Guild Wars 2

@anduriell.6280:
If you’ve been correcting me all the time, it should be trivial to provide a link as evidence then, eh? I can think of one time you tried and said Natural Regeneration only heals the Ranger Pet … despite the fact that that’s a tooltip error and it actually does heal the Ranger … which myself and several others informed you of.

There’s also that time you said Ranger’s didn’t have much evade on their weapons and I provided you with a list of all our evades on our weapons … seems that you have things in reverse … but I’m not surprised.

Beastmastery provides the highest up-time on Quickness (aside from Possibly Mesmer with Quickness on Interrupt) via pet swapping. I’ve shown the math for this before in several Ranger threads.

Beastmastery provides stronger pets and can make pets even stronger or more provide regen/swiftness or provide more CC. It is quite powerful.

What precisely are you talking about that the other classes have as options that makes you think the Ranger options are so abysmal? You don’t specify. You just make a broad stroke statement with nothing to support it … as usual.

<edit>
Look at jcbroe’s post here.

He provides his opinion and logical reasons for it.

@jcbroe:
I look forward to seeing what other builds you come up with … though I think we’ll have to see how the meta shifts (or possibly even have some Ranger builds shift it) to see where things ultimately settle and what they means for us. Agree?

Our only sources of cleanse are in Wilderness Survival, eh? What about…

• Healing Spring
• Signet of Renewal
• Brown Bear
• Evasive Purity

There are also runes and sigils if you’re truly concerned about it … several options.

So this is the crap I’m talking about with regards to your posts saying things that simply are not true. Wilderness Survival is obviously not our only source of cleanses.

The name of the game for condition is “continuous re-application”.

The new specializations look like they are going to give this to us … on top of giving us options for even higher damage coefficients for Bleeding/Poison than other classes have.

We’ll have to see how that shakes up the meta. New builds could become viable which could end up dethroning some of the current ones that are impeding Condition builds from being a strong part of the meta.

Tragic is quite right about our access to Weakness, Blind, access for protecting our damaging conditions. In addition to that point, our ability to spam Weakness is a hindrance to power builds as well as weakening targets’ ability to dodge since Weakness reduces Endurance regeneration as well.

As far as condition removal … we have some options. Not every build needs skills 6,7,8,9, and 0 to be condi clears. In addition to that, if you look at some meta builds, they rely on their teammates for condition removal. There is nothing wrong with this.

Kiddo, when you correct me with an actual fact, then you can talk. Until then, you keep saying that without a single instance of it ever happening.

My dislike is strictly due to the fact that you constantly complaining about things with incorrect info … like a lack of evades on ranger skills … or a lack of ranger sustain.

Or you simply post doom and gloom with nothing to back it up.

If you disagree, feel free to provide a link to something that disproves this … your post history says it all and very strongly supports what I’m saying.

The +150 is something new and quite nice.

• Any build that doesn’t take Beastmastery will still have +150 to all pet stats.
• Any build that does take Beastmastery will have +300 to all pet stats (150 + 150)

For several builds never put 0 to 2 points into Beastmastery, they all get a stronger pet. Even if they don’t take Beastmastery now.

For several builds that only put 3 points into Beastmastery, they get the same strength pet but now don’t have to take Beastmastery to get it.

For several builds that put 3 to 5 points into Beastmastery, they all get a stronger pet if they continue to take Beastmastery.

It isn’t nothing and it isn’t trash. Feel free to look back at my very old post on Beastmastery Math:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Beastmastery-Math/first

This will explain to you how nice those extra points are for our Ranger Pets … though I’m sure you won’t look, won’t read, and will continue to complain without actually understanding the stuff you’re complaining about … par for the course and all.

I’m thinking we might see more use of Traps with longbow. With 1,500 range, you can try to force a target to come towards you. If they don’t, you outrange them.

That’s the theory on paper anyways … I want to get to playtest everything … #impatient.

For PvE, my guess is either:

• Marksmanship / Skirmishing / Nature Magic
• Marksmanship / Skirmishing / Beastmastery

Klonko is correct. Vulnerability is still capped at 25 stacks. Please read the notes on the changes before commenting on them.

anduriell.6280:

Very nice post and i agree with all of it.
Just one reminder:
We lost several trait that also were used because they were very impportant:

• Off hand training Now off hand axe lost all the range. Also the split the weapons traits so now if you only want the CD redunction and larger range in torch and dagger you has to chosse two different trait lines.
  This is a nerf considering that other classes even got the opposite. Mediguardian only need to use 1 trait point to have all the bennefits of 3 actual traits.

