Guild Wars 2

Yep, edited and fixed above :P

For some reason though I could have sworn I saw increased damage numbers in my test, but maybe it was just really unfortunate luck on the damage range rotations.

I honestly never looked up this trait until now. Didn’t realize the damage modifier didn’t apply unless holding new skills.

This is the build I run (Berserker/Valk armor, scholar runes):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAoYlsMpypNOxzJ8PNRLhs9oVv87tuPCA

Engaging a target (2100 range with infil signet + steal) will put you at a ’50% damage modifier and 16 might with around 70% crit chance, and may also let you stack up to 16 might and a 65% damage modifier on a stab.

10k seems rather low on a pure stab build. My guess is the guy was SA with some good food. My numbers usually land around 15k depending on the target. I know I got kind of lucky with how glassy this unlucky fellow was, and mind you, this was after the drop in crit damage from the ferocity change:

The magitech skirt has clipping issues with some human body types, just fyi. I know the rather… uh… “well-endowed” body type skin has some pretty big clipping issues.

Anyone who insists that any other thief weaponset is better than D/P has clearly never played the other weaponsets.

D/P is the most frustrating, easiest, face-rolliest, and overall scrubby build in the entire game. Yep, I think hambow warrior takes more skill, has more counters, and is generally more difficult to play than D/P thief. D/P blind-stealth spam is a downright insult to a lot of this game’s mechanics and makes thieves appear way stronger than they appear to be when played with other sets.

Best thing you can do is challenge them to use D/D if they think they’re good at dagger mainhand and/or just ignore them.

Zackie.8923:

i mainly zerg wvw. do you think LB barrage will be viable? i kind of like the idea of 1500 range LB barraging the zerg. Does it do crazy damage like the ele meteor?

No to your first statement and no to the second.

The first because rangers will unfortunately never be a viable zerg class with their current skills. They have pretty much no fields or finishers for the benefit of others, which are absolutely essential in zerg combat. Physical projectile is just too weak and unreliable. Long-range rangers will also not be desired since they are extremely vulnerable to reflect effects which are pretty common, bring little CC, and ultimately deal medicore damage at best. Their escape/stealth is unreliable with so many bodies, and their pets are quick to die. Group retal also makes them suffer from immense damage on barrage, and its sub-par DPS on most players (people dodge roll) makes the skill underwhelming in most cases. It also has a hidden 5 person target cap as per most AOE’s.

Meteor Shower has the potential to deal about ten times the damage of barrage, and usually reaches around five to six times as much.

Even if the damage got buffed to astronomical levels, LB ranger won’t find a home in zergs just due to the lack of utility and how easily-countered it is.

Ijs, mesmers have it relatively easy against thieves.

It’s dependent on how you play.

For me, on a DPS character, a mobility signet and scholar runes or mesmer runes is always more worthwhile than surrendering such stats just for the mobility bonus, or simply not having the mobility bonus at all.

Nah. Depends on a variety of factors, though. I think people will start seeing less berserker armor and more valk or cavalier armor getups, or simply just more people playing signets, venoms, etc. on damage builds. One has to remember that RF’s change ultimately makes it easier to dodge the damage and it will not stealth track for the entire duration of stealth, making some players feel more dependent on Sic ‘Em. I’m more worried about Engis getting a reveal (or simply even more classes in general), as it was manageable on rangers, but there may be a little too much revealed debuff going on in WvW roaming now.

Personally, as a signet thief, I don’t think anything in my build or style will change. If anything, the Signet of the Wild’s stability is going to be the most difficult thing to get past. That said, I like to engage before my enemy knows I’m even tailing them in the first place. Anything under a tank warrior/guard/necro in DS is something I burst down within the first three attacks usually.

As a ranger, I look forward to being able to burst players down, especially thieves animating HiS to kill them before rejuv can heal, but I still don’t know if I’ll even play with Sic ’Em. I can see it on perhaps some more utility-oriented rangers, but DPS ones will/should already have enough aggression on their utilities for damage likely not to warrant consistency for only one or two class matchups.

Oak da Vite.9054:

Enemies without stability / stunbreakers / immobilze remove will suffer very hard, won’t they?

There’s your problem, though. Most good players will run these, as immobilize is a general condi (removed by all cleanses), and a stunbreaker/immobilize is a pretty standard thing to have on most builds. Even stealth will cancel your shortbow damage, which frankly won’t even really be that high since you have both low power and condition damage.

It makes the most sense to make Eagle Eye an Adept trait in all honesty. Sometimes piercing is a liability. Eagle Eye can never be since the reduction in damage is flat and does not scale by distance from the target as a percentage of one’s current range increment.

Plus, Eagle Eye doesn’t really break anything in MMS as an adept trait, leaves open other traits for non-archer power rangers, and lets players use it and piercing or spotter together depending on what they prefer to do. This also gets rid of the whole issue of either feeling the adept traits are all “meh” in MMS, while also creating more variety for archers by giving Steady Focus some competition.

Dave Pare.2069:

I’m not very concerned about the possibility that your opponent will dodge your entire RF: it will work just like other burst skills, for ex wrrior’s eviscerate, it is all about using the skill at the right time. The difference will be that you will be able to burst from a 1500 range, without counting the fact that ranger has a lot of cc to help you land your RF. Think for example at a LB/GS build: only with the weapons you have a stun/daze and a knockback on GS and another knockback on LB; all this without counting that you have pets like the Krytan Drakehound that has 1 immobilize and a knockdown or jungle spider with 2 immobilize or skills like Muddy terrain which is another immobilize or even Entangle (now with the CD reduced)! The opportunities to land your entire RF are there and there are a lot of them (remember that with the new stuff from the patch RF will have the potential to be a 1and1/2 sec cast time skill).

