If you don’t want to read it all, at least read the bit in bold
So the March 26th update brought about dire consequences for anyone wanting to play Berserker/DPS/‘burst’ Ranger (not that burst Ranger was ever viable anyway!).
I’ll cut to the chase. The QZ nerf for Rangers was an outrage; you only need to read the Ranger section to see why.
Proposed implementation:
Increase the normal Rapid Fire (i.e. Longbow skill 2) skill speed by 25%.
Players wishing to proc QZ will then get +75% attack speed for 5 seconds (as opposed to the 4 seconds of 100% speed previously).
In itself this will not even come close to ‘overpowering’ Rangers. The Rapid Fire skill isn’t as powerful as it should be as things already stand.
Let’s face it, the primary reason Anet produced this nerf was to put a leash on the ridiculous bursts of Warriors, Thieves and Mesmers (and to a lesser extent, Engineers). This implementation would keep that much-needed leash, while not needlessly punishing Rangers.
This isn’t a PERFECT solution, but it’s one that’s really quite simple, fair and none-game-breaking. Any further suggestions are most welcome.
Come on, get it together for the Ranger. Can you at least let us know if and when you are planning to implement these much-needed changes?
They could but they won’t.
Here’s a radical idea. ArenaNet is absolutely stymied on how to handle the BOT problem. The vast majority of BOTs are Rangers. If they nerf Rangers enough that the non-BOTers just give up on it then they can use their metrics to say it’s an under-used class and broken anyway (and with some well stated PR speak) they can just get rid of the Ranger and solve their BOT infestation.
I’m sort of bummed on my predictions at the moment though. They’ve taken away my predicted “color buff” and called it a bug. My personal thought though is that after the fact, they decided it was too much of a buff and retracted it.
Christ I had not thought of that at all. Very conspiracy-esque and deviant if that is actually the case. And a crying shame. Ranger is the only class I enjoy playing. If they don’t make the desperately needed fixes within the next month (which, when you put it like that, seems unlikely) I won’t be coming back to GW2.
Sorry I’m not quite sure what you’re saying
Note – if you can’t be bothered to read all this, there’s a TL;DR summary at the bottom
I have a ‘Quick Fix’ idea on the suggestions forums – please check it out and tell me what you think: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/A-Simple-Ranger-Fix/first#post1714308
To the developers:
1. We need a decent pet fix. This is the one I was hoping for most. They STILL can’t hit moving targets, and as a result we’re continuously being deprived of a good proportion of our total damage output.
2. They didn’t update the Longbow. EVEN after discussing that they should. This is by-and-large the most widely used Ranger weapon and it’s in dire need of a reboot soon. Hardly anyone uses the greatsword these days unless they want the mobility of skill 3.
3. My only playstyle as a Ranger is a glass cannon Berserker build. Now I’m just glass with almost no canon to speak of because of the QZ nerf. That was the ONE utility skill that would allow rangers to output half-decent damage, while not being overpowered, and now we don’t even have that.
4. Continuing on from no. 3, it seems to me like the only reason you’ve nerfed QZ is because of the overpowered warriors going round spiking the overpowered hundred blades skill with QZ. The reason I single-out warriors is because they seem to be the ones everyone complains about. Thieves COULD have been, but not many thieves seem to use QZ in their builds these days because they’re powerful enough without it. I’ve not seen ONE person complain about the rapid fire Ranger skill being OP.
SUMMARY IF YOU CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO READ IT ALL:
- MORE useless updates no Ranger cares about
- STILL haven’t got pets sorted
- STILL haven’t got longbow sorted
- Killed an entire playstyle through nerfing QZ because warriors were overpowered.
Come on, get it together for the Ranger. Can you at least let us know if and when you are planning to implement these much-needed changes?
Or alternatively increase normal rapid fire skill speed by 25%. Proc the QZ = 75% attack speed for 5 seconds I can live with. It lessens the nerf on Rangers while keeping a much-needed nerf on other classes (i.e. Warriors, Engineers, Mesmers, Thieves).
This update killed my Ranger. Thanks ANET.
In my mind, a Ranger build should be able to provide at least 2 things:
(1) Constant pressure through respectable non-burst damage
(2) Survivability to enable them to maintain that constant pressure long enough to get the killOnce a build has both of those, it’s at least solid (in my mind) and we can then talk about any bells and whistles it has in addition to those.
