Guild Wars 2

Arkay.5230:

dan.3618:

I dont know why they dont just do the obvious and reduce the amount of players by a 3rd in all borderlands. They have implemented somthing that technically cannot be accomplished.

That or upgrade their servers, but at least do one of them.

We already have 3 hour queues on reset. Reducing the number allowed on the maps would make the game even more unplayable because you physically could not play unless you are unemployed or have massive amounts of time to waste sitting in queue. Not everyone has 8 hour blocks of time to play. Monday night I sat in queue for an hour and a half, It wasn’t even a weekend. If you reduce the player limit the time could double. Then what, 6 hour queue on reset? May as well not even play. Don’t tell me to switch servers, I’ve been on BG since launch and I’m not going to pay to switch just because my home server is good at WvW and has active members. I would possibly consider it if it was free but paying extra for something that shouldn’t be necessary is out of the question. I’m supposed to pay because the severs, that I already payed to use, don’t function properly. If you ordered some pants online but they show full of holes, is it fair to say you should have to pay for a new pair, even at a discount? No, it is expected that they take responsibility for there mistake and send you a new pair.

This is a Tier 1 problem.

Even on Tier 2 with TC, I’ve never seen us que all 4 maps, except on reset night. I’ve only ever seen a 3 way SM lag fest battle 3 times on TC. Aside from that it never happens. So I’m going to guess that every server below TC doesn’t que all 4 maps either, which means reducing the number of players wont affect any matches except T1.

So the question is, does Anet anger the T1 server while making the other 7 happy? It seems only fitting they do.

I don’t think you or anyone else whose been with your server since launch (including SoR and JQ) should have to leave; I do believe the guilds transferring to those servers are causing the problem and consequently should not be going there. This now ties into a WvW population problem and imbalance. They are contributing to the additional ques and lag.

What would you prefer? To be able to come home from work log on and play WvW immediately and enjoy lag free battles? Or would you prefer having your server flooded with WvW guilds in favor of possibly having a better PPT score?

A lot of this could probably be solved if they just opened up free transfers, or just forced the semi-recent guild transfers out of T1 and return them to their former servers. You’d drastically reduce your que time and lag if these guilds joined other servers that could use them.

I often wonder just how many of these lag threads/posts are coming from people in T1 servers? I know they occur in other servers; they occur on mine as well, but it isn’t that common. I have noticed a spike in disconnects since the last patch though.

The disconnects are getting increasingly bad as well. I can’t stay in a match longer than 40 min before getting the boot. It always seems to happen right before I take over a tower.

I think the obvious solution is to just reduce the amount of people per map to say 60-70. I also think it would help if they’d add 4 servers per match up (automatically creating another borderland), then reducing the number of players per map to 60.

Thieves aren’t really a problem anymore it seems.. nor are mesmers. I cant even remember the last time one ambushed me out in the field.. perhaps they’ve bored now with easy kills? lol

I’m just curious as to what people think of this (who have it). Is it worth getting, or are points better spent elsewhere until you have points to spare? I’m trying to decide whether or not to get it or to start upping cannon mastery.

I don’t think they’ll reset the points again.. I believe the last one they did was a “one-time” only.

I don’t see them having vendor that’ll do it via silver/gold as it’s so easy to come by in WvW. I could maybe see them doing it for a large amount of badges or gems. It actually kind of puzzles me they havn’t offered a reset via gems yet.

Surbrus.6942:

deracs.1762:

I’ll give my view on why I think stealth is over powered

Stealth means the player always gets to choose the fight, the optimum time, and has the most advantage at the start…. always. Stealth means the player can always open with the optimal damage and with some of the insane dps can often win the fight in first 2-3 seconds. Stealth means if something does go wrong they simply stealth away, no consequence unlike every other class. Stealth causes the opposing player to loose target and have to reaquire which is a huge advantage (not just thieves in this case).
Being able to stealth off not just your opponent, but mobs, doors, walls etc. is beyond stupid OP
Now combine the ridiculous advantage that stealth gives, combined with the multitude of other abilities thieves have, and stealth in this game is so poorly designed, it is really beyond words
But lets face it. No class will ever admit to being OP, and there is no way for ANet to make a real change without rebuilding the class, so we are stuck with it

It is true that stealth can give an advantage in initiating and escape, however it is not required to do so.

Winning the fight in 2-3 seconds is not an issue with stealth, that is an issue with the extreme spike damage. Oftentimes this is only really an issue with someone who has intentionally built their character glassy, and just got tagged by a glass cannon before they could touch the other guy… or underleveled/undergeared victims.

The target drop is annoying yes, and it is an advantage.

Stealth has advantages, I would hesitate to call them overpowered advantages though.