There are a lot of counters to this, though. You’re looking at maybe having three different conditions on you maximum at a given time, depending on the pet. Every class should be using some kind of condition purge. Just by looking at the classes, here’s what we can assume:

Warrior: 1650 range gap closing on GS alone, 900 more on bull rush, immunity to immobilize through all three when traited, immunity to conditions, trait immunity to conditions, multiple methods of stability access, and damage immunity through traiting and utilities, projectile reflection.

Thief: Access to over 3000 range teleports which ignore CC effects and immobilize, Teleports, blinds, reflection + returned cripple + stability, projectile immunity, stealth + dodge roll = untargetable and very little damage taken if any, extreme burst and hard CC effects.

Mesmer: Stealth + dodge roll, clone bodyblocking, teleports, incredibly potent reflection, interrupts, blinds, and confusion affecting all procs of RF.

Engineer: Elixir S, endurance regen, equally powerful equally-ranged attacks, heavy longrange condition application, stunbreaks, mobility effect recovery, gap closing, turret bodyblocking, short cooldown projectile reflection.

Necromancer: Death Shroud (facetanking the damage), condition sending, gap closing/teleports, chain CC, mobility hindering effects, better DPS on lich form.

Guardian: Stability, extreme condition cleansing, heavy mitigation, teleport, leaps and gap closing, strong healing, reflection, deflection, ignore physical damage, heavy CC.

Ele: Instant godmode traits (Stone Heart), incredible healing and sustain, high mitigation, extreme burst damage, incredible gap closing, mist form/immunities, heavy condition application, heavy condition removal, teleports, CC, stability.

And I mean if a ranger is blowing three utilties to try and burst you, and it can all be negated by a dodge roll, how is it unfair? I play a thief which over the course of tree attacks within a one second time frame while invisible and hard CC’ing the target for the entire duration deals sometimes and upwards of 40 thousand damage to other players, and can do this starting from 2100 range. I really don’t think you need to be worried about ranger’s new “burst” when so many other classes have equal or better access to it, especially since it’s going to be pretty obvious and the majority of it can be evaded in one stunbreak and dodge, a good CC, some well-timed negation, or simply, a tankier build. I beat other backstab thieves and power necros, DPS eles, etc. frequently on my thief despite having no stealth on my utlities, no blind application, no utilities when I enter a fight, low initiative, and low health and extremely low defenses. I can assure you good timing on stunbreaks or just dodges in general can literally change a matchup. I’m actually expecting this new RF to make my personal matchup easier against power rangers when playing my thief, for one evade will ruin their whole burst, and two evades will render their entire weaponset and utilities worthless.

There are so many easy ways to counter long-ranged play. These don’t usually come in the form of just crunching numbers or trying to out-tank them. In most games, beating a skilled ranged player requires skilled thinking and counterplay just as the ranger must do to overcome the normality of what is usually inherently lower stats.

RF will soon have more counterplay options than it does now, be it through dodges and abilities. As such, rangers finally got their burst damage which has been one of the defining reasons they have performed so poorly (as power builds) for so long, for in all honesty, this entire game is about burst damage when it comes down to it.

Absolutely the case. Thus why I also mentioned the phrase “current state,” as the RF burst potential has been on my mind constantly since the anouncement. This will push aggressive builds in the right direction and will yield burst damage comparable to most other classes. One also has to remember that in a reduced channel comes in fact some more risk; one dodge can now pretty much negate an entire ranger’s combo if QZ is applied, which I have a feeling many will do.

The sustained damage model really doesn’t work in PvP scenarios, so this upcoming change to RF will give longbow rangers enough punch to take down some more sustained tanking/mitigation characters and really capitalize on short CC windows from pets and PBS.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

I don’t think it needs a merge, especially now that RTW has a RoF buff. if anything longbow needs the 100% (or just 50%) projectile speed by default.

This was my suggestion on the CDI (passively increase projectile speeds by 100% on the longbow). The result of this was RtW. It’s likely getting the buff because they know it’s mandatory but in itself kinda weak (I mean it’s a GM trait to make a weapon even work) and just don’t feel like developing another new trait.

Sevans.4619:

Now that I think about it, a reduced channel time on Rapid Fire means that less dodges effectively evade more of that damage, so it might push more LB rangers into running dual spiders with Malicious Training and using Rapid Fire on reaction to immobilizes to guarantee that damage.

Our DPS numbers on RF become almost identical to Hundred Blades per unit of time, though, though, with more reliability (ranged heat-seeking/stealth tracking) and no sidestepping. Similarly, wolves will also prove very effective as the channel time on QZ will be less than the fear duration. Even PBS’s knockdown may grant enough time to channel the majority of the damage.

Not to mention the reduced cooldown on Entangle and no distance modifier on RF could allow for some close-range burst fire as well.

Zuik.7158:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Rangers don’t lack damage, they lack *BURST

liek necro lacks cond and warr needs more cc this gaem so unbalanced

Im going to assume youve never played signet berserker ranger.

I’m going to assume you haven’t, either. If you think 3-4k autos on a full berserker build which is oh so easily negated by sidestepping is burst, you probably have never been killed by anyone running a real burst build.

I broke this record yesterday on a necro, because the screenshot is of a guardian which as heavies take less damage. Neither were uplevels as usually those die on the 12-16k CnD damage alone when factoring in the ~8k mugs.

