Guild Wars 2

I was hoping for some new skills or weapon sets for each class.

Kind of disappointed.

yanoch.7051:

It’s hard to use a Thursday night as a way to measure queue time. Thursday is the PvE day for many server. You will see those tonight after reset.

Reset night is also a terrible indicator of server population.

Even coming from SBI, it’s hard to get a correct read on your WvW populace. SBI is incredibly strong on the weekends when the militia comes out to play in force, but as soon as the weekdays roll around and the focus is placed on guild groups, things slow down a lot.

After spending more time on HoD, it appears that our NA is very strong… and that’s about it. I don’t think it’s as bandwagony as it initially appeared to be and I think things will even out over the course of the season.

Talia.7412:

People talk about the queues on HoD like they are inescapable, yet I personally haven’t experienced more than one queue, and it wasn’t that long either. Ironically CD’s been deriding us for having no coverage vs theirs. Going by your measure, if we have queues, you guys probably have double that. :p

Yeah, only EB was queued last night and it wasn’t even that long.

Tuesday was probably just a trainwreck since it was the first transfer day.

HoD is looking like a huge bandwagon server right now.

ArchonWing.9480:

It can’t be sold in the gem store, so nope.

This is so true that is hurts.

Vol.7601:

I remember in Aion, there were highly desirable skill signets that were a rare drop in the world. I wouldn’t mind having some really nice skills that have a low drop chance and worth 400g on the TP.

but that’s just me.

Never.

The day they gate new skills with RNG or Gem Store purchases is when I leave this game forever.

I hate the Gem Store.

Monthly fees keep looking better and better.

Power Block Heal, GG.

Thaddeus.4891:

Calm down people with the Dyes. The only different from right now, will be that they won’t drop anymore. But in exchange you will only need to unlock them once.

You will be able to get them from crafting or gem store, but people will still be able to exchange them on the Trading Post.

“The only thing different from right now will be that they won’t drop anymore.”

Oh, that’s all? -_-

Account bound dyes should have been in the game to begin with, and now ANet is planning on locking them behind the Gem Store? This is hilarious.

Ohbe.9761:

This has got to be the biggest pitch for a bandwagon if I’ve ever seen one. Lol

Enjoy the transfers

People from CD have been advertising your server since the announcement went up -_-

So many words used just to say “Nothing has changed”.

Justin ODell.9517:

Chaith.8256:

Typically, there is a somewhat useful Blog Post before a huge change is rolled out, and the playerbase is free to discuss how that will affect the game for them! An example is the mention that ranks are intended to be removed when the new PvP progression system rolls out. This was super useful to mention – and the feedback given made this decision pull a complete 180’.

Currently, with this (hopefully) imminent PvP progression overhaul, things are locked up SO tight behind closed doors. I can only imagine one outcome, really.

We’ll have a lot to talk about, so be sure to catch the Ready Up this Friday.

-_-

Xaylin.1860:

Akisame.9508:

Speaking of which, why is it that necro’s with all of their minions don’t have balancing issues when they can spec to not use minions and not lose DPS? What’s the difference between them and us if they also have pets and theirs is optional?

Again, it is not their class mechanic. They also lose a lot of utility when going MM.

That answer seems like a cop-out to me. Also, I would not argue that Necro’s “lose utility” by speccing into MM considering the fact that they gain access to quite a few different abilities through their minions.

AoE knockback? Check.
Immobilize? Check.
Potential teleport? Check.

I wonder if ANet is currently examining the discrepancies between Ranger and MM Necromancer in order to determine how they should go about balancing Ranger.

Surreal.5243:

Flytrap.8075:

Surreal.5243:

I hope you don’t forget about engis since they don’t fit the meta same like eles.

You must be joking.

Not at all (Talking about Top25 tPvP – not some soloq/hotjoin bs)

Five Gauge somehow manages.

Surreal.5243:

I hope you don’t forget about engis since they don’t fit the meta same like eles.