Personally I’d like to see the Thief’s stealth balanced better with other defensive options (whether stealth is nerffed, or Thief defences are raised in other ways), just for the sake of build variety.

Hmm.. running a Berserker Ranger, I can pull out higher spike damage than a thief.. question is, if a Berserker Ranger meets a Berserker thief out in the field.. who wins?

In fact, if a Berserker thief runs into any other berserker class out there.. who will win?

If a thief runs into any other class in bunker gear who wins?

There is a common theme here.. either:

A) They get the jump on the player via stealth which is enough to kill them before they react

B) They stealth away and rinse and repeat until the players dead..

Common theme – Stealth. It has nothing to do with spike damage, it has everything to do with stealth. I can usually survive the initial barrage of thief attacks wearing berserker gear, but there is a problem after that, they stealth away… Then they either realize it’s no contest and leave me alone, or they kill me next round.. usually the latter.

There is also a problem wearing full bunker gear, because their either:

A) hit me and realize it’s going to take too long, but may continue to try and eventually I’m dead
B) It’s not worth their effort..

Either way it’s wasted my time.

There was no increase in range, it was an outright nerf by 50%. If you read closer to the start of the thread I provided an example. That bridge out from of Langor Gulch.. if I stood on end of that bridge, I could send my wolf to howl at enemies grouped at the choke point of Danleon passage. I can no longer “F1” or send my wolf into attack, I have to be about half way in between.

Whether or not they allow for your pet to chase your target further than before is irrelevant. If you have to get close enough that your own bacon is on the line, it no longer is worth it.

The pet had utility before with it’s range, now it doesn’t. I could stand back however far before and not look very threatening to the enemy, now I have to run right at them to get in range. What do people think a group might do if a ranger charged them? If Anet is calling this a buff.. it’s just sugar coating a load of kitten.

They nerfed and didn’t mention it (or broke it). They also nerfed Barrage damage by 50% nor did I read anything on that either.

I was just wondering about this last night myself.. I mean what is even the point of the skill? I literally can count on one hand how many times I’ve been able to activate it.

I’m dead, my pet’s dead, yet this long cooldown starts which is more than enough time for 1 person to finish me off by straight attacking if i’m sitting in a bunker build. I rarely see the skill even available before I’m dead.

I much prefer Anet just removes it and replaces it with something with more utility, rather than a skill that can be used less than 1% of the time.

They could just make the pets invulnerable and un-targetable. That way the pets don’t draw aggro and thus the bosses leave them alone. It’s not like their damage is game breaking, at the moment, especially with the damage reduction they just received. Other classes are allowed to have their 100% dps, yet Rangers fight to keep 40% of their dps alive.

They can just be an extension of the rangers attack.. kinda like an additional arrow every 1-2 seconds

There are only 2 real or effective ways to play the Ranger in WvW, either spec in full zerker for glass cannon, or spec for traps. You kill far faster as glass, but as you imagine are squishy. If you spec for traps, you can make yourself more tanky, but battles will take exponentially longer. Any other build will only hurt you and your group/team. Bunker BM/healing is mainly for sPvP. You can do that in WvW if you intend to roam solo or in small groups, but you really won’t be that effective, as the zergs will just run over you.

It really depends on how you want to play.

Draygo.9473:

Its something I have proposed a while ago, however:

You cannot add one server to NA because then you would have 25 servers, which is not divisible by 4. The best solution is to eliminate the bottom 3 EU servers and merge them into low rank but same language EU servers, giving the NA and EU datacenter parity.

Ahh yes your correct.. counting mishaps lol. Another good solution; I do think adding a 4th server per match up may take care of a few things mentioned above!

- Add a 4th server to each match-up
- Add an additional server to both NA and EU (to equalize 4 server match-ups)
- Offer free transfers to the 2 “new created servers”
- Reduce the amount of people per map to 70 (350 total people as opposed 400)

Why this might work?

- The 2 additional servers could help alleviate overflow issues and ques
- TC will no longer be in limbo as opposed to what Tier they belong in
- Skill lag will hopefully be done with (though SM might be an issue with 4 servers)
- Maps will have to be slightly adjusted to bring in new things to capture
- It’ll make for interesting strategy with 4 servers on the makitten

ues?

SM, if all 4 servers decide to zerg ball it at once, though coming from a high ranked server, I have only ever seen a 3 way battle in SM twice, so I don’t know how much of an issue this would be

What do people think?

Interesting concept.. being able to switch through all your characters in WvW… I wonder how that’d go over?

