Guild Wars 2

Leuca.5732:

Daemon.4295:

Definitely looks like a trap build.

Regarding alpine wolf, I don’t want to give you incorrect info so someone please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe Alpine Wolf’s chill is AoE, whereas drakehound’s F2 is single target. Worth taking into account.

Knockdowns from Hyenas can be super useful, the damage is awful though so it’s a tradeoff. That second hyena is hard to keep alive for very long though.

They are both AoE.

Ok, sorry about that, I thought the drakehound’s immobilize was single target. Good to know!

Xsorus.2507:

Kain Francois.4328:

Well this is certainly great news. Greatsword Ranger is currently in a good place in terms of defense and offense, so if everything else can be brought up to the quality of that, it would be nice.

Particularly, I hope the spirits buff bring us more in line with Ritualists of GW2. But also, 1h sword needs fixing, torch needs revamping, and longbow needs an outright buff.

How does Sword and Torch need anything? let alone revamping (in torches case)

I assume he’s referring to the sword root. I don’t know what torch would require though, it’s possibly the weapon that’s least in need of attention right now.

Chokolata.1870:

What is it that you want to do ?

If you decide trapper , go 0 30 30 0 0 , and distribute the remaining 10 however you want .

Depends what he’s doing in WvW, if he does a lot of zerging and large battles then piercing arrows is a must, the increase in tags, kills, and bags is huge. I’d trade 10 points in WS for that any day of the week.

Teenwolf.9174:

Currently running this:

Copy&Paste link

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNAsfVlEVis2mTwCr1AxSxeCU7BnMPmYK4PjKYzD;T8Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJKZMyIkxKjTGpMrCGFMFA

Would appreciate any thoughts or torch ranger advice.

Checked out your build, I wouldn’t go sword&torch with a berserker build tbh. I wouldn’t go melee at all personally, but if you really want to play sword with that build then I’d pair it with a horn (buff + damage) or dagger (extra evade) as the torch is all about condition damage and you have none. Those runes of balthazar aren’t good for your build either, I’d get rid of those ASAP. You shouldn’t be focusing on burning, with 300 condition damage. I would say either drop the torch, or switch to a condition focused build. A trapper ranger works well and is perfect for your weapons (SB + Sword/torch), it’s great for roaming and small skirmishes.

Definitely looks like a trap build.

Regarding alpine wolf, I don’t want to give you incorrect info so someone please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe Alpine Wolf’s chill is AoE, whereas drakehound’s F2 is single target. Worth taking into account.

Knockdowns from Hyenas can be super useful, the damage is awful though so it’s a tradeoff. That second hyena is hard to keep alive for very long though.

LOL, I love it when the guardian bows to you and you shoot him in the face, hehehe. Priceless.

Yeah since the quickness nerf I’ve been experimenting with an Ice Ranger in sPvP, as I prepare to drop my now-defunct power ranger. I tried running 2 x Svanir, 2 x Grenth, 2 x Ice with white wolf and ice drake, but a straight up condition build with undead runes seems to work better for me in hotjoin. Maybe I just need more practice with it.

naphack.9346:

Sebrent.3625:

Rundown:

• Longbow #1 sucks … Shortbow #1 is great
• Longbow #2 sucks … Shortbow #2 fine (up to 10 seconds of poison)
• Longbow #3 is fine (vulnerability) … Shortbow #3 is fine (free evade & swiftness)
• Longbow #4 is fine (short range KB) … Shortbow #4 is fine (cripple & poison)
• Longbow #5 is fine (AOE dmg & cripple) … Shortbow #5 is fine (daze/stun)

So shortbow has all 5 skills that are fine while Longbow’s #3, #4, and #5 are really the only skills that are fine. I’d prefer to have 100% useful than 60%.

I’m glad, you are not part of the balance team… Such a sloppy way of doing things.

