Guild Wars 2

Jerus.4350:

Jim Hunter.6821:

felessan.9587:

Map caps are a bad idea because it actually forces some players to stop playing.

Doesn’t force them to do anything. If the wait time to get in to WvW is too long for their liking they have the choice of moving to a server where there isn’t a queue.

This comes with the added benefit of showing off their skill against opponents on equal footing.

Spend some gems and leave your friends behind, no big deal…

Yeah… no. What you’re suggesting is the destruction of communities in a passive aggressive manner.

Pretty sure that is how we got into this situation in the first place…

felessan.9587:

Map caps are a bad idea because it actually forces some players to stop playing.

Doesn’t force them to do anything. If the wait time to get in to WvW is too long for their liking they have the choice of moving to a server where there isn’t a queue.

This comes with the added benefit of showing off their skill against opponents on equal footing.

Jerus.4350:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Rasudido.6734:

I would rather have 23 other servers to fight against instead of 5 or 6.

except that you will never have 23 servers fighting each other, there simply isnt enough player population in GW as a whole as to make 23 servers fighting each other and be active and not have issues. Simply put you dilude and thin your population way too much.
If you instead cut 11 lower tier servers and force their populations into the remaining 12 (which probably wouldnt include TC/BG/JQ because of server caps) you could have far more balance as the player population would be more stacked as well as evenly divided.

You know this how? What is the total number of players that participate in WvW?
I play in Bronze, it’s not the ghost town you make it out to be. We have a blast when we have somewhat even matchups. I would love to face off against more servers but that can’t happen in the current system.

If we did move up we’d still end up fighting a different handful of servers all the time, it would feel fresh for a couple of months and then it would be routine again.

A lot of people here are talking about how T1 is where they are because they are so skilled and organized. Wouldn’t you like the chance to prove that you are more than just numbers? The only way to do this is by balancing out the population.

And you suggest they do this by ripping apart the larger communities rather than combining the smaller ones?

Personally to me even t1 feels like a ghost town much of the time.

Many people have explained why merging servers won’t fix the problem, it will at best delay it.

Population balance is better for WvW overall.

And the people that really love their servers in T1 can stay and wait out the population shift. They can use EotM for it’s intended purpose instead of the karma farm it has become.

Rasudido.6734:

I would rather have 23 other servers to fight against instead of 5 or 6.

except that you will never have 23 servers fighting each other, there simply isnt enough player population in GW as a whole as to make 23 servers fighting each other and be active and not have issues. Simply put you dilude and thin your population way too much.
If you instead cut 11 lower tier servers and force their populations into the remaining 12 (which probably wouldnt include TC/BG/JQ because of server caps) you could have far more balance as the player population would be more stacked as well as evenly divided.

You know this how? What is the total number of players that participate in WvW?
I play in Bronze, it’s not the ghost town you make it out to be. We have a blast when we have somewhat even matchups. I would love to face off against more servers but that can’t happen in the current system.

If we did move up we’d still end up fighting a different handful of servers all the time, it would feel fresh for a couple of months and then it would be routine again.

A lot of people here are talking about how T1 is where they are because they are so skilled and organized. Wouldn’t you like the chance to prove that you are more than just numbers? The only way to do this is by balancing out the population.

Rasudido.6734:

How strong would Ehmry Bay be right now if every guild that transferred up to T1 was still on it? They have a pretty decent size night crew, with more of a day crew they would be a pretty solid server.

This is the issue right here. As much as you say you have anything it is nothing compared to what BG/JQ/TC and to a certain extent SoS and FA have right now. All of you guys would be far more useful stacking into SoS for example and thus giving SoS the boost it needs to fight BG/JQ/TC and in general having a far more active, organized and rewarding WvW experience.

I didnt “abandon” Ehmry bay because I wanted to win. I got out because it was a ghost town, where my WvW guild was a 10 man group that didnt even show up all the time…. 15=0 man group is the low point of what my guild runs before we go to bed these days.

To what end? Stacking servers is what created the problem in the first place. Why continue the slow destruction of WvW by continuing this cycle when we can instead put everyone back on an equal footing?

I would rather have 23 other servers to fight against instead of 5 or 6.

Crius.5487:

You can’t base the population issues in WvW on this week. Only because of the tournament are you facing against a server who is naturally a tier above you.

This is the 3rd time we’ve faced them in the past month or so.

And you are missing the point of this thread, every server should be able to compete against every other without being horribly mismatched.

The top servers should be based on the collective skill and organization of the server, not by numbers.

Rasudido.6734:

This is sad. Most posts are some made up complaint about how T1 servers should be the ones modified rather than the obvious where lower tier servers are the problem.

All tier 1 servers have a healthy WvW population, all the servers cap their maps, make heavy use of TS, have great organization, play constantly and have map blobs. All of these can be reduced to what people really want : an active server population.

I used to play in Ehmry Bay, moved over to blackgate. The reason I moved was the lack of a population in Ebay, WvW was a ghost town except for a few guilds who would do their private raids in their private TS and not invite people. This is different in Blackgate, guilds do run by themselves privately but they communicate between each other, there usually is a large guild running the “map tag” where any PUG can join in TS and listen. I dont even care about the rewards as I play 3 times a week with my guild JUST FOR FUN something that was impossible in Ebay.

And here is the reality anyone in the lower tier servers SHOULD be forced into a t2 or t3 server to “balance” the population. You want more Blackgates and Jade Quarries (the two t1 servers that have survived this long), you want more servers to get bummped up like TC did. Most people are proposing the inverse where you want to destroy T1 through harsher caps when what you want is to be a T1 server? You could probably shoot SoS into kitten compete with JQ/BG/TC right now just by moving a couple of guilds from the lower tiers into it.

I understand any lower tier server players having pride and not wanting to move, but if your complaint is that population is an issue and you dont want to move to a server with better population? thats all on you guys not the other servers…

I disagree. The problem is the players that abandoned their servers to go to the “winning” server creating such a huge population imbalance. How strong would Ehmry Bay be right now if every guild that transferred up to T1 was still on it? They have a pretty decent size night crew, with more of a day crew they would be a pretty solid server.

I would like to see how many more players might venture into WvW if they knew they would actually have competetive matches instead of absolute blow outs.

dtzy.5901:

Population caps are simply dumb. Just no.

Says the guy that transferred to the biggest bandwagon server in NA.

dtzy.5901:

WvW is supposed to be competitive, and the thought of fighting other servers in other tiers should help re-build world pride and the enemy of my enemy thinking should apply

That is the idea behind temporarily lowering the cap to even out server population. I would love to fight some different servers but that won’t ever happen because the servers just above us can easily field triple our numbers.

We are fighting SoR this week and no matter how many times we wipe groups much larger than our own we just don’t have the people to stop the several other SoR zergs from capping our stuff.