• Keen Edge We lost the bleeds it could give on crits.
• Speed Training this basic trait to make pets faster is lost. At least i can’t find it and it is one of the most important for pets.
• Commanding Voice is this one available after the patch? I mean having a lot of new effects when F2 and not being able to reduce the CD (that could be even 40 secs) is silly.

Those ones are the ones i can think of right now. But i’m pretty sure they deleted more.
Instead they give us some shiny trash and expect us to not notice (like the +150 point in pets attributes)

Offhand Skill Ranges
They didn’t include the baselined 1,500 range on the Longbow in those notes either, but they had shown last time that Longbow and the off-hand weapons were getting those increased ranged baselined. I assume that hasn’t changed and think they just did a sloppy job of gathering the changeset for Ranger in this regard … but I can somewhat understand given the large amount of changes occurring.

If I’m wrong, I can see some rather angry rangers … myself included

Keen Edge
Yep, this trait disappeared. However, it was 5 bleeds once every kitten … averages to 1 bleed every 9s. That’s not much to cry over.

Speed Training
Look under Beastmastery minor traits at “Pack Alpha”. It says “Pet Skills”, not “Pet F2 Skills”. I believe it affects all pet skills; both F2 and non-F2.

Commanding Voice
Same as with Speed Training … Look under Beastmastery minor traits at “Pack Alpha”. It says “Pet Skills”, not “Pet F2 Skills”. I believe it affects all pet skills; both F2 and non-F2.

+150 Points to Pet Attributes
This isn’t “shiny trash”. This is part of removing stats from the Specializations.
With the current trait system, we gained +50 to those pet attributes per point put into Beastmastery. So putting 3 points into Beastmastery gave you +150 to each of those pet attributes. 6 points into Beastmastery gave you +300.

You may have noticed they reduced the cooldowns on other classes mechanics by 15% and reduce them by another 15% if they take that specialization? They are doing the same thing with Beastmastery. You now get those +150 baselined and just receive the additional +150 if you take Beastmastery.

It is a nice buff for those builds that never took Beastmastery. It is also a buff for any build that took beastmastery before but didn’t put 6 points into it.

Please figure out the logic behind changes before you run your mouth. Again, you provided an opinion without actually understanding the changes. This is why I dislike your posts. Focus on understanding more than on typing. Your posts throughout the forums continue to display an obvious lack of understanding of the Ranger class.

I got tired of seeing people who seemed to want to just complain giving out information comparing the old conditions with the new conditions …

… so, as usual, I did the math.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RvE0DymDqVcuirY7xJynq0AggpQTso8yV71j5BMjofE/edit?usp=sharing

Key things to note:

Bleeding

• New Bleeding does less damage with less than 660 condition damage
• New Bleeding does more damage with more than 660 condition damage

Burning

• 1 Stack of New Burning will never do as much damage as Old Burning used to do regardless of condition damage
• 2 Stacks of Burning does less damage with less than 1082 condition damage
• 2 Stacks of Burning does more damage with more than 1082 condition damage
• 3+ Stacks of Burning will always do more damage than Old Burning regardless of condition damage

Poison

• 1 Stack of New Poison will never do as much damage as Old Poison used to do regardless of condition damage
• 2 Stacks of Poison does less damage with less than 850 condition damage
• 2 Stacks of Poison does more damage with more than 850 condition damage
• 3+ Stacks of Poison will always do more damage than Old Poison

Torment

• New Torment does less damage with less than 707 condition damage
• New Torment does more damage with more than 707 condition damage

I don’t have any notes for confusion due to the fact that it’s damage largely depends on how many times per second the target uses a skill in order to take that “trigger damage”, but it looks largely improved for PvP given that there is a smaller difference in “trigger damage” since that was already lower in PvP than before. Do please note that this assumes that both PvE and PvP will now have the same equation for Confusion damage.

Sounds like time to play around with alternatives then.

People can’t ask for changes to the game and then complain when those changes might require them to change their builds. It’s silly.

“Change the game, but in a way that I don’t have to change anything” … because balance isn’t hard enough.

Few things:

(1)
Moment of Clarity also works with Shortbow’s #5. It mainly benefits from the +100% duration on the daze/stun as it doesn’t have any strong single-hit attacks … but you could interrupt with it, swap to Greatsword, Maul, Hilt Bash, Maul again … I have actually been playing around with non-standard builds lately on my Ranger and having such long dazes/stuns is really nice … people definitely don’t expect Shortbow / Greatsword, lol.

(2)
We don’t know how much more damage the traps are going to be doing directly per pulse yet … need to wait and see about that.