More so, suppose we could switch them on the fly, similar to how fast Rangers can pet swap.. lol

1) Arrows pierce by default and hit for 1500 range (neither should be traited)
2) Auto attack (1) adds stacks of vulnerability
3) Remove attack (3) and replace with a sniper shot or another AoE attack
4) Remove the charge up time from point black shot
5) Return barrage damage to the way it was (completely mind boggling why they reduced it 50%), or give barrage a combo field like a blast finisher
6) Make it so players cannot side step arrows, either by making them faster, or tracking to hit the target
7) Most important, fix the obstructed bug

I’ve suggested before to just make the pet completely invulnerable (at least for WvW and dungeons). Even spec’d out in full BM, they still drop like flies. Pulling the pet in and out of battle to save them is no different than the other 7 classes laying off their attacks 40% of the time.

To me there are only 2 real fixes for the pet debacle

1) As you mentioned, make the pet completely invulnerable, but they still need to be adjusted so they always hit moving targets.

2) Have the ranger either take over the pet and having their own set of 5 skills, or directly morph into a pet like they can do with some of their elite skills.

The problem isn’t just finding enough people to do the event, it’s the hoards of karkas that surround the area wiping people if their not already sitting around the karka queen blocking the path. I’ve seen many karka queen events fail because they just couldn’t get through. I also can’t even begin to count how many times I way pointed there and got insta-killed by karkas camping the way point lol.

If there are enough people, I think the karkas and those windrider things that pop out via events by the karka queen are far more profitable to farm than the queen herself. Much like Jormag is at the moment, the Karka queen just isn’t worth the time.

Yep I noticed this last night while we’re catapulting the outer wall of SM. I was trying to attack some dude on top of the wall when I noticed my wolf was up there attacking. I thought it ran through a breach we were unaware of, but apparently it’s a recent bug.

I’ve used every which build you can think of under the ranger, and unfortunately the only one I found that worked in both PvE and WvW (I don’t sPvP), is a full berserker build with LB and SB.

I’ve tried a full BM bunker build with healing, and it just didn’t kill fast enough; eventually I’d just get overrun, where as in the berserker build, the enemy group would be long dead before they approached. The Greatsword just doesn’t do enough damage. The 1h sword is better than the GS, but it roots you into place and the damage just sucks compared to the LB. It also doesn’t help our pets damage was nerfed, so we really can’t rely on their damage output.

Axe + Axe or Axe + anything just doesn’t crank out the same amount of damage our nerfed shortbow does. I’ve also found having the warhorn to buff the LB’s attacks via might just isn’t really worth it compared to what utility the shortbow could provide. Depends on what mode your playing OP, but from my experience (and I’ve used the Ranger since the beginning), nothing works quite like a full glass cannon build.

In PvE, more often than not your pet can tank most anything (including some champs) long enough for you to kill anything before it reaches you. In WvW, everything just ends up in a zerg anyway.. either your part of one or getting run over by one, so your better off just cranking out max damage. Your not in the front lines so more often than not, enemies won’t survive long enough to get close.

Besides it’s always kind of funny to see a fully defensive class take a 4K+ crit from a LB then immediately run from their zerg.

There was a “leash” so to speak put on the pet and the distance you can send it after someone either via F1 or F2 has shrunk drastically. Much like the OP does with the wolf, I did the same. Now it really isn’t possible anymore due to have to get to close.

I don’t know the exact former distance they could be sent but to put it into perspective on what I used to be able to do (which I did quite frequently when our server had Valley Keep..

That bridge outside Langor Gulch, if I stood on the end of that bridge facing Danelon passage, I could send my wolf in to howl at enemies that grouped at the choke point of that passage. Now I can’t.. I literally have to be about half way between before it works.

Whatever distance they allowed us to F1 our pets into was roughly cut in half after the patch.

Longbows if used properly can nearly kill most people in a matter of seconds as is. Giving the Ranger a melee weapon that can do the same just isn’t going to happen. Can you imagine the complaining that would ensue from other classes if this ever came to be?

To me, it doesn’t even make sense that a Ranger would lug around a GS as is. Seems more fitting for heavier set classes, not ones running around in medium armor

On one hand I agree with the OP, but on the other hand, if these AC’s didn’t shoot through walls, it would make it exponentially difficult to defend. I’m in favor of having them not shoot through walls, but they better quadruple the damage they do in the process then.

Here’s the problem:

If they buff the GS to do similar damage as it did in beta, then it will primarily be the go to weapon every ranger would use. We’d then probably see more threads pop up questioning any reasons us rangers should use bows at all.

If they buff the LB so that it’s enticing enough to be an alternative to the GS, then the class will probably be viewed as overpowering in both melee and range, so that’s probably not going to happen.

To me, when I think about all the weapons in the game, I would think the GS would be the hardest hitting weapon of the entire lot. So why would a Ranger even have access to not only the hardest hitting weapon, but the longest range weapon as well (that hits pretty hard in itself). What I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense that the Ranger can even wield the GS to begin with.

