Guild Wars 2

If it applied to the ranger as well I just might survive using the sword on auto attack.

This would move long range shot from .5/.65/.9 to .6/.75/.9. The auto attack on greatsword is about .68 if you average it over time.

I’d kind of like a cone AoE on a low cooldown similar to barrage in GW1. A chance of knockdown on the current barrage would be good. Oh, and bring back the damage it had before the stealth nerf.

Any build will work. I use 30/25/0/15/0. Just make sure you know what the champ can do and adjust your weapons accordingly. It takes longer to solo champs on a ranger though, so be ready for a long fight.

Einlanzer.1627:

Killsmith.8169:

Einlanzer.1627:

OMG OP for about the thousandth freaking time, the name ranger has nothing to do with using ranged weapons, it refers to roaming ranges of land, i.e. like a scout or a warden. Seriously, how can so many people not know this? It’s like an elementary level vocabulary word.

Regardless, Rangers are unparalleled archers and no other profession does as much DPS at range as the Ranger does. L2P.

You’re right, Ranger has nothing to do with using ranged weapons. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of ranger weapons are ranged? (Hint: It’s high.)

This is irrelevant. Weapon options are about adaptability, not power. Rangers have more adaptability at range due to their ranged prowess, which in effects means they are ‘better’ at range than other professions. That does not give credence to the idea that they should actually do more damage at range than at melee, or that shouldn’t have melee options.

You’re reading too far into things. My only point was that there isn’t a loadout you can equip that doesn’t have a ranged weapon. You can say ranger doesn’t mean ranged (and I would agree) but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of our weapons are ranged and are weaker by design. That’s fine with me as long as we can get some decent options for melee damage. However, the class description does claim that we are unparalleled archers. That should mean that we are without match or equal when it comes to bows. I don’t think that’s currently the case.

Einlanzer.1627:

OMG OP for about the thousandth freaking time, the name ranger has nothing to do with using ranged weapons, it refers to roaming ranges of land, i.e. like a scout or a warden. Seriously, how can so many people not know this? It’s like an elementary level vocabulary word.

Regardless, Rangers are unparalleled archers and no other profession does as much DPS at range as the Ranger does. L2P.

You’re right, Ranger has nothing to do with using ranged weapons. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of ranger weapons are ranged? (Hint: It’s high.)

Rhyse.8179:

Killsmith.8169:

Rhyse.8179:

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

The only problem with using a DPS pet and GS is that even with a power build and full berserker gear, you can’t get agro off of the pet because it’s out damaging you. Now, supposing the 60/40 split on damage is true, what does that say about the damage on GS?

Actually it says more about your knowledge of aggro mechanics. Target health is a higher aggro factor then DPS is. If your Cat has more HP then you, you shouldn’t be in melee range.

Also, Jaguar stealth is an instant de-aggro. Very handy when soloing. By positioning yourself properly, you can use GS 4 to block an attack aimed at your pet. Skirmishing 20 lets your pet heal on crit, so if you choose a high crit DPS pet (cat or bird) they will live a very long time. And there’s pet swap and protection on dodge. In short, don’t be lazy and you won’t have problems keeping your pet alive.

Now, in Dungeons, PVP, and WVW, it’s a whole different issue, since you’ve got massive AOE to deal with, and that’s one of the things that needs fixed. Even micro-managing your pet to the fullest, they still die quickly here. Yes, that’s like 70% of the game. I know. That’s why I said that fixing pets is so important to fixing GS (and other weapons too, because of the assumed DPS split)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

Your explanation doesn’t fit with my experience or the information on the wiki. The difference between keeping aggro with a sword and losing it with a greatsword is damage. No other stats are changing.

Also, I use a stalker and a jaguar. Stealth does not reset aggro, and the jaguar does damage during the stealth, so at best it’s a 6 second reprieve. The stalker doesn’t have that option.

You missed the point of my post, which is my fault. I don’t have a problem keeping the pet alive in PvE 95% of the time. My point was that you can’t really tank with a greatsword and use a dps pet because the pet will keep aggro.

