I guess mis himself may already gave up his front-line ranger as well. A big problem of his build is he has no condition-removal on-demand. So if it’s turning bad, there is no way out (since you gonna be guaranteed chill/cripple/immobilized). You need SoR then sword 2 to get out. That’s why mis were running LB and play a semi front-liner — only charge when situation turning in good direction. But since it’s already a winning situation, what build you are running doesn’t really matter.
As for Enlargement, as I mentioned above, the 1 sec delay may cause this trait totally useless since even in sPvP you can’t get it instantly, if it’s in WvW, 1 sec is enough to get you killed (you only have 25%HP left), so most likely you will never benefit from it.
With Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery that will grant you and your pet Stability ( 8 seconds) and + 25% damage at 25% health on a 42 second cooldown.
thinking of mistsim Sentinel Builds/CC bomb with high vitality gear,
2 Dogs (Krytan + Wolf), MT (since the patch it hits 5 targets again) and Entangle for CC
Combined with Sw/Axe and GS and SotW and SoS I thought it might be a nice addition?
ofc I am aware that rangers do not necesarrily shine in large scale surroundings, but if you wanted to do it, this would be the way to go and maybe Enlargement can be good here!
I want to be as bursty as possible while keeping sustain from vigor/regen.
In my exp, it’s conflicted. No way to keep both sustain + bursty, at least for ranger. I play regen/con BM ranger as well sometime so I know it’s boring. Full zerk power is totally different style, it’s just a you die or I die game, more challenging, more fun, you make 1 mistake=you die. The key of power build is the damage, if you can not give a deadly burst, there is no point to go power build. LB3 + GS3 is the key for you to reset a fight if the initial burst failed. You may want either protect me or traited SoS to buy you sometime to get 2nd chance in case you missed 1st LB3.
To successfully get in and get out of a zerg combat required ranger to equip both GS+ sword, and utility must have SoS+SoW+SOR, which makes the only spot left is entangle to use. And your gears need to be very tanky.
So all of these efforts just to use 1 skill every 150 sec ???
After millions of try I already gave up using ranger to get in a zerg. Sometime I may use a full zerk LB ranger stay behind and pew pew, for certain situation I borrow a lightening hammer and rush in to give some supprise atk. This at least brings me some fun and bags.
Agreed for spvp, tested it there.
But Rabbit, if I remember right you are also playing Ranger in large scale WvW, right?
What about there? With a cc tank build you can easily reach 25k there and a quarter of that is still around 7k. Ofc you are not supposed to use this offensively but it gives you something nice to fall back to. Cause usually if you drop low in large scale WvW it’s not because of conditions but it’s because you can’t get out of the think fast enough due to cc
Actually DB just need 1 NA guild with both size+skill. Just 1 is enough.
Currently none of DB’s WvW guilds can put a reliable number in a daily basis. Maybe only 1 guild can put a 20+ number team on reset night. Most of DB guilds can only form a ~10 men team then combined with pugs and do some havoc job. This may work on T4 and below but can hardly compete with T3 especially Mag’s experienced team with both skill and number.
DB do have some quality pugs due to its drop-and-rise-then-drop-then-rise history. Sometimes pugs group alone can wipe well-organized teams even with equal number. However, pug is still pug, they are highly affected by momentum, if they get wiped a few times in a roll they will just find all kinds of excuses to quit/change map or go PVE. Pugs always want to fight when they feel you can win. DB has a huge population, when DB has advantage, 4 maps can be qued, but once DB get destroyed a few times, all 4 maps can be out-maned, this can happen in just a couple of hours.
So what DB really need now is just a skillful NA guild which can put a reliable number in daily basis who can compete other T3 servers, then you will see the power of fare weather army.
My experience is —- it sucks. Go to sPVP to test then you know why.
The threshold is too low, usually at 25% HP you are already in extremely danger situation, what you need now is invul, stability and damage increase won’t save you in most of time. Never mention that it’s not instant, it will use 1 sec to activate it, so usually you get the stability with less than 15% HP (near death) if you were getting hits meanwhile (most likely).