(3)
We still don’t know what the changes are going to be for getting stats only from gear. This could have some unforeseen effects. Without focusing on condition damage gear, getting 700 condition damage is not that difficult even with the current stats from gear.

(4)
I disagree that we will never see anything but WK as the GM for WS. I could see some people being fine with just Healing Spring and/or SoR for condition removal. Not everyone feels like 6,7,8,9, and 0 all need to be condition removal.

(5)
We’re not some “great support class” yet, but we did get some additional support options in the form of

• Marksmanship : Clarion Bond
• Skirmishing : Spotter
• Nature Magic : Vigorous Training
• Nature Magic : Windborne Notes
• Nature Magic : Nature’s Vengeance
• Nature Magic : Invigorating Bond

They vary in power, but they are options that can be improved via simple number tweaks … though I agree about spirits. I’m also very disappointed in what we’re seeing for them right now. On paper, it isn’t looking any better.

Whlie thief can technically get that almost 100% up-time from consume plasma x2 … most Mesmer builds are capable of removing/stealing boons … so the Thief could very well be wasting their time (boons removed) or shooting their self in the foot (boons stolen).

Now, if they are smart, they will steal from the Mesmer then save it to use on some other poor victim :-p

With Marks and BM, every 16s you can get:

• 15s Fury (Marksmanship: Clarion Bond)
• 15s 1x Might (Marksmanship: Clarion Bond)
• 15s Swiftness (Marksmanship: Clarion Bond)
• 15s 3x Might (Beastmastery: Zephyr’s Speed)
• 3s Quickness (Bastmastery: Zephyr’s Speed)

And that’s before any +% boon duration.

If you throw in Nature Magic as your 3rd Specialization you can get either

• 10s Regeneration (Nature Magic: Windborne Notes … assume synergizes w/ Clarion Bond)
• 6s Vigor (Nature Magic: Vigorous Training)

For those who can’t afford The Anomaly, Bloodseeker is a much cheaper (about 2g) alternative that is just a red crystal in your hand. I sometimes wield it with a Rapier … look like a duelist.

If nothing else, it is a step in the right direction as it reduces the chance a pet will be insta-gibbed. Whether or not it is “enough” will be seen through playtesting and number crunching once everything has settled after the big patch and the likely balance changes that will follow in its wake.

@Heimskarl:
I didn’t think about if that 1s boon every 3s was fury. You are correct, that would be very nice with Remorseless as that would give a 100% crit chance every 3s that also added vulnerability and gave +25% dmg.

It is also in the Nature Magic specialization that comes with Fortifying Bond which shares boons with your pet but not at the duration you got them … so it could greatly benefit the Ranger pet.

Assuming they don’t change Fortifying Bond’s boon durations to be any less than they are now, this would give 100% up-time for Fury, Might, Regeneration, Swiftness, Vigor, and Retaliation. Vigor isn’t helping the pet with anything, but the others are of varying usefulness.

I do have to agree that Light on Your Feet does seem quite lackluster at the moment. I wouldn’t be bothered by it if it was a constant 5% but making it only after evading and only last for 4s but be such a low bonus doesn’t make too much sense to me … more work for same or less reward than other GMs.

Sure Protective Ward had its up-time reduced by having an ICD, but I think we can all agree that it was a bit overpowered with the previous wording. Now it is a bit more balanced and if it needs and further balancing (which, let’s be honest, is quite likely to happen after all these big changes) it is just tweaking of numbers to make it more balanced.

The thing I’m surprised that I don’t see people talking more about is conditions.

People have complained about Ranger direct damage coefficients for the longest time since they are lower than most other classes. We all assume this is because Ranger’s class mechanic is a pet … probably a correct assumption :-p

Rangers have the exact same damage coefficients as other classes when it comes to conditions though … so now you do the same condition damage AND have a pet providing more damage. Well, now Rangers have a trait for increasing bleed damage and a trait for increasing poison damage … gaining higher coefficients on these conditions. I think this is something that should be explored quite a bit. Condition Rangers should be happy.

Additionally, Ranger CC is gaining improvements in that you can combine 20% reduced cooldown on Longbow/Greatsword/Pet_Skills AND take Moment of Clarity AND Quick Draw. That’s even more CC coming from two weapons (go go!) Power Rangers are using. They should be happy with this as well … heck, if you don’t need the extra CC … Quick Draw can be used for Rapid Fire, Hunter’s Shot, Barrage, Maul, Swoop, or even Counterattack.

Sure, there are some traits that look like lemons … Ranger isn’t the only class still suffering from those. However, Ranger certainly has many things to be looking forward to.

You mean I’ll have to use my traps like traps instead of like grenades? …

Oh look, anduriell complaining on the Ranger forums again.