You must be joking.

Vexander.9850:

Do you remember when GW2 added new weapon and armor skins through Ascended Gear and the Champion Rewards?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Do you remember that one time when a dev said that they want all level 80s to be on equal footing, whether they’ve been at that point for over a year or simply five minutes?

Or how about when they said they don’t believe in a gear treadmill, or how they don’t make “grindy” games?

OmaiGodman.2098:

Flytrap.8075:

Get ready for a flood of “OMG this game is free-to-play, they need to make money somehow, ANet is my lord and savior” posts.

You mean the people who accept that you don’t just get everything for free?

No, I mean the people who support ANet no matter what they do.

I have no problem with Gem Store updates except for the fact that they currently have a complete monopoly on the armor and weapon skin sets that are being added to this game.

Decap Engi’s and MM Necro’s that know what they’re doing are very obnoxious.

Please, no more pet talk.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, I don’t want this thread to be entirely about pets. We’ve seen a ton of great feedback about them, and I would like to hear more about utilities that need help (and aren’t viable unless spec’d into) as I haven’t seen as much on that front!

Thanks all

We’ve talked the pet to death at this point.

shiri.4257:

We need a pvf troll roaming guild also. 5-10 should suffice. SG is mainly the sea guys I think some in RI/kome. singapore.

Very interesting

So clever, such funny. WoW.

I was originally hopeful about Wildstar, but I think it’s going to crash and burn. Same goes for ESO.

I’ve played both betas, and although neither game is truly terrible, I think that GW2 just has better mechanics. The fact still remains that this game has grown a bit stale, but I hope ANet can remedy that in the near future.

Allie Murdock.8152:

You guys should hop into the Ranger CDI and say this stuff. Most of the Rangers feel that pets are actually not very helpful. It’s interesting how the feedback differs so greatly between this thread and that one!

I don’t think you realize what you’ve unleashed.

I’m actually very concerned now that you think this thread is serious.

Atherakhia.4086:

Akisame.9508:

Flytrap.8075:

misterdevious.6482:

Everquest had rangers, shamans, druids, and beast lords… this game only has one magical-nature-themed-pet-archer-class. We’re all in the same boat, the boat is leaking, and we need to stop arguing about what name is painted on the hull.

This is a good point.

Ranger is a lot more than just “the pet class”, yet that is where ANet has chosen to place the profession’s emphasis for whatever reason. In my opinion, our pet should be one aspect of the Ranger, not its defining characteristic.

That’s not to say that the pet mechanic should be removed, but it’s a bit disheartening that many of our utilities and traits revolve around our pet when there’s so much untapped potential elsewhere.

I agree with you there. I think this is why many people are asking for a stowable pet option and the reworking of the traits. This way the pet remains for those who like the concept and can be stowed for those two don’t like the concept. It’s hard to understand why some people are so against this idea when it’s not harming the pet concept idea at all. By saying no to the stowable pet option is like us saying that we should just remove pet’s completely (which I admit was my original train of thought but who am I say to pet lover’s that my way is the right way. With stowable pet’s we can have our cake and eat it too).

People are asking for a stowable pet because they’ve played the game for 1.5 years with the pet being a non-factor or liability at nearly everything we do.

We need to move past the pet topic. We’re keeping pets folks. Make the most of it.

Make your case for why you think the DPS split shouldn’t be 70:30.

Make your case for why F2 skills need to go off quicker.

Make your case for why we should be able to control the pet’s secondary skills.

Make your case for why the pet doesn’t work in WvW and how you would make it work (other than removing it!).

Please give up with expecting the pet to be removed. It simply won’t (nor will it be side lined by perma stow) and we’ve gone around this circle enough over the past 60 pages.

I’m on your side! I couldn’t care less one way or the other. But debating it has run its course. ANet has spoken. Move along!

