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(edited by Chrispy.5641)
omg seriously guys, save the balance suggestions and analyses for the real thread. put it in a text file. or something. theres no point till monday. this isnt the thread youre looking for!
I was actually asking myself as I was writing that post before yours, if I should wait til monday, or if I should go on ahead and post it because it would tick off atleast one person….
anyways, what I posted is a good starting point (for me at least) when the thread gets put up on monday, instead of having 50+ starting points like the person who made that massive multi post earlier in this thread.
Hi i mainly sPvP and my main is a Ranger
I wont suggest something, ive already said enough..
There are plenty of them in Ranger forums.What have you doing so far?Do we need a special CDI to suggest things?Dont you read what we say in Rangers forums?
So you increased attention now and what?
We keep suggesting a thousand ideas that you dont want to or cant do?You may consider giving us some info on what you thing the problem is and on what area you can work on..
I wont be suprised if Anet thinks that Rangers are ok and have no idea why we picked em..
If this is true it has no meaning and its unfair for all of us to take this seriously..
I’m pretty sure that Anet is tracking all the things wrong with Rangers (and all professions), especially with things like pet AI, which, they have specifically talked about and addressed in the past.
I Play the Ranger the most, and out of 1100 hours split between PvE and WvW. I have 11 full gear sets and I am always buying more. I have tried out every combination you can think of as far as Ranger traits/weapons/pets, etc. goes.
I really don’t have too many complaints. Rangers have more options than any other profession, However, there is one that’s been bugging me….
- Trait Distribution for Class Mechanics.
- Warriors and Engineers have only 3 traits that affect their class mechanic. Other professions have between 8 and 12.
- Rangers? We have 26 traits that affect our pet, and several more that affect skills that only affect our pet initially.
- Other classes have, at the most, 16% of their traits that affect their main class mechanic (F1-F4). Rangers have about 50% of their traits tied to their pets.
- This does more to kill build diversity than anything, because virtually all of our builds has to involve our pets or pet related skills in some way. Rangers might have more options, but most of those are extremely weak in comparison to other professions.
- Other professions by comparison, can entirely ignore their class mechanic most of the time, or, even if they don’t ignore it, its still strong enough to where it is useful, even when not traited.
- Rangers do not have that luxury. Pets are pretty weak without traits because of how the AI works, and even fully built up through as many traits as possible, they are still lacking compared to other profession mechanics because of their AI, and general unresponsiveness.
3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.
Here’s a few answers and comments….
3. It might seem weak at first glance, but, that trait isn’t meant to just be used by you and only you, and with only 1 signet. It also gives might to your pet. If you pop 3 signets, you have 9 might, and your pet has 9 might, if you have the Fortifying bond trait, your pet actually gets 18 stacks of might because of boon sharing. If you have the Stalker out, you can stack on 5 more might on you for 14 total, and 10 more on your pet, for 28(25 max.) total. A Stalker with 25 stacks of might, for 15 seconds, is freakishly strong, and will probably out dps you unless you are running full zerker gear. This trait isn’t more powerful because its too easy as it is to stack might with the right combination of traits and pets. You also need to consider the benefits the active portion of the signets give you as well. (Rangers should have some access to might that isn’t tied to our pets in some way, but, that is a weakness of our class that should probably stay a weakness, because if we remove too many of our weaknesses, we will just get nerfed all over again)
Sorry but I desagree with you: this trait is not only useless, it’s counterproductive!!!
First of all you can’t afford to WASTE all your 3 utility at the same time just to buff 9 might to you and 18+ to your pet.
Secondly: buffing a never hitting and “so easy killable” pet with 25 stacks of might is as good as having no might; there’s absolutely no point at all in investing traits or skills in a pet with a so terrible A.I., never ever!!!
There is not a single situation (in Pve, PvP and WvW) that is worth to use 3 (48 sec CD each and only if traited) utility at the same time for so little bonuses, not even for a glass cannon build, especially for a ranger dps build. I’m sorry but no one can change my mind about this since I tried what you suggested. There’s no way you’re gonna stay alive against any kind of opponent if you use this “combination” (unless your opponent is AFK).
So, if you know that pet AI sucks right now and doesn’t work, and you are unwilling to find creative ways to work around that limitation, why would you even try a combination of skills that mainly affects your pet?
1. First I want to mention the specific skill rangers have – Opening strike. There is a grandmaster trait Remorseless Regain (Opening Strike whenever you kill a foe or gain stealth.). While is PvE and WvW that is useful non the less, in sPvP, there is nothing good about it – 1 crit hit with vulnerability and that’s all, since you have 1 skill with longbow that make you invisible, and killing enemy is not that often, I just don’t think its worth it.
2. Active effects of signets also affect you – How does this work with the Signet of Renewal’s Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself??? So my pet pulls all the conditions to himself, so do I?
3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.
4. Pet’s Prowess Pet do more damage on critical hits. That is not visible in pet tab (so is Expertise Training: Pets deal extra condition damage.)
5. Traps build is super fun and very strong, as long as there are no Puppet masters or Spirit rangers or Mesmers – because hey -5- man AOE cap is kind of !? kittens. Also I remember a promo video about the class, showing how to use traps in PvE, but its absolutely no use for it since mobs are mainly scatared all over maps standing 1 by 1 alone (so weird to see entire army standing about 2-3 meters from eachother).
6. When u have Shared Anquish and Hide in Plain Sight at the same time which one procs first??? IF they do both at the same time, why?
7. There is only 1 trait connected with Axes – why? Since they are for both main and off hand, that seems kind of – Don’t use axes msg You send.
Here’s a few answers and comments….
1. Opening Strike, Remorseless, etc. are all together weak traits, and I have given my opinion before about how it is probably a reason why we do less overall damage compared to other profession (besides just our pets). Hopefully we can get the chance to talk about it in Monday’s CDI thread before all the pet and longbow comments drown it out.