Yeah it seems a bit exaggerated, I wouldn’t say any of the longbow skills actually suck, the problem is just that its so easy to avoid the bulk of its damage. The quickness nerf made the situation much worse, barrage is effectively 25% weaker now than it was prior to the patch. Which begs the question, did Anet actually think the ranger longbow was overpowered, or did they not take the time to compensate for the quickness nerf?

Dojo.1867:

Again. You are not more forced to swap out than you are with SB imo. Close combat damage is about the same as long you don’t autoattack which the skillset easy allows to do. And yes it is worse than actually swapping to the melee weapon (naturally) but that also acounts for SB.

It may be a question of play-style but I disagree, SB is a solid weapon up close for me and is in fact IMO at its best just outside of melee range, where circle strafing is easiest. If you had to swap out shortbow at close range the way you do with longbow, you wouldn’t see so many people running double bows. Remember, it’s relatively easy for a ranger to stay out of melee range but impossible to remain at 1200+ once you get targeted.

Thanks for a very useful post, +1!

I haven’t tested this, but I always heard that you lose the bonus when the pet is downed.

Dojo.1867:

Sebrent.3625:

Yes, once I’ve closed on that Ranger, they can swap to their other weapon set … but now they only have one weapon set that is useful in the fight against me.

When comparing shortbow, it does the same direct damage as longbow, if not better. Then you factor in the times you get to a flank and it bleeds … not it is ahead. Now factor in that shortbow hits more often so can proc more. It’s ahead even more. Now take bleed-on-crit. You’ll crit more as you hit more so even more ahead of longbow. Now look at how shortbow can apply bleeding and poison as well as interrupt from 1,200 range, evade, swiftness and it’s no wonder it is superior to the very lackluster longbow.

Now factor in that the longbow skills will actually do more for you than SB when an enemy tries to close up. Now factor in that the 10 stacks of vulnerability can still boost your secondoary weapon and pet damage after switching. I don’t see why it would be a disadvantage anyway if I have to swap at one point. SB users should do the same if they want to play efficiently.

You keep saying it was designed for longrange but please aknowledge that skill 2, 3, 4(!) and even 5 really weren’t. Those are skills for all ranges and since 2 skills have rather long cast times you don’t have to autoattack at all if they close up. Just unload your other skills and swap weapon. Played like that it isn’t limited to long range at all.

Autoattack != The whole weapon

Any weapon that I am forced to swap out of at short range within a handful of seconds clearly is not designed for close combat. The longbow is absolutely limited to long range, it has a couple of skills that you can throw out before swapping but you certainly can’t sustain close combat.

The mechanic doesn’t bother me though, I love the idea of playing a sniper rifle and would be perfectly happy to swap out for skirmishing, if only it actually did high damage at max range. To justify the enormous damage loss at < 900 I would expect it to dish out significantly higher dps than shortbow at 900+, not to be debating in the forums as to whether it is or is not marginally more effective.

So yeah, jcbroe hit the nail on the head, I expect the longbow to function as a primary damage dealer rather than a utility weapon and suspect it is not functioning as Anet intended.

RummyTheMad.7290:

Every now and then I am suddenly completely unable to click on anything in game. Can’t click to target, can’t select an NPC, etc. Ground-targeted skills are also affected when it happens, so I would check to see if you can click on anything the next time it happens. If not, restart your client.

I’ve submitted this as a bug, but it probably wouldn’t hurt if others did too.

I have the same issue, sometimes I can’t left click to target, I have to exit and relaunch the gw2 client to fix the issue. It seems to only happen in dungeons, but that’s probably just fluke.

Durzlla.6295:

jewishjoyride.4693:

It’d be really interesting actually if anyone has done the math. To see actual dmg coefficients between the 2 weapons to compare could be really valuable I think.

I’ve done the testing on shortbow vs longbow soooooooo many times, people just go “Well in a real scenario you don’t get to stand that far away!” or some other excuse and throw LB under the matt.

I mean, i’m sorry, when you’re a 30/30/0/0/10 build + berserker amulet in the mists, you can 3 shot the heavy target dummy with some lucky crits.

