Guild Wars 2

This is a great patch. Blast finisher is one of the things I have been calling for loudest. One blast finisher is not enough I don’t think considering how much synergy with other players we give up to synergize with the pet, but it’s a really great start.

Longbow changes are awesome, I’m happy to try them out and might even whip out my power build gear for a while again.

Remorseless change is good, I guess, but I still have major issue with that entire line of minor traits in the Power skills tree. I think it’s subpar when compared to other classes, and if you DON’T take remorseless I think they are completely worthless. I won’t stop campaigning to see that Power line completely re-done, but overall this is a really excellent patch.

Open field fighting is an Ehmry Bay specialty and we have several guilds that get recognition wherever they go. If you are looking for brothers in arms to execute sick and twisted tactics with that make your opponents die a little inside at the sight of your tag, that’s your choice. We have a great community and do lots of cross guild coordinated events.

However, EBay has probably the worst off hour coverage anywhere above the bottom 5 or 6 servers. So if off hour coverage is super important to you then I guess you should choose a server likely to face off against us so that you can test your skills.

Happy hunting!

Edit – missed some relevant info. We have 3 large (350-500) WvW dedicated guilds as well as many medium and smaller ones. In NA coverage periods we are especially looking for smaller forces to augment our own, not necessarily a crew that can hold a map but one that can augment an existing forces efforts.

Our off hours crew is a conglomeration of the majority of our off hours members from other guilds under one common tag for communication purposes only. No rep required. Although the presence is small, if your nighttime players were willing to join that they would always find at least a small crew to work with, they would never be totally alone. Any additions in the 1am-6am timeframe would also help us address our biggest gap, no matter how few they all help tremendously.

Our one request for incoming guilds is that at least their leaders be willing to use TS to,communicate with the rest of the server for coordination. If everyone can join that’s ideal. Its public and free and we have dedicated guild and borderland channels to help communication.

This matchup has been really amazing to watch from the outside… score evolution and forum watching.

I wish there was a way to go into other matches in spectator mode. Does Darkhaven have one final push in it tonight? 6k isn’t an insurmountable lead, but Yaks can turtle up pretty kitten well too… would make for great twitch tv!

Actinotus.6410:

For SoS next week:

1. FA
2. Ebay

This for EBay as well, or SoS + Maguuma.

I would suggest one of the servers ranked 7-9. We all have decent NA coverage, some more than others. All 3 communities are really solid from what I have experienced. SoS and Mags both have superior non-na coverage to EBay, so if re-capping a homeland when you log in is something you are opposed to doing then don’t pick EBay.

Our 3 servers regularly face T2servers that will field large scale battles such as you never have experienced before on AR, but also face servers like Yaks Bend or Kaineng where the numbers are a lot smaller and there’s tons of small scale encounters to be had. Its a really great mix and every week brings a new challenge.

Good luck finding your new home.

Shortbow overall is a condition based weapon, but on a full zerker setup the damage on auto attack can be amazing. With 100% crit damage and fury boosting crit chance you lay down 1k+ hits at a staggering rate on basically anyone. Of course, you die if they sneeze in your general direction, but the damage output is really nice.

It’s a pretty decent setup for a megazerg where skill lag stops everything but auto attack

Go to NSP or IoJ. They both could use your help. I’ve never faced IoJ, but from reading some of their matchup threads it seems like they have decent off hours coverage in comparison to the servers they face. You would likely be a great asset there, and I know for a fact that the servers they are running against aren’t fielding zergs like you would see from who SBI has faced in T4 upwards.

Darkhaven looks like it’s on the rise a bit too, and would probably appreciate another guild. Or if you guys are feeling REALLY adventurous, why not go help out ET or FC? Someone’s gotta take the leap and help them out of the basement… why not be the pioneers?