So you either won’t use it (you will never want to drop to 25% for activating it) or even you activate it but still can’t save you. It did help a bit, but not worth the trait.
I would say if it’s activating SoS or threshold change to 50% it will be much more useful.
Your trait is pretty much OK.
Change healing to shelter, it’s better than untraited signet. Switch SYS to other utility when needed.
For gears: An economical approach —
Trinkets: go temple of Balthazar to spend your karma to get karma sets, invest a little bit for jews (affordable).
Armor go full kights, not expensive too no matter buy or craft.
Runes go for hoelbrak, it’s fairly cheap and with food you are ok for conditions.
Do a couble of AC runs then you will have your solder weapon set and invest a little bit to get a sigil of perception, your damage is bumped up too.
Actually necro staff 1 barely hits anything too, but necros just seldom use it since 2,3,4,5 is where damage comes from and it’s even unblock-able when traited. But for ranger’s LB, LB1 is where damage comes from and it misses a lot. That’s why LB is JUST Terrible.
Bump this.
The biggest reason that PU mesmers dominate roaming everywhere nowadays is just becoz their real hard counter — Necro is not good at roaming.
All builds mentioned above are no-doubtfully strong 1v1 or even 1v2-3 build, but once situation turns bad(it’s very likely during roaming), necro just don’t have any get-off-jail card.
I PvP and WvW roam most of the time when i play this game and i have come up with a pretty good build for me so i just want to share it with fellow Necros. http://intothemists.com/guides/2831-mclovins_wvw_condie_build
You don’t have to do everything exactly like the build it is just what i find my self looking at majority of the time i’m roaming. Things you can change are like the gear you can go to Dire which is really good in small groups and of course the utilities like the Signet of Spite, also i good thing to do is if your with another heavy condie applying friend is to use Epidemic.
This works for me so you should give it a try
It’s basically a condition bomber. There are some nuances to roaming a necromancer that makes it harder than other classes.
Downsides:
- Although you can clear a camp in seconds, and kill 3 people easily, you have to pick your engagements wisely. If anything goes wrong, you blow a skill or you get interrupted in your epidemic, you are not going to get out of there alive. Necromancers are immobile to the max (hence spectral walk, to have atleast something to move around), and you will die if you get catched by more than 2-3 people.
- Shroud lockout is a real problem. Pick your shroud timings wisely, wait for your heal in the shroud and make sure you take the 1 second ui refresh on shroud dropping into account.
- For any people you run with, you will be a liability. Necromancers are incredibly strong, but get killed easily. We have no blocks, we have 1 evade every 10 seconds and we have to facetank everything (although shroud helps a bit, it’s suboptimal). You will most probably be the first to die if you run with other classes.
Upsides:
- Clears camps alone in under a minute. Thanks @Epidemic & Staff
- Insane pressure on enemies. If you manage to stay behind your friends you can dish out insane loads of damage and crowd control. Dhuum + Terror hits so hard, that most thieves melt instantly. If you stay alive you will melt most other classes and players in seconds. (Granted, if they know exactly what they do… It will take a minute or something=
- Good 1v1 specs. Let’s be honest. Necromancer is probably one of the strongest brawlers. We melt stuff. And with unblockable marks, you can deny most defense other classes have. (Looking at you, PU mesmers.)
Overall, I like roaming my necro, although, I now prefer my thief or mesmer. The mobility of the necro is just attrocious. You can’t run from a fight, and you can’t run into a fight. Everything is faster than we are. Everything. And if played right, other classes will simply disengage and go home, leaving you without a chance to chase them.
If I were you, I will go either
1, full zerk (maybe with a little bit utility for survival) burst— play a you die or I die game (use LB3 wisely is the key)
or 2, go full regen/con + BM and change LB to short bow — play a sustain pressure game. It’s much easier than 1 but less interesting.
You current build won’t kill any1 with even a little bit skills in roaming.
You know, the biggest problem of our ranges weapon (currently only LB can be considered as a real ranged weapon) is —-— It’s not reliable.
The DPS of LB is OK on non-moving target since it’s a range weapon, BUT it missed too much on moving target.