Yeah, let’s complain about this and just ignore the many good options we’re getting …

• Pets are becoming stronger by default … if you never put 3+ points into Beastmastery before, your pet will be stronger with the upcoming baseline +150 to their stats.
• Longbow traits are being combined into one trait
• Fury/Might/Swiftness on pet swap (Marksmanship)
• Might/Quickness on pet swap (Beastmastery)
• More access to Protection
• More access to Swiftness
• More access to Might
• More access to Regen
• More access to Fury
• Remorseless … we’ve had so many discussions on this yet we have people just ignoring this awesome trait and the synergies while they have their female dog fest … pathetikittentle brains.
• Pets can inflict 2+ bleeds per crit
• Ranger can spam weakness via MH Axe, Pet F2, and getting hit … with the right traits of course

I agree with Sol. There are good builds on the horizon.

By the way, anduriell, Sol was here long before you; promoting the Ranger and what it could do when played well even when people thought it couldn’t do a darn thing. Posted several excellent videos. Look up your Ranger history. I say this especially to you because I have yet to see anything positive or even logical come from you. In fact, If I saw anduriell post something that is actually useful, I might drop a load in my pants … not investing in Depends any time soon though. As such, perhaps you should learn to shut your yapper … though that does require learning … so again not going to hold my breath.

The funniest thing I’ve seen in this deluge of mostly garbage … Heimskarl being told “everyone knows you’re a warrior, go back to there” when if you go to the Warrior forum they say “everyone knows you’re a ranger, go back to there”. Not to surprised … people with room temp IQs likely “think” (loosely used) alike.

Oh, since all of you seemed to miss it … we don’t know yet what boon the spirits are going to pulse … 1s every 3s does seem like garbage, but let’s see what it ends up being. Perhaps that 1s is a typo … heck, Warrior banner can be traited for 3s regen every 3s … better than what 1s every 3s could do even with +100% boon duration … hopefully it’s a typo and not someone thinking 1s of a boon does a darn thing.

When did the Fast Hands discussion become about Warrior’s access to instant cast abilities?

As far as “reacting to” … there are two ways to react to something:

• Pre-emptively … so I dodge an eviscerate, a shatter, etc. so it doesn’t hit me
• Reactively … I got hit by something, now I need to cleanse, heal, etc.

When talking about geomancy/hydromancy sigils, saying that people “can react to it by cleansing” is the same as saying people “can react to Eviscerate by healing” … in short … rather dumb.

I think the argument using Warrior’s [lack of] instant cast abilities is pretty weak given that Warrior is already compensated by their telegraphs by the fact that those skills hit harder than many other classes’ skills. It’s part of this amazing thing called “balance”.

P.S. so a trait “isn’t OP”, but it would take a “broken OP” for you to change your mind about the trait that “isn’t OP” … this seems contradictory.

Note: I’m not saying that FH is OP … just that he is contradicting himself … again.

Is there some meta that Warrior currently is not in that this would help them get into? No.

Would this help improve Warrior build diversity? No.

So what is the point?

Staff : Bifrost … shoot rainbows
Shortbow : Dreamer … shoot rainbow unicorns
Finisher : Rainbow Unicorn

Overwhelm people with emasculating rainbows and unicorns … laugh.

Idea
Provide bonus points for capping a point owned by the 1st place server in a match.

Explanation
The idea behind a 3-team system is that if team A is dominating, teams B and C will gang up on team A. Sadly, for whatever reason(s), this is not what happens. Instead, we see B and C ignore A and beat each other up while A continues to dominate.

So why does this happen? My guess is that A is dominant because of some reason(s) that make them ultimately stronger (more people, better commanders, better PvPers, etc.). This makes it harder to take Towers, Keeps, etc. from A and easier to take Towers, Keeps, Camp from B and C.

Since you get the same reward for these regardless of who you take them from, we often see people going for the easier targets. Why work harder for the same thing when you can work less and get the same reward?

So, to combat this, I was wondering what people’s thoughts were on providing bonus points for capturing points held by the current leader?

We’d have to obviously tweak the numbers to find a good balance, but what if you had A dominating with a 10% lead. Why not provide 10% (rounded) of the points for holding that Tower/Keep/Camp from A immediately upon taking it from them ? If 10% isn’t enough, tweak it to 20% or more. If it’s too much, lower it to 5%.

Now the 2nd and 3rd place servers have more incentive for attacking the 1st place server.

Now the 2nd and 3rd place servers have a way to gain points faster to close the gap that has been growing between them and the 1st place server.

Thoughts?

