Guild Wars 2

SynfulChaot.3169:

The problem with removing the pets or making them optional is that they are the ranger’s primary class mechanic. You cannot remove any other class’s primary mechanic. Why should the ranger be unique in being able to?

As much as I would love a ‘ranged-only’ option for GW2, that … isn’t really feasible in the game. I should probably clarify why, right?

ArenaNet, to reward those for going into the ‘greater dangers’ in melee, has decided that ranged attacks should be inferior to melee due to being in ‘less danger’. They also added ranged-only punishing mechanics like reflect when no melee-only variants exist (retaliation affects melee and ranged). In addition, all melee classes have good gap closers preventing ranged classes from remaining ranged.

So as much as a good ranged class would be, the mechanics of the game are set up to punish us for choosing such a playstyle. Melee is the meta of the game. It is the sad and unfortunate truth.

Yet so many people complain about Thieves’ stealth and ANet seems just fine with nerfing it. While I get stealing is the class mechanic for the thief, that ability is just an inherently good one, and a non-steal-based thief isn’t going to rely on steal for damage or specific buffs due to its unreliability. It’s a great gap-closer and has good synergy with the class mechanics in itself. And most thieves don’t build steal-oriented anyways. Mug was just too good to pass up before it was nerfed due to the damage it dealt.

And that’s the thing. Putting your pet away doesn’t mean playing totally without it. There are situations where the pets do help out more so than extra damage (again unless you’re like me when I solo), and a good ranger is going to know when that opportunity rises. Requiring to have a class build around its featured idea is just poor design, and as I keep iterating, exactly the opposite of what ANet intended to do. Class features are indeed features. They shouldn’t force people into specific gameplay patterns just to emphasize the class features.

If a ranger starts shelling out heavy damage, people are gonna focus it. Wire him into close range. Throw down combo fields as soon as he launches barrage to either force him to end it early to avoid death or get off as much as possible and die. If people built no-pet-all-bow, it just makes reflect that much MORE potent, then, as then the ranger gets totally shut down by one simple mechanic. If anything, it’s more punishing to allow full-bow builds, then, due to this design.

Like I said, there’s a difference between putting your pet away for more damage and totally not using it. Good rangers will know what to do and when, and pets will therefore retain their value. The way I play – both PvE and PvP, I’d build bow-oriented. That doesn’t mean one should be stronger, and I’m not against reworking pet AI as an additional change to allow pet users to become more competitive.

Again, yes it is the “pet” class because it’s the only one which gets a pet. But if we went by class features, the warrior shouldn’t have access to a longbow due to the armor it wears, not to mention the fact it shoots fire arrows and casts fire effects like a magic class. Yet it does. Why? Because it can, and because it allows for people to play in other ways if they want to.

The only time I find my pet alive is exploring the surface map. WvW, target cricles from bosses, dungeons, etc. wipe the floor with my pet. I’m not pet-friendly because I perform on a higher level of skill than my pet is capable if performing at. I like PvE’ing against 10 mobs at a time and pushing myself to the limit in kiting mobs/people and avoiding damage. It’s being so vulnerable but also so capable that makes ranged classes so much fun. When you try to play at that level, the pet becomes a total liability and completely interferes in basically every way possible.

Frankly the pet management tool isn’t exactly responsive or particularly good for microing, either (see the many threads regarding pet management being kitty). I wouldn’t call attack/defend/return microing. Starcraft and Meepo from Dota are examples of microing. The pet is an excuse for a new mechanic which wasn’t fully developed imho and detracts from possible build varieties.

And that’s the thing. What is there to lose by making such a change? It doesn’t affect pet users (except they could strategically ditch pets during WvW and whatnot)? I just don’t see any real reason to argue against it or a reason for why it shouldn’t be implemented.

Star Ace.5207:

Solid Gold.9310:

Rangers who have played Rangers in other mmo’s.

Too bad for you this isn’t those other games you were used too? No offense meant, but GW2’s Ranger needs not be bound to “ageless” MMO criteria used in other games… especially considering that at least this Ranger is closer to the original archetype than many of those other MMOs where it’s usually just an Archer.