I have a GS, I use it sometimes, but it’s more so of an escape tool than anything. It just pales in comparison to the LB (and rightfully so). If the GS were to exceed the LB in overall damage, the class would be vastly superior to everyone else due the amount of sheer damage they can deal both at range and melee.

Perhaps it’s best if Anet just removed the GS from the Rangers arsenal and buffed up the LB and SB even further to compensate.

Look on the bright side.. this is one area where Rangers excel! Put your pet on guard in the area and it’ll tear through everyone while everyone just stands there lol

1. Max range on Longbow is always 1500 (No trait) (Damage not based on distance)
2. Arrows pierce by default
3. Auto attack (1) applies stacks of vulnerability
4. Remove attack (3) and replace it with sniper shot w/ 1800 range
5. Remove the charge time from Point Blank shot
6. Add a Blast finisher to Barrage (5) (least they can do after nerfing it’s damage)

I can back Aridia up on the damage on the damage. I run full zerk as well with bloodlust. The crits can range from 4.5-6k

Edit: Seeing as the power scaling is bad because of the pet

1. LB (1) applies 1 stack of might to your pet
2. LB (1) every 5th attack applies quickness to your pet (can’t switch targets)

Why not just guest on another server for the week? Didn’t a guild from SoR do that when they were out of T1 that one week?

Most popular is either Guardian or Warrior. Reason being, it’s easier to command (I think), when your group follows you into battle, rather than running ahead of you into a group.

I’m just going to do this point form as I don’t feel like writing.

Envision the current WvW maps we if you were to hit M and shrink it enough to see all 4.. remember the image.. now:

- Combine all maps to make 1 gigantic map
- All current maps remain the same on gigantic map but connect via bridges
- No que’ing for separate maps, just run via bridges (perhaps 3 to 4 to each map)
- EB and one BL would connect to all maps (if you were to look at the current map)
- The other 2 BL’s would connect to EB and one other BL (as the map would show)

Restructuring the current “bases” in each map

- The “home” spawn points in each BL remain the same and cannot be taken over
- Turn the garrisons into castles
- Turn the “guest” spawn points in each BL into keeps
- Turn the spawn points in EB into garrisons (that can be taken over)
- Keep SM as is but it give it more defenses but cost more gold/supply to upgrade

Spawn points, Way points, and New Upgrade

- The only guaranteed spawn now is in the home BL spawn point
- All garrisons and castles can be upgraded to a way point (like now)
- New upgrade available that makes way points uncontestable
- Remove way point upgrade from all Keeps, Hills, and Bay

Reduce the current max amount of players allowed on the new big map from 400 to 300. Try this number to see how it works

Why this may work?

- Far more things to take over and defend (9 more big structures to take over
- Less players + more to take over/defend could force zergs to break apart or else lose a lot of ground due to nothing being defended
- Skill lag could cease as zergs break apart

That’s it for now as I think i’ve written enough.. lol.. what do people think?

Happened to a few people on TC I believe as well

DevonCarver.5370:

Just wanted to hop in and mention, again, that the AoE cap on player skills is a technical limitation. Were we to increase that, skill lag would get considerably worse.

Can’t our AoE be designed to mimic an arrow cart? lol.

Zikory.6871:

@DeadlySynz – I don’t think you understand why the top 3 are “stacked” servers. The reason for the top 3 to keep recruiting guilds is to have 24 hour coverage so at any point in the day the fights will be the same. The point is to have a real 24 hour battle where servers don’t have time slots where guilds can only PvD because there is no one to fight. Also so 1 guild doesn’t have to try and juggle all 4 maps by floating. PPT and winning is the goal but the fights are what everyone in T1 wants and they are only getting better.

I don’t think anyone should give TC a hard time for there recruitment strategy. It’s obvious they had 24 hour coverage in mind which makes them top contender to try and break into “tier 1” Unforchantly they are at a huge disadvantage (as far as rating gos) to knock out any of the top 3 (BG/SoR/JQ) With the random matches hopefully TC gets their chance at a T1 match but the down side to that is the current top 3 will have to be split up and will make “tier 2” very lopsided.

Honestly instead of complaining about coverage and saying they should transfer, maybe you should look into transferring to a “tier” that better fits your interests. Just to point out that “tier 1” has the closest and most even match up. This week SoR takes first with JQ last, while last week BG took first and SoR took last. Complain all you want about the top 3 eating guilds but we are more even then we have ever been and I would assume all 3 servers will still pick up a few more guilds to fill in particular time slots.