Until Allie or one of the devs comes in here and explicitly outlines their future plans for the Ranger, nothing is going to change.

misterdevious.6482:

Everquest had rangers, shamans, druids, and beast lords… this game only has one magical-nature-themed-pet-archer-class. We’re all in the same boat, the boat is leaking, and we need to stop arguing about what name is painted on the hull.

This is a good point.

Ranger is a lot more than just “the pet class”, yet that is where ANet has chosen to place the profession’s emphasis for whatever reason. In my opinion, our pet should be one aspect of the Ranger, not its defining characteristic.

That’s not to say that the pet mechanic should be removed, but it’s a bit disheartening that many of our utilities and traits revolve around our pet when there’s so much untapped potential elsewhere.

Akisame.9508:

Flytrap.8075:

Akisame.9508:

And no, the ranger class has never before used pets, the pet inclusion was something created by WoW if I remember correctly and adopted from there on other games.

Rangers could use pets in the original Guild Wars by slotting a specific skill onto your action bar, but they were by no means required to do so.

In fact, most Rangers decided not to use pets unless they were on certain team comps that were tailored towards minions.

ok, let’s read my sentence together. “the pet inclusion was something CREATED by WoW if I remember correctly”

There I cap’ed the ‘created’ part so you can understand. WoW was announced in 2001 and beta and full release was in 2004. GW1 was released in April of 2005, so yes, they most likely took the idea from WoW. Mind you, I never played either of these two games because I was still playing EQ1 and EQ2 at those times along with any interesting releases I may have seen.

I can read just fine, there’s no reason to be rude.

I thought you were talking about the Ranger specifically in regards to Guild Wars, especially considering that WoW’s version is known as a Hunter. I’m also pretty certain that the archer with a pet concept did not originate in WoW, but that’s beside the point.

I don’t really want to get into an argument about the profession’s origins in other games; I was simply mentioning how the Ranger existed in a previous installment.

nGumball.1283:

I love how people don’t want to buy anything in the gemstore, pay for an expansion or do any other kind of payment and then state tha Anet have to offer them what they want all the time becuase that’s how it SHOULD be.

Have you ever played other MMOs? MMOs aren’t Xbox games, they need money to keep going and Anet isn’t a church, they are a gaming company with people who have families and need money to LIVE. Thier job is to create content and get paid for it, they aren’t supposed to be angels who listen to every single player’s wishes and YES, I mean it, people are so selfish nowadays and as long as their wishes don’t become true, it means that Anet isn’t listening to anyone and is making the game worse because they are bad guys. Please mature up.

Sorry if my comment is offending but guys, stop complaining the time. There is no perfect game and there is no company that will listen to every single player who each one want a different thing. I really dislike entering gaming forums and see people literally crying ALL THE TIME. Not only gaming btw, even movies ‘’BAD ACTOR’’ ‘’give me my money back’’ and you see that the forums filled with 90+ pages of threads with people crying about how unfair life is, how people are dying in Africa and how the gaming or the movie company are responible for that.

Yes, Anet have made alot of mistakes, yes, many bad movies gets released, however you gotta learn to enjoy stuff and give them some credit, just some.

Expansions are normal for MMOs, when I see people commenting with ‘’WHAT? DO I HAVE TO PAY AGAIN. THOSE GREEDY kittenS’’ etc. I just lose faith in gaming communities. When a game starts to innovate and changes the model to Buy to play, it doesn’t mean they don’t need or want money because they do. Also you gotta accept that as a fact in the MMO industry, at least you have a game that doesn’t require you to pay 15 dollars. This is not paradise, changes for the better come, but you won’t see a game offering you the best quality, expanding their game for ur sake but you refuse to pay for an expansion and you want to experience all the content even though the ones who keep the game running are other people who pay in the gemstore and you want all this greatness for 50 dollars because FTW, you paid for the game and you want a company with hundreds of people working for years to keep statisfied because again, you paid 50 dollars, why shouldn’t a company be opened just for your service.