I’d also like to point out that a lich form necro does more damage in auto-attacking than my backstab. 20k auto-attacks versus 4k’s… hmm… something about burst or even sustained damage? I’m sorry, rangers in their current state have neither.

By the sounds of it, you’re looking at spotter. This is a pet/crit-dependent build and you’re going to need to give it extra crit chance, since I don’t think a lot is going to die on just OS from the jaguar. You’re definitely going to need RoA for this build, for each of the eight attacks from RF will apply might to your pet, which you’re absolutely going to need for that OS. I would also consider using LR for the extra evade/reposition/stunbreak which if you get hit in stealth or don’t make it to where the item is, can help you get there much easier.

Fill the BM open trait with Vigorous training. Since you’re dependent on the pet skill for the engage/damage, and you’re running Steady Focus and will likely need a dodge or two when trying to get to the bundle, getting vigor pretty much assists your whole flow in every regard.

I also don’t even know if you want or need the porcine. OS applies when entering combat for 5, drop HS for another 5, and RF to 18 with the pet engaging for OS for 23. That much investment and weird repositioning/being dependent on luck for a combo to work for only 2 vuln seems crazy. This is especially the case if you engage with a jaguar for OS and then F2 for stealth to re-apply OS on the jaguar capping you at 25 vuln anyways on the next hit (you’ll need to F3 in between for damage modifiers on the following hit). And even then I think getting the jaguar’s first ability off on 23 stacks is substantially better than trying to combo for 2% more damage with all that risk, or even relying on its second attack for damage. Now you can even go as far as using a different pet for more utility.

I think you’d also find more success by removing “protect me” and replacing it with SotW, too, since you’ll also already have the stunbreak and dodge from LR. It also makes your pet’s OS combo more reliable, since it won’t be taking damage/run the risk of dying, and stealth + stability is pretty much a guaranteed successful engage.

This would put your pet’s engage with the enemy at around 13-23 vuln, autocrit, 30% crit damage, +25% more damage,8-10 stacks of might, 8s stability for consistency, and if you really wanted to, SotH for another 50%. This might put the pet burst just over the edge to kill someone, for the jaguar would be at nearly a 270% damage modifier with the vuln stacks applied (150 base crit modifier).

To some extent I agree that the trait would be nice elsewhere, and I would absolutely love to see it applied to say skirmishing 3 (Merge skirmishing 1 and 3 into both being 1), but it’s not really a totally necessary trait. I mean thematically it makes sense for bow users, but i think its applications are best on axe/dagger. I’d argue spotter is a substantially better trait for longbow users than onslaught.

Imho, I think Eagle Eye should also just be made passive for rangers using longbows to tighten them up a little such that then they’re choosing for might, spotter, or piercing, which are all amazing traits rather than ignoring the three mostly just because Eagle Eye is so necessary.

Stooperdale.3560:

Stacking in itself is fine. It carries risk. It is good play to maximize shared boons and fields. It maximizes aoe damage. Etc. The problem is the use of corners and walls to move enemies into the stack without using skills. Corners are more effective than class skills for moving enemies into a stack. Walls prevent knock backs from breaking the stack.

Nailed it. It’s not about the stack but the corners/exploiting structure geometry with the mob/boss LoS-based AI.

The best examples I can think of are in AC and CoE. Alpha can be hard fight even when stacking (depending on the group) but it’s substantially easier in stack attempts due to how he won’t cast certain abilities if he himself is cornered into a wall. Therefore you take the whole group to him after knocking him into a corner so that if anyone takes aggro, he doesn’t move/cast.

Fights like Spider in AC and Subject Alpha are frankly extremely difficult without following that kind of tactic. So much so that a lot of people can’t beat the dungeon if they don’t know of it.

So you’re absolutely correct. To reduce the effectiveness of terrain abuse, some bosses perhaps need slight power tweaks downwards at the same time. I think The Huntsman is one of the best encounters because there aren’t really such exploits.

Yep. Instant-cast teleports work this way intentionally. It’s why we have so much access to them over multiple utilities and how it synergizes with so much.

Wow. Almost literally taken word for word.

I might need to stop bashing ANet and start praising them again as I did on release if they can deliver like this into the future.

Tman.6349:

In Guild Wars 2, Rangers ARE ‘unparalleled’ archers though. No other profession can u"s"e both shortbow and longbow, nor can they trait/modify their bows to the extent that a Ranger can. “Rangers are unparalleled archers” does not equal “Rangers can do 100 Blades from 1500 range”. It’s not just a Ranger. It is the Ranger/Pet, a duality that must be played as such to be most effective. That’s not going to change and it shouldn’t IMO. This “give us back our 30% damage” demand is completely ridiculous. Anet NEVER ‘took away’ any damage from the Ranger; the damage split has been like that since launch so idk why anyone (2 years later) would be acting surprised/upset like this just happened last week. Yes, the AI could be improved quite a bit, like pet skill usage or being able to attack while moving, but demanding the devs completely overhaul their game just seems crazy to me.

By your logic, because I can hold a rifle AND a sword (and whatever weapon in history I can access) I am now a better soldier than Alexander the Great? I mean he couldn’t have held a rifle because he was never around to hold one, therefore making him a worse soldier than me since we associate soldiers today with firearms and modern weaponry and the definition of unparalleled is totally based on resources and not a measure of any kind of skill or effectiveness, right? This argument literally makes no sense whatsoever.

