I main Ranger, i enjoy it (i have an ele and warrior on the side burner), and there are times where i wish where both had a pet since neither can do 2 simultaneous things at the same time (i can revive and still attack/contribute in combat).
imho, if you go ranger expect to not be the best in anything specialized, but you’ll have no real bad side. i like playing combat medic, and ranger seems to excel pretty well with it if you trait for it properly. you’ll most likely see bunker-trappers or beastmasters in spvp.
+1 my friend, nice post
But yea Ranger can be fun
But the best escape artists in this game are:
Thief
Elementalist
The people that are saying Ele is OP, is off their rocker
Ele is by far not OP. There are people out there who have been dedicated to the ele profession since the launch of GW2 and they have worked hard to become competitive.
You don’t simply press 7-8 buttons and get a kill. The ele is a more methodical profession.
Fair enough but we aren’t certain how Anet constructed this game. Perhaps it may not be as easy to implement spectator mode.
And right now most of the Anet team is on holiday vacation. If they implemented this feature then what happens if it has issues?
But at the same token, I do hope that Anet gives a finished product when they do release all the new pvp features
I have absolutely no interest in playing the game until spectator mode is added. I read it was going to be released before the end of the year. Well there’s a week left in the year, and I decided to come back and see if there really was a game company out there that keeps its word. So, is spectator mode in? I don’t even want to bother patching unless it is. And if it isn’t, does anyone have even a clue when it will be out? Thanks!
where did you read that?
And who are you to make these demands? Sure you paid for the game but it was one flat “fee”
I have some criticisms with Anet as well and they aren’t angels but they made no such promise as implementing some of the pvp stuff before the year was out. They have been saying Jan/Feb
And why are you so adamant about spectator mode being in the game before you play again? You’d rather watch other people have fun before playing the game?
Not to mention it’s so much fun to be out in the open terrain rather than being confined to a small pvp map
Wait until you get the 2 shot treatment from a thief, or more likely these days, a few of them working together.
in WvW? I don’t have much trouble with Thief. I played WvW for a good bit of time after release of GW2. And the culling issue is still annoying but I do agree that when it is more than 1 thief then it becomes a problem.
D/D ele are the more annoying players for me though because they can take off right in the middle of a fight and heal relatively quick to try to resume the fight again
+1 to the OP
It’s sad but it’s true why you have a steady influx of WvW players and a decrease in Spvp players.
Not to mention it’s so much fun to be out in the open terrain rather than being confined to a small pvp map
In all fairness WvW rewards are only for the zerg artists. Try defending a keep for a few hours, and see what you earn for your time and effort.
im not trying to bash you, but you really missed the OP’s point
While you only took one aspect of WvW, the OP is talking about the overall gameplay of PVP and WvW.
Overall, WvW is more rewarding and it provides a more direct benefit to your character. The only benefit you get with PVP is glory and maybe gold if you venture into tournament play. Unfortunately that is a very small segment of players who are doing tournament.
Admittedly i’m an avid PVP player but i’m starting to warm up to WvW more and more. Why should I grind through PVP when I can grind in WvW and get properly rewarded for it
Most of the time it works for me. But it is still very annoying when it does not ( with pet alive ofc). I believe it is better to call pet back then activate lick wounds.
I have yet to see the bug with dead pet.
You havn’t seen the pet heal you when it was dead?
I’ve had that happen several times now
merry xmas everyone
But look, the fact of the matter is that this is an exciting game. It has been pretty satisfying.
Although with all that said, this game still needs work. As many criticisms as this game has had from the players, all the criticism isn’t just to be doom and gloom, but rather to give some constructive criticism on how the game can be improved.
I don’t want to see this game go down the toilet bowl due to small things that the devs should and could have fixed. I’m hoping that after this holiday season, Anet will go into high gear and really get things crackin.
Even though I don’t play Necro, I’d like to say this is a nice thread
good to see you guys are getting some much needed help
sPvP perspective incoming:
I used to use my focus situationally in sPvP, but not since ANet locked weapon swapping. Burst rifle engis used to be way more popular than they are now, and it was awesome for countering that. Likewise, it was good against power SB Rangers, but those guys are more rare, often favoring some condi/power hybrid with traps and hard-hitting pets, where the destroying/reflecting projectiles is not quite optimal. Losing point presence with Earth 5 has always made Focus less useful than other bunker builds, because you will j ust straight hand over the point if you use the ability on CD (and can just take Mist Form instead).