2. Signet of Renewal only affects your pet, regardless of whether or not you have Signet of the Beastmaster. It would kind of suck to pull conditions from Allies to yourself, especially if you are stacked with conditions as it is.
3. It might seem weak at first glance, but, that trait isn’t meant to just be used by you and only you, and with only 1 signet. It also gives might to your pet. If you pop 3 signets, you have 9 might, and your pet has 9 might, if you have the Fortifying bond trait, your pet actually gets 18 stacks of might because of boon sharing. If you have the Stalker out, you can stack on 5 more might on you for 14 total, and 10 more on your pet, for 28(25 max.) total. A Stalker with 25 stacks of might, for 15 seconds, is freakishly strong, and will probably out dps you unless you are running full zerker gear. This trait isn’t more powerful because its too easy as it is to stack might with the right combination of traits and pets. You also need to consider the benefits the active portion of the signets give you as well. (Rangers should have some access to might that isn’t tied to our pets in some way, but, that is a weakness of our class that should probably stay a weakness, because if we remove too many of our weaknesses, we will just get nerfed all over again)
4. Open the pet panel when you are in combat, and check the stats then. That seems to be the only time pet’s gain the bonus.
5. yup, 5 man aoe cap is dumb. Skills like traps and barrage should be hitting every single living thing that is dumb enough to enter that red circle!
6. I have seen both go off at the same time before, and it is kind of annoying because the camouflage I gain disappears immediately if I am moving around. It should be one at a time instead. This is another issue that we should probably bring up before pets and longbows drown out everything else. (its been awhile since I’ve had both traited, so maybe its fixed, maybe not)
7. In Fairness, we have 2 traits connected to axes. Offhand Training doesn’t just affect axes, true, but it affects all offhand weapons the same, which the increased range and decreased cooldown makes it a very powerful trait, even if it affects just one of our weapons. Its not as bad as Necromancers, who get only 1 trait for axes.
Approximate estimate and not reliable, but an overview for those interested (thanks to JS and regex) votes up to (including) page 24. (if someone voted multiple times, the newest was used)
Prof voted 1st voted 2nd voted 3rd total ele 200 188 166 554 mes 60 57 86 203 war 11 26 49 86 ranger 446 259 116 821 necro 90 132 167 389 guard 7 6 9 22 thief 30 54 84 168 engi 46 157 179 382 total 890 879 856 2625Even if I would have missed 100 votes, ranger and ele are currently first and second.
Correction,….93% of all posts mention the Ranger in some way, and we still have a solid 50% of all #1 votes. double posters were not counted.
Don’t stop now! If you haven’t voted yet, get to that thread and vote! Its unlikely that Elementalists will pull ahead, but lets not take that chance!!!
My Idea (built up a little and reposted from a previous thread)::::
- Remove Vulnerability on Opening Strike.
- Opening Strike Applies a 25% damage buff on any attack you open Combat with.
- Remorseless still functions as normal, reapplying opening strike on killing a foe and gaining stealth.
- All Weapon Skill 3’s apply a stack of opening strike when they sucessfully hit an enemy.
- Opening Strike (the effect) can stack up to 5 times, either by waiting for it to stack naturally before ever entering combat, or taking advantage of skill # 3 on weapons and the Remorseless Trait. One attack will remove only 1 stack of opening strike, meaning you can have up to 5 attacks with 25% more damage.
- The 25% damage buff can stack with all other effects.
Might be a bit overpowered. That 25% might need to be reduced a little.
This allows a Ranger to be very strong in the opening stages of combat, and also gives them a source of extra damage at regular intervals no matter what weapon they are using.
Rangers have atleast half of all #1 votes, and about 80% of all the posts in that thread mentions Ranger in some way. (Ele’s, Necros, Engi’s, Mesmers, and Theves are also on many lists, and Warriors and Guardians are hardly mentioned at all)
the reasons for each individual vote differs, but, that should tell you something.
1. RANGER
2. Necromancer
3. Thief
Bumping this.
First, I think it worthwhile to point out that irrespective of the game, and even genre, there are individuals who enjoy playing particular roles (DPS, Tank, Support) and will tailor their builds to these roles whether the game has a specific, defined class for them or not. Supports in this game are currently viable and Anet supported because specialization down a support line provides much more healing and condi clear than any individual player can provide him/herself. The support role exists in this game and will continue to exist…what remains is trying to further define the role as something other than a heal/condi-clear/boon dispensing bot, and increase the personal reward/utility of the support role in general.
In line with achieving these goals, the changes suggested by the OP and Potato give support players powerful, potential battle-changing abilities with “boon amplification” via the proposed Support Power mechanism. Additionally, it allows for unique abilities that are not possible via other, less specialized builds. For example, most classes have a way in which to provide themselves with swiftness. The only factor that modifies swiftness currently is boon duration, and thus the only way for supports to actually provide boon utility that surpasses the quality of that provided by non-supports is through stacking boon duration. These proposed changes modify boons in such a way as to allow supports to gives something truly unique to their teammates that can dramatically change the outcome of any particular fight.
This expands the niche that supports currently fill from simply healing, handing out longer-duration boons, condi-clearing and CC to a more dramatic force-multiplier that can spike the damage or survivability of their teammates depending on what the group needs. My favorite of the above suggestions is that concerning swiftness, where a support could “supercharge” their group for a small duration to allow for chasing down a group, or quickly disengage. These types of temporary “overcharges” of buffs are a truly unique idea that would add a whole new layer of depth to gameplay, and in the process make both the game, in general, and the support role, in particular, more enjoyable to play.
I agree with everything in this post. Anet, please look into changing the way support works in this game. What was suggestyed in this thread is definitely a step in the right direction.
This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:
http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s
I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.
Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.
interesting video.. and right the skills look awesome and balanced.. i hope that games comes in english!
actual powerranger needs a hard hitting skill. and no not maul. and a opportunity creator like bullsrush as example.
the big problem we always will have is that with the pet we will get a dmg reduction and are never on top with other burstclasses even if they fix some weaponskills and give us more +dmg traits and better reasonable traitlines and more/better utilities. so we need also more sustain.. in the class philo. of anet they said ranger should be a little like a thief.. evasive. with 25% endurance regen and such little source of vigor we are lacking that evasion. another problem of powerrangers. but aside of that we need a niche to fill. a reason to pick a lower burst class with no teleports, stealht or instant gapclosers like other classes builds provide. and nearly no disengage. i would say with the other thread in mind that thief completly shut down other roamer like mesmer and eles that a trait granting the possible. to ignore stealth would give us a roll to play in tpvp to shut down thiefs and providing cover for a mesmer or eleroamer.. remember this game has no bodyblock! that would mean counterplay but no complete buildwars.
One of the problems I think we have with Vigor is that unlike the equal traits that other classes have, that gives Vigor on Critical Hit, we instead get Vigor, only when we are Critically Hit
You could argue that it is infact balanced because of how many ways we can access the boon, but, I just don’t see how it fits into the theme of Ranger at all, where you would put yourself in harms way, just to get an advantage. It makes no sense.
Rangers are more about survival, not sacrificing their life for an advantage (their pets, sure, but not themselves). That’s what Necromancers are in this game for (who have no access to vigor),….not us.
How would I balance it, and fit the skill to be more in line with the theme of the Ranger?
Either, make Primal Reflexes the same as other Vigor giving traits (vigor on crit), or change it into something totally different. One of these ideas could work since we have access to vigor already by several other sources:::
(1) – Primal Reflexes instead makes all your evades last longer, including dodges and weapon skills. (10%?)
(2) – Primal Reflexes gives you an increased Endurance Regen rate when you don’t have Vigor, and it gives you a damage boost when you do have Vigor. (10% each?)
(3) – Primal Reflexes changes to where it lets you ignore movement based conditions, such as one instance of Immobilize, Chill, Fear, or Cripple, with a cooldown.
(4) – Primal Reflexes applies Vigor when you sucessfully evade an attack, with a cooldown. (dodges, utility skills, and weapon based evades)
Edit – Other, slightly more overpowered ideas include :::
(5) – Your Pet gains Blur when you dodge, and you gain Blur at the end of your dodge(.25s)(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blur) (alternatively, and not overpowered…., You Pet gainst 1 second of Blur when you dodge, (meaning it evades whenever you dodge))
(6) – You and your Pet Gain Health when you sucessfully evade an attack (500 + 25% of healing power)
(7) – Primal Reflexes becomes a Buff like Opening Strike, that reduces damage from the first hit you or your pet recieves to 0. Moment of Clarity should get a new effect, that reapplies this trait when interrupting an enemy.
(8) – Primal Reflexes reduces the Recharge of Lightning Reflexes by 30%, which combined with Wilderness knowledge, makes the total recharge time 20 seconds. (10 seconds of vigor, a stun breaker, and an extra 3/4 second evade every 20 seconds? Yes please!!!!)
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
Forget the dungeon equipment sellers, I’m curious if that Norn will ever complete his guild tryouts and be accepted into that Sylvari’s guild!
What about that Centaur that’s been held at gunpoint for the last year? Or that skritt that always forgets about what he just did, and is forever stuck in his own timeloop telling his friend about the entrance to the sewers he found? What about the Quaggan village?
staying somewhat on topic…..and outside of spoken player dialogue during battle…
Lorewise, how close is the bond between a Player and their npc Companions (Ranger Pet, Necromancer Minions, Thieves Guild, etc.)?
What about your favorite Non main NPCs!
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Chrispy.5641
My Favorite non-main npc’s are….., the narrators of all these Living world trailers we’ve been getting. I have no idea if they are throw away voices, or actual characters in the game.
I like to think that they are the voices of the gods (as they are the only ones besides the Elder Dragons who can possibly narrate the Living world trailers from that point of view), but, that’s probably just wishful thinking…
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
Now, if you want me to be honest, and say what I think is a problem with Ranger damage (aside from pets), its our reliance on applying stacks and stacks of vulnerability through opening strike and other skills. It is where a large portion of our damage comes from (always somewhere between 10-20% depending on our build). I think that is entirely unecessary because it depends on a tiny set of traits and skills, and a condition that can be easily cleansed, and it should change.
Opening Strike should be a 25% Damage bonus to open combat with, that can be stacked with our other effects and skills, otherwise, the traits don’t need to change. Opening Strike should be an actual Advantage that the Ranger has if they have it, and not just be something that other professions have easy access to anyways. Axe and Greatsword should keep their vulnerability, but Rapid Fire should lose it, and in its place, I have a few suggestions for a Longbow Overhaul:::
(1) – Long Range Shot : Stays the same. It is a skill meant to be used at long range, and at 3000+ a shot at long range in full zerker gear before any vulnerability or signets are used, I’m not going to complain.
(2) – Rapid Fire : I don’t see any problems with the skill. The reason why it exists in its current form is to give you a damage option at any range, since Long Range Shot and Point Blank Shot both change their parameters depending on range. If the skill must change, then it should no longer apply the nearly useless vulnerability, but, I don’t think it deserves a substantial damage buff either. In keeping with the general theme of the Longbow as a whole product (damage and control), it should be quickly stacking on a (better) condition or two faster than an enemy can cleanse it. Alternating between Cripple and Bleeding every other shot is my choice, making for 5 stacks of both total at the end.