I do agree on the balancing of the split though. The ranger’s dependance on its class mechanic should be roughly the same as it is on other classes.

Rhyse.8179:

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

The only problem with using a DPS pet and GS is that even with a power build and full berserker gear, you can’t get agro off of the pet because it’s out damaging you. Now, supposing the 60/40 split on damage is true, what does that say about the damage on GS?

RWinter.1680:

JonPeters.5630:

It would come at no cost to Swoop, it would come at the cost of updating the chain. Also the added benefit that you aren’t taking into account as this skill could now be part of your rotation and used when you see a big attack incoming to avoid it.

Usually when I want to avoid a big attack, I also don’t want to run far away, or get right up in the face of the enemy. Using swoop as an evade seems like it would be very situational, and I don’t think it fits well with the idea of a gap closer. Extender, maybe.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Would the WvW folks feel as though greater damage on the autottack chain would offset the loss of the evades, or does something like that not really matter to you guys?
I know that’s something us PvE folks would be delighted to see.

No, more damage would not offset the loss of evades. When all you can do is move and autoattack, anything on auto that saves your bacon while doing damage is welcome. The primary goal in large group combat in WvW is not damage, but staying alive. If GS had damage comparable to MH sword, there would be very little reason to use MH in PvE. However, I would not mind a slight damage increase on the GS, though. And maybe more stacks of vulnerability, or weakness replacing vulnerability on maul.

If the greatsword had damage comparable to the sword, you would still use it for the offhand skills. Currently, the sword’s auto attack does like 50% more damage than greatsword (.6/.6/.7 per 1.8s vs. .55/.55/.65 per 2.5s).

JonPeters.5630:

Holland.9351:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

Why do you want to change the Greatsword?
Does the evade have to go and you need to come up with an acceptable solution for it?

I don’t have to change it. I am hoping to improve it with changes without making it overpowered. I think right now one of the major problems, despite being good is that the evade on the chain is very hit or miss and feels very RNG when using it or fighting against it. I would rather put more of the skill of when to evade under player control to give this weapon more agency.

The evade on the chain is very hit or miss currently, but I think there’s an easy way to improve that. If you could increase the amount of time it takes for the chain to reset, then I could throw in another skill like maul to adjust when the evade is going to happen. This probably wouldn’t help as much in PvP, but it would work wonders in PvE.

I’m curious about whether or not we can get an increase to the damage on the chain. It’s currently very weak compared to our spear and compared to the defensive weapons of other classes, like the hammer on the guardian. Damage output suffers too much for it to be a full time weapon, so you end up using it for the mobility or the block.

Would it be too powerful if remorseless gave you opening strike on weapon swap as well?

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

If it’s like the range dependent leap component I’ve been tossing around or something similar, then I’m all for it.

I wouldn’t trade the evade on power stab for a whirl finisher. I might trade power stab’s evade for increased auto attack dps and either vigor or endurance gain on hit, but I wouldn’t give it up for a whirl. Take a look at the guardian hammer skills. That’s what you should be shooting for on damage and utility for ranger greatsword.

Guardian Hammer Skills:

Skill #1 .8 > .9 >1.0 + 1.5 (.5 × 3) = 4.2 coefficient / 3.6 seconds, plus protection (33% damage reduction)
Skill #2: 1.75 coefficient, 5 second recharge, blast finisher, 300 range, hits 5
Skill #3: 1200 range immobilize, 15 second recharge
Skill #4: 750 range launch, 25 second recharge
Skill #5: 5 second ward and light combo field, 40 second recharge

Ranger Greatsword Skills:

Skill #1: .55 > .55 > .65 = 1.75 coefficient / 2.56 seconds, plus 1 second evade (39% uptime)
Skill #2: 1.6 coefficient, 6 second recharge, plus 5 stacks vulnerability.
Skill #3: 1100 range leap, 12 second recharge
Skill #4: 3 second block, 15 second recharge
Skill #5: 1 second stun, 25 second recharge

Skills 2-5 are pretty well balanced, but I don’t see any reason why the greatsword’s auto attack damage is 60% of what the hammer is at. You could raise them to something like .8 > .8 > .9 without taking anything away.