Still a really fun weapon set to mess around with, but the loss of mobility, coupled with the lack of strong counters for the current meta have made it a bit of an afterthought at the moment.
nice post sir
I too used to love using Focus. I used it in PVE, PVP, and a little in w3
But ulitmately it’s so situational and not as optimal as using dagger OH. Not to mention since using a tank ele is pretty much the best build, then focus sort of loses it’s luster.
Wow I mean just Wow……………. Before this patch we were the WORST class in the game and with a FEW buffs we are now one of the most OP classes? I don’t think so….
Our damage has not changed only the time it takes our arrows to reach their target.
We got some traits fixed ectWe are no more OP than we were 3 months ago just in a much better place.
Guardians/Thieves/Mesmers/Ele’s are still much more OP than we are.
exactly
It’s just some trolls out there spewing some propaganda crap. The ranger got a few buffs and now is seen as “OP”. I find it comical but irritating.
Rangers still have to work hard to defeat the enemy
The thing is, all of your complaints about weapon skills in comparison to thief/warrior are moot because part of ranger’s damage is supposed to come from the pet. Not that the current pet AI is perfect or anything, but this is the reason ranger comes off as weak.
Pet classes are often either too powerful, or too weak, depending on how they did the pet AI. What GW2 ranger needs is improved AI, received aoe damage reduction, and/or control, or else a ‘consume’ and gain part of the pet’s attributes if you choose not to use it.
If you are simply looking for a class that does good damage at ranged, you may want to look elsewhere, warrior and engineer fulfill that role as well. But if you’re looking for something other than that, that’s what the ranger should be (but isn’t quite there yet).
But i don’t want to eat my pet wolf :-(
only thing that kills me in wvw are:
1. zergs
2. instant down from stealth thieves
3. extreme condition builds on necros and other mesmers.
Yea i know stealth will be addressed (eventually…) but at the moment it’s not exactly “fun” trying to fight something you can’t see for the majority of the fight
Some pretty nifty ideas being thrown around.
The one that stands out to me is having HOTM free to play. That sounds like a good idea and would bring so many more players to GW2, but first things first.
1. There has to be more variety to PVP.
2. Preventing multi-account exploits
3. Anet would like players to get rewards that can be useful in PVE as well. So how do you manage that with players who don’t have the full game?
Don’t play spvp… But in wvwvw never went down against a necro… Never I have 8 character slots… All professions. I left my necro at lvl22 it was bugged and so unlike any necro in any game I ever played…
interesting. Yeah i will say that Necro needs more attention
But I do know that in sPVP, the Necro is pretty good against mesmers.
But in w3, what professions has gotten the better of you?
lol it’s pretty funny. There was always noise about Mesmer but wow there’s definitely a lot of cries about how Mesmer is “too OP” now
It’s getting ridiculous with all the threads
I’m not sure if I believe what i’m reading right now. Necros are scratching their head about how to beat a Mesmer?
Necros are the most efficient and effective class against Mesmers.
But to stay on topic, there are some pretty good mesmer players out there. The only thing i can advise is playing as a mesmer and learn it’s mechanics. It’ll soon become a pattern of how they’re trying to attack you and when they are setting up for their burst
Go away, it tickled before and I actually lost healing rate whenever I activated it because it canceled my own heal going on. It is pretty spot on now.
agreed
That’s the most aggravating part because when we activate it, we lose the healing that were using for ourselves
I wouldn’t mind having a Whale. The only ability it would need is “Get In My Belly”
Enemies get killed instantly from not being able to escape the whale’s stomach
Engis have one of the strongest downs out there… They can interrupt someone in PvP 3 times, and the 3 skill kittening launches everyone near you and does a ton of damage…
ranger could effectively interrupt someone 5 times (been able to pull of this chain only once though)
…e.g. you interrupt, dog 1 knock downs, switch to wolf (with quickness) howl, wolf knock down, you interrupt again… engi-down tbh, is really easy to counter. so number of interrupts doesn’t make a down state OP… most of the time for engi’s and warriors you can counter their interrupt by first standing directly behind your melee pet.
this
While I havn’t interupted someone 5 times (which is very attainable) I have interrupted people by using some of those abilities you just mentioned
Gotta say I love doing that lol
When it works right now it is much too powerful, you might want to tone it down a few notches. I believe this is due to the health increase and lick wound buff at the same time but the heal just feels “a bit” over the top. Also, I wish to know that if the pet is rez’d by the ability if it is supposed to revive you, just don’t want to report something if its working as intended. Thanks!
