Guild Wars 2

Don’t forget the classic Ebon Vanguard Greatsword.

From past experience, they’re more likely to change the tool-tip to match the lower damage .

This might help a bit:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Custom_music

On the might stacking, I just threw together and tested an Engineer HGH might stacking build a could easily get a dozen or so stacks of might out of combat. I don’t see Pounce becoming much of an issue. Also, this trait would in one sense invalidate Moment of Clarity when using the GS since it provides the same exact effect, except for increasing stun/daze duration.

So now that the smoke has cleared, how are the various classes doing performing with respect to each other in terms of viability? There have been quite a few substantial changes and the community has been very vocal about them. Each class is supposed to fill a handful of roles, and there are multiple game modes to play in.

How does the community feel about the way they stack up to each other.

nekos.2584:

Unholey.3264:

Has anyone else had this problem?

I was just chasing down another ranger in wvw and after swooping to him to close the gap I noticed I got miss after miss with the greatsword auto attack. He was well within attack range and I wasn’t blinded.

Anet decided to balance ranger god like DPS by making rangers function much like their pets, can’t hit moving targets.

lol^ another animation fix? I can see that.

Leuca.5732:

An AoE skill applied by horrible AI during combat cannot afford to have this in effect. They need to reduce some recharges to compensate, or improve traits that affect pet skills.

Well we can take the two traits in beast mastery, they might finally get some use now right? It’s like closing supermarkets to let people find out how good dirt and grasshoppers taste.

Unholey.3264:

He was running shortbow and got an evade in every now and then with dodging and Quick Shot. Maul was able to hit him but the auto kept missing and they have the same range. Perhaps it has to do with using it while on the run? I seem to be having no trouble hitting stationary targets with it.

Maybe he moved out of the skills effective range. Since it doesn’t have the leap of 1h-sword it’s a possibility. If not, lol at Anet for messing up the ranger even more. At this point it’s looped past despair to hilarity. How bad can they mess up the ranger this time? Stick around to find out.

Grimvar.9185:

Mardermann.7468:

… rerolling a warrior maybe?

Warrior is the best ranger build.

Don’t forget to take ogre runes for your pet.

mdma.3157:

So i have heard of trap rangers, bunker rangers and a few others. i was curious what is viable for WvW that would also be good for dungeons?

That’s it really after the last patch.

Dahkeus.8243:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

I’m sorry but, whine whine, if you were a real ranger you’d do one of two things.

1) Suck it up and deal with it since we’ve been having this since beta
or
2) Learn and adapt. Trapper weren’t discovered until recently even though they haven’t been touched since beta.

1) You can suck up as much as you want, but just because ANet has dropped the ball on rangers in the past doesn’t justify them in dropping it even further now.

2) “Learn and adapt” won’t magically make some build that will do anything better than any other class can do.

Also, trappers weren’t “discovered” and have been around forever. The only reason they made a ripple in PvP was because the meta of bunker builds was stale as hell and people forgot how to deal with a mediocre spec that people stopped playing long ago because it was mediocre.

1) I’m not trying to justify their inadequacy, I’m trying to protect others from it.
2) I wasn’t saying it would make unviable builds suddently viable. Just as you said, it was build that took advantage of the meta that people forgot how to counter.

OGDeadHead.8326:

• Zephyr’s Speed and Quickness affecting both ranger and pet, both got nerfed through this <- The nerf hits us harder than other classes, as usual

I completely overlooked this part, assuming that are pet can actually hit targets, lowering both our and the pets quickness by to 50% hurts us even more.

Oh wait, it doesn’t matter because pets are broken and can’t hit moving targets anyway.

RummyTheMad.7290:

Grimvar.9185:

RummyTheMad.7290:

Grimvar.9185:

RummyTheMad.7290:

I’m going to use it for a while before I form any opinions about how it functions now. Alll I can say with certainty is that It’s different than it was before. I doubt that I will find it any better or worse in the grand scheme, but I reserve judgement.

It is a noticeable change. A lot of our damage comes in from our quickness skills with a 50% nerf we do 50% less damage from a skill we relied upon heavily to get our damage out. It is common sense. But clearly many people here lack that.

Well, of course it will be noticeable. I doubt anyone will dispute that point. However since the change to quickness is global, the net change to QZ looks more like a buff than a nerf to me. In other words, everybody’s burst will be less bursty than before…not just rangers, and rangers got some perks added in that we didn’t have before.

As I said, I’ll reserve judgement rather than making snap decisions based on non-experience.

Hahaha, you think adding a stung break is a buff? That is bringing it inline with the other classes skills whilst still taking a huge hit to dps while we already do less than optimal dps before this. Hell most people already accept ranger has the worst dps and utility in pve.

