Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

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

Attached picture is most likely going to be Jon Sharp in a few hours.

But seriously. If you really do care, you’re not showing it. I realize some builds need nerfing from time to time and that sucks (GW1 SF Minion Master, nooo!). However, there’s a difference between nerfing an overpowered build and bringing down an entire class because of a single build.
The Pet damage nerf was unneeded in PvE and WvW. Just like the Pet Vit/Tough buff was not needed in sPvP. If the issue is that they’re not compatible, split the skill, or in this case the pet, between the different modes. I’d argue that the Pet mechanic itself is the entire flaw, but there’s been enough topics about that, as I’m sure you read.
As said before though, the biggest issue with this class is the lack of direction. Jack of all Trades, Master of None is fine in theory, in practice, it means you don’t fit in anywhere. The same was true for the GW1 Ranger, except they found their role pretty easily due to their solo survival and interrupt skills, where they were in fact undisputed masters compared to other classes until the Mesmer buffs.
In GW2 though, the importance of both those factors in a group are greatly reduced and the survivability doesn’t hold true anymore. Furthermore, while the GW1 Ranger could provide decent damage support, the forced Pet in GW2 makes a damaging role for the Ranger both limited and unreliable due to the almost inexistent ‘bond’ between Ranger and Pet (Ignore Traits and gear) and the wonky AI. Is a weak Shoutbot really the role you have in mind for Rangers in a team environment?
This is really what we’re being reduced to. After almost a year of buffs, Spirits still aren’t as good as other support skills. Our damage is considered unreliable due to Pet AI and highly unreliable in Dungeon Boss Encounters (The new dungeon might as well be renamed Laser Cooked Pets). In terms of survivability, we’re decent at best. The combination of all these factors makes Rangers unquestionably the most broken class in the game, which has been recognized for a while but with no effective action taken. In fact when Rangers did get buffs, it left most of the community underwhelmed. Again with this Rebalance. This was supposed to be the big Trait overhaul for all classes, and while true for most of the others, all I thought when reading the Ranger notes was “huh…that’s it?”. Marksmanship still has useless Minor Traits (Opening Strike, srsly), Quick Draw and Piercing Arrows doesn’t get merged while similar changes occur for other classes, Trap Traits still in the Prec/Critical line, …
Again, I could go on there, but there’s been too many threads already.

/rant I guess

On a side note, I kind of miss the old GW1 updates where Devs would argument the reason for the changes a bit. Even if we still don’t like it, we’d known the reasoning behind it. Like now, why was SB’s range nerfed? To indirectly buff LB? It was actually way too powerful? A Thief got killed by a SB Ranger in WvW?

The point of the Ranger is on the arrow we just shot to 1500 range and we’re waiting for our AI Pets to bring it back to shoot it far away again.

But seriously, that’s how our auto-attack will work starting next month.

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

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

Roll Guardian. Or Warrior or Thiefs. Devs play those, so they barely nerf them.

Well this is pretty much worse than expected. Time to retire until next month at least. More Guardian/Mesmer time!

PvE: don’t expect dungeoning in a PUG after the next patch. Arguably the worst farming class because of few AoE skills unless you go Trapper. Soloing works, but pretty much any class can solo the open world.
WvW/sPvP: Will depend on how the new patch is perceived and what builds pop up. Personally, I don’t see a lot of good things coming.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I run with zerg busting groups so we’re all tightly stacked anyways. Still, to each their own.

Debating whether to say “screw it” and just post the build despite the updates not actually being out.

360 radius is really, really small though. It’s basically “can I hit you with my GS from this position”. If not, then no shouts for you.

Personally, I find it a very weak Trait for being a GM trait. You NEED this Trait to have your shouts do anything other than buff your Pet (in other words, be useful). And in return you get Swiftness and Regen, arguably the weakest and most redundant Boons in the game, on a range shorter than any other Shout.

Compared to the Guardian’s GM Shout Trait that converts conditions on allies into boons, while the shouts themselves provide boons and have a larger range, there’s no point in running a Shouting Ranger over a Shouting Guardian, especially given the other support Guardians can bring.

If the notes are correct though, the radius for the shouts is only 360 units, or basically only those standing right next to you, making that only viable in a pure melee build. So forget about buffing the party unless you stack on the same spot.

Hell, with pet moving behind the target, that would put it out of range from time to time…

Puandro.3245:

Daemon.4295:

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

No, Quickness affects SB and LB the same in terms of DPS.

Wrong. Quickness has been bugged for SB for a long time. Attack speed is increased by 31% instead of 50% for Crossfire. When Quickness was still at 100%, SB had an increased attack speed of 62%. This may be due to the same graphic glitch that caused the SB Crossfire attack speed nerf in October. Because Rangers get nerfed for graphical reasons.