Just stop. It is not too strong. It is right where it needs to be. I understand your concern but you have to remember that other classes has pretty potent downed abilities (excluding engi) so I feel it was the correct thing by making lick wounds what it is now
Engis have one of the strongest downs out there… They can interrupt someone in PvP 3 times, and the 3 skill kittening launches everyone near you and does a ton of damage…
I do agree though that lick wounds is now fairly strong now, if only it worked more…
Yea sure, they have those skills. One is that they can pull you to them and another is by self exploding. They aren’t incredibly powerful and they don’t help the engi gain health quickly. Go ask engis how they feel about their downstates
It is per skill use. This also includes traits which activate skills automatically, such as on dodge traits or <25% traits, etc. Note that this means if you spam a skill use you will get hit with confusion at a ridiculous rate, such as your auto-attack button. Never spam a skill when you are faced with a heavy confusion user.
Watch that video closely: when he gets hit with all that confusion it’s because he is spamming 1-1-1-1 while in blurred frenzy and after. I know someone who had a macro to activate a key 20 times repeatedly who died instantly when he first went against a confusion user.
LOL I wish I was there to witness that. I would have laughed so hard.
Anyway i’ve been curious as to the exact effect that confusion had so thank you and others for the useful information
When it works right now it is much too powerful, you might want to tone it down a few notches. I believe this is due to the health increase and lick wound buff at the same time but the heal just feels “a bit” over the top. Also, I wish to know that if the pet is rez’d by the ability if it is supposed to revive you, just don’t want to report something if its working as intended. Thanks!
Just stop. It is not too strong. It is right where it needs to be. I understand your concern but you have to remember that other classes has pretty potent downed abilities (excluding engi) so I feel it was the correct thing by making lick wounds what it is now
Great thread and good tips here.
+1 to FourTwenty to for making this thread
It’s not overpowered. We’re already weak as hell as it is. Shatter is strong, but it’s still nothing compared to thieves and warriors. Anet stated that Mesmers are supposed to be strong while illusions are out…and more or less helpless when they’re destroyed. Well, you know what?! I guess it’s time for people to also finally learn to kill/disable our illusions and Phantasms instead of looking for that bugged World Completion star and go straight after us!
Sorry to break it to you, but if you think mesmers are weak, you’re doing it wrong. Coming from somebody who plays d/d ele (which is quite strong when played correctly), I’ve never had an easier time killing people than on a mesmer.
This trait is horridly OP the way it is now. It would be one thing if mesmers had to setup their burst with something like a triple diversion shatter to gain might and then mind wrack to gain more/burst, but they don’t even have to try anymore. This does not bring interest to the class, and is not fun for anybody but the mesmer to try and counter. Boon removal is not a viable option; the stacks apply too quickly and the burst is over too soon to reliably have that sort of counter on-hand and ready to apply.
Leuca i’d love to play against your mesmer and see just how OP you’d be with that trait. The trait is not horridly OP and not even “slightly OP”
The trait isn’t OP at all. But really, if you’re serious about battling then let me know
I actually love that you have to think about positioning with ranged weapons. If not for this, it would be incredibly boring to dps with bows (and at times can still be boring) since the highest dps comes from just letting the autoattack roll.
But if you hate flanking, grab a different weapon or try a different class. There’s lots of choices to try.
I have to give you a +1 for that
That is a good statement because with the shortbow the way I play is typically by strafing from angles rather than attacking on a y-axis. On the other hand I’d like it if crossfire did have automatic bleed rather than flank bleeding
Raptor and/or Rock Dog. I would totally love the Rock Dog though as it could be the fire attacking animal that I crave
This is a pretty neat thread
I actually play both classes and due to me using the mesmer a lot, I understand many of its escapabilities and other deception tactics. So when I play my Ranger then I’m very good at beating Mesmers. The only class I can say gives me trouble is tank ele.