Again, no offense or argument intended. I do not like “L2P” thrown around either, but many of the OP’s complaints could have been very well avoided by just playing his/her Ranger differently, rather than pretending the Profession to play JUST as he/she expected.

Feel free to disagree of course. No point in debating something we won’t change our minds about, and there’s nothing wrong with not thinking the same way.

As I said, I have respect for people who want to play differently, and for game studios who wish to make accommodations for newer playstyles.

Fact of the matter is that it shouldn’t come at the cost of forcing people to change the way they want to play just because its a “fresh spin on things” or a “defining factor” from other games.

That’s why I proposed the idea that I did. Nowhere does it take away the experience from people wanting to use the pets. Defaulting the player with one definitely encourages this, and I think that’s all that’s needed to get players to at least sample this playstyle.

I’m not hating against originality or changing things up, but I’m hating against the notion that change is required for everyone, even if not desired.

And frankly, a ton of the ranger frustration threads come up from people who feel exactly the same way I do. I won’t argue there are people who are happy with the way rangers play. It’s just that a lot of people aren’t happy there isn’t an archer or any kind of alternative for the archetype.

It’s what makes our arguments equally valid, and why I like the idea. Nowhere do numbers have to be changed, nowhere do major overhauls need to be done. Just provide an irremovable boon to players not using the pet which compensates for the lost damage. They therefore miss out on the utility the pet brings such as soaking aggro/buffing players/etc., but are at least allowed to play the build they choose to.

Again, it’s going by ANet’s policy here that they wanted to create a game where people got to play anything how they want to. Frankly, the archer ranger just doesn’t exist, and a lot of people are upset about it. Nobody’s asking for ratio increases or perfect AI, but people simply wish to play differently and be considered/allowed to play differently without such awful penalties.

Atherakhia.4086:

Knighthonor.4061:

whats the issues Rangers have with pets?

what has been the cause of most the hate over pets?

All content in this game is designed around avoiding damage but pets don’t have any avoidance abilities. They have to soak damage. We have suggested giving pets Aegis or brief immunity everytime the Ranger dodges or uses a skill with evade.

Pets don’t scale with gear at all. This means every time ANet decides to mess with the gear treadmill (hello ascended gear!), Rangers benefit the least from all new gearing options. We must sit back and wait around for ANet to buff pet stats manually which will likely never happen.

Pet F2 abilities don’t work consistently. From not firing when we cast them because the pet can’t use the ability till it can fit it in between attacks to the F2 abilities simply having horrendously long cast times, they simply don’t work consistently.

The pet makes up a sizable part of the class’s damage so the aspect of damage the player is in direct control of (from the Ranger itself) is reduced in both raw damage and through the skill coefficients. No one has nailed down exactly how much of the damage we’re handicapped by, but it’s somewhere in the 25-40% range. Players feel the pet should account for no more than 5-15% of the class’s damage and would like our skills and coefficients brought up to normal levels.

Upvoted for truth. Hell, why not just put most of the pet things into the BM tree, make alterations to power/precision trees so the ranger is the one rewarded, and then allow for rangers to toggle on/off the pets during combat. If no pet is fighting, refund the damage penalty faced by adding a damage multiplier as an irremovable buff. If pet is out, the buff dissipates and the damage is reduced.

So it still lets people micro their pets for extra utility to accommodate for such a playstyle, and lets other players more focused on the archery side to deal the damage they should.

It’s such a simple fix and I end up screaming at my monitor every time I play my archer because it has yet to be implemented.

Dina Van Heyr.3018:

1. pet is so stupid that even dredge are pure genius to ranger pet ..
7. pet f2 works when pet is not moving and if pet is in good mood
8.pet is stupid
9.pet is stupid
10.pet is stupid
11.pet is stupid
12.pet is stupid

I made a post stating how the pet should be OPTIONAL for rangers a long time ago due to the fact the pet is a terrible addition to the class and frankly, is the single biggest thing holding the class back. Give me the damage my pet does and add it to my arrow attacks and get rid of the thing and I’d be totally happy. It’s an aggro-magnet that dies instantly, has awful AI, and is solely responsible for the low damage output rangers have from their actual skills.