Anet did increase the velocity of arrows but it’s clearly not enough. As long as you don’t use a super big char (norn/char), you can evade the long range shot 100% at 1200 ranger by just simply vertical moving(go check youtube, hundreds of videos, or you can test it yourself in WvW), an asura can even evade more than 1/2 of rapid fire by only doing this. Then it makes LB a 2nd guardian’s scepter. Guardian has all kinds of powerful melee weapons, but ranger??
Anet already said they will not touch pets because it will break lord knows how many more things with NPC’s in game. That leaves two options, 1.) removal of the pet and the lost damage being returned to the ranger. 2.) rewriting the pet code which they said they do not have the resources to do right now. So the only option I see is option 1.) removal of the handicap!
I totally agree with you 100%. The fact is (unfortunately) Anet already made it clear that they’re not removing the pet from Ranger class nor will they rework the A.I.
The best thing I could think of was a solution in order to put this potentially 30% damage from pet to any use. The core issue with pets is that they die quickly and they do not hit a moving target, so buffing a 20-30% both attack speed and movement speed (with or without trait I don’t care at this point) will contain, at least, the problem of the pet never hitting!! (that would also be logical: a wolf or a bear or a jaguar runs definetly faster than a man)
Or give ranger or pet a detect skill — e.g. ppl can’t stealth within 600 range of it. That will balance the current stealth meta and will give ranger a small place to live in WvW.
I think the LB skills are all pretty solid. It’s an extremely powerful “burn down” weapon, where, if you don’t close the distance with the ranger quickly, he’ll kill you very fast.
How about you use LB ranger, I use what ever class, I stay in 1500 range from you and let you shoot me. Feel free to go full zerk, I won’t even bother to get close to you, I just run/dodge/heal etc, see how long you can take me down? Wanna try this ??
The reason of the “hate in the community towards the ranger class” is becoz ranger is underdog since day1. Ranger has been considered as a free kill for so long time, then once any viable competitive build appears, it makes ranger not a easy kill. “Lose to a ranger” is the biggest shame to other classes — that’s where the hate comes from.
+1 I agree!
It’s very sad but it’s the truth. Many competitive guilds have such rules like — you killed by a ranger, you get kicked out of the guild. It’s not a joke.
Ranger is a like baby with congenital deficiency and everyone else has bias towards him. Even his parents admitted this but just simply refuse to compensate him with other talents. It’s abandoned from the very beginning. If you are born as a ranger, just enjoy yourself in the world of down’s syndrome (open world PVE), there is only happiness. Just don’t step into the real world (WvW), you will find it too crucial to live.
The reason of the “hate in the community towards the ranger class” is becoz ranger is underdog since day1. Ranger has been considered as a free kill for so long time, then once any viable competitive build appears, it makes ranger not a easy kill. “Lose to a ranger” is the biggest shame to other classes — that’s where the hate comes from.
arrow speed should be increased at least 100-200% or remain current speed but auto-guided.
Right now, long ranger shot can still be easily dodged 100% by simply moving vertically at 1000+range.
I think mistsim himself may already change his mind to not to use a ranger as a front-line, never say commander.
As a ranger, go enjoy the brainless easy mode for PVE , have fun in spvp and challenge yourself in some roaming in WvW, that’s all about it.
If you want to command, PLEASE —- roll another class, good to yourself, also good to your server.
it depends. If you are talking about PVE, ranger’s long range damage is OK, but not decent.
If you are talking about PvP /WvW, ranger’s long ranger damage is a joke.
I am lol at this build too.
Iook at those ascent gears, you know most likely he is just making a build in his imagination but never play it. I did test some builds similar and it’s a guaranteed rally bot for opponents due to those reasons you have mentioned.
In zerg fight, toughness/HP is not so important. The key to survive is mobility+anti-CC+invul, he has nothing in his build. Once you get caught, the difference between 3k armor VS 2k is just being killed in 1.5 sec vs 1 sec. My guardian now wear zerk gears and I found no difference vs my old PTV gears for survival.
What is this magical 30/30/30/30/30 ranger build, that can have 10 pets, 20 utilities and 5 different weapons?