Our dps was already nerfed with the SB fix and now another dps nerf through quickness that nerfs all the damage we do no matter what weapon we choose.

You are that sad kid on that playground that people pick on and thinks they are their friend.

Actually no, I don’t think it’s a buff, I KNOW it is. It used to not be there, and now it is there. It’s an improvement to the previous state, therefore it is a buff. Pretty simple stuff really…

You go right ahead and get your complaining muscles all stretched out though. You’ve got a long night ahead of you!

By that logic if Rangers had no weapons at launch and were given weapons afterwords, that would be the greatest buff in the history of GW2. I’m not sure what part of the world you’re from, but the West is FOUNDED on concepts such as rights and equality, in gaming terms: interclass balance. If everyone in your profession was getting paid $10 while you get paid $2 and then have that bumped up to $4, an 100% increase, should every else get a raise to $20.

Burnfall.9573:

So the Only Way to be a Ranger is to go full bunker build?

The only way to go ranger is to go warrior(pve) or mesmer(pvp).

lol just kidding.

In all seriousness go BM Bunker or trapper, that’s all that’s left, until next patch.

Grimvar.9185:

I think what he is trying to say is that Anet has finally done it. They balanced all our builds to be equally bad. It doesn’t matter what you try to do it will be bad.

This^ lol

ULTIMATE (INTERNAL)BALANCE

ensoriki.5789:

There are 3 professions based on versatility.
Engi, Ranger, Ele.
All of them are actually quite strong in pvp where being able to do multiple things well is a benefit.
In PvE, content doesn’t really demand versatility, because encounters are relatively straight forward in comparison So it’s about what you bring that is special and Rangers fall apart at that point. So the versatility is wasted because linearity demands specialization as I see it.

Fair point, in pvp with the dynamic shifts from 1v1 to group fights, I can see where our versatility would be an asset.

However much people might wish to deny it, there is a clear divide between PvE, sPvP, and tPvP content, to the point where they are quite different games. Until it is treated as such, I expect no positive development in this game.

For the record I am a PvE player with a level 80 for each of the three adventurer classes.

Jack of all trades fails in almost all group content because you don’t have to spec into a balanced build when someone else can tank/heal/dps for you.

Talkenia.3162:

I played a bit today, and indeed search and rescue does finally work as its supposed to as far as i could see, I mean my pet doesn’t just walk to the downed person anymore and stands there doing nothing, he now actually revives people XD

Kick wounds still bugged apparently.

Newsflash, this happens after every patch. People will forget, people will move on. It’s only a game. Either that or a mod will close the thread or better yet, the entire ranger forum down.

Remember smiter’s boon from the first game? At this point it’d be more entertaining to have that happen to rangers than continue watching the current attempts at balance.

^I take back my statement my mistake. They also supposedly fixed there buggy nature of pet revives.

Bellocchi.4593:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

OGDeadHead.8326:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

2) Learn and adapt. Trapper weren’t discovered until recently even though they haven’t been touched since beta.

Lol what?!?

I was surprised to, I started playing at head start and full carrion trapper was my first build. Thought it was kinda obvious.

He meant to say you’re the only one who thinks that, kid.

Really? I hear it quite often in the idle chatter around LA. I don’t play tpvp myself, but there a quite a few, not a lot, of people saying that trap rangers are quite strong.

The point of my post is that ranger have not been getting any substantial fixes recently, and probably won’t in the forseeable future based on the dev teams track record. As players we have two options. In a less inflammatory tone, here they are:
We can adapt around these changes and maybe discover a powerful new build, or get used to the new status quo.

TheGreatA.4192:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Meh, rangers were always better suited to cleric/knights or carrion/rabid gear in my opinion anyway. Leave the spiking to the classes.

None other could do such consistent damage from 1500 range though. I mean I would auto-attack for 4k and rapid fire for 15k, but without quickness, there’s no way you’re going to land anything unless they improve on arrows and targeting. Quickness just made those arrows fly at a speed they should have in the first place.

To each his own, and I know Anet envisionaged every class able to play every role, but it can be reasonably concluded that certain classes perform certain roles better than others. For rangers damage, ranged or melee, is not one of them.

Also a quick question, did QZ actually increase the flight speed of LB arrows? I always thought it just fired a bunch of them so more actually hit. Kind of like a submachine-gun versus a semi-auto rifle.

jubskie.3152:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Just so you know QZ, and by extension Zephyr’s Speed, took a hit and only speeds up actions by 50% now.

True, but I’m guessing double rez (from both the pet and ranger on the same target) will be more effective now, even without Quickness.

Don’t see how that would be more effective, since now you’re burning two skills on something you used to be able to do with one.