And no, there is no such thing as making the pet “effective” in various scenarios no matter how good you are or how much you invest in it. The fact of the matter is that this class sucks and will always suck unless ANet allows for removing pets as combat entities and diverging and buffing beastmaster style or archer/skirmisher styles of play exclusively from each other.

That is the grounds for demanding system-level changes. I was recently told to leave my guild from a high rank or to never play my ranger again in WvW because the class is just THAT BAD, despite me being most effective on it of all of my twelve charactes to the point where I’ve proven myself as being the best in my guild at the class and one of the best duelists in the guild of 270 people. The class is just simply too weak in too many environments because of its mechanic and it will never improve unless damage is increased for those who want it/need it and builds are streamlined and more potent in what they are trying to do. The pet as the class skill in its current implementation both ruins possible BM builds as well as anyone interested in a DPS archer/evasive skirmisher. The whole fusion thing needs to get thrown out the window for the sake of the class, or simply, other classes need to get access to the archer style of play so that a massive portion of the ranger community can just happily delete their characters and move to something strictly better and more useful.

JonPeters has publicly announced in the past that the pet AI will never be improved and/or ANet has no intentions on improving it in the near or distant future. Begging for AI is more pointless than begging for the option for a style of play not offered anywhere else in the game that has an absolutely massive demographic appeal to it, even if it requires class overhauls. I can guarantee. Guarantee. Not guessing, making things up, or any of that; GUARANTEE that there are more players interested in the archer role than the beastmaster playing MMO’s regardless of whether or not their game offers either of them. GW2’s vision was to appeal to all players. Simply ignoring this demographic is totally against their vision which made their game and studio successful to begin with, and frankly, is costing them money. And any successful business knows that making its consumers happier and creating mass appeal always leads to more recognition and profits, especially in video games.

This is something that strictly speaking, ANet needs to look into. It’s not even about the ranger, it’s about an entire play style being neglected. People have been asking for compensation on other classes by moving the longbow to thief (as it’s already down one weaponset from the classes which do not feature extra movesets in their class mechanics) and other options for a long time now, and would happily move to such a class or even a new class in order to get what they want. But those implementations would take just as much, if not more effort, and would leave the ranger class way worse than it already is to the point where they would be so worthless and undesirable that nobody would ever use them or accept them except for RP’ing.

Lol, breaking news: Mesmer deemed useless and interrupt control ranger becomes the new meta.

Moment of Clarity OP.

Not really. You simply just don’t get the benefit of those abilities. It’s that simple. Don’t run RoA and pet-dependent abilities when you’re not using a pet.

However, ANet has publicly stated they have zero intention whatsoever to implement a permastow option for damage compensation. The class will forever remain broken until that attitude changes, which, based on their design and balance ideology for the past two years, implies that such attitude will never change out of sheer stubbornness and obliviousness to the GW2 community.

I support the notion of simply giving the longbow to another class. It could honestly be anything else. I want an archer. I was the best one in the game I used to play. I still firmly believe I am an extremely good archer ranger player even now. The simple fact of the matter, however, is that this class is inadequate and will always remain inadequate do to sloppy design and total ignorance by ANet for as long as it is dependent on any sort of AI.

Egg, you talk about the class design as though the pet is supposed to be their focal point. I’d like to point out to you the first sentence of the official class description, created before GW2 was released, which has yet to be changed or modified. I personally bought the game on the pretense that I would be playing an archer. I know many, many others also have:

Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

The following sentence afterwards describes the ranger’s versatility through its class options, NOT by describing any forced playstyle techniques. The pet as the class mechanic was actually added AFTER this was written:

With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.

The bottom line is that solo/DPS archer is a demanded play style and it is not offered through any means in the game, despite the obvious marketing of making the ranger precisely that class.

This option simply has to be provided. I don’t care whether or not people like the system as it is. I don’t even care if people want to play an exclusive beastmaster. That’s fine, and those options should be provided for as well. Fact of the matter, though, is that as it stands, this class does neither a beastmaster nor an archer while trying to do both at once, and it simply requires an overhaul or more classes need to be made to compensate.

SoM is much better on P/P and S/P than shortbow and D/D. Death blossom is a terrible proc (the above two sets are more efficient on the initiative on their multi-hits and yield more healing and better damage/results), and the results with the shortbow subsequently are only effective when hitting multiple targets. HiS is a free condi cleanse + burst heal + regen + stealth + fight reset and Withdraw is a nice evade and removes mobilty-hindering effects.

Pistol 2 is a good engaging skill. 5 stacks of vuln and brief immobilize is nice, as it can be used to forcibly proc trait-based condi removal skills early when used with the autoattack and will bolster the rest of your outgoing damage for other essential skills like shadow shot/unload.

chemiclord.3978:

The big problem with Ranger damage is that maximum efficiency is dependent on a pet that is only slightly smarter than my desk lamp.

Okay, I lied. My desk lamp actually does something when I push the right button.

I honestly just spent the past minute laughing at this comment in all of its truthful glory.

+1’d.

Nocta.5274:

Briix.6872:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Nocta.5274:

When Shortbow had 1200 range ?

I would sure like to get that one back, particularly SB5.

That jump just feels so short.

If I’m not mistaken, the only thing on Shortbow that has ever had 1200 range was Cluster Bomb. IA would be way too strong if it had 1200 range.

Nah, everyting on the SB was 1200 range. I’m sure of it, I was there when they nerfed it

Yep, and it was amazing because you could actually hit players when standing on keep walls.