It would be amazing if the might stacks were applied to both Ranger and Pet. If Ranger + Pet DPS is supposed to be comparable to other classes’ DPS, how is stacking Might on one part of the DPS a good thing? It’s still worse than any other class stacking Might since that directly effects their entire damage output instead of only 10-30% of it, depending on the Pet.

But that’s a problem with Ranger being designed to not work together with the Pet and not the Trait I guess.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

SirJack.4760:

Regen is a terrible team boon since it takes the HPower of each individual team mate. So even if you spec HPower, you’re still not specced as a “Healer” as long as your team mates have poor HPower stats.

Regenerations applied use the healing power of whoever applied them. That’s why fern hounds will only heal you for the floor130 hp/s regardless of your healing power if they are untraited.

Odd. I tested this with Fern Hounds and Healing Spring. Both regens ticked for the same amount and I had an Apothecary set up.

Dardamaniac.1295:

SirJack.4760:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Expiatus.4210:

Are these verified? Why decrease SB to 900? Call me suspicious but hey, “Trust but verify” you know.

People weren’t taking LB because SB had the same range for more DPS and conditions. Now that’s been replaced with less range for more DPS and conditions.

Anyone who thinks a 15-20% increase in damage on SB 2-5 is a dps boost has never used the thing before.

DPS = Damage per second

Conditions play into that, and #1 does all the DPSing, not the other 4.

So then explain your logic that they reduced the damage but increased the dps because, according to the notes, they didn’t touch the damage or conditions on crossfire nor did they increase the duration of poison volley.

Also let me inform you that you have 3 projectile finishers at Shortbow…Well i geuss that youve never fired above a fire field with dakittens ok,you will do it now

No changes were made to the Finishers. This is a straight up SB nerf. The “compensation” could be +500%, they’re only on the most conditional skills, the ones you don’t want to go spam around for maximum efficiency. SB DPS is Crossfire. 3-5 is conditional support, not DPS. IF you’re spamming these for combo effects, you’re using them wrong.

I didnt said that..I just said that Crossfire isnt the only source of dmg in Shortbow

Except it is. Using skill 2-5 lowers your damage in exchange for utility. If you want the maximum DPS out of SB, use 1 and nothing else. This “buff” changes nothing to that fact. The % increase is insufficient to suddenly validate these skills as “spammable on recharge”, they’re still a lot more useful used at the right time.
Projectile Combo finishers are pretty bad anyway. Blast Finishers and Leaps are a lot better uses of combo fields.

Regen is a terrible team boon since it takes the HPower of each individual team mate. So even if you spec HPower, you’re still not specced as a “Healer” as long as your team mates have poor HPower stats.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Expiatus.4210:

Are these verified? Why decrease SB to 900? Call me suspicious but hey, “Trust but verify” you know.

People weren’t taking LB because SB had the same range for more DPS and conditions. Now that’s been replaced with less range for more DPS and conditions.

Anyone who thinks a 15-20% increase in damage on SB 2-5 is a dps boost has never used the thing before.

DPS = Damage per second

Conditions play into that, and #1 does all the DPSing, not the other 4.

So then explain your logic that they reduced the damage but increased the dps because, according to the notes, they didn’t touch the damage or conditions on crossfire nor did they increase the duration of poison volley.

Also let me inform you that you have 3 projectile finishers at Shortbow…Well i geuss that youve never fired above a fire field with dakittens ok,you will do it now

No changes were made to the Finishers. This is a straight up SB nerf. The “compensation” could be +500%, they’re only on the most conditional skills, the ones you don’t want to go spam around for maximum efficiency. SB DPS is Crossfire. 3-5 is conditional support, not DPS. IF you’re spamming these for combo effects, you’re using them wrong.

Underwhelming.

Pet HP/Toughness was never really the issue, the problem is and always will be that pets are too dumb to evade attacks. Just took Ranger for a spin in the new Dungeon, Canines and Drakes are still more dead than alive for most of the fights. I was running 0 BM and didn’t bring Guard, but be honest, if I have to stack trait points in BM AND be forced to bring a skill to make pets useful, you’re admitting the Ranger Pet still needs help badly. It’s a big buff for general PvE roaming, but really, that’s not where the issue is. It’s in Dungeons, FotM and WvW, where pets die because everything hits like a truck or several small trucks.

Tried equipping a Spirit. Unequipped it a minute later. It still dies when something farts in it’s general direction.

The QZ buff is “nice”, but not ranger specific, all classes got a similar buff. To make it worse, QZ is still bugged for Shortbow (31% speed increase instead of 50%).