If you look at the server scores for this week you will see pretty much everyone is running into this problem.

I believe that incentives to move to lower servers won’t be enough because that would just fill up new servers while keeping large population imbalances among the rest. I’m all for offering incentives to make the transition a little less painful for people but that won’t fix the problem on its own.

A temporary fixed cap is the quickest way to even out the population across all servers and make WvW a real competition.

I’m understand why you, being on BG, would hate this idea, but you’ve moved before, you can do it again or go to EotM while waiting to get in to WvW.

Sigmar.2185:

Merge servers is a good measure. Servers affected will adjust to the welcome change, but most will not admit at the beginning due too much pride; however once is done Time help to clear natural mind resistance to changes and then servers get more benefits than perjury from this.

Other game contents (sPvP and PvE) already benefit from the introduction of the Megaservers.

This suggestion of mine was done take in consideration language issues (for Europe), the present rank based in Word versus World low population. Both NA and EU will be leveled to 18 servers (18 /3 = 6 matchups every Friday reset).

North America (NA) future merged servers (18)
Tarnished Coast
Blackgate
Jade Quarry
Sea of Sorrows
Fort Aspenwood
Yak’s Bend
Maguuma
Dragonbrand
Crystal Desert
Stormbluff Isle
Devona’s Rest
Isle of Janthir
Northern Shiverpeaks & Eredon Terrace
Henge of Denravi & Anvil Rock
Borlis Pass & Sorrow’s Furnace
Gate of Madness & Fergunson’s Crossing
Sanctum of Rall & Kaineng
Darkhaven & Ehmry Bay

Europe (EU) future merged servers (18)
Seafarer’s Rest
Desolation
Kodash (DE)
Elona Reach (DE)
Baruch Bay (SP)
Gandara
Riverside (DE)
Far Shiverpeaks
Jade Sea (FR)
Piken Square & Underworld
Abaddon’s Mouth & Dzagonur (DE)
Augury Rock & Fort Ranik (FR)
Gunnar’s Hold & Vabbi
Aurora Glade & Whiteside Ridge
Drakkar Lake & Miller’s Sound (DE)
Vizunah Square & Arbortstone (FR)
Ring of Fire & Fissure of Woe
Ruins of Surmia & Blacktide

Note: please check this pictures for details

What’s to stop people from continuing to stack on the winning servers until we have the same population imbalance? Merges won’t fix the problem, at best they might delay it for a few months.

Ansau.7326:

Jim Hunter.6821:

That randomness will only increase when fighting different opponents. Right now I know the strategies of my servers regular opponents. I know a good chunk of their commanders and regular players and can pick them out in a fight.

This weeks tournie shows the huge differences in population even if servers just a few ranks apart from one another. If they balanced it out a bit more the tournaments would actually mean something.

First, it’s really really difficult to manage server populations to be pretty more or less equally, unless you force people who already play wvw to move, and limit the newcomers.
And second, nowadays coverage prevails because we have a system of score that promotes stacked servers and coverage. If the way score is gained is changed, it’ll mean people won’t feel useless when they’re in a map full upgraded or when there’s a big blob around.
If you get rid of ticks and base PPT on taking/defending/upgrading/damaging structures you change the way it needs to win. People will defend structures till the end, and not till the tick is over. Wasting money into upgrades will be meaningful, having roamers hurting enemies structures will be useful…

PD: One reason I’m against of hurting server pride is EU will eventually become like NA, where coverage differences are a serious problem. A server can stomp its immediately lower position server, and you fight the same servers for months.
Server pride somehow mitigates the coverage issues. Players stay to their server and try to fight for it, waiting to see if it raises again (what happens in Baruch, for example).

I’m all for server pride. That’s why I proposed this idea rather than destroying all or some of the servers. A lower server cap wouldn’t force anyone to move, but I’m sure there are plenty of guilds that would decide to move to avoid queues.

These would be the same guilds that transferred to the servers for tournament rewards and don’t have a long standing relationship with the other players on that server. I don’t want to lose any of the servers, what I want is the chance to fight against a few more of them.

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people in tier 1 talk about how that’s where the real WvW players and the skill is. I think it would be interesting to see how they fair against other servers in a more even match up.

Ansau.7326:

I’m not talking just about the randomness of matchups, but the randomness of fights, server strategies and tactics…
Simply the randomness that you don’t know what you will face until you see it.

Everybody need to put the idea in their heads that it’s not possible to have similar people in all servers, unless you severely limit the map cap and the duration:
- If you want to keep zergs, you need at least 30-40 people per server. That is big enough to produce huge coverage imbalances. If you don’t like zergs, you have PvP.
- If you want to limit the time, long matchups don’t have a place (a 5 hour matchup is already long).
And that friends, is just changing the core of WvW.

That randomness will only increase when fighting different opponents. Right now I know the strategies of my servers regular opponents. I know a good chunk of their commanders and regular players and can pick them out in a fight.

This weeks tournie shows the huge differences in population even if servers just a few ranks apart from one another. If they balanced it out a bit more the tournaments would actually mean something.

Ansau.7326:

Ensign you couldn’t be more right. People here is obsessed with the idea of making WvW fair, which cannot be fair unless you change the core of WvW: 24/7, sandbox pvp world and not structured fights.
And because of thatobsession , they are willing to sacrifice the beauty, liberty and randomness of WvW just to win a massive pvp sandbox 24/7 game-mode in a more fairly way.

Sorry guys, but all I see is: Punish these servers, force those players, prioritize these timezones, deny this thing, cap here, cut there…
Is really what you want for WvW? To become the big brother of Hot-Join sPvP, but instead of points we capture structures and instead of 5vs5 we have 50vs50?

The randomness went out of WvW a long time ago. Everyone is being paired up against the same few servers every week and unless a server takes a break or decides to stay up all night, the outcome of the matchups is never surprising.

Relatively equal numbers means you will start facing different servers. This gives you different roamers to fight, different GvG matches, different zerg and defense strategies, etc.

Why would anyone not want this?

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

So when tour own server is giving you the queue, how about allowing people to guest on low-pop servers (into a tier that has to be lower than your own)?

This way people could “PUG” to boost some life into “empty” server WvW. You would never face your direct competition. It would be more casual that gold and silver tier WvW, and could be more fun for everybody.

a bunch of pugs without any loyalty to the server would lead to a ton of trolling.

Apokriphos.7042:

In World vs World, Balance is nonexistent.

Some players may like it that way. Perhaps because they enjoy greatly outnumbering their foe(s) and dancing on their poor, sword-ridden corpse. Or perhaps because they like the feeling of decimating, with certainty, whomever they come across that is of less number then they.