People need to be realstic and read about the game and the gaming models for that genre before buying it.

The Gem Store / Living Story model is not delivering content that I find meaningful, fulfilling, or even fun. I’m sure that numerous players will disagree with what I just said, but I’m also positive that just as many are thinking the exact same thing.

At this point, I would be more than willing to spend money on an expansion pack if it would bring the things that I’m looking for. We’ve essentially been playing the same game for the past year and a half; to put it simply, things have grown stale. I’m hoping that the upcoming feature patch will address these issues, but to be honest, I’m not holding my breath given ANet’s track record.

I’m glad that some people 100% enjoy what ANet is doing and has done. However, that is not the case for myself and many of my friends, and it’s a bit condescending of you to put players like me in a corner and say “You’re so selfish, stop being so unrealistic” because your wishes have been answered while ours are left gathering dust.

Akisame.9508:

And no, the ranger class has never before used pets, the pet inclusion was something created by WoW if I remember correctly and adopted from there on other games.

Rangers could use pets in the original Guild Wars by slotting a specific skill onto your action bar, but they were by no means required to do so.

In fact, most Rangers decided not to use pets unless they were on certain team comps that were tailored towards minions.

Imagine what this game would be like if ANet didn’t spend so much time implementing new additions to the Gem Store.

When this game was in development, I was under the impression that the Gem Store would have additional cosmetic items rather than a monopoly on them.

Lankybird.8149:

There is a huge patch coming soon, be patient.

We’ve waited four months for said patch.

“Patience” is not a factor at this point.

Criminal.5627:

when this ends I hope I am not the only one who wants a write up of what is being taken and the future direction of the class. So far everything is ambiguous and there is no real clear image of the future of the ranger.

Numerous people have brought this up throughout the thread and it still hasn’t been addressed.

Rickster.8752:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

Justin, you kind of did (well, Colin did):

“In January, we talked about where we wanted Guild Wars 2 to go in 2013. We’re a little over halfway through the year, and we felt it was time to give you an update on where we stand, where we’re going, and discuss in more detail some of the systems you’ll see in the second half of 2013.”

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

“We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013”

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

That “looking forward” contained a roadmap. And it did make promises. There were no dates, just a huge window. A six month window. And, somehow, something went awfully wrong and very little of what was forecast was implemented over those six months.

How could something go so horribly wrong that major milestones were missed by up to a full six months? And what does it say about ArenaNet if they were not able to communicate these changes to their customers over those 6 months?

I’ve managed large software tasks with large teams ($15m+ USD yearly budgets). I know how to lay down a schedule and manage a budget. I’ve never laid down a plan so aggressive that I miss 50% of my milestones in a 6 month window. Whenever I believe I am going to slip a milestone, I immediately let my management and customers know and replan.

Justin ODell.9517:

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

Justin,

People don’t want greater transparency. They want applicable, measured updates in a reasonable time frame. Sensotix has a right to be upset. He’s been one of the biggest advocates for PvP in this game, and the lack of timely updates and broken meta (cheese meta) has soured his opinion. That’s not his fault.

Take a look – warriors are broken and the community knows it. The Balance Team, however, thinks they are fine. Thieves make all other berserker builds and all other roamer builds non-viable. The Balance Team, however, thinks they are fine.

Changes don’t arrive every couple of weeks. Rather they arrive every 4-5 months. !!! That’s insane. Take a look at League of Legends. They push balance fixes out every 2 weeks.

GW2 is supposed to be a AAA MMO. It is self-proclaimed. So, why shouldn’t the community expect the same quality and quantity of maintenance as in a AAA MMO?

The bottom line: there is no reason why the PvP community should not expect reasonable balance changes made to the game every 2 weeks. If such a reason does exist, it should be the imperative of ArenaNet to remove that reason.

People like you need to keep posting. You talk a lot of sense. Arenanet are like politicians by how they talk. In an age where that sort of political talk is regarded as VERY unflattering. People hate politicians in europe for this stuff. Maybe americans have a different perspective and this explains how anet communicate with us.