You would likely fit in well with EBay’s NA crew, but we don’t fit your requirement of off hour coverage. We also love our battles against the 4-6 servers regardless of the score and waking up to no keeps, so you probably don’t want to fit into the direction we are heading. I’d say if you are trying to sidestep the bigger zergs you would want to avoid everyone down to at least #9 because even if you are on a server with coverage you are going to likely get squared off against a server that has massive zerg capabilities every other week, which doesn’t fit your criteria.

Good luck and I hope you find a great new home!

Got to play for a little while this morning, had a couple opportunities to battle 1v1 with TC players in the southeastern part of EBay BL. So the solo fighters do exist if you look for em!

Zinrae.3769:

The problem with this is that because of where the tiers break up, in order for someone from t4 to come down to t5 for a week, either SBI or BP will have to go up to t4. This will leave a weaker server in the third slot in t5, which always makes it easier for the strongest server to dominate, and they may not lose many points.

I’d still like to try it just for fun though. Bring on Kain/SBI/DH!

Looks like all my wishes came true! BP keeping pace with Yaks is a small surprise, but not totally unexpected. I’m happy they are getting to prove themselves. DH also keeping pace I didn’t expect. Keep it up guys! SBI, too bad you also got SoS just because that’s already a familiar match, but again shows that the gap wasn’t as big as it looked.

Loving the match with TC and DB, tons of fun on reset and this morning.I really hope we get TC again in the near future. Reset night was probably the most fun and challenging night of WvW ever.

Can we shelve the 2v1 talk for the week? Ehmry came into this matchup eyes wide open that coverage was going to take away our stuff for at roughly 50% of the day all week, and this is not what a real double team looks like.

Week 17, EBay, Borliss Pass, Anvil Rock. Faced with weeks of losing and no real hope of turning the tides BP and AR spent 1 entire week allied and focusing on the larger server – EBay. Shared comms systems and bolstering of each others forces and morale in the matchup thread… that is what a double team looks like. Anything short of that is 2 smart servers taking advantage of a circumstance presented by weakness or poor planning on the part of the 3rd.

Hickeroar.9734:

I always get confused. I mean…..shouldn’t we all be bragging that our zergs are BIGGER than the competition, not smaller?

YOUR ZERGS BIGGER THAN MINE!!!

NO YOUR……oh wait….no, you’re right mine IS bigger! HAHA!!! Suck it!

Hah, good point. It’s always about who’s is bigger on the internet isn’t it?

Well, that’s a night for me. Great reset guys. pk had a blast in DB’s BL. Great fights all around, thanks for the fun. Wish I wasn’t tied up all weekend… this looks like it’s gonna be the best week ever.

timidobserver.7925:

Assuming that this keeps up for the rest of the week, this tier 2 matchup needs to be locked in just like the T1 matchup.

Unfortunately it’ll swing in the off hours. We’re pretty NA heavy. Everyone ranked above us and even some below us have coverage that blow our minds. No worries though, we’ll give you as much fight as we can and hopefully we’ll keep you entertained.

For EBay, JQ or TC would be cool… someone we haven’t fought yet. Or Mags and SoS I guess, see how we actually stack up without a larger server in the room to sit on both of us.

More interested in who BP and SBI get than who we get TBH… I would be interested in seeing them vs the servers above them. I don’t think that ratings gap should be quite as big as it is.

@ the Kain havoc group and the yaks raiding party last night in EBay BL who ran into the pk guild meeting at birth camp: funny stuff. Probably stacking up and trying to run through a group of nearly 40 people exchanging tips and refining each others ZvZ builds is not the best idea, but you had no way of knowing that.

I can picture the conversation though. ‘OMG EBay loves north cam so much they have a guild guard it 24/7!’ hehe

Can’t wait till 4:30.

Projectile finishers do very little to help us. We need access to blast finishers

I also agree, and I included this deficiency in the main flaws with the ranger class here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions

Please sign off on at least that part of the list and keep the thread alive and easy to access by the developers. Thank you!

I think if they did end up making pets optional that would be a really great way to approach it, thanks for taking the time to read.

Someone else I was talking to from my server board who does not play a ranger also suggested that pets should list their abilities when you target them the same as mobs do. I can’t see a downside to doing that, if you know a mob knocks down before you fight it you might as well know your opponents dog will do it too.