Looking at it last night, I don’t think it would look bad if you could move during the animation when not leaping. It would look about the same as it does when you jump and start moving when you’re airborne.

The devs say sword is working as intended, though. Still, I think this would open up options on the sword without destroying any existing options. That unique play style that they want to preserve wouldn’t go away.

Mostly my pets die when I solo champs in open world. There’s a golem in Mount Maelstrom that really does a number on them.

KazNaka.4718:

I like this idea. When you say it “has no leap component” are you suggesting they change the animation too? Because wouldn’t it be weird if you could strafe while kicking or leaping?

Yeah, that might be kind of weird. The plan was to use the same animation without the leap feature if you were already in range to hit the target. I don’t know for sure how it would look if you could move during those animations, but I can’t imagine it to be any less realistic than the way the greatsword chain works. It’d be awfully hard to move during that spin that power stab has.

First off, yes, another sword topic.

I just wanted to get your opinions on an idea to change the sword. I don’t think it will change the functionality of the sword, but I think it will make the sword much easier to use. Changes listed below.

Kick – This skill now checks the range to the target. If the range to the target is 150 units or less, the skill animation has no leap component. If the range is greater than 150 units, the ranger leaps to the target and attacks. This skill now cleaves.

Pounce – This skill now checks the range to the target. If the range to the target is 150 units or less, the skill animation has no leap component. If the range is greater than 150 units, the ranger leaps to the target and attacks.

Hornet Sting/Monarch’s Leap – The available skill now changes based on the range to the target. If the range is greater than 200 units, Monarch’s Leap becomes the available skill. If Monarch’s Leap is used, the skill goes on its normal cooldown. If no target is selected or the range to the target is 200 units or less, this skill functions as normal, with Hornet Sting chaining into Monarch’s Leap.

What this does:
-You can circle strafe and dodge during the auto attack chain.
-You can melee without being on top of the enemy, if you can maintain the proper spacing.
-You can dodge away from your target without the auto attack sending you right back in.
-You can still stick to your targets or bounce between targets if you want.
-You can initiate with Monarch’s Leap if necessary.

I think this would be a serious improvement to the feel of the sword without ruining it for people who like the way it functions now. I haven’t fully thought out all of the implications with the #2 skill, but I think you will still be able do everything with it that you can now, plus a little more.

The longbow change is good. I was hoping they’d do something with the auto attack on greatsword. It’s pretty weak and the chain resets too quickly. The fury on the trait is nice, but the cooldown trait is still way better for greatsword because most of the damage comes from maul.

Question: Why is the main hand sword so awkward to control and why isn’t there another option for rangers that want to run a melee berserker build with high damage?

GS doesn’t have nearly enough damage to be a suitable replacement which is a shame because it’s a good weapon otherwise.

Eurantien.4632:

Show me a picture of a settler ammy mesmer, warrior, or guardian doing 3-9k with one utility on 20 sec CD (that could potentially trigger twice).

Storm spirit is not balanced at the moment.

You could do it with a guardian, but they’ve got way better utilities so nobody bothers to make a spirit weapon build.

You’d take 20 or 30 in Zeal and take VI, X, and XI. Congrats, now your sword and hammer do more damage than storm spirit on 10 and 15 second recharges, respectively. I could test this when I get home if you want.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spirit_Weapon#Related_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_%28hammer%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_%28sword%29

jcbroe.4329:

Again, the problem isn’t the amount of damage, it’s the lack of stat investment needed to achieve the amount of damage.

If the Storm Spirit had to have Power investment in order to do that type of damage, it would be balanced.

A warrior can achieve the same damage using kill shot without any investment if the damage numbers on the wiki are correct.