It drives me nuts how they treat us like little children all the time. Apparently we are to be kept in the dark about what all the clever adults are doing.

You’re right. ANet talks a lot but they essentially say nothing. I would prefer no posts at all instead of the meaningless lead-ons that we currently get.

I honestly think it’s rude and a little unprofessional to advertise things such as “amazing changes” or “new and exciting features” and then refuse to divulge any information to the players for months on end. If you’re not willing to reveal details, please don’t say anything at all until it’s ready.

I’m beginning to think that Colin is a robot or an A.I. because he seems to be stuck in a repetition loop.

It is frustrating how ANet advertises that they have a cosmetic end-game, yet so much of it is locked behind the Gem Store.

It’d be one thing if they actually introduced new skins that you could earn through playing the game itself, but the fact that they have not really done this since launch is very disappointing. Where are the unique skins earned through WvW to rival dungeon skins? How about exclusive skins for sPvP? Exploration? Dungeon Master? I mean, the sky is the limit here.

Even Silver Transmutation Crystals have become a sticking point for me since their drop rate is so low; you are basically forced to buy them if you want to create a certain look at level 80.

SkiTz.4590:

snip

The DPS split is an interesting topic and I’m sure Allie has relayed to the devs that we’re not really huge fans of it.

The main problem I have with it is that the DPS split simply is not justified. If our pets were not such a liability, the point would be moot; however, this is not the case and I constantly feel like I have to work around my pet rather than with it in order to succeed.

Warrior’s Adrenaline is always beneficial. Necromancer’s Deathshroud is always beneficial. Even Phantasm Mesmers can see the benefits of the various Shatters. With Ranger, pets are most often a drawback and our traits are set-up in such a way that we need to invest in ones that enhance or center around our pet in order to make them even remotely worthwhile.

If ANet could find a way to make the pet actually worth having around, I would be on board with keeping them; however, I simply don’t see this happening after one and a half years of the same-old-same-old, which is why I’m in favor of implementing perma-stow or a completely new class mechanic.

Swagger.1459:

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

I like you nike, but part of the problem with professions is that there are too many gimmicky and situational mechanics stuffed into a too few buttons on the bar. there are reasons why warrior and ranger are the most played class, and part of that reason is that they are more straight forward compared. this is not a console game, despite having professions, the ui and controls being built similar to one, and the majority of players don’t want to have to jump through hoops in a circus act to perform certain things. this game needs less gimmicky, situational and combo mechanics like you are trying to display as fun or deep. this game will continue to go sour if they give all classes the thiefish and elementalistish treatments. anet and the playerbase would best be served by adding more weapon, skill and ultility slots on the combat bar so options, choices and effects are up front and not hidden behind swaps and perfect set ups.

The gulf between Warrior’s and Ranger’s gameplay is so staggering that I’m shocked you decided to compare the two.

Even if you just look at the infamous Hambow build, you can see that the synergy between the two weapon sets vastly outweighs those available to Ranger. There are numerous combos that you can pull off with Longbow/Hammer, and both weapons offer a visual impact that Ranger noticeably lacks (aside from the animal overlays on some weapon skills which I think are pretty neat). Whereas Warrior gives me a powerful, fluid vibe, Ranger just feels spammy and clunky.

When you throw traits into the mix, the difference becomes even more noticeable; Warrior has a lot of options available to them that work well with numerous builds (Dogged March, Cleansing Ire) and noticeably enhance their class mechanic, while Ranger traits tend to be more static and have this all-or-nothing mentality behind them (traps, signets, spirits).

The one aspect of Ranger’s current iteration that I enjoy is how mobile the class is. I love seeing how Rangers can “dance” around the battlefield in sPvP, and I think it would be wise for ANet to accentuate this style of play. However, something needs to be done about the majority of Ranger’s weapon sets to create more interesting and dynamic combat decisions because more often than not, simply spamming auto-attack is the best course of action.