The fights would be even across all servers if the population was split up, not stacked on 3-5 servers. That’s what some of these people (and guilds) don’t seem to understand. That’s aimed at the guilds who transferred over to either SoR, JQ, or BG in the past little while. They aren’t the only problem, but they are a large cause of it. It isn’t necessary to have all 4 maps stacked to the point it’s que’d at any given time of day/night.

If players and guilds can’t figure that out on their own, then perhaps it’s time Anet stepped in and evened everything out themselves. It is not necessary to have all 4 maps covered 24/7. It’s not going to affect the play.

The smartest thing Anet can do at the moment is lock the top 5 servers down from any transfers then evaluate exactly the population on each one. Next, target the guilds that transferred over to the top 3 servers in the past 2-3 months, refund there gems, and return them to their previous server. Like that group that moved from FA over to BG.. completely unnecessary. Then start pulling guilds out and distributing them across all servers evenly. Then once that’s done, lock all servers down from transfers completely.

What your going to find is the numbers will be even, coverage even, and you’ll find WvW population growing. Not bandwagoning to the top 5 servers.

This is coming from someone sitting on TC in these lopsided match ups.

I have to agree with Kingzook, the top 5, well at least the top 3 anyway should shed a bunch of guilds. Why Anet allowed guilds to move to these already stacked servers in the past while is beyond me.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Anet I’m sure has a good idea on the WvW population of each server. They either should just yank everybody out of WvW and evenly distribute them across all servers, then lock them down to prevent any further transfers. Then no guesting allowed in WvW.

Or abolish the concept of server vs server, and have players just que WvW into 3 separate factions where we can actually see the numbers differences on each map, then join accordingly.

The funny thing is, even if the pet is given that “determination” buff for invulnerability, were still at a handicap due to their pathing issues, inability to hit moving targets, and ability cooldowns.

Frankly, the only solution I can think of is to either have the Ranger morph into a pet, or physically take over the pet via mind control or something. Then the pet just absorbs all the Ranger’s stats, whether it be a glass cannon, tank, or a balance. Then the person just controls the pet directly and has access to say 5 abilities to use.

Outside of this, I really don’t see anything else working.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

If they were 20 vs 1, you all were really bad.

If they were taking them on 1 at a time, you just need to learn how to deal with them in relation to your profession. You may have to change your build for a more 1v1 situation if you wish to go in there and fight. If you have done all that, you just need to learn how to deal with them in relation to your profession.

They are not difficult to deal with at all.

You may have gone up against a really good player. If that was the case, just accept you are not as good as you think you are.

No it has nothing to do with being really bad. There have been a plethora of videos of terrible, and I emphasize the word TERRIBLE thieves up to 7v1 groups and taking them cleanly out.

All they have to do is just disengage the fight and leave freely or just wait for the decent time to just strike each one. Neither require any skill. I suppose a counter would be a well placed stealth trap and the thief would have to be dumber than dumb to trigger it, then its GG for the thief.

If a class can disengage and engage freely at will, there isn’t much a group can do against a thief with 0 skill if the thief is persistent.

Actinotus.6410:

Teevell.1684:

I just had a thought, and it’s probably crazy, but what about combining two low-ranked servers to fight together? So it would be SoS+Mag (red team) vs. TC (green team)vs. DB (blue team) or something (just the first four servers I could think of, don’t critique this actual match-up). So in this scenario, SoS and Mag would be partners, sharing one BL and points. This might help them achieve the coverage and numbers needed to go against higher ranked servers, which creates more of a challenge for the other two servers. Next week they might be paired up with a different server, or if they’d risen in rank (because the game kept track of their individual rating on its own, that way if one server is doing all the work they get credit for it) they could end up fighting on their own again, or be paired with a different server.

Just a rough idea I had that might alleviate some problems (though I realize that it might cause others) and make more dynamic matches. Requesting input in 3…2…1

By extension you would combine TC and DB in order to be “competitive” against SoR and BG. Why not transfer servers from TC to DB?

Look, in the SoS/TC/Mag matchup at the moment, the overall score does not reflect what is happening on the field. TC has greater overall coverage , but both Mag and SoS can more than match TC at their own peak times – maybe not on all 3 borderlands, but certainly EB plus two borderlands. I’ve said since last year that i reckon they should reduce the number of maps (since almost no server can fill all 4 maps), and/or change it so you get more points for TAKING an objective rather than holding it (which would serve a similar purpose).

Aye, this is indeed correct. Both Mags and SoS are more than capable of keeping up with TC at peak times and with even numbers, it’s just the coverage issue across all 4 maps. Mostly this happens with overnight coverage.

As you said, this is easily counterable by just reducing the number of maps, because nearly no server (except for the top 3) can cover all 4 maps at once. Will they do this though? Make 21 servers happy or indifferent, while the last 3 will be ticked the que times will be through the roof?