But honestly I feel it’s almost even. The game breaker would be if the Mesmer uses Moa and then gg.
The thing that the ranger would have going for it is the increased stats for its pet. The majority of mesmers puts 30 in the trait line of “Illusions” which would be comparable to the Beastmastery for rangers. Rangers for the most part only put 10 points in Beastmaster, if that.
wow this is pretty bizarre. What happened to the mesmer class? It went from being so prolific to now being meh
But yea the issue happen to myself. Not sure what could be causing it
I lol’d when I read about ANET thinking the warrior isn’t better and ranged than a ranger. Until a ranger can pull a 20+k crit with a ranged weapon then it’s total bunk.
IMO
-Signets still need a major overhaul. Buffing Sig of the Hunt was very welcome. However I would appreciate a meaningful active ability as well. And of course our remaining signets are still laughably bad.
-Spirits need to be immune to damage. They are already on a timer, and they have cooldowns. Spirits don’t do damage directly, unlike a mesmer clone. Warrior banners and necro wells don’t take damage, why should spirits?
-In addition spirits should follow you without needing to be traited. There should be a reason to take them without traiting heavily into them, for this and the above reason there currently isn’t.
-Pet attributes should scale with the player’s gear. That’s how the rest of your attacks improve. If the pet is suppose to be an integral part of the class this should be implemented.
-Finally there needs to be a solution for situations when a pet can’t path to it’s target, ie when you or your target are on a wall in WvW. IMO pets should grant their F2 abilities to the ranger’s next weapon attack. For example if your pet’s F2 is an AoE fear, change it so that when you use the F2 ability, it gives a buff that applies an AoE fear effect to the ranger’s next weapon attack. This will make the pets a little less useless when they can’t get to their targets, although it would probably require more time an effort than we’re likely to see.
+1 sir, nice post
Well, Anet is promoting Jan/Feb as big months so we can only hope that there will be huge changes within the game
I just had a thief pop an ability (not sure what it is) that gave him a line of boons and then from stealth proceeded to put no less than 24k damage into me in under 3 seconds. I have 1600 toughness. He was able to do this by pushing a button. Not getting into combat, spawning 3 clones, shattering to get 12 stacks of might and then spawning another 3 clones to shatter. No mesmer can do all of that in 3 seconds or prepare it out of combat.
Say thank you for the buff and stop trying to give back any good thing that Arena Net gives this class.
this
Mesmer rightly should have this buff. IMO shatter build wasn’t even that strong before this “buff”
And realistically, you’d only be able to utilize 15 stacks of might. We aren’t able to generate an amount of clones that will take us to 18+ stacks of might AND use it on the opponent.
The OP was generalizing and the fact that other professions can kill rather quickly without the effort that a mesmer has to put in, is a testament to why this isn’t overpowered.
Pretty nice discussion so far. I’m curious as to how Anet will approach the mechanics of the pet going forward. I mean, it’s a given that they are going to continue to improve the AI and attack mechanics, but i’d like to know what other things they are going to add or improve
lol others (including myself) has made that same exact claim in a thread that is current at the moment
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Anet-Philosophies/first#post1009583
The patch was good. Nothing groundbreaking but good nonetheless
There’s still the obstructed issue but i only hope that they are close to resolving the issue. Overall I think ranger shouldn’t be too much of an issue for Anet, and by saying that, I feel that they have laid a good foundation for the future. Going forward there should be nice improvements for the Ranger.
The only thing is that I hope they either do away with spirits or reconstruct the spirits in a more efficient manner.
Whatever you say, scientist! I like my Jaguar. Seriously though, good job.
lol well at least you gave the guy some credit
But it is a nice job with the research. Anet is looking for feedback anyway.
I’ll add that I do see that canines are pretty good in terms of speed and attacking efficiently. But that’s been that way pre-patch as well.
Overall I feel Anet did a good job but there’s still more work to be done and they have said so themselves. I can’t wait when it gets to the point where pets can truly be reliable for us.
Here’s what I’m suggesting. Instead of a 2 minute CD on Signet of Stone, why not make it a 1 minute CD. Instead of 6 seconds of immunity, make it 5 seconds, or even 4 to counter balance it.
Would that be too overpowered?