To end, there is a stark difference between “gimmicky” combat elements (pistol whip spam on Thief) and synergistic combos (D/D Elementalist flow), and I’m not sure why you chose to throw the two in the same boat.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I vaguely recall reading that article. “Big patch” doesn’t equate to “expansion size” patch though. Of course ‘a couple of really big projects’ could be an expansion, but we have no more information than that… a couple big projects…that they aren’t ready to talk about yet. Obviously they aren’t ready to be released and need more time, patience is a virtue.

There has since been a twitch stream that stated that the upcoming March 18th patch is not the features patch, but a maintenance patch. Basically clean up, and we should be getting some epilogue stuff for LS. (See, I do pay attention)

Even then, the fact still remains that their “feature patch” currently expected in early April needs to deliver. They’ve put this sucker off for nearly four months, and the longer you advertise something, the larger expectations grow.

I’d hate to be on ANet’s PR team if and when this blows up.

This thread is eerily prophetic.

Rickster.8752:

In the balance preview the following changes were listed for thief (after 8 months of eliminating ele and mesmer from the meta on its own):

Thief:
Much like the engineer, we wanted to take this opportunity to tone-down excessive poison stacking through poison fields.
Choking Gas: Reduced the poison per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.

Do you think one change which has no effect whatsoever is sufficient after 5 months of no changes to the most broken class.

They also said that they have “amazing changes” in store for Ranger and Thief, but obviously we’ve heard nothing since then.

Galen Grey.4709:

Flytrap.8075:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

What do You people think?
i think the living story concept is working well and is profitable for them, so it better that they keep on using the living story platform to distribute new expansion content.

Do You also hate LS as I do?
no. i love the living story concept.

Do you also think it is detrminetal for this game?
no. i think it makes the game better.

How many of You would like to see expansion instead?
not me.

i want to see expansion content delivered via living story updates.
this is what they promised earlier.

If the next season of the Living Story focuses on PvE zergs and Gem Store updates, I’m holding you accountable.

I honestly will never understand how players can find these updates “fresh” or “exciting”. The game has become so stale since launch and it’s especially depressing because this game has so much potential. I am being completely honest when I say that GW2 easily has the best mechanics out of any of the major MMO’s out there right now, but I feel like ANet made a huge blunder with how they decided to implement new “content”.

I can only hope that they change their plans and go down a new path because it would be quite a shame to see something great go to waste.

I think you should really look at who is responsible for the PvE Zergs and an expansion isnt going to solve that either if anything its going to make it worst. Each of the last few large open world encounters were designed to failed if zerged. Players just dont care and zerg them anyway. What do you want Arenanet to do ? introduce Mob tagging or turning Gw2 from an actual MMO to a small instanced 5 player game?

How are they designed to fail if zerged when zerging is the only way to take them down?

Your point does not make any sense. All I have seen from the last few Living Story updates are people stacking on PvE commanders; if anything, the Living Story was better in the beginning and started going downhill with the Queen’s Jubilee.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

What do You people think?
i think the living story concept is working well and is profitable for them, so it better that they keep on using the living story platform to distribute new expansion content.

Do You also hate LS as I do?
no. i love the living story concept.

Do you also think it is detrminetal for this game?
no. i think it makes the game better.

How many of You would like to see expansion instead?
not me.

i want to see expansion content delivered via living story updates.
this is what they promised earlier.

If the next season of the Living Story focuses on PvE zergs and Gem Store updates, I’m holding you accountable.

I honestly will never understand how players can find these updates “fresh” or “exciting”. The game has become so stale since launch and it’s especially depressing because this game has so much potential. I am being completely honest when I say that GW2 easily has the best mechanics out of any of the major MMO’s out there right now, but I feel like ANet made a huge blunder with how they decided to implement new “content”.