Longbow and GS saw no changes, neither did any of the other weapons badly in need of buffs. No changes to our trait lines either like Warrior got.

Search and Rescue no longer works on defeated players, which is a shame. We could only use this skill for a month because of the bugs, now they take away the best part of it. Back to the pile of terrible skills it goes.

To be honest, this may have been a step in the right direction, but ANet is going to have to make huge leaps for the next update. When a class is getting more and more excluded from parties (and frankly, I’m seeing less and less reason to blame them), there’s something wrong with the class. Ask yourself a simple question: what can a Ranger do that another class can’t do better? What does a Ranger contribute to a party that another class can’t do?
After the S&D nerf/fix, nothing. As long as pets continue to have such a huge portion of our damage, Rangers will never provide reliable, consistent DPS. As long as Spirits’ survivability and effects are a joke, it’s not gonna be party support. As long as our trait lines are all over the place and weapons like LB and GS remain in their current, frankly pathetic state, we can barely have decent build variety.
We’re still in the same, subpar state we were in at the start of the game. What has changed the past 6 months? We saw some buffs here and there. Hell, for the majority of changes, we received nothing but buffs, though some were more bug fixes, like (FINALLY) fixing Lick Wounds. The problem is that it’s not enough, minor tweaks here and there do not solve what is wrong with the class and sadly, it’s its very core. IMO, as long as we don’t get permastow and get the damage the pet does back on the Ranger, it’s going to be impossible to properly balance the Ranger for the High-end PvE content it’s currently being shunned from.
Like High-end GW1 PvE and PvP, the classes that get in a party are the ones with a) good party support (Imbagon, Panic Mes, Monk) or b) consistent (AoE) damage (Wars, Eles, Splinter Barrage Rangers, …) or c) Niche roles (Cripshot, Sins). In GW2, the Pet is a permanent part of the Ranger, and its biggest handicap. The Pet simply can not provide reliable, constant DPS, there’s too may issues, it’s dead, target is moving, target is shooting from behind a wall, etc… You could work around the lack of party support, you could even do changes so the Ranger fits in a niche, but you won’t be able to fix the DPS issue as long as Pets remain in the current state. And as long as DPS is the issue, well, let’s say our party support is going to have to outshine Guardian to compensate for that…

Agrios.1957:

I see you have a point with pets. But not THAT point to say “OMG Rangers FTL” as if pets were vital to core class mechanics. AFAIC I’ve never seen any pet-centered build.

I dont take dungeons, even more Fractals into consideration. Since I tend to see the difficult in dungeons a lil overkill since I think 1-shot mechanics are being abused there.

And, fractals are even worse. Agony is an artificial gate that has absolutely nothing to say about how good a class is, or how good you play. Its just a matter to have “x” item to past this point.

Just like the Mursaat in GW1, when you got your armor infused, I saw they were not that difficult..

Except Pets are a vital part of the class’ core mechanic and all builds are inherently Pet-centric because they’re responsible for 30-50% of the Ranger’s potential DPS.
The inherent flaw with pets is that they’re too much attached to the Ranger class in GW2. In GW1, pets were completely optional (at the cost of a skill slot), you could bring them while not speccing in BM and they would suck horribly, but the Ranger would still be of use to the team as either a decent damager, interrupter, etc…On the other hand, speccing in BM would mean you weren’t speccing in Marksmanship, or not as much anyway and deal less damage as a Ranger. It was a fair trade-off once all the Pet issues were resolved, like having to bring 2 skill slots for a pet by linking Heal skills to Pet Rez skills and having your pet if you had a Pet Rez. A BM specced ranger could do serious damage through his pet, but at the risk of losing the pet. Eventually, BM builds were viable outside of specialized builds like B/P way in Tombs.
In GW2, Pets are forced upon the Ranger and you’re expected to DEAL WITH IT. In high-level content, the current pet is insufficient. You’re basically forced to spec 30 points in BM to get some survivability out of it, and that’s just blown away in Fractals. As a result, Ranger pets are mostly dead and the inherent mechanic that they deal a substantial amount of our damage becomes our greatest handicap.
Compare Ranger GS damage with the GS damage of every other class and start crying. The same goes for most of our other weapons. We’re literally Master of None to the point even Warriors have better Longbow skills, damage AND utility in them. Added to that is several of our support skills rely on the pet, none of which is any good. The traps don’t use pets, neither do LR, QZ and SS and those are pretty much the only skills worth using. Signet of the Hunt to tun around, but not really in combat.

Pretty simple and obvious one.

Issue: Pet Agony resistance
Suggested solution: Immunity/same Agony Resistance as the Ranger