I also like the idea of getting more points for taking objectives rather than holding onto them. For me, I don’t even like the PPT system. I think it’d be better if we just got points for taking structures, defending structures, completing PvE group events in WvW, and for killing our opponents. I also think doing any of the above while outmanned should yield at least double the points.

If Anet followed this plan, We’d definitely see a giant shake up in the server ratings.

From my experience (coming from TC) with even and outnumbered fights (outnumbered meaning slightly outnumbered:

The hardest servers to face (last 2 months) in both small and large group battles:

1. FA – Well the old FA before they bled some guilds were the most difficult

2. Maguuma – They’ve shown they are quite good with equal numbers

3. SoS – Much like Mag, they are very good with equal numbers

4. Dragonbrand – They can be good when they want, but mostly in equal number match-ups, they just don’t really strategize like the first 3 which turns out for a win for TC in most cases

5. SoR – Just like DB, I think they can be good when they want, but in the 1 week we faced them, they just didn’t have the strategy overtake TC even when they slightly outnumber them. I play during Pacific time so perhaps their better guilds/players are on during SEA time?

I think this just proves that having overwhelming numbers spoils players into not having to really worry about strategy too much, or even staying alive. If a group of say 50 players encounters a group of 15-20, even if some of the 50 die, they’ll just be quickly rez’d anyway so it doesn’t matter. In battles where players are either used to being outnumbered or having equal numbers, they have to rely on strategy that much more.

That’s why I’ve always said, if downed state was removed from WvW, the server rankings would probably get drastically shaken up.

Edit – I didn’t mention Crystal Desert. Hard to gauge as I didn’t see many open field battles with them.

chemiclord.3978:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Which is fine because they don’t churn out the amount of damage that any other class can. 40% of it is tied to the pets who spend more time dead than alive, plus the arrows can still be side stepped. I’m not suggesting long bows have a 3000 range, but minimum of 1800 (while putting the shortbow back to 1200) would make it more desirable.

Either that or keep it at 1500 but make the arrow speed fast enough that it basically tracks to hit the player unless they physically dodge it.

There are already places where having a 1500 range gives the Ranger the ability to shoot down an opponent with impunity (The Nightmare Tree in Twilight Arbor is an example). Extending the range even FURTHER means that EVERY ENCOUNTER would have to be readjusted to take that into account.

That’s fine also. You don’t find many Rangers in dungeons anyways, so perhaps this will encourage people to consider Rangers for more groups. I’ve actually never found any area anywhere in the game where I could attack without impunity.

Nothing needs to be re-adjusted. There are many areas in the game where we will be 30-40% down in dps. The longbow arrows still get side stepped, so extending the range isn’t going to be game breaking.

Beyond having our main 2 pets we can swap between; how about have a stable where you can place say 5 additional pets that will automatically pop out and fight once your 2 main ones are dead. The stable pets can keep their F2 abilities, but cannot be controlled like the main pets. Basically they attack what you attack, and that’s it.

Obviously there are certain situations this would come in handy like dungeon bosses, or mega-zerg battles in WvW. All other times, I’ve found that rarely you’ll find both pets dead at the same time.

Basically how ever you have them lined up in your stable; they just pop out one by one after the previous one is dead. Once one of your main pets are ready to go again, your stable pet immediately gets replaced by it.

With this, I think we can at least try to keep our dps at similar levels as other classes in major battles, instead of it being reduced 30-40% some of the time. An elite skill could also be brought from this where your entire stable comes to fight for you for “x” amount of time.

Kichwas.7152:

Dodgerrule’s right, but some of you are being too tunnel-visioned to try new ways of using your class and so don’t see it.

The class brings excellent support with spirit buffs, pets revives, spotter, area heals, area condition removal, and other elements.

It does solid damage if traited and geared well.

There are plenty of conditions for good control.

It alternates well for the situation – very good for being in melee, ranged, or with a split between self and pet: both.

Ranger played with ‘just auto-attacking stuffz’ can solo just fine, and sucks in group content… but it might be time to learn to do more than auto-attack.

No others are pretty much on their marks with dodgerrule

- Pets cannot tank bosses, unless you consider dying in 1-2 hits tanking
- Spirits dont stay alive long enough to be considered suppot (Banners are better)
- Pet revives don’t work most of the time and have a wicked long cool down
- Any class can be a spotter
- AoE heals are one of the areas the class actually excels in
- Area condition removal is not that effective
- Solid damage only comes in the form of zerker gear, but with the recent damage nerf to pets, it’s not nearly as solid as other classes, like not even close
- Melee is not as strong as other classes, nor is the ranged abilities oddly enough

Pretty much everything the ranger does, can be replaced by another class that can do it better; that’s why they aren’t desired in groups.