GW2 promoted allowing players to play how they want to. I want to play a RANGER. I want to pin people down with arrows, not frolic through open fields with my animal companion. Fact of the matter is there’s no archer class in this game worth anything – and no, condi-fire warrior doesn’t count, because that’s barely an Archer archetype and is basically a fire ele equivalent.

Before the haters say, “But the pet is what makes the ranger!” No, no it doesn’t. The ranged weapon makes the ranger. Lurking quietly and stalking prey in the wild is what makes the ranger. Sitting back and watching your mentally-slow pet do your job better than you isn’t fun, isn’t engaging, and frankly, isn’t what a predatory class should be about. You want an animal? That’s what minis are for. You want your pet? Fine, leave yours out to die and get wrecked; the ability to stow the pet while in combat for a bonus is a kitten good solution to many issues the ranger faces for balance’s sake, and frankly, it’s not hard to code, either. Doing so opens up a lot of doors for the ranger. Need to gib someone at range? Stow your pet. Need an aggro magnet? Now you have one with a free revive out-of-combat that gives you buffs when activated. The pet is something which should assist the ranger when necessary. It shouldn’t be superior to the character you’re playing and the sole defining purpose of the class.

AI is hard to code. Really, it is. This is why it makes so much sense to take this approach.

That, or ANet should just give thieves the longbow that actually deals real physical damage that’s better than just spamming AOE poison or shadow escape to run away.

Go to any other game, and the Archer/Ranger archetype is usually kitten and fun to play. While GW2 is great for breaking the mold in a lot of ways, not allowing people to play this way at all is incredibly silly and really detrimental to a significant chunk of players.

/rage
I hated WoW for the archer’s pet dependency as well. R:BF has incredible ranged classes that are by far the most fun I’ve ever had playing a ranger. And they’re just as in-tune with nature, but they require perfect positioning to not die with, and deal a lot of damage similar to the GW1 ranger – the exact opposite of the GW2 ranger.

So sign me up to get rid of the kitten ed companions. They’re irritating, useless, and completely holding the class back during 90% of play.

Edit:
Regarding “L2P”:
There’s a difference between being a good player and optimizing build choices.
Currently I’m regarded as being the #1 authority on the ranger classes in R:BF (another mmo).
This class might not be “under-powered,” and I won’t object to accusations calling me out as not a “pro” ranger in GW2, but that’s exactly it – I’m not because I refuse to dump 30 points into BM to “make the best of it.” I want to play an archer, and I know I’m good at that aspect. Fact of the matter is that not dumping 30 points into BM is what makes rangers under-powered and not relying solely on the pet is what makes gameplay feel poor and inhibits success as an individual character.

Again, ANet praises themselves for allowing build/playstyle diversities within classes. That’s a great idea, but fact of the matter is an archer ranger is simply not viable, even when played by experienced/T1 archers.

New weapons are cool and all but I’d much rather see crossbows.

So what’s the proposal?

1.) Make stat points actually worthwhile in determining damage/survivability.

2.) Reconsider the “you should do everything” aspect that you force players into doing and capitalize on the fact that “everything can be done by anyone (if they know what they’re doing)” to encourage diversity.

3.) Release more options for weapon skill setups. Allow players to choose how they wish to build, and allow the option for sacrificing one option for another.

I am aware these are big changes, but this is a triple-A, game of the year MMO; awards which have been granted seemingly BECAUSE of the hype that was built upon giving players unprecedented levels of freedom by doing away with the necessary “holy trinity.” It’s this ideology that brought many players (notably hardcore PvP and dungeon raid players) to this game, and the current lack of freedoms has caused a lot of them (such as myself) to get bored with repetitive and overly-similar content with really shallow character build limits and design.

Now recently having professional experience in the MMO genre, I understand the limitations on development schedules and how it can take time to pursue development, so nowhere am I expecting this to be considered as being on a level of “Drop everything and get on this immediately,” nor am I expecting this to be considered/resolved any time soon; however, this issue is a large one that would bring a considerable amount of positive attention to GW2 again.