Grimvar.9185:

GS buff is a joke nobody worth their weight in dungeons playing a ranger uses GS and AR being shared with the pet doesn’t change that the pet is still useless and dies to non-agony boss skills.

This such a bad joke.

Just wondering, what is used in dungeons, beside the all-might shortbow? I usually take one type of sword. GS for tanking/defense or S/T for damage. The defense is quite good in high level fractals especially dredge.

awe extender.1908:

DragonSlayer.1736:

- Nerfed quickness
- Buff greatsword skill for rangers (lol, where is Long bow correction?)
- No Spirit changes
- Traits Traps in crit line
- Warrior buffed again.
Arena need to see we have ppl playing pve and not only pvp.

what u mean about “Traits Traps in crit line”?

He means condition damage skill traits still being in a critical hit trait line.

Meh, rangers were always better suited to cleric/knights or carrion/rabid gear in my opinion anyway. Leave the spiking to the classes.

OGDeadHead.8326:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

2) Learn and adapt. Trapper weren’t discovered until recently even though they haven’t been touched since beta.

Lol what?!?

I was surprised to, I started playing at head start and full carrion trapper was my first build. Thought it was kinda obvious.

Just so you know QZ, and by extension Zephyr’s Speed, took a hit and only speeds up actions by 50% now.

I’m sorry but, whine whine, if you were a real ranger you’d do one of two things.

1) Suck it up and deal with it since we’ve been having this since beta
or
2) Learn and adapt. Trapper weren’t discovered until recently even though they haven’t been touched since beta.

Victory.2879:

I think we may as well all change to engineer which at least gets some love- all the changes are totally pve based and how it might effect wvw is never even considered or if it is it clearly isn’t thought out.

Not that I DIDN’T love my ranger before, I just so happened to have finished leveling my engineer. I think she’s going to be my main for everything besides Fractals now. Anet did a fairly good job with the engie patch this time around, hope rangers can get that kind of treatment in the(hopefully) not too distant future.

In general Clerics Gear(Healing, Power, Toughness) is a good all-round gear set.

naphack.9346:

Aveneo.2068:

Thanks for trying to help out Robert, but next time I’d suggest bringing a wooden plank to the meetings and smack some people in the face with it.

THat would hold no meaning… He should bring a jaguar…
Or a bear…

The devs would just run circles around those pets, as a ranger, if you need something done, you have to do it yourself.

Back on topic, I’m surprised no one had blown up about persistent pet recharges yet. No more “on demand” knock down from wolves, tail swipe from drakes…

Chokolata.1870:

Every quickness ability got nerfed . Only ranger one got a buff to it as well

It was not buffed, it got brought in line with the other skills.

To those that think it’s bugged, or unreliable, it’s not. It’s just poorly designed.

The skill creates grasping vines which then apply bleed(8s) and immobilize(1) every second. In that split second window when immobilize ends and has not been reapplied, you can walk out of it. Also, if move out of the vines, the immobilize won’t reapply after the 1st second.

Personally I run with 20 Marksmanship for piercing arrows. The +20% condition duration helps mitigate walking out, but the plethora of teleports that some classes have(ele, thief, mesmer) lessens its usefulness against those classes. It is quite useful against everyone else who has to waste time killing the vines before attempting escape. Personally I would have made it immobilize(1.5s), bleed(8s), and cripple(3s).

Durzlla.6295:

icechai.2079:

Umm… shortbow stun traited with moment of clarity is the best way to burst w/ a shortbow… you do other class equivalents if you use QZ right when you stun (and your pet is attacking them). If you need some more add a sigil of paralyzation.

Totally agree that RaO should be a shout.. other classes have 36s-90s cooldown elites, why not rangers? Ours is 120 at the shortest >_<

Can’t entangle be traited down to 96ish?

150s>Traited to 120s

And @OP
Why would you want to SLOW the 1h-Sword? It’s basically our melee equivalent of the shortbow. Low(500-700dmg at about 1700 power) with a fast attack rate.

capuchinseven.8395:

Jabronee.9465:

March Speculation?
New and wicked theme icons of skills for LB & GS.
Utility Skills Buffs, activating any utility skill will make the Ranger glow with a Green Aura.
Maul Bear animation will now show a more realistic HD Bear animation in full color (not just white)
LB attacks now will never miss the target if the target is within 1-2 metre range.
GS damage will be increased by 5% (extremely OP, DR might be implemented if it is use too often.)
Lastly, Rangers could rename their pets during combat.

What a useful post.

From their previous patches, a very realistic post. I’m not denying that the devs are working hard, but on what? Each patch has done little do change the status quo besides a few minor buffs and rather heavy nerfs from beta.