Rangers are great for 1v1 through to 5v5, but their usefulness rapidly decreases in larger fights. Nearly everything in your post is about conditions, and conditions plain suck when facing 20 warriors blowing traited warhorns and 20 guardians with pure-of-voice shouts. Nevermind the fact that pets and spirits will melt within seconds.
So if you’re talking about roaming, then yeah, rangers are good. But I think this topic is more focused on 20+ guild groups, where rangers are definitely not good enough.
Yep they are. Read my post again. They’re not guardians, they’re not warriors, they’re rangers. They require good mobility and can do a great amount of CC through skills AND pets. Check the build i just posted and come back again to discuss.
Zero stun-breakers, zero invulns, long-duration blocks, evades, or other survival tools necessary for hard-pushes through chokes or for “panic” moments.
Lack-luster damage. The only attacks that match GWEN damage are Maul and Path of Scars.
You have 2 immobilise skills on 20-second cooldowns, when warriors (Flurry) and guardians (Hammer-3) can do the same with much lower cooldowns, and they don’t have to give up any utility slots to get them. And then they have Earthshaker and Ling/Ring of warding on top of that. Is this the “great CC” you were talking about? The sort of “greatness” that requires you to give up 2 utility slots and doesn’t even provide half the CC of other classes?
Entangle is a gamble. Sometimes it can wreck people, but alot of the time they can teleport or cleanse their way out of it. And in the middle of a train-clash the roots will simply melt after only applying immob once.
Bleeds are irrelevant in large groups.
Pets are irrelevant after the first 10 seconds of large fights.
Aside from Healing Spring, no support for the group.
I’m sure you can survive and tag alot on this build. But it’s not actually doing very much for the team. If I were building a team with a fixed number of slots, there is no way, absolutely none, that this build would be chosen over a decent guardian, warrior, ele, necro, or even thief or engi.
Running a zerk LB ranger in WvW is always a fun to me. However, after today’s patch , I feel the LB damage got significantly decreased.
I have 3.5k+ atk power (plus bloodlust and some might stacks I maintain 4k+ atk in most of time), crit chance 68% with 100+% crit damage.
I can see 3k+ damage on a long range shot very often before patch, but since patch I never seen any any 3k+ number, even on NPCs. The best number I can see now is a little bit over 2k.
And just now when we chased a mesmer, I land a full rapid fire on him, and guess what —- it’s only 3.4k damage for all !!!!!! That’s not even 1/4 of him HP !!!!!!
A full offesive build/gears by sacrificing all survival and using the biggest hit of the class VS a low armor class = can’t even take 1/4 of HP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not sure if any1 else got the same feeling (my feeling is that LB damage got 25-30% nerf, it’s very significant to me), it just took away my last fun part of playing ranger in WvW.
Why ranger ? Why ranger again ?
It’s sadly the truth now.
I am pretty new to mesmer, but I already feel invincible now, my mesmer NEVER EVER have lost any 1v1 or 1v2 in WvW since it hits 80.
I can challenge any ANet developer using any other other class to show how broken the current stealth are in WvW.
Just an idea:
World xfer discount every 3 months.
I guess many of WvWers and guilds get bored on their current Tier/Server, they were looking for some new environment/challenge. However, the exfer fee is not cheap nowadays, especially when you have hundreds of ppl on the xfer list(for some big guilds).
Make the price more affordable once a period of time (I would say 3 months is a good start)— maybe 30-50% of now.
Then —- WvWer/guilds are happy with their new home/challenge, It also auto-balance the difference between tiers, and Anet get more money. (Walmart earn much more than Hermes) Both happy.
Changing stealth itself is the wrong direction. If you buff it it make stealth OP, if you nerf it, it make stealth pointless, there is no intermediate stage in between. It has been PROVED by so many games.
A wild idea is to give ranger’s pet (or certain types of pet) anti-stealth ability.
In real life, animals have better instinct than human, a police dog/pig is used to detect things that human can not detect.
The mechanism of stealth make a class impossible to be balanced. It’s 0 or 1 game, stealth class can only be either OP or underdog.
There is NO game ever in MMO history which can balance class with stealth skills. Neither can Anet.
