Guild Wars 2

This is exact the reason why those so-called ‘shouts’ should have just been grouped as pet skills.

I doubt it we any Devs here for while unless some other skill/trait breaks with the hot fixes and only then be told it will get fixed next major patch.

Anyone else miss the patch days when nothing happened to Ranger at all?

That blurb is only a drawn out way of saying Ranger can equip longbows and shortbows nothing more.

Shiren.9532:

What happened to balancing with small changes? In one patch they did a massive nerf to the shortbow’s range, they move a 5 point trait that almost every build used to a 30 point trait (quickness on pet swap) and did an almost universally across the board significant pet DPS nerf. These are not small changes and they all came in the same patch. How is this fine tuning?

Just putting it out there what if these changes are what the balance team thinks of a small?

If I type k i n g without the spaces it is censored wasn’t aware that it is an explicit.

I doubt they would be willing to put that much effort into it, let alone the resources to develop, test, and balance such an endeavor.

rchu.8945:

Bran.7425:

At this rate I expect them to admit within three years time that an AI companion class was a mistake with their vision for GW2 and preventing it from hurting their vision resulted in killing the class in the process.

three years? With ESO coming out, I doubt anyone will give them three years… Unless you main a thief.

Maybe I overestimated their timeline, maybe it will hit rock bottom in time for Wintersday.

So a predictions for next patch:
•Crossfire: Decreased the damage by 25%. Bleed no longer requires flanking. No longer effected by quickness.
•Quick Shot: Removed damage.
•Crippling Shot: Removed damage.
•Concussion Shot: Removed damage.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

Aomine.5012:

Ignorent is bliss.
If you ever play a warrior in dgn, you’ll notice how bad ranger was in terms of dps.
Now post pet nerf is even worse.

Baseless complaint?
The fact that you give no example but your personal feeling shows how clueless and baseless you are.
Did you even read the patch note on all the serious nerfs?

“Serious nerfs?”

First of all, SB NEVER, EVER should have had the same range as LB. This is logical. I’m surprised it took them THIS LONG to nerf it. Secondly, a lot of the skills got a damage buff. Third, the only real nerfs rangers got this patch was in the pet damage. So, man, I dunno.

You are arguing for logic in a game where somehow with a signet you magical go from being on fire to setting you tamed bear on fire for you, while giving it someone else’s random poison.

Never bring logic into a fantasy game. By you own logic off-hand training shouldn’t bring the ranged off-hand skills up to longbows base range.

Pretty sure it sPvP is all the balance team is concerned with.

Don’t. It’s a trap.

With all the range reduction and all did they get around to having shortbow get the full effect of quickness now or is still at that ~34% or so instead of the proper 50%?

I recall in one of the past SoTG video that there was going to be more splits between the modes of play (sPvP/tPvP, WvW and PvE).

I guess that idea went to explicit, as the entire game is be balanced on a explicitastic version of Monarch (apparently the four letter word of a male monarch is censored) of the mountain, with map flavor.

Welcome to Ranger. Where half the buffs are in the form of nerfing the other options.

Shiren.9532:

Bran.7425:

Remember Anet is taking baby step I expect that they will not be happy with ranger performance in sPvP/tPvP and further nerf the pet, and which ever build shuffle into those modes of play.

You call the across the board nerfs on ranger pet DPS, a 25% decrease in range on a weapon that wasn’t OP in any format (nor was it even the primary high end PvP weapon) and the DPS nerf on crossfire baby steps?

The worst part about most of these updates is that these steps are moving away from good PvE ranger builds. Ranged weapons are increasingly becoming worse (they already perform worse than melee weapons) and pet survivability in dungeons has never been solved and only once have they done anything to it (which didn’t make them durable enough in PvE, made them too durable in PvP and resulted in a DPS nerf in both – kittening clueless these guys are).

They have no kittening clue what they are doing with the ranger class. They made a class centred around an AI companion without building an AI capable of handling PvE (combat oriented around dodge, pets which don’t dodge and don’t account for the inability to dodge) or building a class which interacts with the companion. As it stands, the pet is a giant balance resource leech on the ranger with very little interplay for the ranger to use.

At this rate I expect them to admit within three years time that an AI companion class was a mistake with their vision for GW2 and preventing it from hurting their vision resulted in killing the class in the process.

Even patches like this one, which look at a weapon that is very unpopular (the longbow) don’t solve the problem by making that weapon better and fixing its problem, it does it by making the alternative (the shortbow) worse, despite the shortbow not being overpowered in any way. The topic is right, the class is broken and has no direction, the devs made a mistake by making an AI component a core part of it because they are clearly unwilling to invest the time and resources into making it work and the end result is the class suffering.