As amazing as crit mug was, it was OP. Thinking about this now, my mugs would be hitting for like… 13k with my current build. That’s just way too much damage. The healing is nice, though. Clutch mug heals have saved me a lot.

Domey.9804:

Remember the good ol days when sin-sig was a 150% dmg increase on next Hit? I Do…It was fun. Surely broken but fun

You have no idea how much I want this back. These condi tanks and bunker guards with this new armor are freaking impossible to burst down. I’m lucky to get stabs over 10k now.

I find the only benefit to SoM is might stacking on signet burst builds, and even then it’s debatable. The healing is low and the activation too long while yielding no condition removal/stealth escapes.

Withdraw and HiS are certainly the best heals.

I just want to point out I do not play nor endorse SA builds as I think they are also cheesy and provide way too much power for how little skill they require. The same goes for blindspam builds.

Pain Response isn’t a particularly good condition cleanse. It’s just a second HiS, which begs the question, why bother taking it when you’ve already cleansed those conditions, and thieves have literally zero access outside of SA and Shadowstep (I don’t consider signet of agility condi removal as one condition is nothing) to remove confusion and torment (and of course everything else). The bottom line is that SA just provides too many essentials which other classes already have built-in (condi removal, healing, damage negation, extreme synergy with weapon skills and the class mechanic and means of constant application of arguably the best condition/CC in the entire game (blind). Acro is a good line for aggressive players looking for some defensive bonuses, but SA takes the cake in builds designed to kill other players, and this is caused mostly by the synergy it has with itself in that it gives +toughness and +healing with anti-burst skills, plenty of sustained healing, and the best condition removal thief has, meanwhile still providing some damage potential and some might stacking. The SA line is so power-heavy that in fact it is one of the few trait lines in the entire game where most of the traits are difficult to choose from because there are so many desirable choices, whereas the rest of the traits in other lines pretty much lead to a few select ones which are the obvious best-picks

D/D isn’t a SA build path, nor should it be. D/P is the epitome of it, though, for I’d argue entering a fight with 8 stacks of might (280 power) and heavy blind application on a full damage build when backstabbing and getting the best heals and condition removal the class has access to is pretty nice.

With HiS cleansing torment and confusion, and simply more skills removing conditions, there would be less of a dependency on SA builds than there currently is.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

XPGAMER.7324:

TheThiefMaster.3812:

JohnnyZero.5619:

TheThiefMaster.3812:

i’d love to see you use your so called smarter build against a perplexity terrormancer or a perplexity engi in WvW, then again you are just making things up as you simply wont win against those specs without SA unless the players are terrible , no ifs and buts it’s just the way it is :-).

That’s a pretty broad generalization to say that someone “simply wont win against those specs without SA”.

My argument is that a thief could be become a better player if he/she doesn’t use SA traits.

Your argument is that a thief player can’t get by without SA traits.

Which sounds more positive to you?

Though you may have a point, I play sPvP a lot more than I play WvW these days, and Perplexity runes don’t exist in sPvP. I wonder why that is?

I play both game modes , i’ve ran all specs ( the known ones at least ) in both Spvp and WvW so I’m speaking from experience , against certain specs , like the ones i mentioned above , you simply need SA.

This is coming from someone who hardly ever uses SA anymore by the way , even in WvW .

All I’m saying is d/d almost always needs SA, it isn’t a set of training wheels, its the crutch for the weaponset.

D/D needs SA in the face of condi.

And this is the prime issue. But it’s not unique to D/D; it applies to the entire thief class.

SA has pretty much all of the defense available to thieves loaded into one steamlined trait line. And with condition damage becoming more prevalent and being countered solely by condi clears, it only makes sense to spec shadow arts for the removal and heals to simply not die while in stealth. This is especially apparent since thieves have no other effective condi clear skills and therefore become dependent on a trait line for its sustaining potential.

Frankly, if HiS removed all damaging conditions rather than just bleeding/burning/poison, and there was more universal access to condi removal for the class, I doubt as many thieves would run SA except those very interested in high stealth uptime and some of the really defensive perks that come along with it to become nuisances in fights and very slippery targets as they were intended to be.

Prysin.8542:

the thing about the passive buff if pet is gone, there is a downside to it.

If we remove pet or reward the lack of pet, then who in their right mind would even play WITH a pet in the first place?
I mean, i LOVE the beastmaster chartype. I LOVE IT. I love the ability to use my pet for damage. Yes i despise the horrid pathing, the more then ridiculously slow response time to enemy movement and such. But i still love the pets, and using them is actually important to how my class plays.

Despite this, if they just gave me the ability to play without pet, without penalty, i’d just drop the pet right there and then. Because aslong as the pet remain as is, there is no way i can justify using it, if not forced to.
My glassbow would be stronger (less durable in some cases as i would lose the wolf fear and KD), more imposing, and absolutely devastating to enemies 1v1.
If we say we can remove pet and get a buff or “let pets die” to gain a buff, then sure.. ill rather take 30% DPS boost to my LB AA, thus hitting 3-4k autos all the time instead of 2-3k. However aslong as the ranger is designed as it is, we cannot just “remove pet” or “reward petless play”. Because it would cause a LOT of people to just send their pets to their death, then play on as immortal evasion bots.

I can say this though, pet death CD must be reduced. It should be no longer then 45 seconds max, but not shorter then 30 seconds.
Pet swap CD should increase to 25 seconds untraited.

And i just got a brainwave – remove current BM adept minor, change it to “remove 2 conditions from yourself and allies upon pet swap”. It would solve our biggest issue of all – condition removal demands massive investments.