However, I don’t feel this is the way it should be. Players stack servers during “tournaments” so they can be on the most populated, guaranteed a high position and reward. Is that how you want your game to work?

ArenaNet, why not auto-balance WvW? You already do it to some extent with Hotjoin.

The idea will work like this:

Autobalance occurs when one color outnumbers the lowest by 10 or more.

Then all players on the large population sides are notified that – if they remain in this map they will be moved to EoTM or placed in Queue. They will have 1 minute to decide which to choose, and then forced to EoTM.

This is the idea.

The benefits of this change would greatly reduce server stacking, off-hours PvDooring, and make WvW a more balanced and also more challenging game mode – requiring more skill and less simple numerical advantage.

Example:
Green: 45
Red: 40
Blue: 38

No change.

Green: 55
Red: 40
Blue: 38

After 1 minute like this, 8 random Green players would get a pop-up telling them to please queue for another BL or move to EoTM. They could then move to another map if they so choose.

Numbers become:

Green: 47
Red:40
Blue:38

The result of this change would also allow massive groups of players to be challenged because they would know that there are almost their number on the map somewhere.

This would promote stronger organization among the servers.
It would promote more skillful gameplay.

Guilds would still be able to face off on eachother, but there would be less of an imbalance when they do so. Individual players in WvW would feel like their presence is more impactful.

What do you guys think?

This was my original thought but I’m afraid this would end up with people manipulating the score by getting a good lead and just logging off for the week. That’s why I feel a temporary hard cap is a better solution. It might suck for some people at first but in the end it would improve WvW.

Narkodx.1472:

This thead will go NOWHERE

Everyone is throwing out there ideas without reading any previous threads or building on the topics

Reminds me of the failure known as CDI

That’s okay, the best idea is in the opening post

Ebisun.9682:

Firs of all i dont read all the threats, sorry aboutt this. This is my idea, i think that its impossible but well….i wont lose anything….

Forget about the actual servers populations, and open only X servers, and forget about national servers for WvW, all international. Open a period of inscription with a cap about Y ppl, when this cap is reached at 80% of servers increase the cap another 20%(for example) and like this always. Always leaving a little margin to let the guilds move, but not letting a massive transfer of too many guilds or players to only one server. I hope that you can see the point.

If the ppl wont spread by themselves(because this will never happen) you’ll have to force it.

The problems that I see is that the ppl that are attached to one server maybe will stop playing that much and all the organization that all the servers have right now will be lost to start again. And that the game already have too much time to do something like this.

I’ve seen a couple other people post the same idea and I don’t really understand it. Why destroy all servers and then add the cap? It would end up with the same result of just lowering the cap, which would be good for the game, but it would upset a lot more people.

@ All those that have suggested free transfers and equal rewards: I wish that was enough to get people to move but it’s not. I think most of us can agree the rewards are garbage, people transfer to bandwagon servers so they can have the satisfaction of “winning” with less effort.

titanlectro.5029:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I know a lot of people don’t bother reading the whole thread so I’m going to repost this bit of what Rimmy said since I think he explained it a little better than me.

Rimmy.9217:

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

I did read that post.

I’ve been on GoM since headstart so I’ve pretty much always been a lower tier player.

That said, if my team had a 40 person limit, and so did the enemy, that would suck. It would remove an entire form of play from WvW, which is a HUGE price to pay. Perhaps you do not enjoy playing with more than 40 people, and that is your prerogative. However many people LOVE that kind of play, and that play style would be completely destroyed by this “fix.”

Sacrificing an entire play style for a fix is excessive. That is why I say the cure is worse than the disease.

It is also a temporary measure. Once the servers balance out the population can be raised as needed.

30-40 man zergs hitting each other is still a huge fight. Heck the number might be higher than that, I don’t know how many people consistently play. The average number might come out higher.

I’ve run into a couple trap rangers and just wrecked them. Once on my power ranger since I had the range/rapid fire stealth tracking, and once on my condi regen ranger. I hit him with entangle and it was game over.

I also went against 1 on my necro. Let’s just say necro is pretty much a hard counter to a trapper ranger.

I can see how that build could be pretty effective against other professions though. Too bad I’ll never get to try them out in WvW since I absolutely hate crafting.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

If that happens I think China will win lol

and then you’d read the news reports of the players that died from their week long gaming session.

titanlectro.5029:

This is the most essential part: The cure must not be worse than the disease!

If you break down the problem to its essence, it has two parts:
1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

Any effective solution has to change one of these two parts, without being worse than the disease. This rules out a lot of the proposed solutions. Some of them would even work, but would come at a terrible price.

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.
• Forcibly redistributing players until the match is balanced would fix the problem by changing #1, but the cost will be the entire existing WvW community. This makes the cure worse than the disease.
• Dramatically decreasing the WvW population limit would fix the problem by changing #2, but at the cost of removing all large group play. This makes the cure worse than the disease.

Finding a solution that will work:
I doubt that Anet or the player base really wants to make server membership involuntary (no matter how you do that, it will hurt community). Therefore if there is a solution, it must come from changing #2. Somehow, there must be more incentive to destack, than to stack.

Finding the right incentive to destack will be tricky. If you give servers monetary rewards for being the underdog, then teammates might turn against each other when they get reinforcements, because those reinforcements are reducing their rewards. While it might be tricky, it think it is doable. These rewards could be tweaked until they provide enough incentive to destack, without significant negative side-effects.

TL;DR
Because no one wants to lose their freedom, the best solution is to provide an incentive for voluntary destacking. This incentive could be some form of a precisely regulated monetary bonus to lower pop servers.

I know a lot of people don’t bother reading the whole thread so I’m going to repost this bit of what Rimmy said since I think he explained it a little better than me.

Rimmy.9217:

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

If the only points a server could score against were kills and capture/defend, it would go a long way to quell some of the issues, like blobbing and coverage. Smaller numbers could defend to earn points (successful defense) and it would be far more risky to bring a blob to capture a defended position. Smaller groups using siege/aoe would earn far more points and have far less risk against a blob. The point tick really only supports the current “issues” we see in WvW and really doesn’t condone good open world fights. In all seriousness, PPT is about the most boring way of keeping track of a winner. I’m not sure why conquest is even used for a 24/7 battle.

This isn’t a bad idea but the downed state/rally mechanic still favors server stacking and blobbing.

anzenketh.3759:

Jim Hunter.6821:

anzenketh.3759:

Lower Population caps
You install lower population caps you have people upset about not being able to play WvW especially during the weekend. This also only solves the population problem. You could adjust the population dynamically depending on how many players of the apposing team is on the map however some maps(Borderlands) however you will run into a deadlock until the apposing team decides to join the map.