Should spirit weapons be changed as well? Guardians can do similar damage with them without investing anything. That’s probably a better comparison since they’re both summoned utilities.

That isn’t right. Clearly rapid fire and pet damage need a buff.

In all seriousness, that spirit has a terrible passive ability. The active is the only redeeming feature. You’re complaining because a ranger was able to slip in an aoe with a large windup because of all the chaos on the screen.

I’d like to see the sword AA animations become range dependent. That is, if you’re already in range for the second and third attack in the chain to hit, the animation doesn’t have/use a leap component. If you aren’t in range for the attack to hit by itself, the animation does have a leap. Do that and make the dodge cancel AA so you don’t leap right back in and I think the AA will be perfect.

The #2 skill could benefit from being range sensitive as well. Leap toward the target and put the skill on cooldown if you use it from far away and keep it the way it is if you use it in melee range of your target.

It would be nice we had a trap or two with decent direct damage. Also shorter cooldowns in PvE. I want to bring back my GW1 trapper.

It’s just 50% extra. If I remember correctly it doesn’t stack with traited signet of the hunt either.

My biggest problem with pets is that we have so many pet related traits. They should be consolidated so that we can get some new, more interesting traits. My next biggest problem is that the idea of ranger and pet as a single entity is used only to split our damage. Otherwise, it feels like the two are competing for very limited resources (traits, skill slots).

First off, which weapon do you plan to use most of the time? If you’re using the sword, I would recommend using warhorn over dagger and picking up 15 in nature magic so that your pet can get some might stacks.

I normally use 30/25/0/15/0. Frost spirit and signet of stone usually stay on my bar. I’ve seen call lightning hit for ~6k on the active but I make better use of it in open world than in dungeons.

Greatsword still has a weak auto attack. I like the skills it has, but it sacrifices too much damage to be your main weapon. It’s a decent off weapon though.

Longbow could be an option as an off weapon. Use 3 to stealth, get a little distance, and let someone else get the aggro if you’re in trouble. Barrage and rapid fire do decent damage while you’re waiting for your weapon swap.

It’s because they patch classes in alphabetical order from “a Warrior” to “ugh Ranger”.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Rangers get giant buffs and everyone whines. Sounds about right.

I’m not seeing it. What did they change that allows us to contribute more support in dungeons without losing damage? What change allows us to help out more in WvW?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Buffs-coming-on-Oct-15th-What-buffs/first#post2906341

I guess one was the number they were thinking of.

I would love to see the balance team at Anet compare the ranger with the guardian in PvE and explain exactly why they think the ranger is in such a good place that it only needs a little more damage and vulnerability on maul, less easy access to vigor, and some changes to F2 skills.

I’m talking PvE here. PvP would need some sort of cooldown that prevents the same skill from triggering it more than once every 5 seconds.

1H sword would be 15 stacks of vulnerability on non boss mobs.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Regarding Remorseless, now that it can be triggered by going into stealth, it would be nice to have the option to gain stealth by other means than the longbow (and the passive trait).
One thing could be to allow the jaguars F2 to affect the ranger also, as that would go well with the intentions to improve the support aspect of our pets as well. Just an idea.

I wish they’d just expand remorseless so that it would trigger on cripple, daze, stun, and knockback as well. Then most weapons and pets would benefit from it in some way. Sword and longbow might benefit too much though.

Things would probably be much better if they used an AI similar to what UT2004 had with path nodes baked into the map. That game really had good AI in my opinion. It seemed to hold up well with a large number of bots in the map too. It only bogged down when you had 500+ enemies and a few thousand rockets with limited tracking capability.

However, what we have now is probably what we’re stuck with. To make the best of it, I think they should let the pets cheat a little. Some of this has already been mentioned, but basically they should be allowed to teleport to their destinations, and have their F2 behavior looked at.

If a pet is sent to attack something, the game should figure out how long it should take to reach the target and teleport the pet to the target if it hasn’t reached it in 125% of the optimal time. F3 is easier. Just teleport the pet back.

