Is it worth it? Yes.
I’ll admit I had not considered the Necros and their condi builds. I don’t believe I saw a fight with one of them in that video, although I may be mistaken. Also to clarify it isn’t a broad hit to regeneration in power (that would be lazy) but maybe a cap in duration. It looks as though the regeneration is outlasting the recharge. Although I could be mistaken. And given that I believe that I’ve read that they want damage to out do healing this would go against that meta. Now this isn’t what I WANT to see happen but as I work in the video game industry these are my impartial observations and first thoughts. Its more what I expect the overall thinking and approach to be. Now I concede that because I didn’t consider a powerful condition counter that this observation may be a moot point.
Interesting from a balance standpoint. My first thoughts were:
The pet damage nerf did nothing to accomplish its goal. It seems in small skirmish fights the ranger can still regenerate more damage then can be dealt by a single player. Thus, while their healings go into cool down the ranger has a nearly infinite source of regeneration. The ranger wins or at least escapes every time. Its a war of attrition that the ranger wins. So the bunker build is untouched by the nerf. The power builds however…
Maybe the rangers regeneration needs to be looked at and hit. Its the troll ugent, (I think) the evasion in the melee attacks and the boon duration armor combo that’s unbalancing this build. (at least in a small team spvp type setting) Well that and players were doing stupid things.
Siege wouldn’t work as the vendor price is higher then the trading post sell price. Which makes sense. Why would anyone buy from players at a higher price if they could get the blueprints cheaper from the WvW vendors? UNLESS superior siege begins to sell for a high price. If you had massive stocks of the materials used to make superior siege and you converted siege blueprints you bought into superior blueprints then you MAY be able to make money off of them badges. Arrow carts and rams would be the most likely culprits to keep your eye on as they are used the most and thus supply is likely to dry up faster and demand would be higher then other siege.
Other then that there is no way to make gold off of badges.
I’d say you’re normal to a bit below some of the crazier DPS builds. I’ve seen 23K Mauls on uplevels in WvW and light armor types. Not sure what the slave driver runs (toughness wise) I know for my one handed sword I get around 2.5K auto crits in pve content when I’m fully buffed and positioned. My catsassin Princess Fluffybottom about matches my autos so…. take that for whatever its worth.
Well, I had something of a different take on this spread sheet. To me it really highlights the split in ranger’s state I guess. One segment of the community is going to be your min/maxer who runs their character in an optimized manner. For this player resonance doesn’t really matter. Its all about effectiveness. This segment isn’t all that confused or surprised by the results. My ranger running sword/ warhorn with a heavy DPS build does just as well as, oh say, my guardian or Mesmer. Sure those classes may have a bit more passive survivability but my ranger has much more evasion and escape mechanics. (Mesmer excluded) So yeah, ranger is good in melee. One might say real good.
The other segment of the community is attracted to the idea or character of the ranger. A superb marksman and excellent archer. Resonance is everything to this segment of the community. They want to feel strong and powerful from range, punishing their enemies from a distance and preventing them from gaining ground lest they die horrible bloody deaths. This sheet shows why that segment is so unhappy with the class. The ranged DPS is… bad.
Unfortunately not everyone wants to play a melee class but for the most part, AOE caster types excluded, it seems that is the way GW2 is slanted. Ranged archers aren’t all that viable or powerful and a full glass melee ranger has a pretty steep learning curve, even more so in a competitive environment.
Short answer: yes. Longish answer it depends on your build. I know I’ve seen one handed sword builds out there that really crank out some impressive numbers and I’ve developed a build for sword that I enjoy using quite a bit. I would say in general terms focus would give you more personal utility with a blind and 5 blocks or burst but shield excels in a more group oriented situation. Shield might be a good choice as you ease into a hard core sword build as most these builds focus heavily on crits (radiance) and crit damage. The extra armor and protection on demand certainly helps mitigate the glass cannon feel of some of these builds until you get used to them. ie timing your blinds and learning the delay on the projectile block.
I’m a fan of the AC greatsword, Skybringer, and if you want a glowy blue sword Foefire. Although I do think Foefire tends to look a tad clunky. These all seem to fit nicely with my character but its all up to your personal taste. I like the more elegant looking greatswords for my guardian. Skybringer is most likely my favorite in this regard.
I think the original article illuminates why I feel so lost as a ranger. In game development we have a term that is thrown about. Resonance. Basically resonance is how a player connects to their character through the characters actions. Most of the rangers damage comes (came) through the pet. This pet is beyond (for the most part) the players control. In the meantime the player’s damage is substandard. I think that is why so many players want a shift in the paradigm.
To illustrate lets compare the warrior longbow with the ranger longbow. warrior 1 I shoot 2 arrows. Hey that is kinda neat. Like some Green Arrow stuff going on. 2 a big ole fan of flaming arrows. That’s cool. I just lit those punks on fire. 3 Explosions! AMERICA!!! Now ranger. 1 I fire an arrow. OK its auto whatever. 2 I fire a whole bunch of arrows. Sorta neat, not really. They don’t DO anything but lower my damage. 3 I fire an arrow. 4 I fire an arrow. 5 I fire a whole bunch of arrows. No resonance. Nothing to push the “Wow” button. And I think that is because this is very much a team that doesn’t like to kill its babies (another term) they have styles and archetypes they enjoy and have a clear vision for. Once they step beyond that the creativity nosedives.
