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More importantly, why do pets grab aggro by mere proximity in the first place? Clearly that would cause massive problems.
Considering the first attack in the chain is not a leap, has anyone ever even gotten any actual use out of that leap effect? All it does is hinder us.
I have to agree, this is really sad.
“Really? I know balance wasn’t perfect in GW1, but compared to other games, I think they did a kitten good job, which is what made PVP enjoyable for me.”
They made a lot of pretty basic mistakes in GW1. Certain useless skills would go overlooked and unchanged for insane periods of time, completely ham-fisted changes would be made that either made a skill deliberately useless or changed the effects so drastically and completely it no longer even fit the name, or they would balance certain skills based purely upon bizarre and rare circumstances that players had devised in order to exploit it and thereby make the skills useless in any other scenario.
During GW1, ANet made constant skill changes. It was common to see patch notes with sweeping changes to skills across basically every class. On top of that, considering they had no official forum, they were also very good about stating their positions on balance concerns and their reasons for making certain changes.
I think the issue here is simply that the game is still extremely new, and they’ve been spending all their time lately getting the Halloween event ready. So not only have they not been working on sweeping class changes, but they’ve not started getting into them enough to give anyone a definitive position on various issues.
They may have been unspeakably God-awful at actually achieving balance, but they certainly tried very regularly.
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As far as I can tell, a great simplification of how the system currently works is that the Gem>Gold and Gold>Gem conversion rates are completely separate and based upon how frequently people use either over a period of time. More Gems turned to Gold in a short time frame, for example, means those Gems convert less efficiently. Less conversions made, and they convert more efficiently.
The problem is, this would inevitably lead to periods in which no one is willing or able to make a particular conversion because it inevitably becomes too expensive, leading to a yo-yo type effect. The prices just keep going up and down again and again because the frequency of conversions are based upon the frequency of conversions! Prices are lower, more people convert. Prices are now higher, so fewer people convert.
Rationally, it seems to me that it would be much better to link the two conversion rates; every time someone converts Gold>Gems, that conversion becomes less efficient and Gems>Gold becomes more efficient, and vice versa. Unless I’ve made some great oversight, that would keep everything relatively stable by basing it upon how popular either conversion is in relation to the other.
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Personally, I think by far the most Ranger-ey aspect is traps. Might have been real interesting to see how they could have worked that into a class mechanic… giving us a heavy focus on positioning and terrain exploitation. Had things only been done differently.
I’m confused on why Warriors were even given banners. They’re just a non-crappy version of spirits that do exactly what spirits should have. But oh no, you can’t make spirits work the same way as banners, because that would be boring. So now spirits do crap for the sake of diversity.
Warriors already have Shouts for group support…
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This whole situation reminds me of the way GW1 Rangers were treated for so long earlier on.
Anyone remember Otyugh’s Cry? Full-blown 100% useless skill, that remained completely unchanged for like 2 years.
And then there was the need to dedicate a quarter of your entire skill bar just to -have- a pet. I think that particular issue was alleviated by a different person -after- the original skill balance guy moved over to work on GW2. Still left it #%^& for PvP, though.
And the traps… oh, dear God, the traps… They’ve always been complete trash in GW1 outside of niche all-ranger farming groups, because they were -balanced- around the possibility that a full group of Rangers would grab every trap they possibly could and stack them all. So if you were an individual Ranger looking at tossing a trap or two into your build, you would just be tickling your enemy with a wasted skill slot, even with maxed out Wilderness Survival. Much better than doing the rational thing and just stopping multiple traps from being able to occupy the same spot on the ground, right?
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Does anyone know why they apparently removed the ability to use two of exactly the same pet? It could not possibly have been overpowered in any way, since you can just use two very similar pets with nearly if not identical stats and abilities.
But this seriously hampers creativity. What if someone doesn’t want two pets, and would like to get two that look the same and give them the same name? What if someone just really likes a particular skin and would like two of them?
Personally, I really badly would like to use two separate Ravens, but for some reason that is no longer an option. Sure I can use a black Raven and a white one, but even ignoring aesthetic desires, there are no white ravens! It looks like a dove or something. And on top of that, I’d have to grind like hell through a game I have no desire to play just to unlock it.
And while I’m talking about pet choices, just as an aside, why can’t Canines be used underwater? Bears and Cats can be, and Canines are far better swimmers than Cats.
I’m talking about the actual birds; Ravens, Hawks and Eagles. It makes no sense that they were given a basic attack as their F2 instead of, say, the Swiftness shout. The Raven F2 is at least mediocre with the single blind. It only sucks so bad because of pet issues in general keeping it from activating in time to actually stop a big attack.
The Hawk and Eagle though? It’s a weak bleed on like a 6 second cooldown! Do they really expect Rangers to micromanage their pet to such a degree and just spam the F2 key? Those pets are tedious as hell to deal with. Not only because of having to deal with the F2 they do have, but also because you have no control at all over the Swiftness boon.
All of the “on critical” Ranger traits last only one second. Such as Sharpened Edges which applies one second of bleeding, and Companion’s Might which applies a single stack of Might for one second. Both of which are borderline useless because of it.
I’m not certain, but it wouldn’t make much difference even if it were a 100% chance on crit; the bleed only lasts a single second. Same with every last “on critical” trait the Ranger has; they’re all what I assume to be bugged and last only a single second.
I’d really like to see daggers made available as a main-hand weapon for Rangers, but as a ranged weapon similar to how the Ranger uses axes. I personally love throwing daggers, and no one has that option aside from a single off-hand skill here or there. It would fit the Ranger theme perfectly to have throwing daggers, and shouldn’t be that difficult since it would require only 3 new skills.
Axes are also currently the only ranged main-hand option we have compared to 4 different off-hands. Hell, Rangers only have two main-hand options total.
To top it all off, the Thief is currently the only class that really -uses- daggers at all. The Necromancer and Elementalist can equip daggers, but they pretty much just cast spells while holding them. All but the Necro auto-attack don’t even really appear to at the very least cast -with- the dagger.
They often refuse to attack objects such as gates as well. Not at all fair when a large portion of our damage was designated to them.