outside of that imo. Is this the issue you have? Lack of offensive value?

…I don’t know what’s going on in here…

Another list of players… would be nice to know what class(es) they play. What good is a list of names…

Ranger: Shortbow. No reason to use in condi builds or power builds.

Ranger: Greatsword. Fills the same DPS role as sword at 20% less damage and about the same utility.

At the very least, it would be nice if the elite slot could be used by anything. I’m sure Ele’s would much rather use another utility skill than waste a slot on one of their elites.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re the best at it.

Ele should have no trouble escaping a Ranger, but more due to their numerous kiting skills and not straight up movement skills (which they have plenty of).

Kiting a Guardian is also a pain but they’ll fail at the straight line challenge if you can survive.

Engis are also another one of those ‘technically can’ classes, but they can escape just as easy.

Ranger really is middle of the pack when it comes to kiting and escaping imo.

[edit…] I also wanted to add that this is in the contect of LB/GS. Shortbow is actually amazing at kiting.

I prefer swoop over sword. Swoop travels further and is more immediate. The animation delay for the sword leap to go off is annoying. The GS also has more valuable group utility imo. Sword is great for dueling.

IMO anyway.

I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. The Ranger has always been a pretty strong dueling class. Power Ranger not so much, but condi certainly. But as a power Ranger, they can certainly hold their own against most of the non-meta builds. I’d argue that 00606 thief builds, medi guards, cele eles/engis, and the like (these builds tend to be more mobile than Rangers or provide significant sustain+range damage) present significant problems, but this is still all related to dueling.

It’s group play the Ranger really suffers. If they worked better in groups they’d be more common in the GvG and PvP scene. Part of it is the lack of mobility/escape options as mentioned, some of from an outright lack of utility (or unreliable utility since the bulk of it’s on the pet), and some of it is the niche the power Ranger fills just isn’t valuable in the current dynamic of the game (ranged single target burst).

Personally, I think the group utility angle is the one most in need of repair. At least then we’d some some Ranger, regardless of spec, start to show up in the meta in WvW and PvP. The mobility/escape issue is kind of unique to LB/GS play imo.

Would simply changing Healing Spring to a ground targeted AE do the trick for group utility? At the very least it would allow non-melee oriented builds to provide onpoint/melee train support. The lack of strong onpoint/melee train utility is probably the largest thing holding back Rangers atm imo.

What about changing the Two-Handed trait to provide the fury bonus to the group? While it may promote passive play, the uptime is still only about 50% (or that should be the goal anyway) which is similar to what other classes can provide to their groups.

What about making Maul a blast finisher? A blast and leap finisher while also having your own water field is quite a lot for a single class. But Engis can do this too, right (I don’t have an Engi)?

Alternatively, what if making maul a blast finisher was dependent on a trait? Like a Nature Magic trait that gave all ‘animal’ attacks a unique bonus. By animal attack I mean things like Maul, Swoop, Serpent Strike, etc. Not necessarily a blast finisher in each case, but something more group oriented.

Well I certainly agree with you that I wouldn’t want to wait for this game to be balanced for new content to arrive. But we have certain classes that have never had a use in specific areas of the game. Necromancers in PvE, Rangers in WvW, etc. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a single PvP tournement that represented all 8 classes in the top 5 either.

Considering the game has been out 2 years I would have expected the game to be at the point now where balance was merely a numbers game and slight adjustments on skills would be all that was needed. That’s a pipedream here unfortunately. And one balance update every 4-6 months only ensures things will never change.

My only concern with ANet introducing new weapons is the game still isn’t properly balanced. For the half that are the new weapons would be new toys they’d get to use to break out of their current mold and develop exciting new strategies and playstyles.

For the other half they’ll get nothing but a useless weapon that does nothing but fills in the gaping holes the class currently suffers from and will still be far behind the others because of their new weapons.

I’d also hope new weapons actually did something for the class. Take Ranger for example… while a rifle would be a fun weapon to see added would it be sufficiently different than a longbow since they already have a single target burst weapon? Or should we give them a staff so they can turn into more of a druid with cool nature spells and a lot of group utility.

Overhaul everything!

Introduce a new tab in the wallet for our collectables so they no longer are limited to stacks of 250. Refund gems to those who bought the expanders! This way I can finally free up my 8+ 20 slot bags filled with nothing but ascended mats that will never have a functional use in the game.

Once this is done, remove character specific crafting and instead make them account bound so a character can access any craft from any character regardless of the one they’ve logged into (if you know the same craft multiple times, only the highest is selectable. To choose the other you must be on that specific character). Refund gems for those who paid for a 3rd craft! Or, introduce Tradesmen!