I’m curious what you mean by deadlocked? If you have roughly equal numbers you can take just about anything on the map if you are good enough. From my experience playing against lower pop servers (often during off hours), this is when you find the best fights. If you build a cata outside of ac range and in a spot where a bali can’t hit, they have to run out to fight you because they don’t have the numbers to spike build a counter treb.

This means the tower/keep goes to whoever wins the open field fight. During prime time, especially against certain servers who will go unnamed, there is nothing you can do to get them to fight outside of their sup ac range.

What I meant is even with a dynamically changing population cap the number of players that you have on any one given map is determined by how many of the other servers have on said map. No side can get in more players until both servers increase in said population.

I agree. That’s why I am for a hard cap. Figure out the average number of players across all servers and divide by the number of servers, then divide again by 4 for each map. Slightly raise the number to account for fluctuations. That should be the new map cap.

People can spread out so there is fairly equal numbers on all the servers or they can EotM/sit in queue while more balanced fights are taking place.

I do like the idea of offering incentives to move away from the blob though.

Outmanned should be the higher server loses their downed state, get’s insta rezzed at spawn, and the server with the buff gets bloodlust points for those kills.

Maybe also introduce diminishing returns for the amount of people around you. Like anything under X amount of players offers more Wxp, better drops, etc.

Somewhat unrelated but I think you should be awarded more points for taking objectives from whoever is leading in PPT, and the objectives of whoever is 2nd in PPT should be worth slightly more than who’s in 3rd. This might help maintain some balance to the fights rather than 2 servers steam rolling the last place server.

Fluffball.8307:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Of course they are both a total joke in a 1v1 fight.

I ran solo LB for ages before the buff (or was “they” referring to baby rangers?)

It’s probably a lot harder to get away with now. Before the latest update many people didn’t know: 1) we had a short CD stealth on LB, 2) what RF even did, 3) were only vaguely aware of what PBS did, 4) thought LB didn’t hit hard, 5) weren’t aware we could chain a whole lot of CC to keep LB hitting hard from range, 6) we had lots of defensive options up close.

I swear 99% of my kills on my WvW panel are from people not even knowing that rangers were allowed to play GW2. Now we change a single skill and everyone is studying every nuance of how to kill rangers. I’ve even seen posts by people going on about how dangerous barrage is, when a few weeks ago barrage apparently didn’t do any damage at all.

Was absolutely referring to the baby rangers. Power ranger has been my favorite build since beta. I made a second ranger because I have my build fine tuned just the way I like it and I don’t want to screw with it.

Of course my build isn’t the “full glass, throw all utilities and traits into 1 mega burst” build the baby rangers are running. That’s why I kill every one of them I come across.

I would really love to be able to turn off my pet when fighting a thief. pets are ridiculously easy to cloak and dagger off of.

Chrispy.5641:

Long Range Shot is a lot stronger than Fierce Shot, at any Range. Fierce Shot grants bonus adrenaline though, setting up Kill Shot faster, but Kill Shot is easy to spot because of the unique warrior animation. Advantage : Ranger

Warriors have Rifle Butt, but we have Point Blank Shot, which we can use it all the way out to 1,200 range traited (900 untraited). Warrior’s Rifle Butt is always 130 range. Advantage : Ranger

Warriors have Brutal Shot. It applies 8 vulnerability on a 15 second cooldown. That aspect of our weapon is already rolled into Rapid Fire, which my numbers show is already stronger than Volley, even without the added Vulnerability. This means Rangers have an extra skill they can use…Barrage. Advantage : Ranger.

Warriors have Aimed Shot that causes Cripple. Rangers have Hunter’s Shot, which applies stealth to us, and swiftness to the pet. Advantage : Tie (only because these two skills can’t be compared)

We get an extra skill, Barrage, because the vulnerability skill is already rolled into Rapid Fire. Its not the greatest skill, but you can combine that cripple with Predator’s onslaught and Rapid Fire to deal an extra 1500+ damage. Its one of the most basic combos we have now with the Longbow. Easy to see and get away from (barrage is a pretty good indicator to stay away), but still, Warrior doesn’t have this option because his ‘Rapid Fire’ is broken into two skills, unlike us. Advantage : Ranger

Warrior gets the Kill Shot Burst Skill as part of their class mechanic, which is way more telegraphed than Rapid Fire or Barrage, and its the only Burst Skill the Warrior gets on the rifle. Rangers however, can customize their Class mechanic however they want and can choose from dozens of pets, each with their own unique skill, and its independent on any of our weapons. (I could go on to say that Thief’s Steal skill depends on the target, Engineer’s Tool belt depends on utility skills, Elementalist’s attunements limit their weapon choices to almost nothing, and the other three classes always have the same set F1-4 skills.). Our class mechanic is arguably the most broken, most bugged, and usually the most useless (especially in PvP/WvW), and Anet doesn’t seem to want to fix it anytime soon, but you can’t deny the options we get compared to other professions. Advantage : (in a perfect world) Definitely Ranger. (In our current state) Still Ranger, because of how obvious Kill shot it. I see your kill shot and raise you stealth Jaguar.

Who wins between a Rifle Warrior and a Longbow Ranger? Its going to be Ranger, every time. The Warrior Rifle is way weaker than the Longbow unless you get lucky/are good at ambushes with Kill shot.

Does this Make Rangers OP? Not Exactly. It just shows that Warrior Rifle is underpowered, and Warriors should be a little more proactive in their Rifle complaints. Its one of their only Ranged weapons, and its only use is building up adrenaline….and pot shots with kill shot.

Your analysis is all personal opinion. A full zerk rifle warrior will be a lot less glassy than a full zerk ranger.
Fast hands and GS allows them to reposition and get right back in the action a lot more easily than a ranger can.
Warriors have a utility to make their shots unlockable.
Rangers LB burst is entirely rapid fire. Warrior had volley and kill shot.

I’m not trying to argue that rifle warrior is a great build but a group of yolo rifle warriors would be just as devastating as a group of baby rangers.

Of course they are both a total joke in a 1v1 fight.

Yenn.9185:

Make sense. Force the big guilds to transfer out of T1 so they can get all their members in WvW.

Exactly. Adapt or find a server where they can all hop in a map together (which helps balance the population)

No servers are being destroyed and no one is being forced to do anything. Heck this might even lead to people using EotM for what it was supposedly designed for, giving us a place to fight while waiting in queue.

The Pied Piper.9827:

The thing about lowering the map population cap is that there are big guilds that will go into WvW. If the server population is to low they will just lock down the whole map and no one else can get in.

Or the map gets full of randoms and servers can not get their commanders in to lead. You have to make the cap big enough to allow guilds, randoms, scouts and commandors to be able to join in.

Yeah the point is to make them spread out. Once the population starts to even out the limit can be raised a little bit at a time. Guilds can still work together they just have to break into squads and coordinate attacks.