(3) – Hunter’s Shot : In my opinion, Stealth on Hunter’s Shot is useless because of Barrage. It prevents you from Stealthing if you already used that skill. There are also traps to worry about if you are using those as well. I like time and skill management in my games, but that’s too much. If we want it to be useful, we have to make to many gameplay decisions, and are forced into certain builds. Stealth is a neat mechanic, but there are too many factors that don’t make it very useful for a Ranger other than “Rangers have Stealth?….Coooool!” Hunter’s shot should change to where it rips a boon off of your enemy and gives it to you and your pet. If the enemy doesn’t have a boon, then it should either deal more damage, or give you and your pet Opening strike, regardless of whether its traited or not.
(4) – Point Blank Shot : This Skill should be the opposite of Long Range Shot. Not only should it push enemies back, but it should deal more damage and punish them for getting closer to you, since the whole point of this skill is to keep enemies away from you. The maximum range of the skill, and distances at which various Knockbacks occur should change to reflect this. And if it does 3000+ damage at point blank range in Zerker gear, and its a control skill? I’m not going to complain!
(5) – Barrage : I have no problems with this skill, like Long Range shot. You are sacrificing 2.75 seconds for 12 seconds of sustained damage and cripple. That is more than a fair trade. If damage must be increased, then the Cripple should be removed to balance it out. If it absolutely must have a condition, then I suggest a 1s immobilize on the first wave, so that way the enemy will atleast get hit by 2 waves of this attack.
And that’s it. Yeah, there’s a damage buff, but it doesn’t just get given to you on a plate. You actually have to be smart about using the skills.
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
Okay, so to clarify to some people, Greatsword is the only weapon that actually has “burst” damage for rangers.
The reason why rangers need burst in some form stems more from other game mechanics than anything else. The lack of inherent ability to remove boons like protection (and stability and retaliation to a degree) means that you therefore have to have enough damage to puncture through those boons, or just high defense builds in general.
However, because of the way defensive builds are designed in this game, they are much, much better at handling and bunkering/outhealing sustained damage output than they are at burst damage, because even if the burst damage is reduced as well, it can be less predictable so that when you introduce a players skill factor into the equation, there is actually an opportunity to outplay opponents, where as now, with the lack of burst damage on certain weapons (longbow mainly), it significantly reduces the amount of skill factor needed in order to outplay a longbow user because the damage comes at such small increments and at times is pieced up into so many small hits that it doesn’t ever put out enough damage in a given moment to overwhelm an opponent.
For it’s channel time, Rapid Fire should literally be doing a base of a bare minimum of like 1800 damage (currently it’s 1320). Personally I think it should be a base of 2k damage, since you are firing 10 easily avoidably by side stepping arrows over the course of 4.5 seconds which in that time span means that more often than not you will have to break channel in order to dodge or heal or etc.
More arrows with higher channel time implies a higher risk, harder to land skill (on the spectrum of this game being from like necro marks as the easiest to like long range grenade throwing as an engi being the hardest, which is sad in itself) which should definitely be doing significantly more damage than the autoattack (it does less than 5% more at most, and that’s only in optimal conditions, because interrupting an autoattack with rapid fire is a dps loss).
That or reducing the channel time of Rapid Fire to like 2.5 seconds, which simultaneously makes it better at doing damage but harder to land (faster channel means more arrows missed on dodge), so that the skill resembles more of a “machine gun” burst. Especially since it seems incredibly ironic that Rapid Fire, a skill that has rapid in it’s name, is the slowest channeling skill in the game.
Greatsword also has 2 burst skills, for those that don’t know. You have Maul, and you have Counterattack. A Well timed Counterattack will do just as much damage as Maul will. At higher power levels, it will be about 10% or so less because Maul scales better with power than Counterattack does, but its not that far off. The best thing is, you can catch melee players off guard by timing it just right with Signet of the hunt.
That aside, why do Rangers need more than 1 weapon with Burst? The Longbow is obviously not meant to be a burst weapon, or a skirmishing weapon. With my many hours of playing Ranger, the Longbow seems to be meant to be a long range weapon which you either open battle with, or fight with at long range. Its not meant to be used for the entire battle. You are supposed to be switching weapons, tinkering with your skill rotations, and combining your weapon skills with your utility skills.
If you give the Longbow the equivelant of a ‘Burst’ skill, then you are encouraging Rangers to just stick with the Longbow, and never bother to change weapons, no matter the situation, which I consider to be very dull gameplay!
…
…
(@) – Ranger is my most played profession, so I am not going to just leave you be. If I have a concern about yours or anyone elses balance ideas, then I am going to say something, and I am going to ask about it.
(A) – Explain why Barrage is so weak. The root sucks, but that’s why you should learn to plan ahead. I fire off barrage in a choke point, and while an enemy player is running through it, I switch weapons and continue to hit them with my sword or greatsword, whichever I have equiped at the time. The combined dps from barrage still going off, combined with my pet, combined with my sword, sometimes combined with the traps I layed down beforehand, is more than enough to bring down just about anything, unless the enemy is smart enough to escape, but first they got to cleanse all that cripple and chill I just threw on them seconds earlier.
Barrage isn’t an incedibly weak skill. Its not even sort of weak. It isn’t Over powered either though. Barrage is a skill that requires you to plan ahead before you use it. And, yes, I am saying that your justification for removing the root on barrage is a sucky one.
(B) – Rangers do alot less damage than other professions, and need more burst options. I get that. Its because of our stupid A.I. controlled pets that our damage is so handicapped. So what is your suggestion to fix it? Make the Ranger’s Damage equal other professions, by any means necessary (faster cast times, reducing cooldowns, increasing damage, etc.)?
Okay, sounds good, but where does our pet fit into all of this? If Rangers are able to do 100% the damage that other professions can do, then you have to add in the 20% that our pets can help us do (and thats the low end). So, now we are doing 120% of the damage that other professions can do? While pet AI doesn’t work very well right now, when Anet fixes it (which we all know may be a long time before we see anything. Doesn;t mean you ignore it), where would the balance be? Would we get Re-Nerfed back down, or will other professions get a power buff to compensate?