To stream line crafting further they can sell us ‘tradesmen’ that we can install in our home instance. Each tradesmen can be assigned a craft that the player has researched on one of their characters. This selection is permanent.

The tradesman will have an interface much like the normal crafting one where you can choose an item you want them to make. They’ll then give you 3 options. Either craft the item and mail it to you because you had enough materials to do it. They’ll alert you that you are missing required components and email you a list of the items you need. Finally, they’ll give you the option to simply have them purchase the additional items needed and charge a convenience fee for doing so.

Jim Hunter.6821:

The op is right, the ranger pet is just too darn good. Anet should really change the rangers class mechanic to make things fair for everyone else.

I see what you’re trying to do… and I approve of this message.

Just to interject an alternative approach into the discussion, the answer doesn’t necessarily have to be damage. It could be in the form of utility too.

If greatsword offered more group value to offset the DPS value 1h sword had, it would also have a place in this game. The problem really is the 2 weapons fill the same role.

While possibly overpowered, maul being a blast finisher would instantly make GS more valuable than sword. Two-Handed training granting fury to a group (~50% uptime) would also be valuable.

They could also introduce traits to make the ‘animal’ attacks on weapons provide something unique. Since the GS has 2, it may elevate it above 1h Sword.

Also worth discussing is Hilt Bash. It needs to have its range increased so the skill can be used more reliably on targets that aren’t actively running directly at us or standing still. Just another 100-150 on it would move all the difference in the world.

Are there really that many complaints about Shadow Refuge? Usually people are complaining about the Shadow Arts line or Feline Grace. Haven’t seen a refuge complaint in quite some time…

The downed skill will res the pet and then command it to heal. The pet is likely on passive and will walk back to the Ranger once knocked away. Are you certain it’s actually healing the Ranger too?

GOSU.9574:

Atherakhia.4086:

To be fair, this game is seperated into 3 parts, not 2. WvW, while typically rolled into PvE conversations, is a rather unique and isolated game mode in and of itself.

There honestly shouldn’t be unique rewards for PvP. They should be shared with WvW and since skill plays a much smaller part than simple time invested, I can’t think of any logical reason for there to be a split.

Are you really suggesting WvW is skill based? It is just zerg v zerg for the overwhelming population of WvW participants. Also, do you really consider EotM the same mode as WvW? EotM is just a farm train environment, again for the overwhelming population of participants.

I do agree WvW could use it’s own set of reward tracks and it needs far better loot than it currently has, but again this isn’t the thread for that discussion.

Not at all what I’m saying. All I’m saying is the rewards received in PvP have about as much to do with skill as those received in WvW (…none…). It’s all a grind, and if it’s never going to amount to more, why not just share the rewards between systems?

MailMail.6534:

What do you mean shared with WvW? That would be hard to do logistically. Let me remind you that PvP players didn’t start receiving legit rewards until last Wintersday 2013… Suggesting that PvP shouldn’t have unique rewards is ludicrous. Now, if you think WvW should have unique rewards, then again, that’s another thread.

I’m not a wvwer, but I do think it takes skill. Zerging is not hard to do, but coordination of players is. No one should know this better than a pvper. I don’t think WvW should receive any haterade from us PvPers.

WvW players haven’t started receiving legit rewards since… ever. I’m simply saying that the rewards they’re providing in PvP have less to do with skill and more to do with time invested and there’s little reason they can’t be shared between modes.

MailMail.6534:

Ohoni.6057:

NO UNIQUE PVP REWARDS.

To me, the sPvP system was in its ideal state when the game launched. It did not interact in any way with the rest of the game, and that was perfect. It’s since been made worse and worse, making it so that in some ways, those who PvP regularly can get a leg up on PvE players due to the different reward structure. If you enjoy PvP, that’s great, go ahead and PvP, but stop trying to lure PvE players over to the dark side with bribery, we don’t want to go.

I say this with as much tact as possible (which I guess isn’t much), but you are a lunatic for this statement. PvP players will NEVER get a leg up on PvErs. Look at the last 2 years. Case closed.

I implore you to read this thread and understand the math given on the difference between dungeon running and dungeon reward tracks. How is this a leg up on PvErs? Reward tracks in their current state rewards those few PvErs who max out dungeon runs then come over to PvP to get more non-diminishing returns on dungeon rewards.

A lot of PvErs enjoy the idea of PvPing, but the implementation is what’s not keeping them there. Also, the pvp community is notorious for being toxic. That also doesn’t help. To get back on track, PvErs would stay in PvP if the rewards were worth it to them. That’s simply a fact.