The game mode is stagnant right now. Everyone is facing the same few servers and the outcomes are rarely surprising . Putting all the servers on an equal footing will add some much needed variety to WvW.

Ohoni.6057:

Why not just make the buff you get when there are more of the enemy around stronger? Like if one server fields 70 people on the map, while the other side only fields 25, then the 25 players are all the equivalent of Vet+2 mobs or something, each capable of taking on 2-3 enemy players. Likewise, bases and such would have stronger NPC defenses, meaning you don’t need to keep them all manned. Maybe even have special WPs all over the map that become contested based on how many players are on the map, allowing an outmatched team to bop around the map freely and be wherever the action is, while the ones with the significant numerical advantage would move much more ponderously.

Obviously characters inside the main forts, just using the facilities would not be counted towards the total number of players active on the map.

I can take on 2-3 players now. The problem is the rally mechanic make it a pain in the kitten . What would really make the outmanned buff effective is if the higher number server lost their downed state and instantly ressed at spawn. That would really even the odds for skill groups to take out much larger groups.

storiessave.3807:

If a server merge were to even be considered, I would be vehemently against any way about it that “deletes” the most populated servers and redistributes the players on them, or any way that would otherwise break up server populations as a whole.

I like my server. I don’t want to lose my server identity – the only place we have server identities now is in WvW, so please don’t ruin that.

I think some lower tier servers would do well with a merge, but how many servers to merge together, and which, is the question. You don’t want a stacked server that has literally no non-NA players, just as you wouldn’t want an OCX-SEA-only server.

About population caps…no. Just no. I have been outnumbered on maps before, and yes, it sucks to not have enough people on to take on an enemy zerg that’s attacking your keep, but it would be the worst change in the world for tier 1 to have population caps.

Maybe this would be viable in lower populated servers, but it would ruin us. I like that servers have their strong time zones and weak time zones (and yes, this is coming from someone on TC who regularly goes up against JQ. Both servers have certain well-known weak periods in coverage). It makes the fight that much more fun.

The lower tiers feel just as strongly about their server identities. That is why I suggested lowering the server cap, that prevents us from completely losing any servers.

I’m sure there are some players on tier 1 servers that have been there since launch and would never want to leave, but I know there are a ton more that hopped on the bandwagon at the start of each tournie that don’t have the same loyalty. These would be the players that would end up moving when faced with the option of playing somewhere else or sitting in queue.

anzenketh.3759:

Lower Population caps
You install lower population caps you have people upset about not being able to play WvW especially during the weekend. This also only solves the population problem. You could adjust the population dynamically depending on how many players of the apposing team is on the map however some maps(Borderlands) however you will run into a deadlock until the apposing team decides to join the map.

I’m curious what you mean by deadlocked? If you have roughly equal numbers you can take just about anything on the map if you are good enough. From my experience playing against lower pop servers (often during off hours), this is when you find the best fights. If you build a cata outside of ac range and in a spot where a bali can’t hit, they have to run out to fight you because they don’t have the numbers to spike build a counter treb.

This means the tower/keep goes to whoever wins the open field fight. During prime time, especially against certain servers who will go unnamed, there is nothing you can do to get them to fight outside of their sup ac range.

Chrispy.5641:

I’m not sure who the hell did the math comparing Volley and Rapid Fire, and I couldn’t find it, so I am going to show you my own math:::

Skill breakdown
Rapid Fire = 10 projectiles. Each projectile has a coefficient of 0.375
There is also 10 stacks of vulnerability applied. 1 on each projectile.
20% projectile finisher chance.

Volley = 5 projectiles. Each projectile has a coefficient of 0.6
20% projectile finisher chance.

Total Damage (@3000 power)
[only including power scaling, not weapon power, critical damage, or armor in the calculation, so the number will appear a little high. For this calculation, the power scaling is all that’s important for now anyways)

Rapid Fire = Each projectile does (3000×0.375=1125) damage, for a total of 11,250

• As an added bonus, each stack of vulnerability actually increases damage slightly for each projectile, showing a noticeable damage increase by your last projectile.
• first projectile does 1125
• second projectile does 1136
• third projectile does 1147
• fourth projectile does 1158
• fifth projectile does 1170
• sixth projectile does 1181
• seventh projectile does 1192
• eighth projectile does 1203
• ninth projectile does 1215
• tenth projectile does 1226
• Total damage = 11753 damage.

Volley = Each projectile does 1800 damage, for a total of 9000 damage.

This means that Volley is actually 76.5% as Strong as Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire IS NOT 10% stronger than Volley. Its actually closer to 30% stronger. You can actually consider Rapid Fire even stronger when you consider that Rapid Fire has twice as many chances for Projectile Finishers as Volley does.

Lets Quash that statement that Rapid fire does the same damage as Volley, right now. Its not True.

Does this mean that Rangers are OP? Not necessarily. Rangers should have an advantage with Ranged weapons, considering that, not including offhand, 3/5 of our weapons are ranged (Longbow/Shortbow/Axe). The problem is that the advantage starts to get out of control when you start throwing other aspects of the Ranger class into the mix, such as Signet of the Wild.

You can’t ignore the fact warriors rifle has kill shot as well. Kill shot is also 1500 range and is just as deadly for people that aren’t paying attention, don’t know how to dodge, or just think ranged builds are unfair so they aren’t going to bring skills to counter them.

Sharpoon.8197:

Population caps: Don’t do it. Reducing the caps on WvW maps will not solve any issue because coverage is where the issue stems from. People want to be on a server that has coverage so their population inadvertently rises, thus creating the imbalance. Even if map caps are reduced, off-peak population is not big enough that the queues would be a problem anyway, especially with EotM now in the picture.

They could also lower the population cap even more during off hours. Teach some of these oceanic players how to fight other players instead of doors.

Sharpoon.8197:

Merge servers: Could certainly work but it won’t solve the issue either. First you must understand that higher populated servers have more coverage (eg. Jade Quarry is known for their very large Taiwanese playerbase) than low populated servers (eg. Ferguson’s Crossing and Ehmry Bay don’t have a non-NA playerbase). So merging 2 low populated servers will only just create a larger populated server, which still lacks coverage.

Ehmry Bay actually has a pretty strong Oceanic crew (unless they lost it right before the tourney) and FC recently got their own crew.

Sharpoon.8197:

I think there is certainly a lot of benefits to server mergers, but it won’t solve the problems in WvW unless the number of servers are severely reduced. If just a couple of server are merged, you’ll still have the same problems as now, but with less servers. Only if the number of servers are severely reduced to the point that there will be around ~12 servers for each region, will the effects of coverage be lessened on population imbalance. Because at that point I think that there will be enough active players in the game that any remaining imbalance won’t be so extreme like it is now.