Those 6 seconds are so valuable but I do agree that the cooldown is pretty high. I too was thinking why it seems as if we’re being punished by not only having to trait all the way to grandmaster to have the signet apply to the ranger but also with how high that cooldown is. There has to be a give and take. Rangers don’t have escapability like other classes, nor do they have a high pool of vitality as necros do.
One skill I hope Anet continues to work on is “Search and Rescue”
The cooldown is still too high. I understand they don’t want people using that on a regular basis but the skill is pretty situational. And while they did improve the revive speed, I still feel that the cooldown is too long. I think if they increase revive speed just a tad bit more and decrease the cooldown a tad bit, then that should work pretty nicely.
The other thing are spirits. In my entire time of playing GW2 since August, i have seen rangers use sprirts maybe 5% of the time that i’ve been playing the game. In other words, I rarely see spirits being used. Spirits could be incredible but as of now, they just do not bring anything to the table. The spirits are so restricted and even when traited, you’re sacrificing quite a bit for average results from spirits. I feel as if Anet should do away with spirits and give us other skills like a condition cleansing utility or possibly a stealth utility. I mean, we do have ways to access stealth but they might as well give us a stealth skill since the ranger is within the swift and agile of classes.
Just my two cents…
i was one of the best pvp Destroyer in Taiwan DN, and now i am trying to play competitively in GW2 pvp with current ranking 36. To me, which separate DN and GW2 most is their fighting style and the emphasis placed on fighting.
DN require skills more on individual level and are action-oriented; Even though class counter still exist in DN, player plays a more important role here than their class. if you are very skilled, you can somewhat break through your class limit and have some good fight with your counter class. it depends more on player’s control.
GW2 in my opinion placed it’s focus more on team and tactic play; how player combine their skill/build with each other on the team, what to do at the right moment or how to fight as a team. there are lots of hard counter of every build or classes in this game which makes it became less individual skills required than DN, it is not about how much you skilled, it is more about how you built your class and try to make it less hard countered as much as possible. After that, team cooperate follows and player skills come last.
Not to say which is a better pvp style, but that is what all i feel after 3 months of pvp in GW2 and 2 years of pvp in DN. i love pvp of both game, but i would like to see more action feature added to GW2 as Anet claim that they want player focus more on action than stat in GW2.
very nice post sir. And this is a pretty good thread
I’ve always wanted to try Dragon’s Nest but for some reason I never got into it. I think it was due in part to the Asian version of the game being more updated than it’s US counterpart, and I really didn’t want to wait to get the same features months later.
Anyway, I used to watch tons of DN videos because they were so interesting and exciting to watch. DN is much more technical than GW2 and it does require a higher learning curve.
Both games has their pros and cons but I can only hope that GW2 brings that same excitement that DN does from a spectator’s vantage point. Right now I watch GW2 pvp and it’s meh right now, but when watching DN it’s just so compelling
Anet really need to understand that slow moving/delayed skills are are not suitable for this kind of game…unfortunately the ele is the only profession which is loaded with unrealistic slow activation skills, many staff skills require manual aiming+strong CC and the result is awful
This cannot be stressed enough. Good post sir
It boggles my mind how Arenanet gives the ele such a slow casting time on their skills. The prof begs for attunement switching which would promote fluidity through the skills and yet the animations to cast the skills are so slow. It hinders quick combos
There isn’t any other profession that has this kind of issue
I’m sorry but D/D is one of the most fluid, responsive, and fastest weapon sets in the game. S/D is still really fast with skills like air 2,3,4,5; fire 4; and more. Staff is meant to have high delay burst and meant to be somewhat sluggish compared to other weapon sets. Every profession has a weapon that is slow and sluggish.
I respect your thoughts but I didn’t make a post like that just for the hell of it.
I’m hoping that you can objectively and honestly share your thoughts when you go and quickly test several other professions along with the ele. It’ll only take about 20 minutes. You’ll notice that things just aren’t as “fluid” as the other professions has it.
This is totally irrespective of the casting times shown on each ability. I’m saying that in actual combat, the attacks just doesn’t have the quickness and “snap” to them like the other professions.