Then some developers of other games found an alternative way to balance the overall class balance by introducing anti-stealth classes, Anet actually did try a small step (give ranger a so-called anti stealth skill, but it’s just theoretically but not practically in game) , I am expecting ANet will do more in the future, at least this is the right direction.
Stealth doesn’t need to be nerfed, it works as intended, but it need a real counter — a real anti-stealth class/build which will counter stealth by all meaning but be countered by other classes w/o anti-stealth ability, that will make better overall balance.
The mechanism of stealth make a class impossible to be balanced. It’s 0 or 1 game, stealth class can only be either OP or underdog.
There is NO game ever in MMO history which can balance class with stealth skills. Neither can Anet.
Then some developers of other games found an alternative way to balance the overall class balance by introducing anti-stealth classes, Anet actually did try a small step (give ranger a so-called anti stealth skill, but it’s just theoretically but not practically in game) , I am expecting ANet will do more in the future, at least this is the right direction.
Stealth doesn’t need to be nerfed, it works as intended, but it need a real counter — a real anti-stealth class/build which will counter stealth by all meaning but be countered by other classes w/o anti-stealth ability, that will make better overall balance.
Test for 2 days, survival is good, however, my damage is extreme low, well of suffering only did 300-400 per pulse, the best hit is 900+ (maybe on some under lvl char), never seen any 1k+ number. I have seen plenty of power-well necro videos doing some nice damage.
Is this normal ??? What’s wrong with my build?
For long term hard to say, but for current state yes.
However Guardian has always been the most balanced/reliable class among all classes since launch and most likely it will be the same in the future.
It’s wired build. GS+sword is typical meditation build setup, but you clearly run a AH shout trait.
Better use meditation trait (especially JI for max mobility+burst heal) or grab Staff instead of sword for support+extra AH healing (staff 4 is very powerful healing with AH).
It can if T1 guilds start to destack we can have 3 tiers of balanced servers. Just 2-3 guilds from JQ/BG talk to each other and pick DB/MAg respectively if you oceanic/NA. Start the process then go from there!
This is not gonna happen.
If you look at DB’s history, DB is the most famous guilds-donor to T1 server. 1st Immigration wave DB→SoS create the SoS legend for pretty long time. 2nd immigration wave right before season 1 DB→BG contributed a lot to BG’s victory.
If those guilds want balanced fight, why they even bother to leave?
it depends on your build/play style.
You think about cleric, so I assume that you were planning to play a heal+support role.
If that’s the case, Cleric>>>Sentinels. Only advantage of Sentinels is to provide you a bigger buffer pool against the initial burst, but once you know how to time your dodge/block well, it’s not a problem. Don’t forget selfless daring/tome of courage skills are highly coefficient with healing power, with cleric gears it make significant difference to your group.
Rapid fire can land 10k+ on NPC or downed players, but to a normal player it will never land that much, there are millions way to avoid that much damage. Usually 5k is already a lucky number in zerg fight. If in 1v1 or small scale fight, pray to god to hit more than LB1 coz it’s just too easy to avoid. Also don’t forget, to get theoretical 10k+ damage , your ranger is very squishy.
I would rather to see rapid fire become some skills as warrior’s rifle F1 — 1 big hit, even with longer CD. Ranger also has many ways to maximize that 1- deadly shot.
Urr nothing wrong with longbow. Skill 2 hitting 10k+ easily. Autoattack when i see an enemy I start shooting hitting 2-3k, and when I get close I can swap to swords, but he already lost alot by then. Perfectly. Also the range increase is awesome and perfect when fighting off big groups of enemies and using skill 5 on them.
It’s a double-blades sword. If it’s unkillable then what’s the point of the grand master trait of NM? I don’t think Anet will re-design another trait for ranger.
I would say different spirit should have different HP, and the effect of spirit should be increase too.
e.g. defense spirit as stone/water spirit has 3x HP more than offense type as frost/sun. Storm get 2x HP but call of lightening consume 1/2 HP of it (let player decide whether he want more extra passive bonus or the 1-time damage). Also Increase the traited passive pro rate to 100%.