A LOT of the testing just goes “Shortbow behind does more damage than longbow at 1500 away!” well god i’d hope so because in a 30/30/0/0/10 build short bow (and longbow) get 10% more damage for flanking, which they don’t get on their longbow because they never flank during the tests…

Longbow > Shortbow when you take all your longbow advantages, not to mention longbow also can have burst and shortbow can not.

Well it’s also a lot easier to get that 10% flanking bonus while skirmishing at close range than standing at 1500. On the other hand, it’s unlikely you’ll keep full endurance very long for the +10% bonus from that marksmanship adept so I guess it kind of evens out.

Regardless, the main issue with the longbow is that it’s so much easier for your opponents to avoid the bulk of its damage. SB is constant, stable damage at any range, while LB relies on maintaining 1000+ distance and landing barrage. I heartily disagree with Anet’s comment that the longbow needs more defensive capabilities, IMO it just needs to connect more easily (eg. built in immobilize like warrior lb pin, faster channel time for barrage).

The reason people dislike the longbow is its low effective damage. Theoretically it has some great skills, but you have to keep max range for it to even compete with shortbow, autoattack and rapid fire can be evaded just by strafing and are often obstructed by terrain, and barrage is outright impossible to land on a human opponent for more than a second or two.

Until the recent quickness nerf, the low overall damage was partially compensated for by the ability to spike out kills with Barrage (now it does 150% damage over time rather than 200%, that’s a 25% damage reduction to LB’s strongest skill). It’s still great for tagging enemies in a zerg, but if you really want to be competitive then you’d do better with shortbow or melee IMO.

EDIT: ikittenerg? Weird language filtering there, I was trying to say “in a group (zerg)”

Wow, good catch Wallach!

Xsorus.2507:

Probably the only new build you can really run right now (and its not really new, but with the increase with Maul its more viable) is the GS Signet build that a few people on the forums came up with.

Basically 30/30/5/0/5

Use Greatsword/shortbow

Use Greatsword with Preloaded Signet of the Hunt (pop Signet of Wild going into the fight) and use the Talent that gives you Signets buffs from the first line and Maul the person when they attack, You’ll pop them from 8000-10000 damage depending on the toughness they got.

If you want to use Longbow, simply swap out greatsword and equip the Range Increase for it.

That’s what I’m doing for now in PvE, shelved my longbow for shortbow and run a 30/30/5/0/5 with 2 sigils and QZ + moment of clarity. I spend more time in melee than at range now as maul hits like a truck, but I don’t see it working in WvW to be honest. If I was gonna skirmish with the shortbow I’d go trapper rather than glass cannon.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Dahkeus.8243:

Nah, but this is already why I rerolled, lol.

To be honest though, even if they do buff rangers, I don’t know how often I’ll play mine since I’ve found that the Mesmer class is incredibly fun to play (once you get past the first 40 levels or so).

Yesterday, 9(!!!!) of my friends left the game because of the nerfs.
I’m still here and fighting against their own stupidity.

Wow. What classes did they play? Warrior? Ranger?

Himei.5379:

Daemon.4295:

Robyn Yew.6072:

“I play sb/gs berserker and the quickness nerf was pretty big but in time ill figure something else out.”

QZ nerf hurt my overall build and playstyle including dmg, saying it hurt longbow way more idk. But as a side note, other professions that relied on this for quick burst kills got hit as bad also. In time people are just going to have to adapt. No more quick take downs means fights drag out longer which makes condition based builds that much better, but we will see.

You’re probably right about that, my plan is to move to a sb/trapper condition build. Certainly doesn’t do much for build diversity though.

I play sword/axe and SB/GS. I was built for quickness, Superior Sigil of Rage on offhand axe, 2 from pet swap and 4th from QZ so yeah, my build took a dent. Even with the dent, I do fine though. I dont kill quick as fast but still efficient, I just have to change my trinkets a bit (after redoing them after Feb’s patch).