If servers do get merged: I don’t think anyone would really care about having to play with their “mortal enemies”. I’ve seen plenty of former rivals eventually winding up on the same server and dropping any of the bad blood they used to have. We all play the game to have fun.

Couldn’t disagree more. All the regular WvW players on my server have had this discussion in the past and they agreed that they would quit the game before being merged with certain servers.

Sharpoon.8197:

Choosing which ones to merge is easy, just take the lowest ranked ones. They have the lowest active wvw population. I’d say get a fresh start with some new servers (new names) to merge the old ones into. Perhaps let the people from servers that are about to get merged choose which of the new servers they would go to?

It would make a lot more sense to remove the top tier servers since they have the largest population and make them spread out among the rest. The majority of the players on the lower tiers have been there since they started playing. Can BG say the same?

Still the better solution would be to lower the population limits instead of destroying servers all together. This would have the same result of evening out the population but it would leave us with more opponents to fight.

Xillllix.3485:

DanSH.6143:

Avoiding Rapid Fire in 5 Easy Steps
3) dodge/ block/teleport/stealth/reflect/daze/stun/fear/knockback/knockdown/pull/apply retaliation/apply protection/apply burst to fold the ranger/use LoS/use evade skills.

As for all skills, but why should your skills make twice more damage faster and at a longer range than mine? Makes no sense.

Why have variety at all right? Let’s just give everyone pillows. Pillow Wars 2!

nirvana.8245:

The problem is your posting “a solution” to something that the majority of players and Anet do not think is “a problem that needs to be resolved”.

You think so? Because I don’t think I’ve ever looked at these forums without seeing several threads complaining about stale matchups, population imbalance and how WvW is dying.

I can’t count how many times that I’ve seen the same “merge the servers” thread. This offers a solution to what they are looking for in those threads, while at the same time offering an increased chance of fighting more servers, rather than stuffing everyone into 6 mega blob servers.

Valik Shin.9027:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Valik Shin.9027:

U do realize that there r guild capable of fielding 40 by them self right? What r they suppose to do?

I do realize this. They could do what my guild does and split into smaller groups and hit multiple objectives while coordinating attacks on TS.

Or they could transfer tgoo ET. They have the space.

So ur gonna force guild to change the way they enjoy playing? They are the life blood of gw2. If they cripple them then gw2 will collapse

Look at the scores right now. Server stacking is what is killing WvW. With equal numbers you would actually get to fight every server instead of the same 3 or 4. People would be less likely to rage quit because they are tired of fighting vastly superior numbers every time they log on.

If you win it would be due to skill, not just boots on the ground. I play on bronze and I’ve hopped on a friends account and played on BG. With relatively equal numbers ET would absolutely destroy BG.

Jeknar.6184:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

I think we’re talking a realistic limit of like 8 people per map. Most servers have a single small zerg that bounces between maps based on threats.

It would have to be a limit per all 4 maps I guess to not break that playstyle.

Lol I don’t think it’s that bad just yet. Even in tier 7/8 the servers could field around 30 per map. I personally think bringing a little balance to WvW and forcing people to use a bit of strategy instead of just outmanning the other servers might get a lot of people playing again.

Even if your server doesn’t have 50 people on the map and another one does, it will still limit the massive zergs that can just melt down towers and keeps. If a server wants to get in a 50 man blob they will likely lose everything to smaller groups that cap things around them.

I’m curious to know which T7-T8 server can field 30 people per map… Mine can barely put 2 zergs up on primetime…

Your reset night numbers say different. I’d be willing to bet a lot of your fairweather/reset night players might hop in to WvW a lot more often if they knew they were going to fight somewhat even numbers.

Razor.9872:

There are already several threads pertaining to this topic. Please contribute before creating.

There are also several rebuttals to this opinion. Please read before raging.

Finally, if fighting zerker rangers is so hard for you, maybe you should stay away from builds such as…oh, I don’t know…this one you made.

This made my night. +1

Valik Shin.9027:

U do realize that there r guild capable of fielding 40 by them self right? What r they suppose to do?

I do realize this. They could do what my guild does and split into smaller groups and hit multiple objectives while coordinating attacks on TS.

Or they could transfer to ET. They have the space.

There is one thing every competitive sport and/or game has in common: even number teams. Here is a quote to a running conversation that needs to be read by the dev’s.

I welcome all feedback on this idea except for “WvW isn’t meant to be balanced”
That is something that bandwagon scrubs tell themselves so that they can feel good about winning at the expense of what could be a fantastic game mode.

Deli.1302:

]Anet knows this is broken and CAN’T do anything to fix it. They have no idea how to fix it.

\:

That’s because it cannot be fixed.

Fluffball.8307:

No it definitely can

Deli.1302:

ok pls tell me how

Jim Hunter.6821:

Lower the population limit so each server could only field 50 per map. The servers will balance themselves out and the game would turn into skill>population.

I like this idea too, make the limit of how many can be on map MUCH lower, something obscenely lower like fifty! I like it – I vote yes![/quote]

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

Only T1 servers can get anywhere close to fielding 50 people per map, and we’ve already seen the queue times are not enough to get people to move to lower ranked servers rather than being carried to a win on a high ranked server.

50 was just a number grabbed out of the air. You could easily say 30 or 40. The idea is to put everyone on a level playing field. If people would rather sit in queue than transfer that is their choice to make. Once the servers start balancing themselves out the population limit can be incrementally raised.

An added bonus is this would probably reduce lag and skill delay.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

I think we’re talking a realistic limit of like 8 people per map. Most servers have a single small zerg that bounces between maps based on threats.

It would have to be a limit per all 4 maps I guess to not break that playstyle.

Lol I don’t think it’s that bad just yet. Even in tier 7/8 the servers could field around 30 per map. I personally think bringing a little balance to WvW and forcing people to use a bit of strategy instead of just outmanning the other servers might get a lot of people playing again.

Even if your server doesn’t have 50 people on the map and another one does, it will still limit the massive zergs that can just melt down towers and keeps. If a server wants to get in a 50 man blob they will likely lose everything to smaller groups that cap things around them.

sparc.3649:

^ this ^

I think the lower the number allowed on the maps the better. This will likely help force people to split up into smaller groups just as Jim stated. Split up into different groups or face losing all your stuff to the server that does!

Think about how much more fun it would be if you were facing every other server and the rankings were actually based on skill rather than population. Sorry if I misquoted anyone above, it was sloppy cut and paste work.

Brujeria.7536:

You over exaggarate this point. I mean a warrior should not be forced to pick a GS to have any chance against a ranger. A mesmer should not be forced to use offhand torch and stealth traits to have a chance.

A warrior isn’t forced to use GS. It can equip shield and block or trait for reflects, it can use off hand sword and block, it can use warhorn and grant vigor for extra dodge rolls, it can use any of the many extremely useful utility skills.