Spirits should be untouchable, like warrior banners. To this day I still have not seen one single spirit ranger in WvW.
They would then be too strong. In order for the warrior banners to have effects when you move, you have to pick them up…thus giving up your usual weapon skills.
No, what they need is to have much more hp. Still being killable but not dying in 1/4 of a second like they usually do. Either that or no/very short cooldown on recast.
One thing i would love to see is the ability to play as your pet. You are vulnerable but stay in the same spot you were and you just play with your pet, using its abilities.
It would give us more purpose, would be awesome for scouting and give the pet another meaningful way of being used. Seriously, they need to add this.
The classical AH build will fit your demand very well. Just make sure you travel/fight with some buddies around you, you will feel no weakness on AH build. Carry a staff as the other weapon set. It’s not ideal for PVE solo but it works well in dungeons.
Ya that’s the main reason ranger was underdog from day1.
The only easy time I have been as a ranger is beta, a spirit GS ranger is just invincible, melt everything in sight. I guess Jon peter must be face-rolled by ranger for too many times then he decided to nerf ranger to the bottom.
In Beta, Ranger’s also use to put out more damage then they do now it seems. It wasn’t just the healing. Then they changed everything around in ranger like two weeks before going live and never tested it and we’ve been broken since. It would be nice if they would revert ranger’s back to the way it was in beta because it seemed more rounded out then it does now. Although the pet AI would still suck
I won’t doubt your mobility and survivalbility, but I doubt whether you can really kill someone alone?
I guess that you run with some burst buddies in most of time?
Should be a good pare with BS thief.
On the contrary, I think your video is a good sample of ranger being not good at escaping.
You did a great job at the begining when you 1v1 and 1v2, you simply overplayed them. However, when more enemy came, most of them were just not focusing on you but your teammate (was killed eventually), only a guardian is fighting you.
In fact, you might already have time to simply WP back when they were killing your teammate but you choose to stay. I would say it’s a dangerous decision. Luckily none of them are real roamer (good roamers usually have very good chasing ability such as Warrior, Thief or engi), it was the guardian with a hammer/GS(which is well-known bad for roaming) who caught you once. If one more immobilization or cripple land on you, I guess you were over.
However, a thief or warrior roamer will have 0 problem to get out of combat like that(or even closer and dangerer) , and mesmer or engi can also get out of combat in higher chance and with lower risk.
I am not saying it’s not doable for a ranger to do that, but there are classes who can do better and easier.
In this point, in my opinion, ranger is just mediocre roamer. It’s a class for fun, but you just can’t take it seriously in a competitive level.
I have plenty of other videos with 1v2 fights with ranger. Here’s one of me escaping a large group of people. Rangers, in the hands of skilled players, do just fine.
I agree that ranger is good at 1v1, but still not the Top1. Mesmer, thief, engi, necro and warrior all have good chance to win or tie a ranger when equally skilled.
And most important, Roaming =/= 1v1. 1v1 is just a small part of roaming. You will face a lot more 1vx or 1vz situation rather than 1v1 only, forget to mention that roaming doesn’t only mean kill but also mean escape anytime on demand. Ranger is just mediocre in this meaning.
In my opinion, ranger good at roaming is totally misleading.
This only happens when you as a thief want to stay in the fight. A ranger who can win you in 1v1 can never chase/catch you if you decide to escape. The ranger who has the ability to chase/catch you will be melted in 3 seconds by your BS+HS.
not quite right.
Actually roaming rangers (mainly condition+regen+BM bunkers) take a big advantage of ppl’s impression of ranger being a free-badge class. Then most likely they just stop and fight you. When they realized you are a PD thief/PU mesmer-like, good ones just choose to leave, only bad ones choose stay and get killed.
Ranger is a good 1v1 class only if opponent choose to stay and fight, but still not best choice for roaming.
Every single class is “viable” for everything on the game…
Some classes are better at some things and lack at others, but overall anyone can do anything. That’s the point of the game.
To the point, yes ranger is very strong solo class. You can build cond bunker and be able to kill everyone 1v1 or 1vsmall group.