@Quadox:
Aye, there is the fact that opponents can at least see that the Mantra is up and how many charges are left of it so it does provide a bit more counterplay than other instant abilities that don’t show this. Steal being a good example of and ability that is instant and shows no sign of being off cooldown but can largely influence the outcome of a fight (especially if the Thief is fighting something like a Mesmer/Necro/etc. as those stolen items are much loved by Thieves).

I think we definitely agree here … if you’re jumped by 5 other players … you’re going to die … unless you’re an elementalist with mist form and traited cantrips to cleanse condis, lol :-p Darn those elementalists ;-)

The only things that are going to save any non-elementalist in such a situation are:

• The 5 players jumping them suck
• Their team saves their butt

Even the elementalist is likely in trouble as soon as that mist form ends :-p

Well, since talking about shatter, I assume we’re talking about 4 Dom, 4 Dueling, 6 Illusion.

In the new system, this will simply be Dom, Dueling, Illusion.

• Illusions will have Illusionary Elasticity by default (baseline) … frees up a trait
• Illusions will have Illusionary Persona by default (baseline) … frees up a trait
• Illusions will now inflict bleeding and confusion on crit … more conditions applied
• Vulnerability from staff clones (when they don’t inflict bleeding/burning) give you +% dmg versus the target … more direct damage done
• Phantasm damage increase by default (baseline) … more direct damage done

I think these things alone will help.
Your conditions do less damage, but you’re applying more conditions.
Your conditions do less damage but you’re doing more direct damage.
Your conditions do less damage, but you have some freed up traits to compensate with.

I agree that DE baseline would be bad for Phantasm builds … unless they coded it to only summon a clone if you didn’t already have 3 illusions out.

I agree with Chaos that it would help with build diversity (and power) quite a bit to have even more options for generating clones. We already have cooldowns on our shatters to prevent us from just constantly shattering on our opponents. In fact, despite the setup required for a 3-illusion Mind Wrack, it has a longer cooldown than several other classes’ skills that do similar (or better) damage and require no setup.

I think traits should only be baselined if at least one of these is true:

• Without it some mechanic does not work or “sucks”.
• It it too weak to warrant being a trait

I don’t think focus reflects fall into either of those.

I have a Razer Naga. It does what it is supposed to do but it has issues:

• Double-click issue with my first one … but it was old so blamed myself
• Mouse drift issue with my current one … it is not old and Google shows me this is a common problem

I discussed this with some guildies and some had the exact same experience and have since moved to using the G600 and don’t have these issues.

So, I suggest you skip what I’ve dealt with and just start with the G600. I will be swapping to one soon myself.

Ummm … I stayed with Ranger but have not lost all hope to be in the PvP meta.

@Sadrien:
That largely depends on the skill level of the playerbase in question.

• At high levels, yes.
• At moderate levels, meh. Very build dependent in my opinion
• At low levels, heck no.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with the Thief class

• Thief has such a high skill ceiling that it is a blast to play as you rarely ever feel restricted by the class
• Thief has several non-telegraphed but high-damage abilities that I feel harm counterplay

Now, Ross has a point at the moderately competent thieves due to the non-telegraphed issue. If a Glassy Thief runs into a glassy anything, they do a single DPS combo and it’s a downed player. Sadly, this creates a low skill floor for Thieves which leads to aggravation from players as no one likes to see nothing but it take them down. It is why you don’t see nearly as much aggravation from players that get hit by a Warrior’s Eviscerate. Only the least mature players complain about that as the rest realize that “hey, I saw it coming and failed to do something about it”.

Side-note: I have the same dislike for some of Mesmer’s own “instant” abilities with no telegraph (ex: Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Distraction). I’m for things that promote counterplay and dislike things that harm it. I want good fights and being able to see my opponent’s skills and react while they do the same concerning my skills leads to much more fun fights in my opinion.

How about you focus on yourself and your own class and stop worrying about what the warriors are doing?

If you have siblings, I’m sure your parents told you the same thing as far as your siblings were concerned.

… Learn the lesson …

Traits that were made baseline were done so because they were one or both of the following:
(1) Required to make some mechanic “viable” / “not suck”
(2) Not strong enough to warrant being a trait

People get stuck on “required”, thinking that “powerful” and “required” at the same … but they are not.

I’m horribly annoyed that the room temperature IQ that is infecting other subforums seems to be infecting the Ranger subforum.

I’ve said for a while every time one of these pops up …

ArenaNet could have the pet names stored client-side.

• When you bring out a new pet, your client would automatically use the name stored for it.
• ArenaNet would simply have to verify the name set by the client … what they already do when we are manually setting it.