I am neither philosophically for or against having a pet as a Ranger. What I am against is having a pet in its current state. I feel it to be incredibly unfair to have my characters overall performance so heavily tied to an NPC that is shackled by so many problems. As astutely pointed out above by another post, the pet should compliment us as players, not be the integral part of.

The other key point that is overlooked in how pets are implemented is that a good portion of our traits and skills are dedicated to further strengthening the bond between player and NPC at the expense of options to create synergy with the players we play with. It is a design decision that isolates our class from the rest of the GW community. In a game whose marching orders dictate that everyone is welcome and grouping up to accomplish great things is rewards and not penalized, that design choice seems to be at conflict with the goals of the game…

I am in favor of any change that solves the problems with the pet AI, or replaces the system with something that encourages player to player interaction moreso than player to NPC interaction.

A few things:

• Can someone please give a statement about what exactly the vision and role of the Ranger is supposed to be?
• Pet AI is the single most complained about aspect of the Ranger class. Do they recognize the issues with it (pathing, inability to avoid damage, delay in responding to F2 abilities, lack of control over the other 2 attacks they perform, inability to hit moving targets reliably) and are they actively trying to fix it? If not, are they considering other options to replace this mechanic with something that will allow Rangers to get full benefit out of their class mechanics?
• Spirits represent 1/5 of the ranger skill possibilities as well as several trait options, and yet is still not usable in any type of PvP situation. Combining traits and increasing health pools has not changed this. Are they considering other options to replace this system in a fashion that will allow Ranger to viably use this part of their class?
• Guild Wars 2 is conceptually based on the idea of grouping up easily and tackling ever increasingly difficult challenges as a big merry band. Rangers traits, skills and weapons (fields and finishers) are all focused on synergyzing with the pet companion instead of the people around them (with the exception of Spirits, which are not usable). This steers the class into a lone wolf role. Do the developers recognize the lack of group friendly options as a problem? If so, what are they doing about it? If not, what can we do to show them that their customer base is crying out for change in this direction?
• Do they take into account player feedback made through the Ranger and Suggestion boards? If so, can they kindly please become more visible in responding to posts made? Right now their community is feeling very left out in the dark and radio silence is not winning them any goodwill…

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Few combo fields
No variety in combo finishers
Need to trait to use most reliable AoEs
No group support skills without traiting
No true condition cleansing outside of heal (passed off to pet)
No pet scaling with your own stats (as much a boon for bunkers as a bane for non bunkers)
Little utility in dungeons
Lack of support on numerous tiny, easily fixed, bugs
Too much reliance on NPC
etc etc

The problem with this class and the reason so many people are upset about its state is due to the severe lack of group utility and the insane reliance on npc pets. It’s a class completely built around “me” in a game where you are severely limited in your options for gameplay if you aren’t viewed as viable in a group.

Faux, that’s probably the best way of approaching why we are angry. Thank you.

GW2 from inception to now has always promoted the concept of ‘grouping should be easy’, ‘no one is penalized for more people participating’ and ‘everyone gets to be a big happy band of adventurers and all get equally rewarded’. Ranger isn’t matching that marching line because they are Me-First and Me-Only in design. We don’t play well with others because everything revolves around our interaction with our pet instead of with the people we are playing with, which makes us less welcome than others when it comes to participation in these fun activities.

A damage boost, to be frank, is the last thing we need. We need our mechanics to work – pets and spirits – and we need to be able to focus on synergy with our allies instead of focusing on synergy with our pet companion… that should come naturally

Great idea, also would be awesome to be able to shift+click to equip 2nd ring/accessory. Being able to double click one and then have to drag the 2nd in all inventory slots is a bit of a pain in the butt.

I appreciate all the comments and further suggestions you guys are adding in here. Funny enough I actually most appreciate those that are disagreeing because they are doing it in a clear and logical way, while providing better and alternate suggestions.