Achievement laundry list grind fests are not fun. Locking all of the new armor and weapon skins behind the Gemstore is not fun. Mindlessly spamming 111111111111 with 50+ strangers stacked on the commander is not fun.

ANet, please go watch your Manifesto video and take a hard look at where your game started and the point that it’s at now. I can only hope that you change your plans and go down a new path because it would be quite a shame to see something great go to waste.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Absinth.6917:

Thank you for the answer. I truly appreciate it Allie. Monthly tweaks would shake up the meta. As I say, for better or worse, monthly changes keeps things fresh. I’d rather have new challenges than 6 months of stagnation. Hopefully many would agree with this assessment.

Heck even if it was every 3 months and we could look forward to definite changes that would be a great change.

btw….Boxers or briefs?

Having changes every 3 months is fine. Having changes every 3 months which include tiny and minor changes is not fine when so many builds are skill-less and yet exceptionally strong. This patch will be no different. 8% nerf to healing signet and a minor pin down nerf? Really what is that going to change. There is no reason to be hopeful for the upcoming balance changes as the changes announced are utterly insignificant after such a long drought without any updates.

I’d love to see ANet take a more “dynamic” (to use one of their favorite buzzwords) approach to their game.

The shaving balance philosophy is stale and simply not interesting; people will just stick with the same builds until they drop out of favor six months to a year down the road. I personally would like to see things get shaken up every two months or so at the latest, but that might just be me.

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

There are so many different aspects of your post that resonate with how I myself feel about Ranger.

Just a great post, I agree wholeheartedly.

Wow, you guys are rude.

I like how ANet sets balance patches aside for over three months in favor of Living Story updates and then calls the PvP community “short-sighted”.

That’s just rich.

Marcos.3690:

The pvp community has been waiting 3 months already for a patch. When can we expect the new features? What about the class balance?

A little communication from anet wouldnt hurt, you know. We’ve been kept in the dark since the game released.

Where’s the promised iceberg?

https://www.guildwars2.com/es/news/structured-pvp-iceberg/

It actually hurts to read that post.

Over a year and we essentially have the exact same sPvP features… dear lord.

I’m crossing my fingers that we get a post in the near future that at least suggests what the devs have in mind.

We’ve talked in circles for the past two weeks. They have more than enough ideas at their disposal. Summaries are nice, but they don’t give us any idea of where our feedback should be focused.

I’d give the whole Living Story a 5/10. There were a few highlights that I thoroughly enjoyed (Bazaar, boss fights in Queen’s Jubilee, SAB), but I feel like it took a turn for the worse once Scarlet became more prominent. I’m not sure if this issue was because of the focus on her character, the stagnant story development, the rise of PvE zerg content, or a mix of the above.

Also, as someone already said, the achievements for the Living Story have been rather lackluster; instead of earning them through play that is actually meaningful and challenging, they’re essentially just farm-fest laundry lists. To me, that’s a huge turn off.

My main grievance is that ANet has placed so much focus on their Living Story patches and Gem Store updates that the game has become rather stale. Pushing back balance updates (it’s been… three months?) in order to focus on Scarlet was a huge mistake in my eyes.

I’m also disappointed that the only new full armor and weapon sets that have been released since the game launched (aside from Ascended items, which is another topic that I won’t even get started on) have only been accessible through the Gem Store. Even then, these items are for one-time usage only. For a game that has an end-game that focuses largely on cosmetics, I’m amazed that so little has been done to update the shallow pool of sets that we have available to us outside of the Gem Store.

That being said, I’m looking forward to what ANet has in store for us with their big feature patch. However, if it’s the same-old-same-old, I can’t say that I’ll be sticking around.

afoot.6932:

Shadowbane.7109:

Now you plan on taking the spirits away and adding it to the kitten pet.

Someone else agrees with me! Removing the spirits diminishes the ranger’s roleplaying options. You might as well rename the vitality traitline if you remove spirits, because the spirits are the only “nature magic” a ranger does.