I adapted my build from a 30/25/10/0/5 (with wilderness knowledge for QZ cooldown reduction) to a 30/30/5/0/5 (with Moment of Clarity), and I have to say I’m rocking with my GS in PvE. My biggest hit so far was a 9.5k crit off maul in Orr last night, and I’m pretty sure I could top 10k. The problem is that this won’t work in WvW, you can’t go toe-to-toe with your greatsword as a glass cannon for more than 6 seconds.

That’s the build I just switched to for PvE, but I wouldn’t run it in sPvP. There’s no way you can handle a double-team with that set-up, and frankly you’ll do more damage with traps IMO anyway. If you really want to run GS in sPvP I reckon it works best with a beastmaster-bunker build.

Weak, I’m not sure it’s worth traiting even for a full condition build.

Does anyone happen to know the chance to cause bleeding on crit, for Sharpened Edges? According to the wiki this trait applies 1 stack for 1 second, but it doesn’t define the actual chance.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sharpened_Edges

Robyn Yew.6072:

“I play sb/gs berserker and the quickness nerf was pretty big but in time ill figure something else out.”

QZ nerf hurt my overall build and playstyle including dmg, saying it hurt longbow way more idk. But as a side note, other professions that relied on this for quick burst kills got hit as bad also. In time people are just going to have to adapt. No more quick take downs means fights drag out longer which makes condition based builds that much better, but we will see.

You’re probably right about that, my plan is to move to a sb/trapper condition build. Certainly doesn’t do much for build diversity though.

Robyn Yew.6072:

actually berserker shortbow rangers use quickness a kittening lot, gotta get them ones out lol. I play sb/gs berserker and the quickness nerf was pretty big but in time ill figure something else out. went back to lb/sb for now while getting the creative juices flowing for my next build.

Longbow was hit way harder. SB quickness was bugged, so apparently its damage has been reduced from 150% – 125%, while LB took the full 200% – 150% reduction. On shortbow, quickness is basically a temporary boost to your base damage (autoattack), while on Longbow you save it for your big spike skill, barrage, so the nerf hurts a lot more. Also, as you can’t really catch anyone in barrage for more than a couple of seconds tops, that extra second on QZ doesn’t compensate as much.

Essentially, quickness is a good buff for base damage, and an amazing buff for spike damage (hence why warriors are going nuts over this). Most rangers aren’t about spike, so they don’t feel that much pain beyond the useful 2 second pet swap buff for stomping, ressing, etc.

Forzani.2584:

They didn’t kill the Ranger. Far from it.

QZ nerf ? I would suggest that the quickness nerf hit Warriors harder than us….since a higher percentage of Warriors had it on their bar than Rangers had it on their bar. Go read their forums. They whine almost as much as Rangers.

Thiefs also relied heavily on haste….again, more than Rangers did. Plus they got another second added to stealth reveal timer+ culling fix will also hurt them in WvW.

A haste nerf across the boards does not mean it effects Rangers more than any other class.

Add in the GS buff…and it rocks now. overall after this patch Rangers are ahead of where they were a couple of days ago.

So everyone in the pity party can relax. Although no matter what happens in any patch you’re going to find something to whine about. Hell you could win a million dollars in the lottery and still whine because of all the taxes you are charged. If you’re gonna quit, then quit. Send Anet a parting farewell and be on your way.

Why is it so hard for everyone to understand that the impact of the quickness nerf totally depends on your build? Trapper rangers and beastmasters are probably better off after the patch (particularly the ones who use greatsword). Berserker rangers have been crushed. Longbow damage was destroyed (barrage pvp damage took a hard 25% damage nerf), and while it was partially compensated for by the boosted GS damage in PvE, that damage buff is moot in PvP as glass cannon ranger can’t melee. The only solution for us is to switch LB to SB in WvW, which is a completely different playstyle (single target skirmishing vs AoE zerging and sieging, and condition trappers are much better at that anyway), or change build altogether and go with traps or beast.