I would love nothing more than to see the pet stay an integral part of the class, don’t get me wrong, but if its never going to be any better than it is now then I just feel that it would be better replaced with a different system that isn’t as hampered. I understand that it shares AI with mobs, and that’s part of the problem, but that’s what I just don’t get… Decade old games didn’t have the same issues that we have here. Its not a problem without obvious solutions. Even if they fudged it by increasing the attack box of melee attacks to like 300 range just to make up for the sloppy mechanic that would be a vast improvement! If they didn’t make pets stop moving to perform their attacks that again would solve a huge problem! What I don’t get is why they haven’t – unless they can’t. And if they can’t, then they have to be open to some,other solutions and so do we.

I also am a lone wolf by nature a PvP junkie – WvW actually – and I really get the people that want to be self sufficient. That is the common mentality of a pet class. But group dynamics are just so important in so many settings – you aren’t going to bust up a 50 man zerg solo – that not giving us at least some limited options in that respect is harsh. As I mentioned, thief is like the ultimate roamer, but they are also an integral part of a zerg buster because of their venomshare. Blast finishers, smoke combos and stealth options. They have that lone wolf edge without excluding them from being part of that skill amplification group dynamic. I just don’t see why Rangers can’t get similar treatment. Not similar skills, just have that type of option open.

Keep the comments and suggestions coming guys, hopefully if we do we can finally get some attention.

jubskie.3152:

Keep it up guys! The best way to motivate the ANet balance team is to insult them into buffing rangers! Forget about meaningful discussion, who needs that crap, amirite?

/rolleyes

meaningful discussion this way. Tell me I’m right, tell me I’m wrong, don’t care, just read and respond with feedback of your own and not general complaints. Give alternate suggestions,if mine suck. Maybe with some momentum we can get something done…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions

@ Taushullu and Oidmetala – I have an extremely long post over on the suggestions board that I’d love you to add these suggestions to… I’d like to bombard the suggestions box with our feedback without any of the normal QQ and bickering that goes on, so please, if you don’t mind, copy and paste what you listed here over there, or start your own topic. The only way to get their attention is to light a fire in the right place, and that’s the suggestions board:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions/

I made an extremely long and exhaustive list of suggestions over on the suggestions board that I’d love feedback on. It’s a shameless promotion of another topic, I’m sorry, but anything I would have said here I already spent about 3 hours writing out there…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions/

Wilderness Survival
Selectable traits in this tree are fairly well balanced and offer good choice.

The minor grandmaster trait, however, is extremely situational. Keeping health above 90% is difficult and makes this trait apply for very little of the time that you are actually fighting. By comparison, 3 classes get 5% of toughness added to power, 1 gets 10% of healing added to power, 2 stack might for 15 seconds on commonly occurring actions (stealth and blocking), and the last one gets 10% extra damage when endurance is full – all are much less situational and much more controllable by the player.

Empathetic Bond is also underwhelming as a grandmaster option. 3 conditions removed every 10 seconds is very stingy for 30 points spent in a tree. By comparison, necros strip 3 conditions for killing a foe at adept level, thieves drop 1 condition every 3 seconds in stealth at adept level, Mesmer removes conditions with every torch skill use at master level. At grandmaster level, the elementalist removes a condition whenever applying regeneration – both to themselves and allies.

Suggestions:
*To make us different, swap minor grandmaster trait for a trait that applies fury on interrupt, or to fit us into the mold, give us 5% of toughness to power.

• Replace Empathetic Bond with something more group friendly… unfortunately removing a condition every time regeneration is applied is exactly the same as the elementalist, but that would play very well into Shout builds. Something with more group interaction and consistent application is warranted for something at the grandmaster level than 3 conditions every 10 seconds. As is, this belongs in a Master level at very highest.

Nature Magic:
The Spirit tree all needs to be re-thought and re-worked in conjunction to a new Spirit mechanic. Other than that, the changes included in the 6/25 patch were excellent.