It might seem “traditional,” but incorporating this with the current systems in game would in fact be even more mold-breaking and really add a massive amount of depth to the game.

Build diversity. It fuels PvP and PvE, and it fuels players with the incentive to try something new and keep playing. It fuels counter-play and the formation of tight balance and a competitive level of the game where ease of play is weighed against potential effectiveness on the battlefield. It turns the best into the best and and punishes poor play.

It fuels games.

GW2 got its attention because it emphasized this build diversity. The declaration of removing the “holy trinity” (tank/healer/DPS) made this game praised even before beta and was a groundbreaking effort to vitalize player freedom in their builds.

But as it stands GW2 has less freedom in build diversity than almost every major game on the market. While the trinity doesn’t exist, the promises of player freedom in their builds almost do not. If one wants to play a given class or style, he is expected to build one way and suffers from penalties across the board if he does not.

This is enforced for two reasons:

1.) The lack of a given style actually having significance based on a simple formula for calculating damage as well as blatantly obvious superior builds within one’s class or style.

Simply put, there’s no reason to exceed in certain stats over other ones in this game (okay, overstatement, but does that 300 precision REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things?). People build not for the stat points but for traits. Some traits are better than others, and therefore builds are regulated and very, very similar. There’s no exploration, and literally no reason to explore the boundaries of a given class. The superior builds are obvious, and building in a matter which you want to play versus the best way ultimately does nothing for you – you can build 30/30/0/0/10 with full berserker and deal less damage than the guy building 10/0/30/30/0 because of traits or skills by certain classes. There’s no real skill/stat scaling and no real incentive to play the way you want to.

“But doesn’t that just mean we’d see the holy trinity again if this were pursued?”

NO!
This encourages players to choose how they wish to play. One should expect to die easily by building 30/30/0/010 on ANY class, but they should also expect to deal VERY superior damage as opposed to the person building full-tank. Effectiveness shouldn’t be measured by requiring a healer or not because that’s why we can dodge to begin with, but effectiveness should be measured by a player’s synergy with his build.

If a group of organized players wants to make the “holy trinity” because that’s what they choose to play, then they should be allowed to play that way. It doesn’t mean it should be any better than a group building a bit of all three and bouncing off of each other, though.

2.) The similarities between every weapon paradigm, the classes, and how these are designed to be used more by their utility than means of playing.

Basically, scrap the idea of everything being similar, but choose to be different. Why is it that each weapon paradigm/class has an awfully similar kit to every other weapon paradigm/class aside from polar opposites such as dagger vs GS? Why do we not have the choice to pick some of our skills but are locked into the spamfest of low-cooldown weapon-derived ones? Being able to choose between high-cooldown burst and low-cooldown autos/bonuses helps define builds and makes more concepts come to life.

Endgame just needs either one of two things:

1.) Actually difficult content. I don’t mean by scaling up the numbers on damage but in actually making the mobs/bosses fight SMARTER. Getting 1-shotted by an unblockable AOE is NOT a good example of “hard” content because “your health pool was too low sorry.”

This content doesn’t even need to promise more gold or better/higher-stat rewards but needs to actually be enjoyable and worth doing. Not just a grindfest to get some same-stat armor which looks like crap but is necessary for some compulsive players for the sake of “reaching 100%”. Cool cosmetic stuff would be enough to convince most people to go through the process, and if difficult enough, would keep people playing longer but also be engaged, or, rather, keep trying to beat it. Getting TPK’ed shouldn’t be a no-no if the boss only needs to be beaten once in order to get the reward.

2.) Actually making the process of re-rolling a new character enjoyable, and not the same old 25-hour-long grindfest that the first 30 levels are (aside from going the crafting route which for most people is not even fun and is why a lot of people quit).

Ideally, this would be done by reworking EXP values as well as all class skills and changing the dynamics of every working attack in the game while introducing and implementing better skill/build diversity, but that’s unrealistic and would never happen because the lack of a dynamic/self-selected skill system seems to be something ANet prides themselves in doing.