What really gets me is that I’m almost convinced that the devs don’t understand the real implications of the nerf to the longbow, I reckon they just look at the base math the way so many threads here do without taking into account how ranger weapons actually play. They’re the ones that said they wanted more build diversity, yet they destroyed our glass cannon option.

Ranger has loads of positives, otherwise we wouldn’t all still be here now would we? People complain because they care, and because a really fun class that performs well on paper is not working as intended due to issues with chore class mechanic (pets)

PROS
- Tons of evades
- high, consistent condition damage
- dual damage source (ranger + pet)
- tons of CC
- dual bows (if you like bows)
- best group heal in game (arguably)
- longest range in game (1500)
- traitline that grants both precision and crit damage (big advantage, if I remember correctly only 2 other classes have this but I may be mistaken)
- broad array of useful weapons
- most access to quickness of all classes
- most fun class in the game.

CONS
- Pets don’t scale with ranger stats
- poor condition wipe
- massive damage loss in dungeons (pets can’t stick to target without dying)
- pets can’t hit moving targets well in pvp
- pets are unresponsive
- arrows easily avoided in pvp
- nonsensical trait allocation and too many unappealing traits (though to be fair we aren’t the only ones)
- No single specific shining point (maybe cc?)

laharl.8435:

Vol.5241:

I guarantee you that if you spend nearly all that gold and you get nothing, you will get depressed and quit the game.

If you wish to gamble, always set a limit and leave yourself enough money to keep playing. In your case, I’d leave 50G alone. Gamble away the 250G.

But I always recommend saving and buying the precursor.

Nah, I won’t get depressed and quit. I’m still having lots of fun with the game. Sure I will be quite annoyed if I don’t get it, but I’ll just get back to having fun playing and build up the funds again. I’m mentally prepared to spend it all and come away with nothing, but I do hope that doesn’t happen.

And I’ve actually already limited myself. I have about 320g total, and probably another 50g in lodestones, ectos and such that I will sell off if I come away empty handed. The hard thing will be staying at my 300g limit if I still don’t have the precursor by then.

Be sure to post your results here! Good luck dude, I hope you get your precursor

I haven’t gone for a precursor yet myself, I was farming gold to buy Leaf of Kudzu on the TP but the quickness nerf changed my plans (Ranger longbow is whack now). If I was going to gamble, I’d save up about 1,5 – 2 times the cost of the precursor and set aside the gold to buy it on the TP in case all went wrong. I would NEVER gamble all my gold, if I went bust and had to farm 500 hours all over again I’d probably rage quit the game.

How is this really a problem? If the ranger is far from combat you can easily take out his pet.

I think the fused weapons look amazing

You guys do some excellent work with new content and functionalities, but I find that its initial impact is often wasted on the community due to disappointment with class-specific changes. I understand that you want to keep the number of updates to download to a minimum, but I really think your work would be appreciated more if you released class and general mechanic fixes separately. I know this isn’t the case for everyone, but I for one skip straight to my class fixes as soon as the patch notes are available. Seems to me you’d get a lot more buzz.

Wallach.7291:

Bumping this to say that it’s been broken… again.

I feel like you may want to investigate your Perforce (or whatever other system you’re using) because with how many times this has happened it seems like someone’s committing build changes that has this error in it locally.

You should probably post that in the ranger bugs section.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They have answered this question countless times. Not anytime in the forseeable future; maybe, just maybe some time down the road.

Yes but that was before the patch, I’m wondering whether now that they’ve implemented character name changes (higher priority) they’ll push out account name changes. That can’t take more than 5 minutes to do manually and I’d gladly pay for it.

Thanks for incorporating the character name changes Anet, the price is a bit steep IMO but I’m sure many will purchase. Are there any plans to allow account name changes in the future? (i.e. forum name)

Guys nerfing ranger won’t even cause a dent in botting, botters will just make a little less gold or switch to another class if it’s more profitable. Either the devs don’t understand the class well, or they worry more about balancing ultra high-end spvp (where rangers are strong) than general pve and wvw for the rest of us.

Yeah stealth stomps are even worse, I agree, but both hurt the game IMO.