For the F2 abilities they should consider classing the abilities as offensive or support and use that to decide whether the ability should be used at the current position or if the pet needs to move into range of the selected target. It would be even better if the pet would move to a targeted ally to use support abilities.

Honestly I’m more interested in the global changes this patch. Weren’t they changing it so that boons and conditions that stack duration only stack 5 times? What kind of effect is that going to have?

As for the ranger patches, maul will be where it should have been when they changed out the bleeding for vulnerability. I don’t think they can increase the damage on maul any more, but it’s still a pretty weak weapon, so I’m hoping for an increase to attack speed or damage on the auto attack. That and some QoL stuff. I’d really like to be able to use the other weapon skills without resetting the main attack chain.

I’m not sure about healing spring. If they dropped the cooldown to 20-25 seconds or upped the heal I’d be all for it because the heal is awful.

Also, remember that when they say they’re making a number of weapon skill changes, one is a number. We might get some good stuff though.

It would be nice if weapons had styles or stances that you could change. Something simple like offensive, defensive, and balanced.

Balanced would be your basic weapon skills with a mix of offense and defense. Switch to an offensive stance and your defensive weapon skills are swapped with offensive skills. Switch to a defensive stance and your offensive skills are replaced with defensive skills.

That might add some depth and allow some play styles to utilize more of the weapons.

As far as I can tell, all tooltips are calculated based on your stats whether they’re relevant or not. As Nanashi noted, you have to be in combat for your pet to receive the buff from Concentration Training.

Crit damage isn’t capped. You can’t double crit, so if you want to look at it like a cap, then crit chance is capped at 100%.

Here’s what pet health will look like after this patch:

Bear: 29982 → 51398
Drake: 22425 → 38443
Feline: 14868 → 25488

Here’s a more useful perspective. The first number is the % health lost to 1 attack before patch. The second number is how many hits it will survive after the patch.

85% → 2 hits
57% → 3 hits
43% → 4 hits
34% → 5 attacks, thanks chat filter
29% → 6 hits

I think this will help in some situations, but that boss that’s two shotting your pet now is still going to down pets faster than your swap recharges.

I wish they’d just change PvE so that pets evade AoE attacks unless they’re on top of the aggro table. This wouldn’t include melee attacks that cleave. Then they would be able to survive any dodge this or die mechanic Anet can come up with while preventing pets from tanking.

Content long. Split zones.
Tribulation clouds kill fast.
Loose controls cause deaths.

Checkpoint in death spikes.
Still playing, enjoy challenge.
These are both haiku.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

KazNaka.4718:

Just remember: higher hp doesn’t necessarily = more challenging content

I agree. Unfortunately damage and defense scaling reaches a point where it no longer conveys a sense of progression and challenge. For example, once creatures start one-shotting every player, it doesn’t matter how much extra damage they do. We’re also looking into how to meaningfully extend the scalability of FOTM.

Adding some puzzle elements might help. Maybe make some fights with objectives that must be completed to make the boss vulnerable to damage (like in the Zelda games where you had to stun the boss before you could do any real damage). Then as difficulty scales, you can shorten the window, require more people to complete the objective, etc. If you add more dimensions to the fight than just damage, I think it’ll be easier to scale difficulty without scaling damage.

Depends on your buffs and the target’s debuffs. With a sword in a level 80 zone I’m hitting for about 2300 a swing. Cats seem to hit for about the same but not nearly as fast. That’s when I’m solo though.

In a really good dungeon group, I’d have 25 stacks of might, 25 vuln on target, 20% extra damage from flanking, 7% from frost spirit, 10% from a potion, and I’d be running master maintenance oil and food with power and crit damage. That would easily be twice my normal damage. Unfortunately I haven’t been doing dungeons recently so I haven’t tested it.

Sword #1 has lots of issues in PvE. Every time I tab to a new target I end up leaping in a random direction once or twice before leaping to a new target. It also prevents circle strafing, which is about 75% as effective as a dodge roll.