That’s precisely why I posted what I did earlier. Removing pets as combat entities but allowing them to still deal damage, and reworking the trait lines and splitting the class mechanic up would allow for just outright buffs to BM skills and possibly pets in general, such as adding some kind of additional scaling (Damage scaling from healing power, perhaps?). This, while keeping them as non-combat damage-dealing and utility entities, could keep the ranger’s pets invincible as long as the ranger is alive, making the whole ordeal just like every other class’s mechanic, but allowing for a BM ranger to deal sufficient damage.

The biggest disparity, however, will always be terrain. Pets are incapable of climbing up terrain, and frankly, I believe they should be able to port/ignore terrain to a target on unreachable terrain within the pet’s aggro range that you have attacked within a small window of time since your last attack, lasting for a duration equal to this window. This issue is especially apparent in WvW.
Not to mention in doing so, rangers could become immensely useful in sieging keeps and defending them. Imagine the applications of countering siege, hitting low health stragglers atop walls or down below in the zerg. The list goes on.

My thoughts:

You can’t just say “Give a pet dodge/aegis when you dodge.” To solve these issues, especially when this is traited.

The reason being that this puts the ranger in a position which still sucks. An AOE circle drops above you from an arrow cart, and you run outside of it. Damage prevented. Your pet, though, still decides to stand in it and get hit.

So in order to prevent this, you need to have to not only exit the circle, but then dodge roll after reaching safety, just to preserve your pet.

But meanwhile you’re getting slapped by more AoE bombs. So all you honestly did was save your pet from dying in order to preserve your class mechanic but then died afterwards on the basis you just had to save your pet from dying by wasting your dodge.

So okay, then it seems logical to create a new “pet dodge” button to separate these two.

But then you run into the fact you need to potentially press TWO buttons to dodge a given AoE at the same time while possibly activating other skills and moving. This is just a disadvantage for the ranger.

This is why I particularly agree with the prospect of some trait/skill reworking and removing the damage and defense portions from pets. Instead, pets should just not be able to be hit/targeted, and act as sources of utility for the ranger. This can guarantee pet skills to hit, and rangers can still take on the form of a ~30% damage increase because the pet won’t be autoing to account for their damage. Additionally, now the F-skills can be replaced with the actual pet skills since there would be no need to recall/move the pet around. Being able to control my canine’s knock down would be a tremendous asset when fighting instead of having it autocast every 40 seconds and it gets wasted on an already-downed enemy.

The next bit is my personal “best” fix, but I doubt the amount of effort needed to pull it off will ever go into any existing content, because, well, ANet.

If the really wanted to fix this class, they could just rework the ranger’s entire class mechanic into two separate ones, re-introducing preparations which could be both level-scaling and stat-scaling to give solo rangers more damage/self support options to accommodate for the different style and warden/nature-magic players, and pets could fulfill the beastmaster/warden side. Then, the BM line could be reworked into providing real, useful, and powerful abilities for beastmasters to make that play style more viable (I.E., both pets at once, give the pets auto-attacks or a form of rotation, reduce pet skill cooldowns, etc.), and pet skills/abilities can be merged and removed from the other trait lines to accommodate for preparations, such as a trait which would allow casted preparations to affect nearby allies as well, or something of the sorts.

Dead Muppet.9718:

Longbow ranger specced full glass will lose 100% of the time to a thief of above average play.

Thieves also have better mobility, better escapes.

There is no real reason to take a glass longbow ranger over a thief.

This is simply false.

It’s almost entirely dependent on the ranger’s skill level. If the ranger is good, he will actually very likely win. RF’s stealth tracking with a proper spec can in all honesty 100-0 most thieves, PBS can cancel out a lot of their essentials (CnD/HS through BP) and force them on cooldowns with utilities/steal. Pets can force them from SR, and a quick-reaction barrage can cause them to maintain low health, forcing them to either waste the skill or waste its healing effects. I find thieves one of my easiest matchups on my full glass longbow ranger.

GS on a ranger is shortbow on a thief.

Not a set you can really use as a main set, but one which brings a ton of really helpful utility to the table.

Free evades on auto? I mean if you’re dying, this can only help.
The leap is awesome for mobility.
The block doesn’t end on ranged projectiles, giving the player full block for its entire duration against missiles (awesome)
The stun/KB /interrupt is a great thing to have when used right.

But it lacks sufficient damage or simply… cohesion with the ranger’s mechanics, trait lines and skills to work as an effective main weapon.

panicbutton.1053:

XPGAMER.7324:

Read the bolded parts, I made it really easy. Thats the point of this thread. Just wondering why the gw2 community thinks about those questions the way they do.

Why are you so mad? Do any of your followers know how rude you are?

1. No one QQ’s about D/D. Why would they, and whats the point? It’s not over powered.

2. PvPers insist WvWers are inferior. WvW’ers insist that PvPers are inferior. It’s human to cling to what you enjoy most and defend the kitten out of it.

/thread

Ikr. D/D is arguably one of the fairest weaponsets in the game.

johnpoc.8732:

alchemyst.2165:

I just use F1.

/15characters

Same

Yup.
I run stock controls except I’ve bound F3 to R for my ranger and ele, put dodge on shift, jump on space, and have weapon swap mouse-bound (still `).

Idk what build you play, but I recommend keeping it on your left-hand ring finger, for on D/D, you need to be pressing steal + w + 5 at the same time, which for the most part is achievable only through stealing off your left hand ring finger hitting F1, or using bound mouse keys.