I have no idea why though. There was so much they could have done with the attack animations that could have made the ranger a much less egregious class to play. Imagine just working the pet into the attack animations. They could jump and tackle players to push them back and knock them down, maul legs to cripple them, burrow through the earth to ambush them. All in combination with bow animations. Then we would start to generate resonance. Or the ranger could attack with trick shots, shoot behind their back, shoot while flipping in the air. I don’t know, something. something cool.
What I would REALLY like to see is something that builds resonance in the character. I think a lot more people would be patient with the class while it was rebuilt (and it does need a rebuild) I mean look at sword 1. Terrible mechanic. People love the crap outta sword 1. I love me the heck outta some sword 1. Why? Its cool. Its fun to look at. I FEEL powerful. And when it throws me off a cliff I believe I can fly. For a second.
Runes of the scholar can also be nice. Given this is a WvW build a hammer is a useful tool for its easy, quick, and somewhat spammable blast finisher if you run with a group that drops combo fields frequently. Looking at your setup you aren’t going pure dps heavy and are going pretty tanky. So I’d actually drop greatsword in your build for hammer. Great CC and easy blast finishers. Nothing beats isolating the end of a zergs tail and watching it get mauled.
I actually really like this idea of fighting over zones and pushing forces out etc. In fact from the first preview trailers I thought that was what the DE system would be used for. For example centuars begin to invade take over an area and the map has to get together and push them back. It would be nice. But they would have to be pretty beefy events that played out over a fairly lengthy time. Imagine defending your home instance (Divinty’s Reach, Hoelbrack, etc) and then slowly pushing out taking back territory. That would be cool.
Some of the questions regarding greater micro management of the pet, and an expanded UI have already been asked in previous state of the games. The answer was no by the way. They have no plans to allow for greater control/ micro management of the pet. Something about accessibility to new players. I took it as “we don’t know how to do that” I would like to know their thoughts on what role a ranger should fill. I suspect the answer would be nebulous and wandering as they don’t really have a clear direction for the class. You can see it in their body language that even talking about the ranger bores them to tears. Also I would like to know if the class will see a greater split between pve and pvp wvw. That is to say if they acknowledge the weaknesses of the ranger in a wvw pve environment vs a pvp environment. As far as balance questions go it doesn’t really seem to matter. They have done what they want so far and that’s to just get the class off their radar as fast as possible. Which usally means nerfing into uselessness.
I think I read somewhere an idea for making the pet function more like a mesmers shatter clones. I.E. F1 is some leap attack direct damage F2 some condi F3 CC and F4 utility. Each skill has a cooldown before it can be used again. In the mean time the pet stays by the rangers side as a prop of sorts. It doesn’t attack, has no aggro, soaks no damage, tanks no enemies, etc. This seems like the easiest way to deal with the pet. It cant deduct from the ranger’s effectiveness by being dead and just becomes a tool for spiking, evading etc.
Of course it will never happen so why even discuss it.
I was thinking something very similar but I have to ask, why dogged march and not leg specialist? sword has two sources of cripple which means two immobilizers.
If you are not zerging I’d probably go Companion’s Might. Go as much power – prec – crit as you are comfortable with and let the might stacks work as a band aid to the pet damage nerf. I’d also run longbow and try and maintain range. You will need it. I’ve actually run into a great many zerker longbow rangers, it seems to be the new meta. So enjoy it until next month when they add an internal cool down to CM.
Not a bad little build and it was mighty fun to test. I perfer my little 0/15/30/20/5 build with soliders runes for condi removal mainly because I rely on eles for perma (sorta) swiftness in WvW and I find things die pretty fast or at least fast enough to make me mull over exactly how useful the 33% boon duration vs the reduced crit damage was. Still, I had an excellent time running your build and its always nice to have a few good spare builds in ones back pocket. Then again I’ve actually found the torch to be far more useful then people say so maybe I’m all sorts of messed up.
Ascalonian Catacombs is the only place to get monk runes and they are soulbound on aquire
This actually happens with the plated helmet (the one with the ram horns) you get as a karma reward in Iron marshes with my human male as well. Seems to be a bug with certain helmets.
Wait, so if I understand the position, if the fireworks start at say 6 and you get to Lions arch say 10 minutes before 6 but you land in and overflow that has an hour before dawn you have to wait an hour before the fireworks? If so that doesnt make ANY sense. How are you supposed to know what overflow you’re on and where in the day night cycle you’ll be? You can’t. Even if you jump on LA all weekend you could miss every show due o the fact you could be dumped in a different overflow everytime. I sense gifts to be sent out in the mail shortly…
In terms of content updates I’m going to say Halloween and the latest frost and flame content update which includes super adventure box. I think these two had the most immersive gameplay for me. I actually rather enjoyed the story missions with Brahm and the … ummm.. charr lady kitten. (and I typed kitten as in young cat. Sheesh with these boards you never know.) I’ve forgotten her name. And of course Super Adventure Box was just a whole lotta fun much like the Mad King events. Not terribly story driven but something you can just take a moment or two to enjoy for what it is. The skins were kind of a grind after a while but meh, its a small issue.