Basically, instead of having us constantly remember our pet names and set them manually … have the game client do that for us. Very simple and it doesn’t require any additional storage for ArenaNet.

A few things:
(1) You didn’t use any traits … traits play a huge part of overall DPS
(2) You didn’t take into account bleeding being maxed by the group’s own procs (this affects Shortbow quite a bit)

If you’re wanting to compare damage, there are already several sources. Death and Taxes has several members that have already done the legwork time and time again for this.

If you want to compare various Ranger weapon skills, I did this a month or so ago:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tuDz1x50hIhREdfWni7Eim9MbG8cDRkIuuIsioXdruc/edit?usp=sharing

@OP:
Do you think that Warrior is the only class that has an issue with being jumped by 5 people from stealth? How about the classes with absolutely no access to any form of invulnerability or block skills that end after a single block?

I fail to see how this is a Warrior issue. If you’d like to elaborate as to why, please do, but as I see it:

• Warrior has the highest base effective health (highest base armor + highest base health)
• Warrior has access to blocks that can block multiple attacks
• Warrior has forms of invuln (Defy/Endure Pain vs DD, Zerk vs Condi)

Other classes are in much worse shape when it comes to being jumped by 5 players from stealth.

@Julie Yann:
What is amusing about people linking their gear is that you can simply link gear in your bags or that someone else is wearing (assuming same skin). People did that all the time when there was Magic Find gear … they’d have their zerk gear in their bags and link it while actually wearing the Magic Find gear.

I don’t think it’s the meta that is toxic. I think it is various gamers that are toxic. Some people simply don’t treat others like human beings when playing and at the slightest misstep they jump on that person instead of saying something like “hey, we asked for a meta build, can you please respect that”.

On the flip side, you have people who are so anti-meta that they either try to troll people asking for it.

People need to just realize different people have different goals. It helps to just communicate these and people should be fine.

It goes back to what I’ve said earlier … just as people aren’t obligated to play the way others want them to, others are not obligated to play with people that don’t play the way they are desired to.

Simple Examples:

• When I’m short on time, I aim for meta builds in a speed run. I hope everyone respects that and moves on but if they don’t, they have no reason to be in the group.
• When I’m just relaxing, I don’t care and everyone does what they want

I communicate these to whomever I’m playing with. I also know from the people I play with who prefers to do what. Some hate speed runs. Some only do speed runs.

There is no “right” answer. People just need to think, communicate, and understand … sadly, that’s asking for too much from the players that are still maturing … all that testosterone clouds your brain (heck, I’d go back in time and smack my younger self).

@BurrTheKing:
Hey, don’t forget Bola! Remember the videos that came out to teach people the animations for Bull’s Charge and Bola’s so that they would know what to look out for? Lol!

I believe you are right as far as 1v1ing Warriors because many people didn’t know and weren’t used to the combat style yet.

As far as group fights, I think Warrior did and still does scale very well into large fights. Team fights, someone can help hold down some poor sod for a Warrior to go ham on … or a Ham warrior can do that for someone else ;-)

@anduriell:
If it wasn’t for the fact that new rangers might read your garbage, I’d probably just chalk you up as a waste of time and ignore completely …

Yes, in that other thread where you claimed that Ranger has no sustain, I directed you to the combination of Regeneration, Troll Unguent, Signet of the Wild, and Natural Healing. you stated that my points were wrong … which was met by several others telling you that they were actually right… like the example I mentioned with Natural Regeneration … and the amount of healing all of that adds up to … and how if you take healing but don’t gear/spec properly for it it’s the same as taking conditions but not taking condition damage …

But hey … selective memory and lack of logic seems to be working well for you ./eyeroll

If you’re having trouble in melee, perhaps you should look as some of the videos by Wizzo and others where they are having success not “just dieing” in melee.

You’ll notice in some of those videos that they are quite capable of (1) Sustain (2) Disengaging … it’s the craziest thing seeing that you say Rangers have trouble with these things but we have several showing that we don’t and even more saying that we don’t.

But hey, you’re the same person that was complaining earlier about Ranger not having many evades … and then I showed you a list of them … and now you complain about what can go wrong with skills … because using things correctly is an issue I guess …

I don’t give 2 fecal matter about the threads. I was watching the tourney matches and Warriors were there right out the gates when the game launched.

Plenty of Warrior builds are actually strong in sPvP, not just those alternatives you mentioned … it’s just that shoutbow is that much stronger.

Lamenting that Warriors don’t do as much DPS as Elementalists and Thieves when those two are made of paper (Elementalist less so) is a bit silly, don’t you think? I’d love to see the Math for if you’re so adamant about it though.