Beastmastery:
I’m not going to tackle this tree at all because of my strong belief that pets are fundamentally a flawed system in their present state. If AI can be fixed and pets remain in their current form then this tree is probably close to perfect as it is. If they become something else or become optional then this tree requires re-work from the ground up centered around whatever the new direction is.

So that’s my take on what I’ve observed myself as well as what I’ve read from the feedback provided by many experienced rangers in the ranger forums here and on other sites.

I beg you to PLEASE listen to your community and do something to help us.

Healing Skills:

Personal healing is a strength of roamer Ranger builds, as well as the potential for area healing through Healing Spring. The addition of a condition removal/heal hybrid option as is present in other classes though would be very much welcomed.

Utility Skills:
Outside of Spirits (addressed above), very few utility skills are a source of angst among rangers. Fundamentally, though, there is one large overarching issue: Spirit skills are the only ones that interact with other people. Signets, Shouts and Survival skills are all directed only at the Ranger and its companion. This is potentially one of the reasons that Rangers are passed up in favor of other options in groups, because everything they do is self-centric and does not play well into the group dynamic. By adopting this design direction with the class, purposefully or inadvertently the Ranger is actually being put on an island and angled towards solo play. Analyzing the more popular classes, many utility and elite options are available to them that interact with allies. Even thief – the ultimate solo roamer – has options that allow for area stealth and removal of conditions from allies.

Shouts in general could need some alternate functions if the Pet system is altered in any way to make pets optional or replace them with a different alternative. If pets are kept in the game with the current AI, consider changing Guard specifically. In any other game that includes a pet system, this is a skill that comes innately to the function of having a pet. It is mildly insulting that a beastmaster type class lacks the ability to command a pet to guard an area without specifically loading a skill to do so. Going back to my dog as an example, I taught her to stay within the first 2 weeks of bringing her home as a puppy. I’m not some amazing outdoorsman, but I would expect that any pet I had trained for battle would do this without any special skill being needed. Aside from being an insult, this shout doesn’t provide any real direct benefit – except for its 100% uptime access to swiftness and regen traited after the 6/25 update – and should be included in basic pet controls. The shout itself needs to be replaced by something more useful.

Traps cooldown times are inconsistent. It’s a minor point, but it’s not something that makes much sense.

Elite Skills:
Entangle is an extremely useful skill, but there are some odd limitations. In order to receive its full effects, the one entangled has to be oblivious enough not to target and attack the roots that are trapping it. The fact that this works well on NPC’s is more of a testament to poor AI design of the NPC’s than the effectiveness of the skill. In PvP formats, the skill can work as a very short term root, but really only traps inexperienced players for the full duration. The root component should continue to be escapable by appropriate skills from the one trapped, but the ability to destroy the roots should be removed. It is, again, an unnecessary limitation imposed on the class.

Spirit of Nature suffers from the same limitations as other Spirits, and changes to this Spirit should reflect any changes made overall to the Spirit mechanic.

While I agree that the warrior is currently a much better ranged option, what weapon does the guardian have to hit at 1200 range? I would have never considered them a better ranged option.

Upham.6137:

The fact that I’m really happy with this patch doesn’t mean that I think the ranger class is perfect, or the most powerful, or the best for every situation and game aspect.

Pets still need AI improvements. They are awesome against static players but can be frustrating against players who know how to kite, that’s why we need to use our cripple, inmo, stuns, chills etc.
Spirits are a lost cause for me, not gonna lie. But I do love our weapons. I know some of them are more useful in more situations, but I’ve tried every single weapon combination and I enjoy a lot of them.

And having just a few viable builds is a problem all classes have, so I’m not gonna complain about it on the ranger forum.

I can’t understand how this forum went from having a looooooot of happy players asking for tips, theorycrafting and sharing builds to what it is right now.

No one wants to be the best for everything, but we want to be comparable at something. Name some situations where you would rather have a ranger than any other class? And not because you simply enjoy the ranger but because they excel at that situation moreso than another option?