More realistically, they should either:

Facilitate the early leveling process by increasing EXP rewards from mobs and dynamic events/quests and for once take a look at PvE-related content.

-OR-

Introduce low-level instance dungeons so that veteran players are not forced into wandering/“exploring” the same content doing the same jumping puzzles and repeating a certain “dynamic” event chain (the low level ones are very predictable and monotonous).

Elmuerto.9840:

So much drama…I’m having a great time with my thief at the moment and have no problems whatsoever and I’ve got better playing one. I thank Areanet for reducing haste which was a crutch preventing me from exploring alternative game play. If you think thieves have no defense its probably because you think everything should be offense. Thieves are slippery as can be and even with 14k hp I rarely go down.

This is the real debate, though. GC thief isn’t viable. Period. They simply aren’t nerfing the right things, and the solution that players are coming up with to support such nerfs are “change your build” when the game itself is designed to play in such a matter where every and all builds are supposed to be viable based on how the player acts. Remember what this game is praised for and how it was marketed; diversity in play and balanced-across-the board combat. Simply what we’re seeing is that the thief is not a balanced class in itself and there is no diversity in its play due to all of these nerfs.

I’ve played a 30/30/0/10/0 build since day 1. I love the build and have absolutely no problem with running 12k health. I understand well that I can’t go in and tackle a 1vX scenario with ease and never will be able to do so, nor am I asking to be able to do that. What does bother me, though, is that building GC yields no net damage increase versus a toughness/vit build. It’s just wasted points with no real merit.

I won’t complain that thieves are underpowered or overpowered. Fact of the matter is that there’s no real reward for building a full-offense thief. The risk involved and the skill necessary in running pure GC on a thief has no benefits, and that’s where the buff needs to take place. Buff the power tree to actually be good and allow a GC thief to do what it was designed to do: Burst stragglers down. As they stand, they just kind of whack and skirmish a few hits and take quite a long time to really kill anything because most heals and stuns shut down their damage/“burst” too easily. They have fine DPS, but they seriously lack burst. Before QQ, consider a real 80’s scenario. Your BS is hitting for 9k max. More realistically is closer to 7. Meanwhile the enemy is running around with an additional 14k health and is out-DPS’ing/bursting you. You still caught them off-guard, but there’s no reward for doing so.

It’s not a matter of buffing the entire class but of buffing the power tree to make it more rewarding. To complain about someone at level 80 running around with 12k health and 0 bonus toughness is kind of laughable considering that’s just someone pubstomping noobs who can’t counter-play stealth. People cry way too much about thieves’ stealth+burst here. R:BF has their assassins’ stealth on a toggle which lasts infinitely long and has no sustained cost, and these assassins can one-hit overkill literally anything in the game, even the tankiest of tanks who have 5x the damage reduction and 10x the health of a comparable DPS class. Are they OP? Nope. Because people quit whining and learned how to play with reveal effects and one-hit-kill them before they get close enough to burst. People who don’t see it coming are just baddies who shouldn’t be taken seriously and don’t know how to PvP.

We should be encouraging build diversity by playstyle, not telling people to just change their build and playstyle because the game no longer support it in any form.

Volrath.1473:

^ it doesn’t say anything about it being unblockable in the skill description…

---

ahahah its all flowers and rainbows today!

we’ll see in a week time

everyone will be back to D/P

The first strike can be blocked but the second cannot iirc.

Travlane.5948:

well if its true and works as a 100% crit no matter when used….would make up a little for the 250% dmg nerf on mug :P YES 250%! bc the ones that use it hard have 250% or 270% which is said to be 20% above cap but idk.

It’s not a 250% damage nerf lol. It’s a 57% damage nerf. Anything over a 100% decrease in damage would be healing the target instead of dealing damage period lol.

Difference from 6300 to 2700 is 3600. 3600/6300 = .5714.

Valthan.9127:

Ok we arent supposed to burst anymore, but mesmers are allowed to shatter the kitten out of your head…sounds plausible!