Its funny, and also sinking into sad territory that you guys keep saying the same things (remove root on barrage, make rapid fire a charging skill!), and not one of you have bothered to think about the side effects of what changes like those would do.
Remove the root on Barrage? Well, lets just remove that weakness from all weapon skills, like Meteor shower, Killshot, and hundred blades, and completely throw Position and Timing out the window, because, why not? Who needs time and position management or movement related weaknesses of any kind in an MMO whose entire combat system relies on movement? No one should have any weakness of any kind!
Let Rapid fire do all its damage at once? Well, okay. Lets make Hundred Blades, Unload, Arc Lightning, etc. do all their damage at once as well. Why not? Rangers are suddenly allowed to do it! Warriors, Elementalist, Thieves, Engineers, etc. want to do it too!
Are you being intentionally naive or just trolling?
Little bit of both actually, with a little sarcasm thrown in.
Reason for that is, is that the concern is a very legit concern. In what way does removing the root on Barrage makes it suddenly balanced against similar skills? In what way does having Rapid fire deal all its damage at once, or even faster makes it suddenly balanced against similar skills? And no, there is no reason to ignore any concerns like that and leave Anet to figure that out.
Skills between classes don’t need to be balanced with one another. Traits between classes don’t need to be balanced with one another. CLASSES need to be balanced between one another.
Barrage is currently an incredibly weak AE that does more harm than good. It makes no sense on the weapon it’s on for a class that has no other real AE option. It has absolutely nothing in common with what Meteor Shower provides to the Elementalist.
Rapid fire is currently an incredibly weak channel that does only a fraction more damage than auto attack does over the same duration. It’s also a very poor substitute for burst… something the class also is highly deficient in.
How do you expect a power based build for any class to work when it has 1 mediocre AE and 1 unreliable skill to fall back on for burst? Players are trying to come up with reasonable options while working with in the constraits set forth by ANet (half-[censored] solutions that take no thought or effort to implement).
Okay, we know that many of Anet’s own solutions to profession balance isn’t any better than what we could come up with. They are terrible when it comes to balance, I get that, but, how is removing the root on barrage going to suddenly balance the Ranger against other professions?
How is turning Rapid Fire into an incredibly telegraphed skill going to balance the Ranger against other professions, and explain why it is supposed to be a burst skill? Why does the Ranger always have to have a burst skill on their weapon? If its because other professions have one on their weapons, then you yourself are comparing skill to skill instead of class to class. You can’t seperate the two.
Its funny, and also sinking into sad territory that you guys keep saying the same things (remove root on barrage, make rapid fire a charging skill!), and not one of you have bothered to think about the side effects of what changes like those would do.
Remove the root on Barrage? Well, lets just remove that weakness from all weapon skills, like Meteor shower, Killshot, and hundred blades, and completely throw Position and Timing out the window, because, why not? Who needs time and position management or movement related weaknesses of any kind in an MMO whose entire combat system relies on movement? No one should have any weakness of any kind!
Let Rapid fire do all its damage at once? Well, okay. Lets make Hundred Blades, Unload, Arc Lightning, etc. do all their damage at once as well. Why not? Rangers are suddenly allowed to do it! Warriors, Elementalist, Thieves, Engineers, etc. want to do it too!
Are you being intentionally naive or just trolling?
Little bit of both actually, with a little sarcasm thrown in.
Reason for that is, is that the concern is a very legit concern. In what way does removing the root on Barrage makes it suddenly balanced against similar skills? In what way does having Rapid fire deal all its damage at once, or even faster makes it suddenly balanced against similar skills? And no, there is no reason to ignore any concerns like that and leave Anet to figure that out.
The hoods seem to be a winter thing. They may not be around for a while but hopefully they get put back up. Also Wanze, you’re rude and have a serious attitude problem. You could have ignored the thread or gave a simple reply to his question, instead you choose to sound like a know it all and toss around statements about rules and speak sarcastically. You’re what’s wrong with this forum community.
If you think im rude, report my post. If a Mod agrees with you and deletes my post, thats fine with me. From all posters, i was the only one pointing the OP into the right direction, while you just repeated what others already said before you.
Your not being rude, but you are being just as ignorant than the guy who made this thread. There could be a million threads about the grenth hood, and t doesn’t matter because of how non functioning the search is, so stating that multiple threads exist doesn absolutely nothing for us.
It does not matter if the search on this site works or not. There are other proven ways to search any site using google or bing, internet 101. This is why people need to pass a test before being allowed to use the internet or a computer.
Or, you know, we can keep telling Anet to fix or remove their worthless search function on the forums. There is no friggin reason why I should have to open Google on another window/tab just to find something on this site that already has a search function(working or not) just because you do it that way, and think you are clever enough to invoke Internet 101. I think you should re-read the section about how people do things differently, and have the full right to complain about stuff that doesn’t work before you should be allowed near a computer again.
Its funny, and also sinking into sad territory that you guys keep saying the same things (remove root on barrage, make rapid fire a charging skill!), and not one of you have bothered to think about the side effects of what changes like those would do.
Remove the root on Barrage? Well, lets just remove that weakness from all weapon skills, like Meteor shower, Killshot, and hundred blades, and completely throw Position and Timing out the window, because, why not? Who needs time and position management or movement related weaknesses of any kind in an MMO whose entire combat system relies on movement? No one should have any weakness of any kind!
Let Rapid fire do all its damage at once? Well, okay. Lets make Hundred Blades, Unload, Arc Lightning, etc. do all their damage at once as well. Why not? Rangers are suddenly allowed to do it! Warriors, Elementalist, Thieves, Engineers, etc. want to do it too!
I still think my “everything overlaps” approach is the one most likely to be correct, since “left only” and “right only” approaches run into the fact that both sides generally have something on either edge.
It has to be this or else it is pretty much unsolvable. So you’re saying see picture?