You can build power build, and kill people before they realise what’s going on. 1v lots is impossible with power build though unless they are n00bs or scaled lvl. You need to think and choose when to attack.
Also ignore the ranger QQ on the forum completelly. (friendly advsie)
Thief’s stealthing abilities and hard counters:
Utilities:
-Hide in Shadows (healing) —> Big blue effect that shouts: Interrupt me (just like any other healing besides instant casts like withdraw, engi’s turret, …)
-Blinding powder --> /
-Smokescreen + finisher —> Interrupt the leap or stand near it so the blast hits you, or just interrupt him
-Shadow trap (triggered) --> If you see him place it, avoid the location
-Shadow refuge —> Push, pull, fear, knockback (If he had reveal already, stack another 4s reveal with sic’em)
Weaponskills
Cloak and Dagger —> blind, block, aegis, interrupt, dodge
Blackpowder + finisher --> Interrupt, push, pull, knockback, knockdown
Steal when traited —> Honestly not sure if stealth triggers if the steal is negated … Anyone?
Traits and runes:
Stealth below 25% —> /
Stealth below 10% --> /
(Remember, chances are they are fighting you, and this trait actually gives them REVEAL instead of STEALTH)
PS: Sic’em is a HC for all of them, I didn’t put it every where though
None of what you listed are counters though. People seem to be perplexed at what the word counter means:
1. To meet or return (a blow) by another blow.
2. To move or act in opposition to; oppose.
3. To offer in response: countered that she was too busy to be thorough.
To move, act, or respond so as to be in opposition.
What you and others are describing is stealth “prevention”. Prevention is not the same as a counter.
Prevention:
1. the act or practice of stopping something bad from happening : the act of preventing something
That is a significant difference. There are lots of potential “stealth preventions” in game. But there exists only one counter throughout all eight classes.
In a competitive game a counter is something that delivers equal force but of the opposite polarity. Lets take a look at the counters available in gw2 at this time:
As you see there is a pattern, the counter is the opposite of the skill it opposes.
Here is how this list would would look like if the understanding of counter according to certain people in this thread were true:
1. Fear, Stunned, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback —-———-Dodge/Evade
2. Boons —-— Do more damage
3. Protection boon —-—— Do more damage
4. Regeneration boon —-—- Do more damage
5. Healing —-—- Interrupt them
6. Endurance —-—- Make them waste all of their dodges
7. Swiftness —-—- Kill them before they can use swiftness
8. Stealth —-—- Interrupt them
There is NO game which can balance the class with stealth ability, they are either OP or UP. It’s becoz of the mechanism of stealth, it just simply can’t be balanced, it’s a 0 or 1 game, there is no intermediate stage. However, for an over all balance , it can be balanced by introducing anti-stealth classes. For current situation, ranger should be best candidate since range has been the long-time-lasting underdog since launch.
Suggestion:
Combine Trap Potency and Trapper expertise together and put it in master trait, then ranger need only 20 points to get it. If you want to go 30 for trap, add another grandmaster trait for trap — Each trap apply reveal for 4 sec. (Imagine in the real world, if a thief is caught by a trap, shouldn’t he be exposed? Shouldn’t it take him some time to get out of trap-revealed?)
It gonna make ranger more useful (as an anti-stealth class) but won’t break the balance at all.
The key issue of thief stealth is —- it’s fair that thief can ALWAYS have the right to engage a fight, but it’s NOT fair that thief can ALSO ALWAYS have the right to disengage a fight. A class shouldn’t have both burst and survival together.
It can be changed to be fair very easily — entering combat mode should trigger revealed no matter you hit others or get hit, if you want to re-stealth, get out of combat 1st (don’t forget thief ALSO has the #1 mobility as well among all classes, it’s not hard for thief to get out of combat with mobility ONLY). I would say thief can still have 1 skill (just 1) to re-stealth during combat, but should be a fairly long CD (e.g. an elite skill, re-stealth in combat is extremely powerful which is worth an elite slot), not like current stealth meta, I hit you, if you don’t die I re-stealth then comeback in a few sec. There should be some risk vs return.
The right way is to make players use stealth WITH care but not just simply ABUSE it.