But I know many others will disagree and that’s fine, but I just feel that the ele isn’t getting the same benefit as the other professions in this regard
(edited by Expansive.3716)
Anet really need to understand that slow moving/delayed skills are are not suitable for this kind of game…unfortunately the ele is the only profession which is loaded with unrealistic slow activation skills, many staff skills require manual aiming+strong CC and the result is awful
This cannot be stressed enough. Good post sir
It boggles my mind how Arenanet gives the ele such a slow casting time on their skills. The prof begs for attunement switching which would promote fluidity through the skills and yet the animations to cast the skills are so slow. It hinders quick combos
There isn’t any other profession that has this kind of issue
haha that video was great, thanks for sharing
There was a alpha rock dog in the Order of the Whispers Ogre storyline section called Sourfang which looked kinda like a molten rock dog. sadly i never got a photo but it looked epic, would love that
Oh yea i forgot about the rockdog. Hopefully it could use a fire based attack because that is what’s lacking
Dragons:
Red: F2: Flames/Lava base damage
Blue: F2: Wate Base damage
White: F2: Wind base damage
Black: F2: Knock back, knock down, stun-lock
Green: F2: Posion base damage
Brown: F2: earth base damage
that would be pretty sweet, but too good to happen
I smell some serious burnage in this thread xD
But anyway, I can understand both sides of the argument. Ultimately we have to wait and see what Anet does. I commend them because while things aren’t exactly great right now, it certainly looks like they are really working hard to provide the satisfaction that the players want
I know they are focusing on balance this month and I think that should bring more excitement to pvp. People mainly have issues about balance and that’s the major reason why the mist is sort of empty. And once balance and bugs are straightened out, then we’ll see more tournament players.
The reason I bring up balance is because people want variety in their professions and they do not want to stick to 1 or 2 builds that “gets the job done”
Yes thieves do a lot of damage and that’s ok with me, I dont care if I am left with 10% of my HP after just one hit, but please, please, let us target them. in other MMOs thieves/shadowreavers (whatever you want to call them) do a lot of damage also, but they lose their stealth after attacking.
oh!!
and another thing.
Fix the frozen loading screen on sPvP, after being killed. >.<
nice idea, but if were implemented, then you’ll have a lot of thief players demanding a refund from Arenanet.
I couldn’t imagine the outcry it would have.
Instagib is bad.
But it’s also worth keeping in mind that thief/assassin archetypes are often decried as overpowered in MMO’s, because of stealth and their burst. There are definitely a number of players out there who would rather complain on the forums over learning how to fight/build against them.
+1 for this reply , problem is thiefs are not even a stealth class sure they have 2 stealth escapabilities but which are on 3 seconds if traited not counting shadow refuge with pretty much is a imovable stealth option aoe. Some fellow above said how can we defend insta gib thief ? Same goes for insta gib war , or insta gib shatter mesmer they need to be looked in same as thief was and nerfed like thief was. Try this reroll a thief in competitive tpvp and see how insta-gib op you can be before posting nonsense on the official forums if you complain about hotjoin then might aswell complain for every fotm class of the week build dont do it.
I admire your defense, offence, but your posts are just as closed minded as the ppl you claim are using baseless post about thieves being a bit overpowered.
I’m not trying to have a back and forth, but thief is a stealthy profession and it does not get defined by the number of stealth activation it has, but rather just by the way the profession is designed.
Unless you have a good example of what defines a “stealth” class.
But there does need to be work done on the thief’s abilities. Yeah while i can fight pretty well against one, it’s not exactly balanced when the thief can take off unnoticed in the middle of a fight when it realizes that things are looking bleak.
If i were to take off with my character, then the thief has an incredible gap closer that will not allow me to flee so quickly.
That’s a pretty good suggestion Vile.
Rather than watching as it happens, it would be nice to do so retroactively. It would be like film study and seeing what you did wrong and what the team could have done better.
But yea Malmstrm, I’m not certain how Anet is going to implement spectator mode and I hope they’re careful about it
TBH i do not like the idea of this. I do appreciate and understand where you’re coming from, but this would not be a good addition to GW2 pvp.
At the same time, it’ll still be possible for a “spectator” to act as a coach so I guess it wouldn’t matter what I feel.
I thought spectator mode would be a nice feature but i’m actually a bit on the fence about it. I mean, i really would enjoy watching matches and seeing different people’s tactics with their professions.
But if a spectator is going to act as “eyes” for a team, then ehh….