I respectfully disagree with any statement that contains the words “pets are awesome”… I haven’t gotten any meaningful use out of a pet in WvW in months. My pets are essentially limited to knockdowns as interrupts in small encounters. And I’m not sure I have squared off against a player who stood still while fighting in recent memory. Their deficiencies I have detailed several times in many threads, I’ll refrain from doing it again here… But they are not hard to see. Pet systems and AI from games 10+ years old surpass what we are forced to play with.

As for weapons, I own several variations of every weapon in our arsenal, and I love our offhand weapons, our mainhand axe and the great sword. I have not used 1h sword since patch, but it was incredibly difficult to use for most players for a very long time… the only weapon suffering from this kind of distinction across all classes. I feel, we lack a truly compelling swcond 1H option though. Our Longbow has been given some improvements, but is still functionally flawed in several aspects, shortbow has been drastically reduced in effectiveness for WvW with the distance Nerf as well as being unfairly hampered in its auto attacks ability to apply bleed when compared to options in other classes weapons.

All other classes have viable large encounter builds that contribute something meaningful to GvG and ZvZ encounters, while no acceptable build is present for Ranger. And while there are decent options to be had, the majority of our community including those that contributed some of our previous core builds are now scrambling to find similarly viable combos now.

In PvE, rangers are being turned away from parties, kicked from dungeon groups and generally shunned by the rest of the community simply for being rangers…. That’s real, not opinion. How you can be happy with this state honestly blows me away.

LB/SB is also my desired weapon combo. Currently I am running S+A (or S+D) / A+T with a 0/0/30/30/10 build. I still carry my LB for tower defense situations. That’s about the best advice I can give you at this time. When I get more time I’ll start running more diverse builds, pull out combinations of my various sets of armor and see what else works, but at this point in time I don’t see a way of doing it. Sorry.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

If this is true, can we then please have some communication from your team? As you can see, your community is feeling very angry, a bit mislead, and extremely confused. It would be very helpful for one of you to sit down and detail to us what your actual vision of this class is. Right now we can’t really find anything we are better than anyone else at, no role that we can fill that others can’t fill better. People are actually being turned away from parties in some cases because of their class, because the vision of what role the ranger could fill in any group setting is very cloudy.

All we have to go on is a months old developer quote saying that Ranger is probably the most broken class, and the writeup on your professions page on the main site. The skills/traits given along with the adjustments to traits and weapons over the past 9 months does not reflect in even a small way the class that is presented in that write up. So clearly that descriptions is wrong. In it’s place, we need a description of either what we are, or what we are going to be after you are done carving us up.

And we would really appreciate some comments on these pet changes as well as the absolutely crippling problems many of us have with pets in larger encounters in WvW. How does ANet feel about these problems, and do they even view them as such? Do you plan to address them?

Even if the answer is “We don’t have an overarching vision, we feel that you are as powerful as you need to be and that your role is fulfilled. Live with it.”, it’s better to know where we stand so that those of us who are angry and disappointed can move on either to a different class or a different game rather than sitting around wondering what happens next…

Chopps.5047:

Moving targets in wvw:

that’s why ranger can cripple, chill, and stun all day long. That’s why we have swiftness / fortifying bond. That’s why we have guard and sick em or aignet of the hunt. There’s so many options for a faster pet. And if you don’t like those options, run a dog. Dogs have been proven to land attacks at a flat pace as opposed to cats/birds who really need speed boosts.

While that is true, and I do use dogs specifically for that reason + knockdowns, the pet still has wonky pathing and AI decisions, gets lost and stuck while you move around, can’t attack targets up on or down from walls, and stops moving while charging up to release it’s F2 skill – which allows anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention enough time to move out of range from whatever is about to happen.

It also doesn’t help the fact that unless they are on passive, in any encounter medium in scale or larger they run off into the sea of invaders only to get cut down by AoE’s, have no intelligence built in to keep them at a safe distance while attacking even if they have ranged attacks at their disposal, do not have the ability to dodge – at all – and siphon off ~40% of our potential damage with no returns when they die or are on passive mode in order to prevent them from dying.