Or it can be useless like you suggested and just die because apparently there is no point in adapting to a build that gives you a hard time.

Your argument is looking more and more like, " I like my build and don’t want to adapt to something different so they should nerf it."

I think the next CDI should be for the dervish or ritualist

Seriously when are we going to get a new profession?

Brujeria.7536:

Atherakhia.4086:

Brujeria.7536

Its the fact that the range is much higher, and the weapon set boasts even more tools to maintain that range. The OP doesnt come from this skill alone, its the weaponset in general. To balance rapid fire for this amount of power and survivability in the ranger longbow set you would need to reduce its damage by ~ 40% as well as increasing the cooldown by 40%.

And again I can’t help but question why?

What class are you playing where the Ranger has enough tools to maintain a range advantage against you? Because it can’t be Thief, Warrior, or Ele. It can’t be Engi, Mesmer or Ranger because they’re all ranged classes. This leaves Guardians, which should have very little difficulty against Rangers or Necromancer which were designed specifically to be the slowest class in the game.

We already know the damage isn’t the problem because Volley does the same damage and have similar vulnerability effectiveness despite the attacks being split. Both weapons also have a knockback which you’re now aledging is the problem, but instead of nerfing that to be 600 range instead of 900, you’re still harping on RF.

I’m just not seeing it, and I honestly feel RF is a bit much, but what everyone’s proposing in this thread is the absolutely destruction of a class that has been absolutely useless as a power build for 2 years and has only been barely functional (no where near competetive) for a week.

Want to be realistic?

Drop RF’s damage by about 5-10% so it is about equal to volley at that point.

Change SotW to only 10% for the Ranger instead of 25%.

Put the telegraph on PBS so it’s more easily recognized at a distance (someone mentioned the black arrow disappears with the EE trait, I’ve never tested?).

Change ALL projectiles (including Engineer grenades, Necro fields will now despawn/fade, traps etc) to be much closer to their identified max range.

And that’s it. The class will continue to be trash like you want it to be because it’s now a 1 trick pony for ranged burst and ANet can ignore all the remaining legitimate issues like they’ve done the past 2 years and we’ve now covered every legitimate argument that has been raised in this thread and every other over the past week.

Necromancer for example. You cant get close enough to do much if the ranger is smart. It doenst matter if condi or power.

Warrior to a degree – if hes not using GS. Lets say a Rifle and Axe/Axe warrior for example. Would have a very hard time getting close, he still can have his immunities regardless of his weapons, but the ranger can easily stealth and then switching to GS and leap away, waiting till the stances are over and resetting the fight. The warrior has no real counterplay to that, he can safe his blocks and stances untill he can fully engage but the ranger easily keeps the range and killing the warrior with RF as well as AA, both hit very very hard in a power build. Even IF the ranger should do a mistake he still has a 6 sec invulnerability or lighting reflexes to get out if he pleases.

Guardian actualy has the kinda same problems, but can block / aegis the CC effects a little better, basicly can handle the pressure better, + has some really good gapclosers at hand that dont rely on a projectile.

Any mesmer without PU / stealth centric has the same problem.

These are just examples, but basicly ANY class that doesnt have a gapcloser or stealth built in the used build can only loose in a open field fight if the ranger is of equal skill. These is not a factor of “outplaying”, this is simply a complete lack of reasonable counterplay. Nobody would complain about loosing against a good ranger, nobody would complain about getting outplayed by skill, but people will always complain about something they simply cant do anything in the first place. If a fight is basicly GG before it started because i play a necromancer and happen to see a longbow ranger something is terrible wrong.

So your argument is if players using these professions decided not to use any of the weapons, traits, or utility skills that would help them beat a ranger the fight is unfair.

That is like me saying that I decided not to wear armor so it is unfair that the other players are hitting me so hard. I demand everyone gets a nerf to damage so I can run around in WvW naked!

Fluffball.8307:

I think we’re talking a realistic limit of like 8 people per map. Most servers have a single small zerg that bounces between maps based on threats.

It would have to be a limit per all 4 maps I guess to not break that playstyle.

Lol I don’t think it’s that bad just yet. Even in tier 7/8 the servers could field around 30 per map. I personally think bringing a little balance to WvW and forcing people to use a bit of strategy instead of just outmanning the other servers might get a lot of people playing again.

Even if your server doesn’t have 50 people on the map and another one does, it will still limit the massive zergs that can just melt down towers and keeps. If a server wants to get in a 50 man blob they will likely lose everything to smaller groups that cap things around them.

Fluffball.8307:

I think we’re talking a realistic limit of like 8 people per map. Most servers have a single small zerg that bounces between maps based on threats.

It would have to be a limit per all 4 maps I guess to not break that playstyle.

Lol I don’t think it’s that bad just yet. Even in tier 7/8 the servers could field around 30 per map. I personally think bringing a little balance to WvW and forcing people to use a bit of strategy instead of just outmanning the other servers might get a lot of people playing again.

Even if your server doesn’t have 50 people on the map and another one does, it will still limit the massive zergs that can just melt down towers and keeps. If a server wants to get in a 50 man blob they will likely lose everything to smaller groups that cap things around them.

Fluffball.8307:

Only T1 servers can get anywhere close to fielding 50 people per map, and we’ve already seen the queue times are not enough to get people to move to lower ranked servers rather than being carried to a win on a high ranked server.

50 was just a number grabbed out of the air. You could easily say 30 or 40. The idea is to put everyone on a level playing field. If people would rather sit in queue than transfer that is their choice to make. Once the servers start balancing themselves out the population limit can be incrementally raised.

An added bonus is this would probably reduce lag and skill delay.

This build is dangerous to low mobility condi bunkers and anyone running full glass. It makes people run more balanced builds and actually put some consideration into ways of countering ranged weapons.

Rangers aren’t OP because they are still easy to kill if you know what you are doing. All this is doing is shaking up the roaming meta, which is something the game needed.

Brujeria.7536:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Brujeria.7536:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Brujeria.7536:

The problem is not rapid fire alone.

Its everything else as well. Knockback, stealth, heavy damage AA on longbow, 2 pets with individual CC, second weapon sets with 2 different weapon options to quickly create distance, invulnerability signet, easy accessible CC or more utlility skills to create gaps easy.

None of this is new. Why weren’t these a problem for you 2 weeks ago?

Brujeria.7536:

Its not that you cant kill an ranger if you get close and CC him, its the amount of tools he has to maintain his comfortable range. Rapid fire deals the highest burst damage currently on the game, from a extreme range with a short cooldown.

Wait.. what? It’s the highest burst in game now? I’ll just add that to the list of ridiculous things people have said about rangers lately.