That’s all well and good, but one of the original points of this thread was that there are few viable ranger builds (particularly for WvW, spvp, tpvp), and the power of a ranger severely lacks diversity when it comes to playing different builds.
Some people don’t want to just play a build that outputs average, constant damage with high survivability. Reason being it’s just not exciting to play. I would love to be able to play a burst or cond ranger without it being terrible, and only finding this out AFTER spending a lot of gold on maxing out its gear.
This relates back to Arenanet’s notion of getting rid of the ‘Holy Trinity’ of RPGs i.e. – DPS/Tank/Heal. As it currently stands, if a player wants to play a DPS/burst build, they’ll generally go for a Thief, or if not, a warrior. If they want a Tank (or heal) build, they’ll go for a guardian. If they want a condition build, they’ll go for a necro. Therefore to some extent, the ‘Holy Trinity’ mechanic is STILL THERE, only to a slightly lesser extent than in, say, warcraft.
I’ve just started re-rolling a thief (I wanted an asura rather than a human XD) and wow, I’m critting 3k with heartseeker at level FORTY FIVE. This is ridiculous, I don’t think I’ll be going back to my ranger now. Unless they’re given a power boost, or pets or sorted out, or given stealth skills, they’re a dying profession…
A few people have been mentioning the option to cripple/chill/stun/immobilize your opponent in pvp/wvw in order to allow your pet to catch up with them.
Not only are more and more players – particularly in pvp – managing their condition-removal utilities better (which then nullifies this method), but this shouldn’t have to be the case in the first place. Think about it – if you haven’t successfully managed to stun/cripple/chill/immobilize, you will be missing out on between 30 and 40% of your potential damage output simply because your enemy is running around.
Anet have stated that the beauty of this game is that any profession can ‘roll any role’ (I just came up with that – pretty catchy, huh?) but I’m yet to see a ranger roll a decent burst or at least good-damage-output build.
Yeah I guess so, but I just love playing a ranging ranger too much :P
I just don’t even bother with pets anymore. When your pvp target is running around like a madman and dodging all over the place, your pet has no chance to hit. I will try out the suggestion though ’cos it sounds pretty good, but I will only start taking pets seriously if Anet actually start letting them hit moving targets.
Believe me, full zerker was the first build I went for. I used the whole machine-gun type buffed LB rapid fire skills and could rarely get over 10k damage when fully buffed. A lot of this counts on quickening zephyr in pvp too, and if you mess up it’s a fairly long recharge.
I’ve been rolling ranger since the game first game out, and I have accumulated all kinds of exotic gear sets/weapons (crit damage/burst build, condition build, toughness/heal build).
No matter what build (including all kinds of gear, trait and utility skill combos) I go for, I just can’t get close to the kind of beastly damage other professions are capable of (namely warrior and thief). I have rolled an 80 thief with mere rare gear (incl weapons) and the damage output in both PvP and PvE is several orders of magnitude higher than that of my ranger. God knows what it could do fully geared. I mean, compare the sheer damage output of the warrior 2 skill ‘hundred blades’ with that of the ranger 2 skill ‘rapid fire’ – the latter is just so much weaker.
The fact that pets are seriously, seriously shameful doesn’t help matters, especially since they are supposed to account for a substantial percentage of our damage output. I mean, they can’t even hit moving targets. Not to mention the F2 skill being frustratingly buggy.
Overall I just find this disappointing because ranger has always been my favourite profession to play, especially with plenty of variation in builds. I don’t think it’s right that power should be sacrificed in the name of fun. Anet really need to give us some decent buffs – even if they only fix the terrible pet situation it will help a bit.
(edited by Bryzy.2719)
Compared to so many other problems in the game this update seems entirely unnecessary and will serve to be nothing but a nuisance and will undoubtedly make the dungeoning experience harder, particularly for newcomers.
Have ANET considered that the reason a player can’t be res’d at a particular point in a dungeon might be because other players are dropping like flies if they attempt to res them? For example in the Asc. Catacombs, what if a player dies right in front of a fire trap?
Sometimes as the player facing death you just PREFER to be able to spawn back at one of the FEW waypoints there are.