But I even use bound mouse keys for infil signet as well, so it ends up being bound mouse 5’, 4’, 3’, 2’ (venom and signet might stacks) → 5+F1+ w/d strafe → 1.

Or in terms of fingers:

RH utility activation while moving to set up → Left index (CnD) + Left ring (steal) + move forward (Left middle) followed by a post-depression CnD Left-index → 1, with pinky and thumb ready on dodge and jump, respectively, keeping all fingers in use for something specific.

Venomshare can deal a striking amount of damage, though, especially if you factor in the whole share part.

A good vs thief can chain venoms together with p/p and ultimately deal more burst damage than a berserker thief while healing his allies, buffing their damage, and controlling the enemy.

Frankly, D/D or even the sustaining effects from SA aren’t even that powerful.

It’s literally just offhand pistol with blind/smoke field access. I find that on my thief, my worst matchup is against D/P thieves. Why? Because I can’t handle getting blinded. Getting blinded all the time is just silly.

And to prove the silly-overpoweredness of blindspam, I switched my build to a full clerics healing P/P build in sPvP against the best players I could find.

And with anything-but-bad timing, I was able to achieve 100% damage mitigation for thirty five straight seconds through everything in the game (except berserker’s stance) with only around ten seconds of downtime. My 100 damage autos and 200 damage ticks would have fights go on for over 20 minutes but I would still win pretty much every time, never playing P/P or even a SA blind build once before in my life. I run this build almost exclusively in sPvP now because it’s just so kitten good, because blind-spam is blatantly overpowered.

scerevisiae.1972:

Worth mentioning that no matter how good a player you may be or become, ranger will still suck in 20v20+ battles because of really poor AOE and support.

Idk. I’d argue it’s not as bad as people suggest. Arguably the ranger’s biggest shortcoming is dying to group retal or simply being a melee ranger for ZvZ. I’ll give you that melee rangers are effectively useless, however longbow ones are quite useful.

Piercing arrows and/or good positioning makes for some incredible healing and condi removing potential on your allies while hitting enemies from a fairly safe distance. I’ve noticed my zerg’s survivability increase heavily when good rangers are played for countering an enemy’s thieves trying to drop the backline due to RF’s stealth-tracking, PBS for knocking them back into the zerg fight, KD on canine engage skill, and AOE fears preventing clutch SR’s. Having a massive condi-clearing AOE-instant-healing regen-granting water field on a 20s cooldown is also incredibly useful for backline support as well, not to mention tangle either dealing substantial damage or acting as a buffer to open up/control opponents or force the very attentive ones out of dodges. Additionally, if you don’t take too much damage from AOE retal, getting off a barrage and applying aoe cripple or massive damage stacked on your backliners prevents good engages by your opponents, or kills the ones that do. One could argue they’re more useful than thieves and mesmers in ZvZ aside from a few select mesmer support skills like veil and reflect.

Because something about them being “Unparalleled archers” in their class description or something would imply they have no need for firearms.

But let’s all be honest here, if given a gun and a bullet, almost every ranger in the game would probably just prefer to shoot and kill their pet with it instead.

The mechanic is broken beyond repair. I’d seriously like them to just give thieves longbows since they’re already down a weapon combination and it would appeal to every non-pet archer ranger in the game.

If you’re only concerned with damage, then it’s your build.
- Runes should be Scholars for the Ferocity/damage modifier.
- Shadow arts provides little damage modifiers. It’s a broken build choice due to the amount of survivability it gives and overall high damage Dagger mainhand + precision signets can yield from might (See below).
- He probably ran signets. Signet burst, using Signet Use and Signets of Power (Crit Strikes II, VIII) on a triple-signet build yields 15 stacks of might or 525 power. And if the build difference means a lot as someone mentioned above, losing another 525 power is huge.
- The Deadly Arts line provides power, but also when traited with mug, another 15% additional damage calculated after this extra power (unless they cleanse both poison and weakness from the mug before you can stab) when going at least 5 points deep. You’re also neglecting Assassin’s Signet, which when not used, actually grants more power than the might stacking from Signets of Power, but can also add in another 15% multiplicative damage scaling when activated on the next five attacks.

If you want your damage to be high, you have to go all in with it. Thief damage can be absolutely crazy, but you’re not going to ever get close to those numbers without investing in a build with at least 5/6/x/x/x with full power/ferocity gear and good precision.

Also, sigil of Air does more damage on a shorter cooldown, and sigil of bloodlust is a LOT stronger than sigil of force when at around the 15 stack threshold.

He may have also had applied strength and food when entering combat for even more damage.

Edit:
This is my thief build. Just by looking at the power difference it’s reasonable to see how dedicated damage builds deal so much more damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypNOxzJ8PNRLhs9oVv87tuPCA-TlSBwAPOBAmVCG5QAcd/RZ1N1DwqUBv+gFHBgcq4A4BAEA4A43+23fD43f/93f/tUARsMC-w

The set doesn’t really need much. Full bunker healing powder P/P is absolutely silly strong in sPvP. I’ve now just lost only three fights in the history of playing the build. Blind spam and interrupts are absolutely wild. And on DPS builds, unload’s damage actually isn’t bad; it rivals that of rapid fire from a ranger over a shorter amount of time and can be spammed. Arguably the set’s initiative costs are a little high, but only so due to issues pertaining to D/P and P/D, which are obviously superior and frankly, blatantly overpowered weaponsets. I think toning those sets/builds down would allow for some P/P initiative costs to be changed.