Shiren.9532:

Chopps.5047:

Onikage Dagoth.7859:

I don’t play my ranger often so i don’t really have room to talk, but why don’t they just add an avoidance feature similar to that of WoW? Make pets immune to x% of aoe damage, it seems to me this would balance pve and wvw because of the frequency of aoes there while not being nearly as big of a buff in pvp where it would be easier to just focus the pet for all of 10 seconds or less to burst it down.

Have you ever worked as an engineer? “Why don’t they just” is a lot more work than you think. I bet that’s why. There’s a lot they would do right now if they could, I’m sure. But they have priorities and pets dying in PVE just isn’t at the top of that list as it stands today. Eventually it will get there, but for now they cannot do it. The only logical answer is money/resources, right?

*Note: It may seem to be an “easy” change but you don’t know what their code base looks like. Many things are tied together in a dynamic spreadsheet that’s calculating and re-calculating under the hood. Some things are tied to “code classes” such that their attributes are passed onto all three gametypes. It’s likely that engineers would have to re-structure large parts of the code to get this done and all of that needs tested through and through. This is only a guess though, an in depth answer would be nice but, again, ANET devs don’t like to elaborate on technical issues, as you’ve seen before. The best you can get out of them is “this might happen someday”

Did you forget the time Robert Hrouda actually said they did try this and it made pets too tanky? It’s not a technical limition from what I understand, they don’t want pets to have damage reduction against bosses. They’d rather they die than tank.

While I agree with Robert’s rational behind it, it doesn’t make sense when compared to other classes. Does any of the other 7 classes have an handicaps against them that cause an instant 40% dps loss? I ask because I havn’t played all 8 classes.

It would seem to me that it’d make more sense to either have the pets extremely tanky or completely invulnerable if we count on them to provide that much dps.

SynfulChaot.3169:

DeadlySynz.3471:

I wonder why they can’t increase the longbow range? It wouldn’t be OP because damage is still tied to our pets and people still can avoid arrows. They cant pull the technical card as ballistas carry a 3000 range, so 1800 or 2000 shouldn’t be an issue.

Ballistas only really exist in a few places. Most places in the game may not be designed for that range amount. And rangers would have that range everywhere.

Which is fine because they don’t churn out the amount of damage that any other class can. 40% of it is tied to the pets who spend more time dead than alive, plus the arrows can still be side stepped. I’m not suggesting long bows have a 3000 range, but minimum of 1800 (while putting the shortbow back to 1200) would make it more desirable.

Either that or keep it at 1500 but make the arrow speed fast enough that it basically tracks to hit the player unless they physically dodge it.

I wonder why they can’t increase the longbow range? It wouldn’t be OP because damage is still tied to our pets and people still can avoid arrows. They cant pull the technical card as ballistas carry a 3000 range, so 1800 or 2000 shouldn’t be an issue.

Chopps.5047:

I’m of the opinion that arrows should pierce by default and longbow should be default 1500 range. Because right now you need 3 separate traits to effectively use bows, shutting the player out of traiting for signets or traiting for pets. This is a lot of the reason that Malicious Training—a fantastic adept trait by the way—fits into few builds (why go malicious training when you have to give up steady focus, signet mastery, or keen edge? Can you really justify Expertise training in the already tight Wilderness Survival line? etc). Just a thought…because I find that there’s a lot of neat builds in theory, that would only work if you have 80 points to utilize. Ever get that feeling? That it’s always 10 points away?

We are both of the same opinion. I think arrows should just naturally pierce through targets, because they are in fact arrows. The longbow should also act like a longbow by default, not having to have it traited to do so.

I think by default, it should be 1500 but when traited, could go up to 2000. Nobody can really call this OP because people can still side step the arrows which is another issue in itself + we don’t do a a lot of damage to begin with as it’s tied to our pet.

While were on this line of thinking, I think pets should just follow their natural abilities:

Birds – Fly up to attack people in towers; they also shouldn’t take fall damage

Felines/Wolves/Canines – Should naturally run a kitten of a lot faster than players

Bears – They are scary kittens, they should just naturally instill fear in people while around. One of their auto abilities should be to stand up, growl, and cause AoE fear.

Spiders – Webs and lots of them. Fire off AoE webs that slow all enemies down in the area via cripple. Also webs around the spider and player than also cause cripple to players that get too close.

I’m sure Anet has an idea (roughly) as to how big the WvW population is on each server, and it’s no secret that some are heavily loaded while others aren’t. So why not pull all the WvW’ers out of each server and reshuffle them on each server evenly, or as even as they can get. Guilds can move together.

I’m sure they also have a rough idea as to how many players and guilds play during “SEA” time, so why not disperse them across servers evenly as well?