To be fair, this game is seperated into 3 parts, not 2. WvW, while typically rolled into PvE conversations, is a rather unique and isolated game mode in and of itself.

There honestly shouldn’t be unique rewards for PvP. They should be shared with WvW and since skill plays a much smaller part than simple time invested, I can’t think of any logical reason for there to be a split.

It should be obvious there are players that play multiple game modes given how sharply the PvP population rose when the unique backpack skin was made available. I do it from time to time out of boredom because if there’s one area the devs spend even less time and energy at than PvP it’s WvW.

In my opinion, the reward tracks take too long to work through. I’d prefer each track was quicker and non-repeatable for that week/month and a ‘filler’ track was introduced that never ended that just awarded the random rewards like skill points, levels, and reagents between the resets.

PvP just isn’t fun for me because I don’t like conquest mode (prefer CTF), I only play with my brother and close friend and we don’t enjoy sitting in team queue for 10mins between games, and there’s nothing to do with the PvP rewards than PvP with them as the game mode is too isolated from the rest of the game.

Things have improved slightly over the past 2 years, but overall the pet is still more of a hindrance than a asset. Especially if you do anything involving more than 2-5 targets in a confined area.

I’m with Baldrick… there’s simply no point to WvW in this game other than you’re too bored to do anything else. There aren’t proper rewards for skill or time invested.

daydream.2938:

Still not sure what time of day this is?!

One would assume Noon PST tomorrow.

Shaogin.2679:

Having a bunker build that deals damage by stacking might is in no way a bad thing. It is interesting game play, and encourages more diversity by making boon removal more valuable.

Also, Engi’s have never been “just a turret spec.” Ever. Turret builds are gimmicks that only work against unskilled players. Prior to celestial engi was the still-meta rabid condi engi. Celestial ammy didn’t bring engi into meta, it just made a might-stacking build more viable, as I already stated.

The problem with that style of play is that boon removal isn’t properly distributed between the classes. You create unfair matchups if you play a class that can neither stack boons or counter them. If you want to ignore the issues related to might stacking and the like, perhaps the conversation should shift to effective counterplay to boons in general?

Shaogin.2679:

NeXeD.3042:

It has been made easier to obtain might stacks. Certain classes just need to have a decrease in blast finishers or fire fields. Cele is almost useless on some classes… it’s the stacking not the amulet. Sure people will still complain about Cele engis and eles sustaining too well while dealing damage but they won’t be hitting like mac trucks anymore.

Stacking might back then was just as easy as it is now. The stats from the celestial amulet are what has changed, and of course benefit actual hybrid builds more. And the last thing that needs to be nerfed is blasting fire fields. This is a form of actively building might stacks, rather than passively building might stacks every time I swap a kit or land a crit via sigils.

Celestial stats did change, but it wasn’t what introduced Engis and Eles into the meta… it only solidified it. Rune and Sigil changes is what brought the Elementalist into meta overnight and allowed Engis to move beyond just turret spec.

Nerfing the sigils and runes makes more sense than changing celestial or nerfing mechanics/classes. But in reality it’s probably a case of all 3 probably needing to be toned down if things can be thrown out of whack this easily.

Runewolf.8456:

My only problem with rapid fire tracking into stealth is that you HAVE to use both dodges if you want to avoid the damage which on non-dodge centered thief builds means you pretty much are gonna get instant killed by any ranger with a longbow, cause even if you evade RF your gonna get hit by the pet and whatever other bow skills/alt set skills that will eat your health bar, and it’s on such a low CD that you can’t even kill them before it’s up again.

Also in my experience no other channel shooting skills track when people stealth (reliably) unload doesn’t unless they stand in place same with the warrior rifle rapid fire
so why should the ranger’s rapid fire do so?

You’re mistaken.

They need to do both. Just buffing results in power creep and we’re no better off because instead of a nonstop cycle of nerfs we end up with a nonstop cycle of buffs. It’s actually more detrimental because the all buffs approach to game design tends to remove individual class identity (something this game doesn’t have much of to begin with).

I’d like to get some other people’s opinion on some things not entirely related to the OP’s suggestions, but perhaps some additional ones worth trying…

Two-Handed Training: Would this trait be overpowered if the fury was shared with your group? While the cooldown is short, the fury uptime is still about even with a Warrior spamming FGS. And that has the potential to heal and provides might. It could also remove a condition depending on gear.