Just going to reiterate that making spirits automatically follow you, non-targetable, and dependent on the ranger’s health (not the pet’s) would be a much better solution.

The simple truth is that spirits in their current form are ridiculously toxic in sPvP. They require no skill and offer far too much passive power. The whole strategy behind the build is essentially to spam your auto-attack and to hide in the zoo clutter.

I don’t think that Ranger’s “roleplaying options” should be placed ahead of balancing the class.

Yoh.8469:

Atherakhia.4086:

xallever.1874:

Tryxtr.6295:

General question to progress this discussion further:

In PvE, the pets do not generally die that quickly, except for in dungeons when stacking. Pets can tank mobs pretty well.

In WvW pets almost insta-die and can be easily ignored (ran past) due to the fact that they can’t hit a moving target.

How can Anet fix this issue to make it work in both game modes?

Can’t make the pet way tankier (for WvW survivability) because then they’d be basically OP in PvE and Anet doesn’t want to separate WvW from PvE. Could make them a little bit tankier, but that doesn’t really help WvW since they need a huge boost to keep them alive.

Maybe a pet’s vitality and toughness could scale with the number of enemies around them. Not sure if that would fix the issue.

How do you guys visualize the pet ought to perform in WvW?

In a zerg encounter for instance, what do you expect the pet ought to do for you?

The arguably better archers like thieves or warriors also don’t bring too much into the table during such encounters. The thieves can put a poison field, but also die quite easily if they are targeted.

The thing is that if the Rangers are meant for single encounters, they are better suited as roamers. Just that at this juncture, thieves and mesmers (and arguably eles too) perform much better than rangers.

I don’t see it problematic that certain professions bring more to the table in a zerg situations such as guardians, warriors and eles. Just that currently every other profession can do what the Ranger can do better.

There are 2 scenarios that work…

You either make pets highly survivable but remove the swap mechanic so players aren’t overwhelmed. Or you scale back the focus of the pet and make it an inconsequential part of the game overall.

The first would be ideal and simply making the pet take 75% less damage from AE’s that don’t have the pet targetted would solve almost all of the survivability issues. They aren’t like phantasms and clones that can be replaced almost immediately. Plus if you remove the swap mechanic from the game, players can choose to kill the pet quickly and the Ranger is then stuck with a 30% dps loss.

The alternate scenario is you just reduce the impact the pet has and you effectively turn it into a class specific DOT. All pets do the same damage, that damage is about what a 6 stack of bleed is capable of, and you call it a day. You then increase the Ranger’s damage and coefficients up to a competetive level and make the F2 functions spawn ‘sprites’ that do their pet specific abilities instead of worrying about the pet being alive or dead at the time of activation.

Neither is ideal, but both methods solve the problems players have with the pets.

Actually I can think of a third option.
A great deal of the problems with pets stem from the fact that they are both always on and non-optional. We don’t have these problems with Mesmer Illusions, even thou they are non-optional, but we do have similar problems with Necromancer Minions that are always on.

So what if the pet wasn’t always on, but rater a summon?
You summon them, they do their thing while also giving you a pet skill, then they go away. Sort of like a Phantasm that can change targets, and a great deal tougher.
You could have up to 4 pets this way bound to each of the F1-F4 keys, and once summoned the bar changes to what we have now, with F4 recalling your pet and putting it on cooldown so you can summon another pet.

Then the Power and Effectiveness of the Ranger vs the pets can be reworked, you can have pets that are very powerful, but don’t last long. And the Ranger isn’t as required to have a chunk of their power go towards having the pet around at all times.
They could share a similar relationship between a Mesmer and their Illusions.

This way they wouldn’t have to survive an AOE encounter, as they could be traited for on death effects, and you would have enough backup pets to fall back on, some of which might be better for dealing with that situation.
It would solve a whole lot of problems, and I think it’s a good compromise between permastow and not.

Thoughts on this idea?