That all said, I’m right there with you with being tired of the lack of build diversity … though, as I said, it’s not just an issue on our Warriors. Here’s to hoping that the upcoming Specialization changes provide an improvement in this area.

Amusingly, you know who has the most build diversity in any given meta? Those classes who aren’t part of that meta ;-)

Are you seriously going to ask him for one build and then when he gives it give him flak for doing just that?!

PvE comps are based on what each individual class brings so saying that PvE speedruns are based on comps as a way to make the build “not count” is just silly.

I’m sorry, but there is no reason FH is mandatory. It could go away and Warrior be balanced around Fast Hands never existing again.

None of you ever gave a reason worth two fecal matter why FH was mandatory other than “it’s more powerful”. Being “more powerful” is not a reason something is “needed”. Does it hurt build diversity? Yes. Does that make it required? Heck no. As pointed out before, there could be a button that is an auto-win. It would not be “more powerful”. It would never be “required”. Same principle, just on an exaggerated scale because despite this point being made it seems many of you never understood the difference.

Examples of “required” things:

• Damaging conditions when you are taking condition damage … otherwise that condition damage does nothing
• A Ranger pet when you have mechanics that require a Ranger pet in order to actually function
• Mesmer illusions because without them you don’t even have a class mechanic (nor 2+ skills on every weaponset)

Without Fast Hands … a Warrior still bloody works. Without those other things … they don’t work. It’s very simple.

The only reason I agreed to it being a good idea to baseline it was for the sake of ease of balance in the future because of how Fast Hands effectively doubles the usage of so many different things that it creates a scenario that looks quite difficult to balance moving forward.

This issue could just as well be fixed by completely removing Fast Hands. Since all of you have been advocating Fast Hands baseline to promote build diversity, you should be fine with this as well as it would promote build diversity … but I imagine we’ll now see several posts of why this just would not work … and I’m just going to laugh to myself as it will just point out the hypocrisy of “make it baseline so we have build diversity” when the build diversity obviously isn’t the goal … getting Fast Hands baseline is.

./sigh … disappointed in several people on here and too darn tired to be nicer.

Been here since beta. I know how it’s gone. Warrior wasn’t a joke since it was a key part of the early tourney teams since someone that couldn’t dodge/block out of Warrior attacks due to some CC was dead meat. It’s fluctuated from there, but always been viable.

Are you going to say that it’s worse to be pigeon-holed into particular builds for each meta as opposed to not being part of those metas?

If you look at the builds for each of the classes in each meta, their is very little, if any, variety for several of them. This is not an issue restricted to warriors. It also doesn’t mean that other warrior builds aren’t strong. They just aren’t as strong in each of those metas as the current metas builds. Heck, shoutbow (with elementalists) has mostly killed condi builds from the current sPvP meta. That is power.

as I pointed out before, these threads turn into this surge in dumb***ery.

“You guys are selfish”
“Well look at how selfish the others are”
“We’re less selfish than XYZ”

In particular I hate the analogy to “rich/poor” people … it’s horribly off and insulting to both sides.

I get more intelligent conversation out of my 5 year old and likely out of my newborn in a year than this thread currently contains.

If you think you need something baseline … give reasons why … factual reasons; not more opinions to back up your opinion. Otherwise, you have nothing to discuss.

Currently, I see there is nothing to discuss here. I also think the many posts here are ignorant of the number of changes Rangers have coming down the pipeline. But hey, ignorance is rampant lately on the forums … just gotta deal with it I guess.

When people speak about “the PvE crowd” and how “easy” PvE is, I can’t help but feel they are ignorant of how things are.

Sure, you can get through any PvE content with a lot of patience doing just about whatever you want. The same can be said for PvP. You can be a PUG-hero there too and do just fine.

However, at the higher levels of PvE where it’s about speed runs, there are obvious differences between those capable of doing it versus those that can’t.

This is no different than the obvious differences between the people capable of doing high-level PvP and those who can’t.

Otherwise, doing Arah/high-fractal/etc. in ~20 minutes wouldn’t be much of a feat.

@Julie Yann:
Do you really want to talk about nerfs to someone who plays Mesmer too? ;-)

I am well aware what Warrior damage used to be. The continued viability despite said nerfs says much about how it used to be pre-nerf.

@Choppy:
Sorry, this to two your post earlier on this page (#9) … been away … 3rd child was born … was rather busy (still am).

Fast Hands baseline is a power creep in that:

• A build that already took Discipline now gets Fast Hands and whatever new trait replaces it as a minor trait in Discipline
• A build that doesn’t take Discipline is still gaining Fast Hands

It is a power creep. How much is debatable.