Yes I do I think that the original plan was probably much worst and someone got them to step it back a bit. I stand by the idea that the pets are going to take another hit relatively soon, either directly to themselves or by adding an internal cool down that limits the might stacking on companion’s might.

Remember Anet is taking baby step I expect that they will not be happy with ranger performance in sPvP/tPvP and further nerf the pet, and which ever build shuffle into those modes of play.

The ranger community for the most part seems to long sense lost any positive outlook (with a few vocal exceptions) on what the patches will bring. The developers have cultivated this and past experience show that yes Ranger will get hit again, and the search for builds continues. Ranger adapts, anet plays whack-a-mole all circle of life and explicit.

That still makes for another lackluster grandmaster trait for ranger.

Magic find wouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem if the magic find was a secondary stat just like critical damage is on berserker/Valkyrie/etc gear and the one of the former secondary stats be brought up to primary stat value.

ProxyDamage.9826:

What can a ranger do that other classes can’t do far better?

Being on the developer explict-list

Viewing (actual) balance fixes that should have in game from the beginning as buffs
(This might just be more Ranger players than rangers as a profession)

Companion Mights only looks amazing as it was subpar for its placement as a master trait, however Necromancer’s Signet traits (cool down reduction and might gain on us) are being merged. So it is just another of those "why wasn’t (insert ranger skill/trait/etc) like (insert otherwise similiar skill/trait/etc on another profession) from the start.

Need further proof how long did it take them to add a stun breaker to Quickening Zephyr to match the other quickness based non-elites and once again a balance is being passed along as a buff.

Let us hope not I don’t really what to see a repeat of his “Ranger Update” thread that refused to die, while becoming as senseless “Ranger is fine vs No it isn’t” slugfest.

With the general state of discontent on this sub-forum I doubt we will see a developer here for some time.

The lightning breath (really all the drake F2) have a huge windup/tell so no matter how hard hitting they might be the amount of setup required to make them hit should be rewarded.

I am still not sure what rangers did a whole but the developers have really taken a liking to kicking them while they’re down/defeated.

Krugan.7901:

you don’t balance a game around bad players

I think that was the case from the beginning. I recall ranger taking a big hit during the beta weekend that seemed mostly centered around people not dodge rapid shot.

So much for not playing whack-a-mole for balance.

It isn’t just the Grandmaster traits. The ranger traits seem (to me) suffering from going from the non-tier selection of the early BWE’s to the current Adept/Master/Grand Master system where the profession has many options weak for the tier they are placed into (in a few case ranger master major traits are inferior to similar adept traits).

You forgot to mention that the thief trait is a adept tier while the ranger one is master tier.

I would have to say that the issues I see with that ranger with the pet is the design that at one time presents the idea of Ranger and pet working in tandem, but and the same time bases a lot of the condition removal on ‘sorry faithful friend, take one for your master’ minotaur-butter.

With the overall performance of the pet being needed and the design of the PvE content (often high damage dodge or die attacks/don’t stand there mechanics) that seems to not have the a permanent companion in mind in terms of design. In summary (PvE opinion) with the presences of lower skill cap level professions existing compounds this issue where a ‘good/skilled’ ranger pushes their limit to reach a fraction of the potential the lower skill cap profession.

Semil.8279:

Even without rewriting the pet AI, just making the 3 autoattacks instant cast would be an improvement. Just for my own curiosity, across all professions how many melee-range attacks have a root and an animation delay?

Maybe Anet should start handing those delay’s out.

Honestly it seems like the pet was the only part of the profession designed in a PvE mindset, however it is the mindset of a game at least ten years old or older.

Duh, its a ranger some where in the design portion of the development somebody got the bright idea of "let’s have a profession that has a mechanic that can be killed and (possibly someone else said) utilities that can be killed as well.

On the note of design, Why if the pet is such an vital part of Ranger and their performance why is most of the condition removal tied to bending the pet over and kitten it?

monepipi.5160:

Victory.2879:

‘keeping them passive’

As I’ve said a hundred times by now, rangers NEED a buff when their pets are dead- killing my pet has made me angry ‘I WILL AVENGE YOU’, which will increase bow damage by 30% until your pet is alive again, which would make up for the fact you have lost 50% of your damage.

I’m sorry, but this will break PVP. Part of fighting against a ranger is having the option of killing the pet to cripple the ranger. If this is actually the case (pet dead = ranger stronger than before), the amount of “rangers are OP” QQ threads will cause us to get a massive nerf hammer again.

And the whole losing whatever part of the ranger’s performance while defending from a wall isn’t an issue. Maybe we should ask for a pet with thumbs that F2 is to use siege weapons.

Honestly the fact that they didn’t even think of the consequences of fight mechanics with the Ranger pet in mind show a definite lack of design unity.