Healing Well: Would changing this skill to a ground targeted AE instead of a PBAE be too much effort for players to deal with? Would it overpower the class in any fashion?

caveman.5840:

coglin.1867:

caveman.5840:

rapid fire is the one channeled skill that u need to use both dodges just to dodge part of the skill ….

it stands out from all channeled skills because most of the skills can be dodged in one move .

I can not agree that they should change all channeled skills .
because no other channeled skill has as many multiple hits as rapid fire
with that kind of range and damage

it makes blind and ageis useless

but ranger should be buffed in return for any changes to rapid fire

I think changing the stealth tracking rapid fire would be a good change ….
but what is buffed in return is yet to be decided

There are a great deal of factually false statements here. Such as stating that you need two dodges to avoid the entire skill. That is false. As well, there are multiple skulls that offer 10 hits and have the exact same duration or more. I can only guess you are making statements about other professions, without having experience playing them.

name one channeled skill with the number of hits as rapid fire
the range/damage
and cool down

and can u dodge rapid fire in one dodge ?
like most channeled skills ‘_’ ???

What difference does it make how many times it hits? All that matters is the channel duration. Volley is your one skill, which hasn’t changed in 2 years.

infantrydiv.1620:

How do you think might stacking should be dealt with as it pertains to the current meta?

That’s also an interesting question since there seems to be 2 camps… some think it’s the might, others think it’s the cele. Would love to hear opinions on this too.

I always like hearing what the top tier competitive players think of overall class balance. It would be interesting to hear their take on not only the classes they play, but perhaps the classes that don’t get much play and why. Perhaps even their takes on how they would improve those classes so they would enter the competitive scene.

caveman.5840:

life blast u can dodge

that one blast may still hit u in stealth but u cant keep casting them
u lose LOS

where rapid fire is one skill with multiple hits

What is the point you’re trying to make with multiple hits?

Unload tracks through stealth.
Spatial Surge tracks through stealth.
Arc Lightning tracks through stealth.
Flame jet tracks through stealth.
Kill shot tracks through stealth.
Volley tracks through stealth.
I’m sure there are many more.

Some of these even require multiple dodges to avoid all the damage. It’s not a Ranger issue. It’s a game issue.

Sinject:

That’s a very naive approach to discern if a class is balanced or not. Few classes pair ferocity and precision in a single trait line. Those that do often have traits in that trait line that support those stats unlike the Ranger with predominately condition traits in a precision/ferocity tree.

But Necromancers, Thieves, and Mesmer all get by devoting a disproportionate number of traits into their offensive statlines. Then we compare things like Guardians and Elementalists that invest a disproportionate number of traits in their defensive lines and manage to burst players down instead of simply sustain.

The other major problem with your argument is that despite Rangers being ‘overpowered’, they still aren’t part of the WvW, PvP, GvG, or competetive WvW meta. Of the select few that actually do succeed in these areas, most aren’t even using your 6/5+///* build. They’re actually playing condi.

I’m indifferent on this topic though. If ANet wants to change tracking through stealth, as long as they do it evenly for all classes at the same time I couldn’t care less. But it’s a tough pill to swallow when people claim Rangers are overpowered when they aren’t dominating a single aspect of this game. They aren’t even relevant in most of them.

While I’ll agree the mobility for Elementalists in particular is quite high, why do you think it’s the thing that made them overpowered? Their mobility has always been high and really hasn’t been buffed that much since they changed RtL 1.5 years ago or so.

Elementalists really didn’t start showing up and becoming a problem until after the rune and sigil changes and focusing our attention there makes more sense imo. Cele just made things work because it allowed hybrid builds that could also stack might maintain very high power and condition damage while benefiting from all the defensive stats. I’d still argue that might stacking is the issue over cele though.

NinjaEd.3946:

Azel.4786:

Solori.6025:

Updating the sword auto would be wonderful

And I would raise you the swap the Sword #2 skills.

Solori.6025:

reverting the nerfs to shortbow now that LB has been buffed I think is neccessary, because compared to what Axe has going for it now, the shortbow isn’t as useful ( speaking from a 1v1 perspective)

I love the SB despite the heavy nerfs it took and always remembering ANET stealth nerf to it 2 years back when I use it – ANET still owes and apology for that in my book.

I would change it differently though, I believe that #1 is not bad, it just needs to remove that position requirement. At least Eagle Eye should also affect the SB, extending its range and buffing its damage, it would be a nice change – SB needs some traits for it.

SB #2, in my opinion, should change to a single arrow that consolidates the Poison duration and a buffed damage due to the single shot, and #4 should have a longer cripple duration and/or have a short duration immobilize as well. #5 is good in my opinion.