It has no real counter. Not every class has access to reflect or blocks. Not every class has reliable gap closers. Not every class has stealth or escape skills. Not every class has reliable ranged damage.

The counters have been listed many times over. You just listed several of them in that quote. Each class doesn’t have access to all of the counters but they each have access to at least 1. The choice is use them and laugh at how fast the glass rangers die or cry on the forums. 1 of these choices will make you a better player, the other involves crying, choose wisely.

They werent a problem because the damage was rather justified for the range and amount of defensive measures the longbow delivered. All it needed was a slight channel reduction and thats it. Along with the trait changes and signet changes this made it vastly overpowered.

And yes, rangers currently have the highest burst, at the biggest range with a very short cooldown, furthermore many flat % damage increase modifiers, on demand quickness, stability and a 25% damage increase from signets if they wish to, in any gamemode but PVE their burst it by far the most reliable, constistend and safest to use. These are no exaggerations, these are facts. Look at the base damage, look at the modifiers, look at the uptimes, look at the general damage increase via traits and skills.

There is currently no counter option for necromancers against any halfway decent ranger. Regardless of condi or power necro. Stop bullkittenting, youre obviously a ranger player.

I have every profession leveled to 80 primarily through WvW roaming. I actually have 2 rangers, 1 condi and 1 power. What I don’t have is a problem killing glass rangers with any of my characters, even my necro.

necro’s can use minions to LoS, use either of their 1200 range teleports to close the gap (I know the teleports are lackluster but they do exist) or just dodge roll/face tank the damage in DS to get in 1200 range and then melt then with conditions. I’ve killed dozens of rangers with my necro since the patch.

If you really want to complain about a hard counter try playing as an engi vs a necro.

I do know its possible to beat them, but only if the ranger does not know what to do. You can trick them with spectral walk, or with a wurm teleport, but any smart ranger can see it easily coming and waiting for it to wear of and simply knocking you back after the wurm port, wurm has a 40 second cooldown, the knockback has much less.

I am not talking about the rangers that just stand still and press 2 and then use 5 and call it a day, im talking about rangers that know their skillset and play it to the most efficient point.

Even if you should manage to facetank with DS to get close they can always switch to GS and leap away, leaving you in DS wasting your lifeforce by decay as well as reseting the fight – and the rangers cooldowns for creating space are much shorter then any means a necromancer could bring to close the gap.

So your complaint is about rangers that outplay you. All of this has nothing to do with the patch, this was just as easy for a good ranger to do before. Just like a good necro could find a way to beat a ranger before.

The big difference is rangers are actually easier for a necro to beat then before because you can dodge through more of rapid fire.

Brujeria.7536:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Brujeria.7536:

The problem is not rapid fire alone.

Its everything else as well. Knockback, stealth, heavy damage AA on longbow, 2 pets with individual CC, second weapon sets with 2 different weapon options to quickly create distance, invulnerability signet, easy accessible CC or more utlility skills to create gaps easy.

None of this is new. Why weren’t these a problem for you 2 weeks ago?

Brujeria.7536:

Its not that you cant kill an ranger if you get close and CC him, its the amount of tools he has to maintain his comfortable range. Rapid fire deals the highest burst damage currently on the game, from a extreme range with a short cooldown.

Wait.. what? It’s the highest burst in game now? I’ll just add that to the list of ridiculous things people have said about rangers lately.

It has no real counter. Not every class has access to reflect or blocks. Not every class has reliable gap closers. Not every class has stealth or escape skills. Not every class has reliable ranged damage.

The counters have been listed many times over. You just listed several of them in that quote. Each class doesn’t have access to all of the counters but they each have access to at least 1. The choice is use them and laugh at how fast the glass rangers die or cry on the forums. 1 of these choices will make you a better player, the other involves crying, choose wisely.

They werent a problem because the damage was rather justified for the range and amount of defensive measures the longbow delivered. All it needed was a slight channel reduction and thats it. Along with the trait changes and signet changes this made it vastly overpowered.

And yes, rangers currently have the highest burst, at the biggest range with a very short cooldown, furthermore many flat % damage increase modifiers, on demand quickness, stability and a 25% damage increase from signets if they wish to, in any gamemode but PVE their burst it by far the most reliable, constistend and safest to use. These are no exaggerations, these are facts. Look at the base damage, look at the modifiers, look at the uptimes, look at the general damage increase via traits and skills.

There is currently no counter option for necromancers against any halfway decent ranger. Regardless of condi or power necro. Stop bullkittenting, youre obviously a ranger player.

I have every profession leveled to 80 primarily through WvW roaming. I actually have 2 rangers, 1 condi and 1 power. What I don’t have is a problem killing glass rangers with any of my characters, even my necro.

necro’s can use minions to LoS, use either of their 1200 range teleports to close the gap (I know the teleports are lackluster but they do exist) or just dodge roll/face tank the damage in DS to get in 1200 range and then melt then with conditions. I’ve killed dozens of rangers with my necro since the patch.

If you really want to complain about a hard counter try playing as an engi vs a necro.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Necro’s still say hi..

Reminder…

Hell, condi-bombing with a necro’s Signet of Spite wrecks them instantly, because they have no way to get rid of those conditions.

Ah.. so i approach the ranger with my sluggish condi build and cast my signet of spite.
Got it.
And here i was thinking i could use another build in the grand kitten nal of the necromancer.

Silly me.

you see a ranger near by just equip your golem and use it to LoS them. Or you could just forward dodge/ face tank in DS to get into 1200 range. Once you close the distance on them the fight is over.

But i wanna press a button to do what all other professions do..

(btw.. just pointing out the weakness of necro’s )

You technically do have two 1200 range teleports. Sorry they are both kind of crappy.

Brujeria.7536:

The problem is not rapid fire alone.

Its everything else as well. Knockback, stealth, heavy damage AA on longbow, 2 pets with individual CC, second weapon sets with 2 different weapon options to quickly create distance, invulnerability signet, easy accessible CC or more utlility skills to create gaps easy.

None of this is new. Why weren’t these a problem for you 2 weeks ago?

Brujeria.7536:

Its not that you cant kill an ranger if you get close and CC him, its the amount of tools he has to maintain his comfortable range. Rapid fire deals the highest burst damage currently on the game, from a extreme range with a short cooldown.

Wait.. what? It’s the highest burst in game now? I’ll just add that to the list of ridiculous things people have said about rangers lately.

It has no real counter. Not every class has access to reflect or blocks. Not every class has reliable gap closers. Not every class has stealth or escape skills. Not every class has reliable ranged damage.

The counters have been listed many times over. You just listed several of them in that quote. Each class doesn’t have access to all of the counters but they each have access to at least 1. The choice is use them and laugh at how fast the glass rangers die or cry on the forums. 1 of these choices will make you a better player, the other involves crying, choose wisely.