The thing that would really fix the sword and make it a great weapon for everybody would be range dependent animations on the auto attack. Just replace the leap animation if you’re already in range to hit. Do that and make dodge stop the auto attack and you have a weapon that functions perfectly with auto attack turned on. I’m not sure what the technical challenge to implementing this would be, but we already have skills with range dependent conditions and damage, so it might be doable.

Chopps.5047:

“Fix ranger by making it more AFK passive” is what I’m hearing. I am reading what I read. It seems clear that evasion with sword is too hard for most people. I don’t spam the autoattack. I can dodge roll or weapon evade whenever I want. But, gee, lets nerf ranger’s beastmaster/cripple skill because Chopps isn’t listening.

It’s not that it’s too difficult. It’s needlessly difficult. Maybe you’d be happier with ranger if you had to hit a button every so often to make your character breath. Think that would be fun? I sure don’t.

It’s everyone. Spawning in the death spikes happens to everyone too.

I’d rather see the #2 skill be changed to make it range dependent. Make Hornet sting activate if you’re within 300 range of your selected target and give it a 300 range, maybe a lunging strike before the backwards leap. When you’re more than 300 units away from your target, then it’s Monarch’s Leap. That would make it a gap closer AND an escape.

As for the auto attack chain, why not make it range dependent as well? Only do the leap animation if you’re far enough away from the target to need it. Otherwise, you get a different animation for the same skill. Then make dodging cancel the auto attack chain so you don’t jump right back in afterwards and you have a weapon with great stickiness and improved control.

If they can’t do that, then I’d like an evade in the chain that covers one of the rooted attacks. I think that would be fair.

I have a workaround for the spirit changes in PvE, but I’m afraid that posting it will get it taken out of the game.

JonathanSharp.7094:

You can argue it’s different all you want to. But as the people actually DOING the work, you’re wrong. Nice theory crafting though!

We have 3 major factors impacting all work we do for balance: time, scope (the amount of balance work we have to do), and resources (in this case, available work hours). All 3 of these pull from a finite pool of resources, and all 3 have direct causal relationships. If you increase scope (do more splitting of skills), then you can increase scope. Period. This means you’re now putting more stress on the other 2 pieces of this puzzle: time and resources. You’ve made more work. So until we extend the normal day to 26 or 27 hours, or put more days in the year (which isn’t going to happen with the earth’s current distance from the sun and rotation) it’s simply not going to happen, or it’s going to degrade the quality of work you DO get out of your hours.

And it’s more work to balance the game types differently. It still takes time to implement those changes. It doesn’t save time just by not worrying about how the changes will impact the various game types.

Now I’m curious to know what your current process is. Do you just decide on changes and then get another department to implement them or do you decide on changes and implement them directly? How does it get done?

Doesn’t balancing all 3 game types at once ensure that your scope never decreases? Even if you’re happy with, say PvE, the patches to fix other game types will degrade the PvE balance until you have to spend resources to bring it back in line. And those fixes will nudge the other two out of line. What if you over correct and don’t spot it? Then things will get even worse. Worse still, what if the only answer that works for all three game types is incredibly boring?

I wouldn’t say that I’m theory crafting here. This has been my personal experience in my career as an electrical engineer, whether it’s hardware or software. Inevitably, I come to a point in a project where I have a few choices in implementation. Each choice will work, but one implementation will usually save me a lot of headaches in the future when I’m supporting the product, but at the cost of additional time during initial design. For me, that choice is easy. If I take the extra time up front it’s better because there’s always the possibility of multiple orders. Support problems get multiplied, but the design effort only occurs once.

Maybe it’s different in your line of work, but usually being able to get something running smoothly without it interfering with anything else has a great ROI in the long run.

You gotta know your limits with a boombox.

When I was going through that stage I was getting killed by the checkpoint it pulls you back to because you spawn in spikes that will kill you if you don’t load fast enough to get out of them. Lots of cheap deaths there.