If you ask me the problem was mainly the quick stomping, which to be fair was way too fast.

But shortbow does good damage even without quickness, while longbow relies on it. I honestly can’t remember the last time I cast barrage without qz or pet swap, it just won’t connect without it.

Qz wasn’t that great for trap builds even before the nerf, I’d drop it. I personally run 3 traps in sPvP.

What’s your build and traits? You could consider dropping qz in favor of a third trap or LR.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Sadly Anet had no idea how much of an impact a quickness nerf would have on the ranger class, just unfortunate since I, along with so many others, have invested hundreds of hours into this style of play just to have it become obsolete overnight.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you, it’s like the devs don’t understand the mechanics of their own game and just look at the math of hypothetical DOT. Sure, longbow does great damage against the training golems in the mists, but if you can’t land its attacks we have a wee problem. Sometimes I wonder whether the game designers that originally built the class are still at anet.

Kryptonite, what’s yours? :p

I meant vulnerability, you get a double dose with opening strike (+15% damage total). I’ll edit post.

TL;DR – Barrage, glass cannon ranger’s primary damage source in WvW, now effectively does 50% damage. This essentially ruins the berserker ranger’s game in PvP and forces us to change build completely. The only solution I can see to preserve the Longbow and the Glass Cannon ranger is a dramatic reduction to Barrage channel time.

As I’m seeing a lot of “stop the QQing” posts, I’d like to go into a little more detail regarding the actual implications of the quickness nerf specifically for longbow users. I just want to clarify that I believe there are a number of strong ranger builds and that the ranger can hold its own in most group settings, this is not a complaint about the class as a whole but an attempt to save a weapon and a build that I personally enjoyed playing very much.

In order to understand the real implications of this nerf for WvW longbow users, lets step away from the hard figures for a minute and consider how this weapon plays. Typical opening sequence with the longbow is LB3 (vulnerability + additional vulnerability from opening strike), LB5 (heavy AoE damage with built in cripple), QZ or pet swap for quickness while Barrage is channeling, LB2 (higher damage than autoattack, ignores distance penalty), spam LB1 until LB2 is off cooldown. Knockback with LB4 and switch weapons, CC, or escape when gap is closed. The bulk of your opening sequence’s damage comes from LB5 barrage, a very slow skill that takes about 3 seconds to channel with a delay of around two seconds (rough estimate) before your arrows land.

Ideally, you want to land the entire duration of Barrage’s damage on your opponent. In PvE this is no problem because the mobs will limp straight through the AoE ring at 50% speed, but in PvP it is very difficult to catch your opponents for more than one or two seconds, you have to be lucky just to get the cripple off. Longbow rangers gamble on catching a few, less responsive players in their barrage long enough to spike out a kill, which is only possible with quickness during larger battles in which opponents are distracted by melee, ressing, etc. As of yesterday’s quickness nerf, barrage is landing half the damage that it used to over that brief span of time before your opponent dodges out of the area of effect. The only thing that can save the longbow now, aside from a massive boost to base damage, is a reduction in Barrage channeling time and the implementation of snares , like the Warrior longbow pin.

Without barrage, the longbow loses almost all of its appeal in WvW, and the glass cannon ranger along with it. In order to put this into perspective, it would be like telling a beastmaster that his pets now move 50% slower in WvW, or telling a trap ranger that the Trap Potency trait has been removed. It would just utterly ruin their game and force them to switch build or class. Please understand that I am not saying there are no alternative options, only that the berserker ranger is no longer playable in WvW. Longbow is dead and buried for PvP now, clearly this is a balance problem Anet needs to address.

EDIT: LB3 and opening strike stack vulnerability

TheGreatA.4192:

I was not so lucky, I have full ascended on mine. Been thinking for the past hour and just can’t find a viable way to make it work. But getting rid of all the equipment is not really an option either.

I’ll just leave it as it is in hopes that ranger bows get buffed someday, while playing other characters.