I will try this today but we also have to come up with a way to determine what indicates spaces between the words. Else it is too hard to translate.
That’s the method that I’m using, and by using only the section that does not repeat itself in any way, and also assuming that everything overlaps in a grid-like pattern, we have 7 lines of 19 characters. That is 133 characters total.
I found 30 unique characters, so it is possible that some of those characters are numbers, punctuation, etc. it is also possible that the dots are supposed to represent crosses or curves.
There is another possibility that all the lines and dots are actually representing numbers, and from that code, we match the numbers with normal letters that we find in an alphabet. It is also a very small possibility that one of more characters are trying to define spaces, but that is the least of our worries right now.
You do not need to find spaces at this early stage of solving the Cypher, because many cyphers are written with no spaces at all to confuse would be code crackers. Many are arranged in a square matrix, and you have to actually read the characters backwards, top to bottom, bottom to top, diagonally, etc. Many repeat themselves to further confuse you and you have to take out the specific square of characters that repeats itself and makes sense (which is what many of us have done already). You also have to consider if a Ceaser Shift was used on the letters as well. Then, even after unjumbling all the letters, they could still be out of order or written backwards. There are quite a number of variables to consider, and whether or not spaces exist is the least of our worries.
The first step that we need to find out (provided that this is actually a cypher, and Anet isn’t laughing themselves to death in their office as we try to solve nonsense), is find out what language the characters translate to. It could be Latin or New Krytan, which has 26 characters. It could be Asuran, which has 24 characters. It could be Spanish, which does only have 27 letters, but also has 30 defined sounds (rr, ll, etc.). We might not even need to find out the original alphabet, we might just need to replace each character as a latin letter or symbol to make it easier on our eyes and brains to solve.
If you want a simple cypher to solve, google a Journey to the Center of the Earth, and read chapters 2-5. Its in the public domain so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
The hoods seem to be a winter thing. They may not be around for a while but hopefully they get put back up. Also Wanze, you’re rude and have a serious attitude problem. You could have ignored the thread or gave a simple reply to his question, instead you choose to sound like a know it all and toss around statements about rules and speak sarcastically. You’re what’s wrong with this forum community.
If you think im rude, report my post. If a Mod agrees with you and deletes my post, thats fine with me. From all posters, i was the only one pointing the OP into the right direction, while you just repeated what others already said before you.
Your not being rude, but you are being just as ignorant than the guy who made this thread. There could be a million threads about the grenth hood, and t doesn’t matter because of how non functioning the search is, so stating that multiple threads exist doesn absolutely nothing for us.
One thing I have to wonder about the Longbow….Is there a single Balance Related reason why Long Range Shot exists in the game in its current form? Same question with the 900 range shortbow, instead of what it’s original range was?
Its starting to get dificult to take the changes you suggest seriously, when the only goal that 99% of them try to do is slow down the pace of combat, which the pace of fights in this game isn’t even a problem. Just like what I asked in the Ranger thread, I want to know how many hours you actually played the Engineer, lets make it all professions.
I gotta ask you Swagg. How many hours have you actually played the Ranger in Guild Wars 2?
From a tpvp standpoint, warrior is definately op. Why ?
- You get access to healing signet, passive (and very strong) sustain, 2 damage invulnerabilities, one for power damage, one for condis. You have insane cleansing potential, very good access to stability, high toughness and hp and thus require a sustained focus from which you can generally get out of (especially when running with an organized group).
That means, as a casual player, not needing to worry too much about incoming damage and what to dodge. As a good player, once you get good at dodging the right things and kite properly when needed, you are nearly unkillable.Warrior’s also OP because no other class can stand on a node except a bunker guardian while a warrior is on it. If they do, they willingly tank large amounts of damage that is really hard to recover from, especially when the ennemy thief is ready to jump half hp targets.
In WvW, you have more of everything. More damage and survivability. Also warrior’s mobility is unmatched. They’re faster than thieves ! Especially out of combat when they can swap out weapons in their inventory. Warriors are generally slightly less of an issue however, as you don’t need to worry about standing on a point, thus being able to kite the warrior to death. Not guaranteed at all. IF you can out damage healing signet.
Have fun. Welcome to Warrior.
Nice summary.
Warriors are Sturdy, Strong, and Fast at the same time. All the other lowly classes can only have 1 of those at a time, so…yeah. If anyone is still thinking of Rolling Warrior, you should probably go on ahead and do it!
You can seperate them. Take that example rule to always take the left symbols of each block. The seperation is absolutely unique and consistent, but it’s somewhat arbitrary.
Edit: This example fails if there is a vertical stroke at the end of a line (which is the case, for example line2, line3, …).
That rule doesn’t work. Look at the images attached in this post :::
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/madness/Cracking-Code-in-Scarlet-s-Lair-SPOILERS/3598370
Why does barrage show hundreds of arrows falling in the same area, but, only 5 people get hit by it? Remove the 5 target limit on the skill, and turn Barrage into a true area denial skill, then it’ll be good for large scale use against zergs in WvW as well as against smaller groups of enemies in PvP and PvE.
Buffing the damage makes it too powerful against smaller groups, buffing the conditions it gives also makes it too powerful for the same reason. Turning it into a single target damage spike isn’t going to suddenly make the skill better than what our autoattack can do by itself.
The dotal dps of Barrage is considerably low.
Its not too hard to deal over 2000 damage per tick in Valkyrie gear. Infact, its not hard at all. 24,000 damage that you can fire and forget while pulling out your sword or other weapons is considrably low total dps?
While that is not as much damage as Meteor shower and similar skills you also need to remember that Barrage has a lower casting time, and it cripples in addition to the damage. While I agree that the damage is a little low (as is all our damage because of our class mechanic), I would not consider Barrage useless in its current form. The only problem I see with it is that it hits the 5 people closest to the center of the AOE, which makes no sense.