I think the thing with minions is the fact that it is a build that really has no gear dependency to reach it’s basic functionality, similar in fact to the ranger pets, but with less focus placed on them through the traits. So the necromancer can be minion focused, but has numerous builds that are complete functional without consorting with pesky artificial intelligence of questionable coding.

I watched the video a little while ago, but has was any profession given less ‘spotlight’ time than ranger. I seemed to me that most of the changes expressed are also effecting minions and clones. Sharp (if I recall correctly) even call the Ranger pets minions at one point. Probably just a slip of the tongue.

Heijincks.9267:

7 months of PvE updates, the PvE players said nothing.

The moment Anet releases PvP updates, the PvE players say PvP is being prioritized.

I would like to think most of the trouble is that for 7 months they where primarily balancing all modes of play by the the meta of sPvP so now that it is showing to be by and by a mistake they are just now starting to really look at how the changes they are making are effecting the game as a whole.

Unfortunately the general way the PvE is played in this game (burning down targets quickly with burst) favors warrior over ranger and with the the overall dependency on pets and ‘sustained and survive’ playstyle Ranger (along with a few other) profession will be continue to be viewed as just plain inferior.

At this point we might as well as them to adjust the PvE encounter rather than improve the Ranger performance.

I’ve posted this view a few times now, but I think it is still relevant. The ranger traits seem (to me) suffering from going from the non-tier selection of the early BWE’s to the current Adept/Master/Grand Master system where the profession has many options weak for the tier they are placed into (in a few case ranger master major traits are inferior to similar adept traits).

Shouts on the ranger feel (to me) to be a last minute change in the overall development of the skills as the only things they share with other shouts in the game is the activation conditions and triggering the rune of the soldier 6th piece set.

I feel that they should have been grouped as ‘Pet skills’ like Rampage as One instead of this only the solider group profession have shouts we might want to have another for some reason.

They have already made a big mistake in reverting the Reveal adjustment from a previous patch. It show that they did not test the change within all modes of play and at this point it make all the previous ‘balance’ fixes questionable.

Honestly the BWE’s should have been entirely focused on bug finding and fixing as balancing the game before the skill caps were found is not a good way of creating balance across the play mode. Just look at sPvP where at low overall skill level (ie everyone was new to the game) look how much thief and warrior dominated and how highly valued they were compared to now.

Another good way to sum this up is with an example. Take a person that is the top 1% at Playing a Ranger/Engineer/Necromancer compare the level of effort to performance ratio with an poor to average warrior and you will notice the problem.

I think they were made shouts as a after thought probably to justify those rune of the soldier existing. They only vaguely work in a similar way as the shouts of warrior or guardian.

If nothing else it would net Ranger a cool down reduction on Rampage as One.

Shaolin.7981:

Dude ranger is the most op class they got more hp then anyone without speccing in any defense you can call 3 pets if the one dies the other one can be summond

My oppinion they need a serius nerf because all they do is auto attack and do more dmg then a glass cannon warrior there so though now they even got stealth to if they get hit

Ranger are supposed to be ranged they can just sit there and take evrything and stil beat you. that is not wat ranged is abaut ranger’s should be good at kiting not shooting you to death in 2/3 sec there not burst classes.

That was the problem in world of warcraft and you can see cleary they implented that to guild wars 2 .

I can only hope that English is not your first language. But besides that point you do not seem to have any idea of what the Ranger profession does and how it plays. Best if you keep your babble to yourself or at least go somewhere else with it.

On the original topic: Would be interesting to see Ranger reverted to the beta state then apply the actual bug fixes (not that animation fix crap) and minor aquaman patch and see what the profession looks like.

They would work the same as before, but would no longer be shouts and would share the same grouping as rampage as one.

I think they covered the reason why they focused completely on Conquest style play in one of the States of Game.

Not sure, but would it be possible for them to design/redesign dungeon encounter that do not favor/limit the usefulness of burst.

Basically stop trying to get the profession fixed all at once, but change the content to work with the dynamics that they are ready have in place.

Probably wouldn’t happen I think the company’s stance on this for players to find like minded groups and form guilds based on playing the content in a way counter-productive to the current community meta on how to run dungeons.

As we all know the Ranger Pet attributes do not scale with the player’s equipment only the level of the pet, points spent in the Beastmastery trait line and for secondary attribute the various training/prowess major traits.
Now that more and more ascended equipment is being added to the game (with more planned in the future) how long will it be until the pet is effected by the player’s equipment or we are given the option to ascend the pets?

Regroup Guard, Protect Me, Sick ‘em, and Search and Rescue as ’Pet’ Skills instead of Shouts then change the Shout Mastery to Companion Mastery.