But we’re talking class balance. ANet doesn’t listen to that as the rangers despite winning the CDI have yet to get any kind of significant feedback or adjustments.

Johje Holan.4607:

What the heck is an AI build? I’ve seen that term pop up recently and can’t find what it is actually.

Easy, auto-attack/faceroll builds that perform well and have limited/no risk and a very high reward, usually through a dependence on AI companions for defense/numbers/extra damage/control.

Not really recommended for roaming, though.

Chaba.5410:

I’m not sure I understand. Your guild was made this offer and some members already left before there was consensus on the offer? That sounds like the end of your guild if that’s the case. Or your guild decided to accept the offer?

I personally have been involved in partially funding transfers from the other side of the table. We didn’t want players to feel beholden by requiring “repayment” through “helping out” in WvW, especially if they ended up not having fun or our community was not the right fit for them. Your game time is your time.

You’re correct in that some moved before the offer has been fulfilled. These players, however, are mostly all high ranks in the guild and have been funded on our end to properly scout the new server to affirm that this is a good choice rather than having the guild move and then being stuck on a server we may not like. Anyone else who has transferred has paid the gem price on their own due to an inherent demand for better fights in the meantime regardless of the outcome and have no issues with transferring again. They’re sampling the community and tactics employed so that nobody wastes money and we don’t end up worse/more upset than before. I appreciate your concern with the fragmentation, thing, though, but I don’t think we need to be worried about that.

My biggest tip: Represent a WvW guild. You can be in multiple guilds lat once, but may only represent one at a time. By opening the guild panel, you can swap around as necessary. Having that team to help you is huge, and sometimes WvW players get bored and may be interested in helping you out rather than following the blue Dorito.

And making yourself known in the WvW community, even as just a name seen frequently and not a great pvp’er will help you gain support to move in your direction. People in WvW who are interested in WvW in all honesty do not actually care about you or your map completion unless you’re willing to fight for your server and the bigger WvW goals. WvW is fast-moving and success is dependent on a lot of things. A huge group of players can’t afford to sidetrack from moving across the map in less than a minute in order to defend a critical tower/camp/keep. Effectively asking groups for map completion in WvW, which mostly consist entirely of guilds in themselves, is like a level 1 new player whom you’ve never met before asking you to run them through map completion while you’re still trying to finish yours. It seems awfully ridiculous and pretentious.

If you want to get it done fast, you’re going to need people, and in order to get people, you’re going to need to step beyond your comfort zone and dive into a populated group of players who may be willing to help, or earn their friendship to warrant them helping you out over that change to PPT.

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I’ve seen a lot of hate towards transferring guilds in the past, and our current/previous server is not at all happy with the move, so it’s slightly reassuring to see it presented more positively.

Deli.1302:

All I can say is, your guild made the worst decision ever.
You just tranferred to a server that has no real organization whatsoever. No inter-guild coordination. No teamspeak usage. No pugmanders. Most of the WvW population are fairweathers.

Did your leaders even bother to scout the server first? Or did they just see the money and say “yes” immediately?

If I were you, I’d ditch the guild and use your own money to join a real server.

I appreciate feedback from all perspectives, but there’s no substance to your post. I didn’t present any kind of info on where we are from/transferring to, and you’re simply posting toxic and rather base assumptions on and about my guild and its members as well as our destination server.

And no, it has nothing to do with the money. We’ve been given multiple offers to various servers and tiers. We picked what is likely the best match for us at this point in time.

If you have something further to add which is relevant to the discussion, please do share it, otherwise please remove yourself from the thread.

Hello folks,

I’m asking for some feedback regarding what I should do on the subject of guild purchasing.

My guild has recently been offered to move to a new server in that our transfers would be paid for if we assisted in WvW. Some of the members have already left to get a jump start, and mostly I’m wondering if I should join them or find a new home.

The thing to note is that is guild this a WvW guild, and just due to unfortunate circumstance, we’re in a low-tier server. We’ve discussed moving in the past, and I’ve been eyeing some servers for the past few months. The offer has us moving up 5-6 tiers, which is great and all for the fights, but I wonder if I will be seen in a big negative light for accepting a “purchase” of the guild.

My biggest issue lies in that we were already looking at moving. I don’t so much feel bad to leave the server since the WvW is pitiful, and we’ve been considering it, as much as I fear being the target of notoriety for selling out. Free transfers are awfully nice, and it definitely would resolve some possible fragmentation issues in the future. I just don’t want to be looked down upon by those I’ll be against as I wear my tactfulness and honor on the battlefield with pride.

Any thoughts and feedback would be appreciated if anyone’s been in such a similar situation or has been involved in it.

Thanks!

Undisputed best mobility.

What?

I’ll heavily dispute that “fact.”

I feel like condi bomb fear necro would simply destroy the thief in almost every situation as the P/D would have no stealth chance and the cleanse only clears a single condition every three seconds, assuming the thief is shadow arts.

Otherwise, the thief has next to no condition removal and has the least removal in the game.

The necro has the upper hand due to the transfers and mass application which a thief cannot cleanse off fast enough. You’re assuming the necro is playing passively trying to counter a condition build through solely returning conditions. That’s just not how you can deal with any condition build.

I’d take ILeap over IS any day, honestly. Actually, I made my s/s mesmer on the sole principle it had a reliable instant-cast stunbreak/teleport skill because of how good it is.

But no, I’m not mad. I just thought it funny OP is complaining about the number of mesmer nerfs and so I instead just mentioned thieves, as they’ve been nerfed the most of all classes, with nerfs existing in almost every singe patch since release.