Wasn’t it mentioned somewhere that we will only be allowed to have one trap out at a time? I can see this being done to weaken trap builds and level the playing field. And by that I mean bringing all builds down to the same level of suck.

I’ve got a good one: Ranger profession has been removed and replaced with the new Black Lion Trader. Help Evon Gnashblade expand his trade empire by bringing goods to all of Tyria. You don’t wear armour or use weapons so you can use the money with your employee discount and 5% commission to purchase more lovely products.

Valkyriez.6578:

Nexon? You mean NC Soft?

I think Nexon have a majority of NcSoft shares or something?

March Patch Notes:
Ranger: …………….

In all seriousness, I’d expect nothing more substantial than AR being shared with pets. Maybe some token tool tip and useless weapon changes.

jubskie.3152:

To be fair, the other classes didn’t get Robert Hrouda to post in their respective forums. One problem at a time guys.

I’d gladly welcome pet changes over any of the other stuff you listed since they’re active all the time.

It’s a sad day when Rangers are glad they have people talking/listening to them rather than actual changes.

What am I talking about? It’s business as usual. I’m glad I rerolled a engineer and have a kitted-out thief in storage.

Bran.7425:

That being said I do in a kind of masochistic way enjoy the thread were there is speculation on were the next kick is coming.

I concur, as evident from my previous post. I’m not gonna stop playing ranger, maybe I’ll give PvP a try, but it’s not because rangers are good, it’s because I enjoy the class.

The way I see it, if Anet do change anything, they’ll make the pet cure conditions but make 1 every 10s or 2 every 15s.

Wanderer.5471:

i think this must be an oversight – a 6sec invulnerability which requires a utility slot, is on 120 sec cooldown, requires 30 point investment in a tree and it still leaves you vulnerable to conditions???

Contrast that with an ele weapon skill whcih gives 5 secs of true invulnerability with only 50sec cooldown?

Seems right to me. Also, vulnerability does not affect fall damage. I’ve tried popping the Signet and jumping off cliff to escape a zerg and still died.

I’ve been contemplating getting into tPvP with my Ranger using a BM build. I was wondering, as someone with no tournament experience, how viable is the Ranger?

And on the topic of Rangers, I’ve been getting mixed reviews on Rangers in PvP. Some say we make strong bunkers with high pet damage while others say pets are a joke and we don’t bring anything another class can’t do better. Which is it?

Sebrent.3625:

Heck, I’d be happy with 3 stacks of Might (For Great Justice!).

I think it’d be nice for Fortifying Bond to work both ways … sharing boons with my pet is nice but it’d be nice if he’d share too … I thought we were pals ;-)

That would make a 1-handed sword ranger quite powerful because of Pounce.

Durzlla.6295:

Holland.9351:

Informer.5213:

Honestly? They removed all that? All of it sounds incredible.

I’m beginning to lose what little faith I still have in Anet.

No kidding. I was hoping they would put in some pet customization eventually (within a year or 2 at their rate), but to know that’s already in the past is hard to believe.

It’s probably removed for the same reason why we can’t name our pets properly: data size. Not a good enough reason for me. I need to be able to disable pet skills and set them at different priorities, but it sounds like I can completely forget about that if it didn’t even get through alpha.

Well, I doubt it’s data size in guessin it’s due to balancing, the previous system was each family (wolf, cat, bear, boar etc) had a huge list of skills to choose from, and then each species (snow wolf, normal wolf, fern wolf etc) had a few skills only they could use, you could then pick any combo of those for your pets skills.

I’m hoping that they’ll get evolutions in eventually seeing as it was pretty big in GW1 and hope that the evolutions provide skill changes to give us more variety, I can’t remember all the details on the evolution system, it had to do with stat alterations (IE you could have a tank or DPS or condi bear etc).

The evolutions were hearty, elder, and dire. These titles related to tank, balanced, and glass respectively.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Even if you’ve got a bias to value offense over defense in a general sense, in open world PvE doesn’t where ranger’s defenses currently rest at now seem rather high when you start comparing classes directly to eachother? Regardless of spec, I mean.

Rangers have plenty of survivability. I’m not arguing that. Our pet however, does not, hence my suggestion.

I like the idea of this plan, but there are a few problems. There are times when you would not want a pet to wander away from you. People already complain about the current leash of pets, forget 3000. Secondly the current pets would have to divided into Atk/def categories.

Also how would melee rangers work with your def pet always knocking back/floating/sinking your target.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I’m not sure I grab your meaning.
Do you mean “Only offense has value, so who cares how much we increase Defense”?

Sort of, in the context of pve,which is where this might get out of hand, damage, in my opinion is much more valuable than defense. Within damage itself, burst over sustained.

Since this change would alter neither of those things, I think it’d be okay.