This is why when I’ve discussed choices for the sake of “ease of balancing”, I’ve mentioned the change being made followed by additional balancing around it as I think some may be warranted whether you made it baseline or simply removed from the game.

Exactly!

The reason the little mesmers can hide is because they don’t have such an overwhelming amount of “Fabulous” and “Awesome” attracting all people to them … their little bodies just don’t have the capacity for it ;-)

The problem with when people make those sorts of threads is that others take them seriously which then gets us on all sorts of really dumb*** discussions.

This is why I try to add <sarcasm> or similar tags when I’m doing anything close to that … though “reading is hard” and even that gets ignored by many.

I think the fact that we’re not sure if it was meant to be taken seriously highlights my point. I’d love for it to be that way though. Toxsa has some good points in other threads. I just really dislike this one and others like it and the replies to it … ugh. Is logic not taught in schools any more these days?

Just nitpicking … nothing I really disagree with too much.

Only thing there Choppy is with your logic in 8 as it ignores that there are tradeoffs made for Warrior to currently get FH.

It doesn’t mean that I think warrior would be OP with FH, but, as we previously discussed (to death), that is gaining something which is technically “power creep” … the question is “how much power creep”.

I don’t think the effort to balance around baselined FH versus removing it altogether is as big a difference as I assume you do from your post, but I do think you’re correct that it would likely take less to balance around just making FH baseline it than it would to balance around removing FH as an option … again, though, “how much of a difference”.

I think you misread. He’s replying to some of the (in my opinion) really stupid threads saying “so-and-so got things baseline … so give us these powerful traits baseline” … not even looking at the power of the traits other classes are getting baselined versus what they are requesting … nor looking at placement in metas, power creep, etc.

Lots of additional dumb***ery on the forums … more so than usual :-/

I’m not convinced that it’ll always do less damage for a power build. Per stack, sure, but now there is an option for stacking it more given the condi changes as well as the trait to apply burning with Longbow autos. We need to playtest that to truly know the state of things.

Nick keeps saying that he’s just talking about damage, but his OP says:

nicknamenick.2437:

Well this sucks for all power builds.. end of longbow for allot of us.

and

nicknamenick.2437:

Conclusion, only celestial/hybrid builds can still use this weapon.
All power builds are excluded by this change.

That is more than just talking about the damage.

Especially for a class that has access to 5 second weapon swaps, a weapon can be used for its utility … like Might stacking, CC, synergy with Cleansing Ire, etc.. Longbow isn’t losing any of this.

Also, for Longbow AAs to burn, yes you have to take that trait, but you’re getting more with less traits with the new system than you were before. You’re also getting more traits. You don’t take that into account whatsoever in what you’ve been saying.

Morfedel, it’s now about “can you beat a Thief”. It’s about “can you beat an equal (or better) skilled Thief?” as that is going to be the challenge in team game.

If you can’t, then there is really no reason for your team to have you as you’re a liability. As I previously stated, a Thief can already +1 faster than you due to greater mobility.

So, if you can’t when the encounters over the Thief, you aren’t providing any advantage.

Your team can still win, but the advantage won’t be coming from you. You are thief bait which makes you a liability and puts them at a disadvantage that the other 4 members have to now make up for.

CETheLucid.3964:

But I digress. Back OT, frankly, while we’re not getting tons of stuff baseline like ele or war, a lot of our traits were moved around.

Warrior got zero things baselined.

@Heimskarl:
When they kept the same damage but halfed the channel time, it did the same damage over a shorter amount of time. That results in a DPS increase.

That being said, it was so pathetic beforehand with the drastically longer channel that it was something people sometimes asked “is it a DPS loss to use this” … which was sad.

@Juba:
While I don’t agree with ronpierce’s latest post about it just being “buff bait” … I can see how he got there due to some posters, such as yourself Juba, given how you simply keep asking for it without providing reasons why it actually needs to be baselined.

If you truly just wanted more build diversity, you should be fine with FH baselined or the Warrior balanced around FH being removed completely as an option … both would accomplish build diversity.

Everyone who says “you can use anything in PvE” is ignoring that that same logic can be used in PvP. Yes, you can use anything anywhere, but you’ll get a much better performance if you use the more optimal build for the game mode you’re playing in … regardless of whether it is PvE, sPvP, or WvW. This is where there is a meta for all game modes.

Honestly, Juba, if you had been the only one discussing this, this thread would have died a long time ago as people get tired of seeing “because I said so”. It is why I feel tired whenever I just see your name in this thread as you’re conditioning me to just expect a lack of facts/logic/reasoning to support what you say … which sucks because I have actually seen you use them in a small number of other threads.