You mean swap the withdraw-leap to leap-withdraw? Hell yeah! Would be a huge QoL fix to sword imo although it’s not a bad weapon.

As for shortbow, I think all condition auto attacks should be adjusted to follow crossfire. Mindless cover up condition pressure should not be in this game, skills like engineer pistol aa and crossfire are imo the best designed because they either A) keep that 1 little variety condition in there or require some thought and can be countered.

Now I know ranger sb isn’t the best condi weapon but the 2-5 skills should be utility and condition spikes. Some weapon sets in addition to being on sets that can kite well let the aa just put out too much for little effort. For example, you can’t exactly clear a whole lot of conditions when the auto attack is putting out a damaging one every time, you’re just back to square one unless you wipe the slate clean with skills like contemplation of purity or consume conditions. Immobilized for long? Hard to get it off w/o a skill specifically removing it because of that auto attack bleed or burn or w/e.

I’m kind of surprised eagle eye doesn’t touch sb yet quickdraw and piercing arrows effect both. SB 2 is nice because it pierces and works great when shot gunned but it does seem odd to have an aoe skill on a single target weapon set. #4 is fine imo, just needs a little better bleed duration like 7 seconds (currently 5 despite tooltip, hopefully they don’t just fix the tooltip again…).

I’d rather they didn’t make Shortbow a pure condi weapon. Model it after pistol for Thief. While a powerful condi weapon, it actually has pretty strong burst skills as well. If Shortbow saw a small burst option added to one skill, torment added to another, and perhaps the stun duration increased or the cooldown reduced, it would be a great weapon for power or condi builds.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Azel.4786:

Solori.6025:

AI is faulty, I agreed with this already, but it is faulty for everyone. No what I am asking is what could be done differently to increase the efficiency of a class who has to have a pet out at all times. In my experience, mostly in WvW and roaming, this pet is more a buff than a hindrance.

I will level with you so as to help more productive talk. You did well in the videos, in some situations you could have used a different pet, could have send it to attack more, etc, but in general you didn’t play poorly.

The fact remains though that you took a more conservative approach in your play and, although it reduces the chances of you losing your pet, it also reduces the effectiveness of the pet – but you generally have little other option.

End result is: Ranger class, by design, has its DPS split 70%-75% on Ranger and 25%-30% on Pet – and, as a result of this, by design, in the situations you played, except for one in which your pet contributed heavily to the fight, your potential in those videos were lower than if you played any other class in the game – thus they were a loss to you and your team – something no other class mechanic causes to its players.

I feel like you have an unhealthy obsession with this 25-30% you put in every one of your posts. My zerker ranger is built in a way that my damage from my pet is only meant to be maybe 10% of my total output. So keeping my pet by my side for utility purposes in zerg fights is not costing me 25% damage. If it is, then my god would my ranger be overpowered if I were doing 25% more damage than 3.5k autos. Yeah I’m glassy as kitten, and I know it. But you keep saying 25-30% like every single ranger build has 30 points in BM, and that is not the case. A BM build loses 30% of its damage by having the pet on passive. But your standard meta sword forst spirit spotter dungeon crawler build does not.

That’s not possible. The reason a Ranger’s weapon coefficients are lower than that of its competitors is because of the pet mechanic. It’s not something you can build around or avoid.

As to the 30% amount, that’s up for debate

That same ready-up mentioned the telegraph on PBS. That’s the only nerf I’ve heard mentioned.

Ranger: Improve their group utility some so they’re more acceptable in competetive groups. How? Where? Wish I knew….

Ranger: Make a balance pass over Ranger pets so all F2s are more evenly balanced and each are effective (for example, castable while moving, track targets, global .5second cast time regardless of pet, etc).

Ranger: Find someway to either make pets work in groups or give Rangers some way to work around the terrible mechanic in WvW (10+ players).

Ranger: Make healing well a 900 yard ground targeted AE instead of the PBAE ae we have now.

Ranger: Make Heal as One a survival skill and cut cast time in half. Balance heal output if too high.

Goal is just to make the Ranger more attractive to WvW groups and GvG. If pets worked under pressure and they tried to give the class some vital group utility elsewhere it would probably be great.

I can’t even tell what side you 2 are arguing. Are we trying to pretend Ranger pets are great or are we trying to pretend they’re useless?

Fact of the matter is they’re neither, but they’re certainly no where near acceptable and are easily the worst implemented class mechanic in the game. I’d go so far as to say that seeing as how the game has been out 2 years and the problems still persist, ANet should probably consider waving the white flag of defeat and changing the mechanic at this point. Despite the fact that I’d much prefer it stay.