Edit: The most builds this hurts, are the builds who put some points into def traits and mug allowed them to get some little burst. If you want to burst now, you have to go GC everything else is just more sustain than burst

Isn’t that exactly what burst chars are supposed to be like, though? I’d rather see a buffed stab than an OP mug though tbh.
P.S.
I main a thief because they’re GC bursts.

As someone who understands and plays well both against and as stealth, I personally know it would be a huge nerf to me and would honestly just kind of make the class boring. It’d take a lot of the strategy away from playing.

What this change effectively does it makes it easier for the bad thieves to do better because they won’t be taking damage anymore (they shouldn’t be to begin with is the issue), and it hinders the good thieves from playing their enemy, meanwhile just making it that much easier for all of their opponents to predict their movement. The unpredictability is what makes the class fun and have a really high skill cap. Yes there are pugs who abuse the spamming of stealth, but honestly, those are really easy to kill because they’re just so predictable, or in most cases, they just run away after you hit them once or twice.

This change is basically like making mesmer clones easily distinguishable from the actual mesmer, but gives the mesmer tons of boons whenever they cast a clone.

bhagwad.4281:

Kyrion.2749:

bhagwad.4281:

Suralin.3947:

bhagwad.4281:

Suralin.3947:

bhagwad.4281:

Many thieves don’t “get” why people hate stealth. Hope this thought experiment will illustrate why.

Thought experiment: Remove stealth and change it to invulnerability instead. Who will complain?

1. Thieves often claim that they have no defense and so they require stealth to survive. So giving them invulnerability for the same duration will solve all their complaints right? Everything remains as before. Invulnerability is lost on dealing damage and provides a water tight defense

Question for thieves: Would you be willing to swap stealth for invulnerability?
Same question for non thieves: Would you prefer to fight an invulnerable thief rather than a stealthed thief:

Prediction: Thieves would prefer stealth over invulnerability. Non thieves would prefer to fight invulnerable thieves rather than stealthed vulnerable ones.

YES! Invulnerability for 3s would be awesome. Invulnerability for 10s for placing down SR? I place it down and me and 4 others are now invulnerable, dancing while you place useless AoE and then we prance down the yellow brick road…

What’s the point? You lose invul as soon as you make an attack. So you’re not doing any damage either. Nor are you capping anything.

Would like more responses from non thief players though…

The point is, you just went from “Hard to kill” thief to “Impossible to Kill” thief.

I’ll find a way don’t worry . I would prefer to fight invulnerable thieves as opposed to stealthed ones. That way I can keep an eye on them.

You are estimating your chances under the erroneous assumption that invulnerable thieves would play/fight like stealthed ones.

How would it be different? Invul would be lost on attack just like stealth so the same rules would apply.

Because then there would be no such thing as a GC thief and everyone would play bunker or some kind of tank offshoot while maximizing their invul duration to just troll around the field and lure people into traps. Stealth is designed to throw people off and allow the class to be slippery if they’re any good, otherwise they just die to AoE damage or lose in a duel to someone who knows how thieves play and understands what their next move would/should be.

The change would just turn them into predictable on/off switches constantly going form full tank to squish with no real escape/disruption mechanic. You might as well just play a GS warrior.

I love these changes tbh. As a thief I’m fine with mug not critting considering we get our 3 sec reveal again and a lot of really good changes across the board. More build variety is always a plus in my eyes.

I just don’t see the point. Playing with and against stealth requires skill. Throwing the enemy off and slipping in and out of combat is kind of the point of the class, not just going beastmode and staying in the fray the whole time.

I’ve really enjoyed this sequence despite the massive loss of points in the past 24 hours (playing on SoR). The PvP itself has been wonderful and hasn’t been a slaughterfest in general. I’ve also definitely had some of my best “pro” moments this week, including a 3v1 victory against a guard and two eles as a full D/D GC thief (I even got the second kill while downed and rallied into a clutch heal at the last second during finisher and brought the last guy down after some chain stealth shenanigans).

Even the losses (like getting ganked 5v2 by a well-organized group using Shadow Refuge and a lot of CC which continuously mowed down large numbers of people) have felt well-deserved and the whole experience has been great.