Now in terms of class updates, as someone who plays ranger (or used to) none of them. Which is a shame as it really has cut into my enthusiasm for the game. I have a character and concept that I like but I’m unable to enjoy 70% of the content with him. So dungeons, WvW, PvP all just feel like a core with my ranger. There is only so much to do in overworld PvE before I’m all “oh look new shiney video game is out.” Which is kind of sad as Rangers aren’t even all THAT great in PvE. Just really tanky.
For whatever its worth and its most likely not much I think its the stealth mechanic. If you simplify it to say a game of checkers and imagine one player who has full view of the board as well as his opponents moves and reactions and another player who cannot see his opponents moves and can simply react to say a checker suddenly going missing from the board then you can see why people like to complain. It creates an idea of the game being heavily stacked in favor of one party. Add to this excellent mobility, high bursts and the ability to spam damaging moves consecutively which no other class can do and yeah, people are going to complain. I think that if the stealth were handled in a manner similar to other multi player match ups where the player is faintly visible (distortion, preadator effect, what have you) and even if a thief in stealth then would then have a to hit penalty (that is to hit the thief) you’d see a lot of complaints die away as at least a player could feels though they are stategizing against their opponent. Right now you get dinged out of left field and it feels cheap. This was the same complaint with culling and the removal of that is almost universally praised so yeah, I’m leaning towards stealth makes a thief feel OP.
I have to agree with bluewanders. Voice your opinion, make your concerns known and explain your position with intelligant arguments. However at the end of the day you might have to accept it as just he way it is. If you don’t like it fine. If it affects you negatively then.. oh well I guess. Deal with it the best you can or move on. Such is life. However, trying to stop content is rather extreme. Would I have liked to see the content implemented in a different manner? Absolutely. But I still would like to see it implemented even though it is unlikely I will ever participate in it. There are other things to do so I’m sure I can find a goal to work towards. And if I can’t I’m sure I can occupy my time in another manner. But if people find satisfaction in the new content and that keeps them playing which in turn keeps all those wonderful people gainfully employed then all is well in the world.
Of course a small guild wont have to grind for influence, after all they dont make grindy games…
I was wondering this as well. They did state that one of the goals of these updates was to get people out into the open world and seldom visited areas. So it would make sense to give large guilds goodies to get out of instanced areas and into the open world. Of course the downside is that when ever you exclude a part of your player base it will create ill will.
Well, to be completely honest these concerns I voice are the same things I’d voice in a design meeting as an animator. They don’t mean the system can’t work and shouldn’t be implemented but are things to keep in the back of your mind when design / implementing a system. My greatest concern is excluding a block of the community. This happened to a degree with fractuals. It seems like they are on their way to implementing another exculsionary system again. Or at least it has that danger. Now, I want every game studio to do well, it is in my own best buisness interest as it means greater and more finicial oppurtunity to me so these concerns are not coming from some deep seated desire to see the game fail or to bad mouth the company. And I do feel that the idea is a great addition to the “toolbox” the developers have provided players. However this is a new system being put in place. Its not like anyone was told 6 months in advance this feature is coming so they should be saving up infulence so blaming guilds or players is silly. They didn’t make a bad choice, they chose what they wanted to do based on information provided. To suddenly exclude that base by putting something seemly out of reach seems… harsh(?) or at least not completely thought out. Unless data shows 90% of guilds already have that tree maxed and then its maybe a smart move. I wont be surprised if a system is later put in place to increase the rate a guild can earn influence though.
I also wonder what the level and potency of these guild rewards will be and what they may lead to. For example permenant reduced waypoint, as in almost free and sigificant gold finds and or magic finds might lead to a wealth gap between those players in a larger guild and those in smaller/ no guild. I’m not syaing that this will happen but to intice any guild it would seem that rewards would have to be worthwhile. It sounds like it may lead to an exploit or greatly divided community. That said I like the idea. The implementation, with the high starting curve and potential of imbalance has me somewhat worried.
I believe the answer is yes
I have to say I rather like Acidic’s suggestion of some sort of place to post an event before you plan on starting it. It would really help some of the smaller guilds, such as mine. The idea of banners is good but really seems like it will be hit or miss. Most high level pve players seem to mass in specific areas in open world and may never even see the event banner.
I bought one for my ranger as he was leveling. At the time he was level 40 so I figured it might be a good way to gear him up at 80. This was not the case. I got two rares from the boxes and by the time my ranger actually hit 80 I had enough tokens/ karma/ gold to gear up with stats I wanted in full exotics. With multiple weapons sets as well. If you were guarenteed exotics and only had to gamble on zerkers/ cleric/ whatever else, then maybe. However as currently implemented there are much better and more efficient ways to get level gear.