Obviously I won’t salvage all my ascended gear, I’ll probably just bank my COF armor and invest all the karma I was saving up for Kudzu to get Rabid gear. I have the laurels to replace my amulet, I just need to farm fractals a bit for the rings.

I played around with my ranger in Frostgorge Sound last night, and to be honest I don’t think my LB/GS build is much worse off in PvE thanks to the GS buffs. It’s just totally ruined in WvW as I can’t land barrage anymore and it was my main source of damage. I only use greatsword to stay alive, you can’t go melee with a glass cannon ranger in PvP.

What do you mean by ‘recent stuff with boonhate’? I don’t understand what you’re referring to.

Quarktastic.1027:

Iason Evan.3806:

i love that people knew BEFORE this game was released that all the stuff on the gem shop was gonna be cosmetic. Lo and behold, it all is! The description in the update notes says “Rare chance” and people still try 200 times and then whine incessantly when they don’t hit the jackpot. I for one am superstoked that they are account bound so that people aren’t tempted to gamble to sell them for a lot of money. I think this is a better system to protect people with tendencies toward gambling addiction that can’t help themselves.

I would much rather be able to choose the weapon skin I want, rather than waste all my money gambling for it. There are 16 available weapons. What if I only want one of them?

Leave them account bound, Just let me choose the one I want.

You get a token in the chests, that you can trade in at the vendor in Lion’s Arch for whichever weapon skin you prefer.

Dojo.1867:

Grimvar.9185:

Wow, the quickness nerf really hurts berserker ranger builds a lot. So all in all this patch has nerfed ranger dps when it is already in a bad state. Great, this is just wonderful way to keep beating an already subpar class into the ground even more Anet. 1 second duration added? That is nothing compared to the nerf of 50% speed this really really cripples the berserker build a lot.

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.

GS is viable in dungeons. Maybe try it before you complain.

Also berserker gear with quickness is NOT our only viable dps build. Sick of those kids…

I’ve been playing online RPGs since the ASCII based Island of Kesmai in 1992, and I play a berserker ranger. Why? Not because I think I can “pwn face” with it, but because to me it is the most challenging ranger build and offers high payout for high risk. Master the glass cannon, and you can rival other classes’ raw damage output in dungeons and other tougher meta. At least, that was the case until today…

Berserker glass cannon is by no means the only effective form of damage output, but some of us preferred the more challenging approach and we each have our own favored styles of play. The fact of the matter is that this particular play style took a big hit today, too big IMO to really remain competitive with other Ranger builds or the DPS builds of other classes.

Paz Shadow.9715:

I agree 100%, my beserker build was dependent on the quickness especially for the 4,3,2, longbow burst.

With my beserker armor and weapons, along with time spent, I have invested way too much to just walk away from the build, but I agree that the build is definitely weaker now. Most important thing with this build is keeping distance since we cannot down people quick with our kitten bursts anymore

I’m in the same boat as Paz and I’m sure many others, I’ve invested a huge amount of time, laurels, gold, etc. on a berserker build that just can’t work anymore. The only thing I’m happy about is that this change came before I went for Kudzu.

I don’t know, I might take a break from the game for a little bit or mess around with my alts to get my dailies, I just don’t have the heart to start gearing all over again for a trapper or beastmaster-bunker, at least not immediately.

I can’t express how sad I am to read these patch notes, the 50% reduction to quickness is just a game ruining nerf for my berserker ranger, who I already struggled to keep on par with other classes in terms of damage output. The berserker ranger’s game revolves around quickness, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to completely respec with a whole new set of gear if I want to keep playing this class. Today is a very sad day for me, the saddest since I started playing in October.

My question to other glass cannon rangers, do you think there can still be competitive berserker builds or is glass cannon dead and buried for this class?

This is my build exactly and it works really well for me, the only difference is that I trait Piercing Arrows over Eagle Eye most of the time and run with Signet of the Wild instead of Lightning Reflexes for the +25% damage on active (with Signet of Beastmaster trait). I also often swap shortbow out for GS in WvW for more defense.