I currently run Berserker, but I’m really considering switching to Valkyrie (saving up for a re-gear right now) due to the fact that being a GC backstab thief really doesn’t require all that precision/crit chance considering we can trait for a 100% crit rate out of stealth. That bonus health will probably serve better than bonus precision.

I’d love to see what build you’re using to be honest. I have more attack, crit chance, and likely crit damage than you, yet you somehow dealt double my BS damage.

If you’re not running the 100% crit chance from stealth trait with only 35% crit chance, you’re not a backstab thief, sorry. You’re praying you get a lucky crit for huge burst 1/3 of the time.

bhagwad.4281:

You can’t be serious right? I’ve seen a single BS in sPvP hit for 14k.

Really? Please show me how and when that’s happened after the Assassin’s Signet nerf. It ‘s literally impossible to go over 9k at this point, even running 30/30/x/x/x against full light armor upscaled level 1’s in WvW running 0 traited toughness/vit. I’m a level 80 thief running full exotic gear running power/precision/crit damage on every single item I own, including accessories and I’m fully equipped with superior runes of the scholar and divinity, and I crit for 7k max with assassin’s signet on other level 80’s in WvW. Your 14k is just a flat-out lie and a complete overstatement.

@Topic:
Honestly, the D/D BS build is actually a really weak one-trick-pony build focused around building lots of toughness and vit due to reveal.

I think the bigger issue revolves around the fact that the thief in itself is difficult to balance, and that the fixes might lay somewhere in the traits versus the skill itself. I’ve been playing a lot of WvW lately and noticed that my thief’s performance is just flat-out lackluster in its backstab damage.

While I’m all for causing classes to take a lot of skill (the reason why I played position-based BS nuke all-offense thief to begin with), the suggested idea in making BS remove stealth on block/miss is just unreasonable. Giving allies shadow refuge and having them attack doesn’t cause them to be revealed, so I don’t think it should apply to thieves, either.

Why not just give a t3 trait in the power line which prevents the revealed debuff from occurring? It’d settle all of the QQ about BS because it would force people into going glass cannon for high burst (something I think should be a requirement in the PvP setting tbh – I hate that full tank builds can deal just as much damage as GC’s, as it really subtracts from build viability and takes away from the skill required to play effectively), but it’d also cause non-GC builds to keep their current burst and instead have that extra utility/survivability for group situations.

I’ve been having the same problem, and again it also started after going into a large battle in WvW.

My speeds and ping are lower than normal, so I know it’s not me. Must be some issues with either the servers on ANet’s end, or it’s caused by some client fluke. I’d much prefer it be the former >.>

Allow pets to be disabled by the ranger in exchange for a significant damage bonus,
completely flip the 1 effect around such that it deals more damage the closer you are and increase the damage output and attack rate on the 2 skill, but also give it the 1’s current passive effect so that it’s not a bunker skill, nerf the bunker pet/trap build, and call it a day. This also works for SB as the damage a pet WOULD be dealing would just be applied to damage dealt per hit by you.

Let’s re-examine this fix based on the requirements/problems we’re dealing with from above:

Argument #1:
Simply put this just cancels out the damage problem. However, one would assume that since 80:20 was OP, why wouldn’t 100% be OP? Fact of the matter is that with 80:20, pets were still able to use their own skills and attack targets, and the whole 80:20 thing was geared more towards nerfing rangers’ damage than buffing pets.

Argument #2 and #5:
Now a ranger doesn’t need to deal with bad pet AI, ANet doesn’t need to re-write AI, and a ranger can play as he chooses to play. His position won’t be revealed by a pet bird taking to the skies while trying to sneak around, and the damage can be dealt appropriately at range.

Argument #3a:
This fixes the problem of the LB damage output being overly-low as well as being overly-reliant on a ranger’s pet’s damage and keeping the target at max range for optimal damage.

Argument #3b:
Now a ranger can actually combo its skill effectively. LB 5 + LB 2 at max range might actually deal some decent damage, and using 2 + QZ would be an initiation/snipe combo more than “OMGSWITCHWEAPONONCOOLDOWNSONOSHORTBOW”.