In short, Ranger pets are only useful in small scale sPvP style encounters, anything truly WvWish turn them into a detriment, and no amount of micro managing or skill with the pet can turn them into anything other than that. Their best use is as a passive pet that has access to some sort of AoE buff that can fire off on the F2, which in my books is not a fair trade off for the damage and functionality we are losing for the privilege (and I use that term loosely) of having a pet/companion.

Absolutely positive its 900 Chopps. In the screenie I posted above I also swapped to LB from the same stance and the red bar on the skills goes away. What’s more, when I stepped back from the ledge and the bunny moved away I still was in range.

In tight quarters like dungeons it probably doesn’t make any difference, but that is of no consolation to players like me who have only ever done 3 or 4 of them and barely even know what the term PvE means

OP – It really depends on what you are looking for though… If you want a ranged expert you can achieve that with the Warrior. If you want a utility specialist, that exists in a few different flavors. The game has some really great game play options, and I wouldn’t just quit… Just don’t expect to find much excitement specifically with this class right now. Even many of our build pioneers are reeling a bit right now, and there is a lot of negative vibe going.

Manekk.6981:

Having it at 900 by default but a master trait that could bring it to 1200 makes some sense actually.

As long as its the same trait as the LB range increase. Two traits for the two separate weapons is too much of a burden. I actually still feel like it should be the 25pt trait you get in Marksman tree and not something you have to choose. Training Marksman should mean just that, shouldn’t it? A focus on fighting at extended ranges?

Best advice I can give at this point, unless you are VERY determined to play ranger specifically so that you can say you play ranger, go play something else.

To illustrate the problem:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2ajrvid.jpg

This ranged weapon with no AoE or splash abilities can now no longer reach the rabbit in that picture, which is a relatively close range for any attacker to be standing at. At the same time, in order to try to reach said attacker I am standing up and on the ledge. If this attacker was a Mesmer, or any other class that has a pull skill that does not require targeting or blankets an area, has any kind of AoE attacks or has any attacks themselves that reach over 900 range, I am now in harms way with no recourse.

So the shortbow has effectively been reduced to a skirmishing weapon only and has taken a very effective tool out of our arsenal and replaced it with… nothing.

Edit: sorry, I suck at message boards… no idea how to embed stuff properly… click the link.

It is bad because in pvp / WvW people can move out of that 900 range quite easily. And when attempting to defend a structure from a wall, 900 range is only useful if the person is almost right below you. It takes away one of our greatest assets for defense.

On top of that, with offhand training axe, dagger, warhorn and torch skills all fire farther than a shortbow, which makes little to no sense… If there was a trait to re-buff SB range, maybe it would make sense…? But as it stands it’s a malicious kick in the nuts.

None. That would be my dream come true. If pet system is going to stay as it is now then I’d like to see no pets at all.

SirJack.4760:

I’m actually wondering if anyone would care if they did a complete rework of the class. I mean change EVERYTHING, Pet mechanic, Traits, Weapons, Skills. Boom, Ranger is gone, enjoy your new class, the Thingamajig, it does stuff.

It can’t be worse than now, right? At least it would do stuff…

I would be very much in favor of that. The pet is the worst part of the class, and it’s class defining…

I will give it a try… it’s better than my other idea of not playing anymore. Feedback to come in a week or two.

New ranger meta?
Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Below average archers, Rangers are capable of bringing down weaker foes from mid range with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of uncontrollable pets eager to wander off into AoE minefields, rangers can adapt to a few very specific situations, until those situations can be found and nerfed.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

Am I wrong for thinking a lot of the complaining is baseless?

In most cases, you are correct. The complaining is out of hand. In this particular case though, you are wrong. This patch is the worst idea I’ve seen them come up with. I’m not normally opposed to changes they make, but they promised big changes to make new builds viable. All they did was fix some minor problems and drop a nuke on the one situational OP build available to us. This patch sucks harder than a Hoover, not for what they nerfed, but what they failed to provide.