FAKE
Guild Wars 2 skill descriptions always use the word Foe. The writer of those skill descriptions kind of slipped up and posted the word Enemies under the Mesmer’s skill description instead of Foes.
Also, That Shaman is one of the most prolific data miners for Gw2. I checked his posts about upcoming stuff (most recent one is here :::http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1wzzl6/data_mining_upcoming_features_and_chat_codes_from/)
And aside from some interesting things, like new commander icons, new musical weapons, and even more stuff about a VIP thing…..There isn’t anything about new elite skills of any kind.
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
I asked about why we didn’t see any horses in the game in that Dolyak Express thread the devs started a few months ago, but I’m assuming that because they didn’t answer it, the question was a Spoiler Request, No Comment, Which is disappointing as that was a perfect time to explain why there are no horses in Guild Wars 2, but since Anet wants this to be Game of Thrones were we do more guessing than actually reading the book or watching the show (or in this case, playing the game)….Oh well….I bet we’ll never know….
I think the reason why we aren’t getting buffs is because Anet is trying to avoid power creep through constantly buffing the weak points of any particular class, which is why most of the time, we see Anet nerfing the strong points of a class. The problem with that though is that you cannot avoid power creep without doing the exact opposite. And over time, because of this reverse power creep, each class also ends up with muddled roles and be unimpressive compared to whatever the baseline class is in the game (the one that Anet is balancing all others against, which in this case is the warrior)
Ricochet – I agree its nearly useless, and I think it is the byproduct of Anet trying way too hard to make every weapon for every profession unique, but forgetting to balance the skills before release.
One interesting thing with Ricochet though is that sharpening stone uses only 1 stack of bleed every time you attack, and even though Ricochet attacks 3 seperate enemies, it still counts as only one attack giving you the ability to apply 5 stacks of bleeds on 3 different enemies with just one use of sharpening stone!
Splitblade – Use it with Sharpended Edges, an Earth Sigil, and Sharpening Stone. Make a point blank attack with it, and watch as 20 bleeds stack on the enemy instantly! This skill is meant to stack bleeds, and not every weapon needs multiple dozens of different roles at the same time.
Winter’s Bite – 3 seconds of chill every 10 seconds with the attack is perfectly balanced, especially with all the runes and other ways to increase chill duration. The other half of the skill is utterly useless, and relies too much on server side A.I. to apply a 10 second weakness debuff. Works great in PvE, works terribly everywhere else.
And yes, I use the Axe in Condition builds, especially with Rabid Gear, because it is our ultimate Condition weapon when dealing with more than one enemy. Single target, shortbow does still win, but not when theres more than one.
Why does barrage show hundreds of arrows falling in the same area, but, only 5 people get hit by it? Remove the 5 target limit on the skill, and turn Barrage into a true area denial skill, then it’ll be good for large scale use against zergs in WvW as well as against smaller groups of enemies in PvP and PvE.
Buffing the damage makes it too powerful against smaller groups, buffing the conditions it gives also makes it too powerful for the same reason. Turning it into a single target damage spike isn’t going to suddenly make the skill better than what our autoattack can do by itself.
I’d say around 130,000 concurrent users at prime time.
That number sounds good to me.
And even though the game did sell 3 million copies, its kind of hard for many people to care about coming back to play the game when they aren’t bound by a subscription fee (this is a good thing), but, its also kind of hard for many people to care about coming back to play the game when 90% of the new content released after launch doesn’t even exist in the game anymore.
Anything and Everything about the Sylvari and the Jungle Dragon has been done to death over the last year, then someone from another game waltzed in here, used a phoenix down, then did the theory to death again. I’m just waiting for a convenient ingame cutscene to happen so all these annoying theories about Sylvari and the Jungle Dragon can finally be laid to rest and stay dead this time!
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)
How does this:::
Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason. Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it.
and this:::
Since you asked so nicely. The underwater skill is an instant skill which doesn’t not require the AI to change it’s think state, as it can fire off during other actions. The land skill plumbs into our animation system which requires the drake to change it think state and execute a new order to the animation system. Both AI think state and animation can’t be running 100% of the time on every creature on the server for obvious reasons (it would create massive CPU usage and generate tons of skill lag) Animations are masked by client side blending, but the AI stuff has no way to be masked. We can make special cases for Ranger Pet F2, but doing so requires time and testing.
Always end up turning into this:::
Anet said that they wont touch Pet AI, period!
???
They have to be flagged for anyone to care?
:/
Welcome to life as a Ranger player. The only staff member that acted like we exist left the company a while ago.
Its not that, its that most threads involving the Ranger, even those with good ideas, end up turning into a flame fest by the second page, normally in the direction of Anet. This thread has actually been constructive for over 200 posts. Thats seriously a new record when it comes to rangers.
There have been plenty of constructive threads in the Ranger forum. People just don’t bother anymore because being civil didn’t do anything.
The very fact that they had to tell the devs to even look at this thread says more than enough about how much they care about what we have to say or suggest regardless of how we frame our ideas.
Also consider the vast difference in player opinion on how to balance the Ranger class, differing from the very simple, to complete redesign. Some people say get rid of the pet completely and replace it with a new mechanic, some just want a permastow option with a buff. Others want a reworked AI. Others want only one pet out and expand its skillset. And Others just want simple, small fixes(Im in this section).
This thread has actually managed to stay away from pretty much all of that for the most part, and the actual talk of balance has been the main subject. And I’ll leave for the night by giving my opinion again, that
….in order for the Ranger Class to truly be balanced, the very first thing that needs to be looked at isn’t our rooting sword, or our easy to kill spirits, or our traps that do no damage. Its the pets, and our low weapon damage compared to other professions.
Edit : And our lack of team support (aside from spotter, frost spirit and other spirits, natures voice, search and rescue, signet of renewal, healing spring, pet support F2’s, etc.)
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.