Argument #4:
Problem solved. Enough said.

Argument #5:
Build diversity, and many options available, yay!

Thoughts, comments, and ideas are welcomed. I’d really like ANet to see this as the ranger class needs a lot of help, and there are very few possible fixes that I can see.

So, how then does the LB build get fixed based off of the current problems mentioned above?

Let’s examine what AREN’T solutions:

The answer is not in just buffing LB damage or skills. That just fuels bunker builds, something established earlier as being counter-productive to ANet’s ideology.

Pets can’t be buffed, either, for the same reasons, and because putting more reliance on the pet is countering argument 5. Returning the ratio to what it was before is also not an option, as that proved OP.

Asking for “better pet AI” or “better pet controls” is pointless. AI is incredibly difficult to develop/balance in different environments, and again, we’re still then overly-focused on managing a pet. Ranged DPS then becomes an impossible build since it would also just turn the ranger into effectively a support class designed to support a terribly stupid NPC.

Changing the LB damage to be maxed at all ranges would be a start, but still, the damage and skills are inferior to just auto-attacking.

Telling people to “play a different class” or “get better at managing pets” are not a valid arguments. It’s a valid argument if there’s another ranged DPS class out there, or if the class was designed around the pet (which as mentioned above would be a bad thing to do since then there is no ranged DPS class). Yes, LB warrior exist, but frankly, a medium armor class focused around ranged combat should be dealing more damage than the heavy armor warrior with a longbow (and again, realistically this makes ZERO sense).

So there are a ton of ideas for ranger buffs which presumably just go in circles which ultimately contradict each other. That being said, I believe I’ve developed a fix.

Warning: Big post inbound. That being said, if you actually care about rangers being balanced, please take a look.

I’m pretty sure we’re all certain that the LB ranger just doesn’t work. The amount of damage any LB build deals just simply isn’t enough to compete with SB (even class cannon power/precision), yet alone other classes. I’d like to take the time to propose a suggestion that would likely bring the LB ranger some viability as a ranged DPS.

Okay, so first off, we know ANet is already planning on nerfing the bunker pet/trap ranger. That in itself is logical as not only does it make gameplay much more stale (for everyone), but it’s also not how the class was designed to work.

This leads us to the inherent problem with rangers, though: the ONLY viable build IS the bunker/trap ranger. Let’s look over why this is:

1.) The ranger itself deals no damage! ANet’s “fix” to the OP beta ranger was to change the damage ratio of ranger : pet from 80:20 to 60:40 (or so), due to the fact that the LB ranger was simply just shelling out too much damage.

2.) As an extension to the above, Pet AI is terrible, the control scheme is bad, and pets die too easily. Pets do not evade, have low health/defense overall, and are overall a hindrance in PvP/WvWvW just because they give away your position due to the fact they make up another entity and perform their own idle animations.

3a.) Longbow damage is bad. Seriously. Every aspect of the longbow is just simply weak. It’s overly-reliant on your target either being immobile or locked onto your pet so you can attack at max range in order to deal damage still less than that of the shortbow, and as just stated, with pets dying so easily and targets in PvP/WvWvW actually moving around, keeping a target away is kind of… borderline impossible.

3b.) Longbow skills are bad. It’s been mathematically proven and tested over and over that none of the skills are worthwhile to use with the longbow. If you are attacking at max range, targets actually take significantly longer to kill using a ranger’s skills instead of just auto-attacking. Yes, the 2 skill provides some damage at close range, but fact of the matter is that if your target gets into close range, you should be switching to the shortbow because there’s no point in keeping the longbow.

4.) The longbow 1 attack doesn’t make sense! Why does damage increase the longer the projectile moves? Basic physics says the exact opposite would be true.

5.) Pets shouldn’t be a mandatory aspect of play. ANet is huge into build diversity/accommodating for different playstyles (which is why they scrapped splitting skill trees before beta and went with traits, fun fact). What if I want to play ranged DPS very much like a surprise snipe build? Sad truth is that currently, there is no option to do so in the game.