Continue to allow “guesting” on servers, but only for PvE purposes

There is no reason why some servers should have 24/7 coverage across all maps while other servers struggle to field competition on one map during prime time. Part of this problem lies with people and whole guilds transferring to high Tier servers where they aren’t needed when other servers could use them. Zerg sizes and competition should be fairly even and que times should plummet.

I agree with it being put on Barrage. Seeing as they nerfed the damage 50% with the patch.. the least they could do is add a blast finisher to it.

Hmm good point OP, never actually thought of the impact on players with ascended items and given how long it takes to acquire them..

So we find a build that we like because it works so we enhance it with ascended gear. Anet now decides they don’t like it and nerf the build to the point it isn’t really viable anymore rendering all that ascended gear worthless to the build..

So now what? Spend another 5-6 months gearing up for another nerf? I’m sure glad I havn’t spend any Laurels yet.. I believe I’m still sitting on 140 of them.

I actually like the idea, but coming from TC, I can only imagine the debacle it’d cause.

On one hand, it may cause even more people to flock to WvW which is great; however, that also means the servers with already overwhelming numbers, would still in effect, have overwhelming numbers.

On the other hand with this new match making system we still have many blowout matches which would mean those who enter the match up already know at some point their server will get invaded.. Would this be a positive or a negative?

Then questions follow:

How do the invasions work? Can we just flock into Lions Arch per say and just kill everything in site? Players and NPC’s included? (I can only imagine the skill lag)

I personally like the idea OP, and I think it could be implemented with one simple stipulation: The invading server must control all towers, keeps, and garrison on the enemy borderland. This doesn’t include camps, because realistically, these get continually flipped making 100% takeover virtually impossible for any more than 5 min.

What kinds of challenges could this bring? Well it’d definitely make sure the players are now defending their home borderland. It’ll also breed incentive to guard all the towers, keeps, and garrison. It also emphasizes the break up of zergs, and it also breathes a new reward system.

Seems like a + + to me.

Well the good thing about rangers is they can be effectively played both melee in range but as another poster pointed out, any viable build found seems to cross the OP threshold.. somehow.. someway.

It’s no secret our pets are broken in more ways than one, so I don’t know how Anet justifies reducing most of the pets damage 25% across the board. I also don’t know how they justify putting them on a shorter leash. This short leash has caused me to get killed several times during the last WvW due to my pets inability to knock down the enemy at a safe distance.

Then there is the Short Bow. This was never a problem before, nobody ever hinted at it being a problem, so I don’t know how they justify reducing it’s range. It’s still usable, but not nearly as effective as it once was. This one just baffles me.

Then there is the Long Bow. It’s great they increased the speed of both rapid fire and auto attack, as it is a noticeable difference; however, it’s still not quite where it needs to be. Then they took a giant step back by reducing barrage’s damage by around 50%. Because of Barrage nerf, it’s actually more effective to run up to a group with our nerfed Short Bow and just spam 1 while hitting tab repeatedly.

I like that the rangers are versatile and can be effective in both melee and ranged, but people are flying off the handle when both their melee and ranged abilities are on the receiving end of the nerf bat.

Been brought up before, nearly everybody and their mom agrees thieves should lose their stealth during stomps. Not only that but lose stealth for “x” period of time after attacking.

Will Anet do anything about it? Not anytime soon, but they will eventually as they are known to listen to the masses of people whether it’s a good idea or bad. The question is, when this happens, are thieves going to whine and moan or are they going to adjust?

Ya.. still going to 100% in the second phase. A good 30 min to kill with nothing but blues and greens to show for it. I’m hoping this is a bug so it’ll be fixed.

I’m in the zone before Jormag starts, and I see like half as many people as usual.. so I’m wondering what’s going on.. second phase hits.. and suddenly it becomes clear why nearly nobody is around. Most of us were ready to just walk away from the 2nd phase when it started.

Myself, as well as, everyone else who was just in that encounter made it abundantly clear that Jormag is off the list until it goes back to the way it was, or loot is drastically buffed to compensate. As of right now, it’s far more profitable to just buzz around in WvW.. like far more profitable.

I’d also ask why they nerfed barrage damage around 50%. I tested this on a buddy who was wearing berserker gear about 3 weeks prior to the patch (to get a feel for it’s viability), and also tested it the day after the patch when I suspected something. The damage is consistent with roughly a 50% loss.

Did players really feel barrage was problematic before? It has a cast time and it’s blatantly easy to dodge out of, if anything it should have received a 50% buff (IMO). Or keep it as is, but add a combo finisher to it that stacks confusion on it.

Barrage was one of my favorite attacks before, but now, it’s just far more effective to take our nerfed short bow and spam #1 while tabbing to different targets.