I will!….If it were Game of Thrones quality, would read the book to see what happened if I missed an episode, in the same way people look online to read the wiki to see what happened in Guild Wars 2…
They have to be flagged for anyone to care?
:/
Welcome to life as a Ranger player. The only staff member that acted like we exist left the company a while ago.
Its not that, its that most threads involving the Ranger, even those with good ideas, end up turning into a flame fest by the second page, normally in the direction of Anet. This thread has actually been constructive for over 200 posts. Thats seriously a new record when it comes to rangers.
Just rangers? :P
Okay, its a new record in general, for any profession. The Flame war usually starts by the 50th post for any of them normally.
They have to be flagged for anyone to care?
:/
Welcome to life as a Ranger player. The only staff member that acted like we exist left the company a while ago.
Its not that, its that most threads involving the Ranger, even those with good ideas, end up turning into a flame fest by the second page, normally in the direction of Anet. This thread has actually been constructive for over 200 posts. Thats seriously a new record when it comes to rangers.
Also, I haven’t left a comment on this thread yet, but, pretty much this when it involves pets.::::
Someone said this earlier in the thread but if it is SO difficult to make the pet work since buffs can potentially make it OP. wtf don’t they just make them into passive buff companions that don’t do damage. Give the ranger his 100% dps with the pet as a passive buff with an on press ability on F2 for each pet and then start balancing from there.
Make the pet un-targetable have it throw out buffs, heals etc what ever, gold find, etc suddenly Ranger can now have a utility spot in groups as well.
Its pretty obvious at this point that the pet cant be brought to an acceptable level why bother crafting all these complex pet ideas. Gut it and call it a day. Were not going to be getting super complex human like pet AI, lets call it a day. Still the “pet class” you still have your trusty buddy but minus the headaches of worrying if he is missing his attacks or dead.
Not that I agree with that whole comment, but, I think that pets are the main reason why there is so much trouble when it comes to balancing Rangers, and before Anet makes anymore changes or bandaids to the Ranger class, Pets are where they need to start first.
(edited by Chrispy.5641)
So…There’s going to be a new Lion’s Arch on top of the ruins of 3 previous Lion’s Arch’s?
I love reading pretty much pointless reactionary threads like this that react to another thread reacting to what happened to them in the game, even though you could have probably posted everything in the same thread instead of wasting space on the front page of the general discussion forums for another similarly themed thread.
wow…..I almost forgot there was a Sylvari in the Living World without a god complex.
I’ll put my comment here, then leave my peace, since it doesn’t seem that we’ll recieve an actual response any time soon.
When I bought my first Infinite gathering tools, I thought “Hey, Infinite! That means I only need to buy one, and I’ll get to use it forever!”
Since, you know, infinite means infinite. It doesn’t get less useful over time, it retains the same value.
The new gathering tools that Anet is releasing will change in value over time because the newer material it gathers, even if its the only source, will eventually flood the market, and become worthless.
After thinking about it for awhile…, I think the new infinite gathering tool and all future ones are there only for fools to spend their money on who don;t do the math, because the only advantage they are buying isn’t even going to last that long if enough people spend their hard earned gold/money on the item. It will flood the market with whatever item, and become worthless. If you want to spend an extra 200 gems to do it, hey, its your money.
Go into the options/graphics menu. If you increase the size of the Interface to its largest size will also increase the size of the preview window and the hero panel, which will also make your character model appear much larger, without losing any detail.
Make sure shader and texture settings are maxed out, but turn off post processing so all the bluring stuff goes away.
Thats the best way to get a highly detailed full body model. If that still isn’t detailed enough, then your going to have to buy the armor yourself and stand near a wall, and move the camera around until its zoomed in enough to see the detail you want to see.
But because of the long cooldown time…., yeah, pretty much useless.
It can be useful with the Axe, because Ricochet (axe 1) uses only 1 stack each time you use the skill instead of 3.
I haven’t tested with piercing arrows and either of the bows, but I have heard that on skills that are only a single attack, like Axe 1, it should only use up one stack of the skill instead of however many enemies you hit, no matter how many enemies you hit.
I’d have to say your odds were worse than the guys who betted on the Seahawks winning with a 35 point spread, though your odds were much better than an earlier thread about someone who threw in 3 armors and a bow, and somehow, out popped Dusk!
No idea…
/15 char
In WvW, Rangers show off their real weakpoints. I do not wonder if everyone targets us first for an easy loot…
- The first arrow shot needs to be a lot faster (Opening Fire’s buff?), then a little more on continous shooting
- The arrows needs to be faster, people can dodge/evade it way easy
- The 1200 range is just low, can’t even hit anyone down from a fort wall. Totaly unrealistic, even pathetic. 1500 base range should be the minimal on Skill#1.
- Hits are always Out of Range/Obstructed, meanwhile standing clear at target 5 steps away. Can’t even hit the NPC Archers up on forts, its automaticly aims the top edge, but on range it should be a clear headshot!
- We’re hunters, but can’t catch anyone…
- Meanwhile Elementalists can heal fully up and hit serious criticals on us + being invulnerable for a LONG time, and Thieves just backstab us with 8k damages then disappearing whenever they want for long & heal fully up, we can do Nothing.
Yes, we have 3 sec stealth if it hits (mostly just fails because of bad targeting and sent to recharge, we die…) AND STEALTH FINISHING THAT YOU CAN NOT DEFEND.
(Shouldn’t be the Stealth brake when taking damage????)- Pets do not work at all, die before can hit, can’t track target, every skill/trait on them is a waste.
- Survivality is close to zero, meanwhile we should be the number 1 survivors.
Especially the last one. Anet talks about how Warriors are meant to be a Sturdy profession and thats why they don’t want to be too quick to change Healing Signet, but, why can’t Rangers be a Surviving profession. Seriously, we have a Traitline called WILDERNESS SURVIVAL