Guild Wars 2

GhOst.4019:

Tissitra.4153:

There was a thread a while back whose purpose was to discuss build performance in matchups:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Meta-Build-1v1-Tiers-and-Discussion-9-3-2015/first#post4875852

If I count correctly, two people said that between cele ele and terrormancer it is 50-50, one said that it is 60-40 in favor of the ele and one that it is 70-30 in favor of the ele (on staff). Noone said that the necro has an advantage.

Also, a necro is not good against a mesmer. But even if you don’t believe that, blanket statements like ‘necro wins 100% of the time’ are not exactly plausible…

Those are personal experiences, hence why they are all over the place. Also, you are only counting terror. This is a Necro post in general and counts in power as well, not just terrormancer. Also you base your conclusion on what 3 people said? Show me on that list people in the top tier that said ele beats necro. Most of the results (if using that thread) you will find at best is a 50:50 combining both builds and situation. Only way they ele ever wins is if they LOS a lot (true and stated many times in that thread you are referencing). That requires them to get off point and loose it, to win. Everyone that stated ele wins said they LOS the necro. Can’t do that on point, and as a reminder, this is a point game. Either way it won’t be the fastest fight in the world. Option 1: Ele gets off point to try to win the fight, point goes neut and before the fight ends most likely someone on either side would have shown up. Option 2: Ele tries to defend the point and dies due to not being able to LOS. Power necro will tear through the ele and a terror mancer will corrupt your Armor and u are screwed as well. If you remember right, we are talking even fights, therefore everyone has their CD’s.

Either way doesn’t really matter. Necro would only be in that situation unless he absolutely had to. Necro would be better used in a 2v2 + anywhere else on the map and the team would benefit more from it.
EDIT:
There is 1 post from a top tier Necro in there that states Necro wins (terror and power) unless LOSed a crap load. There is 1 post from a top tier Ele in there that said Ele wins unless their Armour gets corrupted and power necro will always win. With all CD’s, that means necro wins unless ele can get lucky and miss the corrupt. You looked at ratios and didn’t read what anyone wrote.

Well you did start out with the claim that a necro is a hardcounter to a cele ele and anyone saying otherwise should learn their class. While I agree that the sample size in the thread I quoted was small, I think that it (and the severe underrepresentation in the current tourney play) is quite sufficient to disprove that. I focused on condi necro because power necros are doing better (while still not being a hardcounter to cele builds).

Back to what the original purpose of the thread was: I submit that the changes I suggested above are reasonable. In fact, almost none of them affect the current terrormaner build, they might however make other builds viable.

NeXeD.3042:

Supreme.3164:

Just wanted to add my two cents I guess.

If you like, you can go to the mists, slap on settler’s or cleric’s and create it 30 seconds a minion master that takes ages to take down. So what? Any class has these builds that do nothing but run around until focus fired by 2 players. The point of a bunker is not simply to be hard to kill, but to provide support to your team, something that necros lack completely. A necro will never (and should never) be a better tank than a guardian can be. And guardian tanks, btw, are mostly extinct now due to the buffs to celestial.

The meta changes at all times but this will not nullify the importance of a guardian bunker, I won’t sit here trading blows regarding the current meta

Regarding my post, I have said that those traitlines should be buffed in order to create viable bunker/bruiser builds, aka give necro and Mesmer a source of support suitable for them, something different from current ele/engi/guardian but something supportive nonetheless

So for those of you who tl:dr

OP wants mesmer and necros to stop crying for buffs. OP’s solution buff the things necros and mesmer were asking for…….. my kittening head hurts.

Well… NO

I (and I think most necros) do not want buffing these traitlines, but the other aspects. For that matter, I think that what must be buffed is not the survivability, but the utility, more specifically boon corruption, condition manipulation and soft cc.

GhOst.4019:

Well, that is not the case. So he is wrong. Necro IS a counter to a cele Ele. If he can’t beat one using a necro, than it is not the class that is the issue; it’s him. Too many posts on here of people with their “Personal” experiences. If Necro countered nothing (everything has a counter) then no team at all would use one. Not even Ajbured. If a necro goes toe to toe with a mesmer in an even fight (players equal and both have all CD’s), Necro wins 100%. You may be thinking of walking into a teamfight with full CD’s and seeing a necro in there and being able to take him out. Why,? because he is focusing someone else and has used most his cool downs in the fight already. You could say the same about any class in said fight that didn’t just walk into it. With your burst, of course you will take out a class that has been in the fight a while and has no CD’s.

There was a thread a while back whose purpose was to discuss build performance in matchups:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Meta-Build-1v1-Tiers-and-Discussion-9-3-2015/first#post4875852

If I count correctly, two people said that between cele ele and terrormancer it is 50-50, one said that it is 60-40 in favor of the ele and one that it is 70-30 in favor of the ele (on staff). Noone said that the necro has an advantage.

Also, a necro is not good against a mesmer. But even if you don’t believe that, blanket statements like ‘necro wins 100% of the time’ are not exactly plausible…

Supreme.3164:

I simply don’t see the reasoning behind some buffing requests for necro and Mesmer.

The main complain that I see here is that once focused you die easily as Mesmer or Necro, ok so with just this said then every sane person would go and say :" OK I suggest to buff Necro and Mesmer survivability"….but hold on

The necro and Mesmer community are not asking simply for survivability buffs, they’re asking for buffs on specific builds : shatter Mesmer and Terrormancer necro

To buff the base survival of a profession is one thing, to ask for buffs on a specific build…it’s completely another matter of things.

The two builds mentioned above possess one the highest offensive potential in game and can be applied from range ( keep this in mind, we’re talking about 900-1200 range); now when you see a Mesmer or Necro in the enemy team you start to take countermeasures with your build, you cannot spec whatever and hope to win against a Necro or Mesmer

You are forced to bring with you a considerable amount of condi removal to deal with necro and substantial amount of sustain( being it dmg mitigation or avoidance) to deal with Mesmer, if they’re so weak…why do I need to even bother with counter speccing?

Basically a Mesmer or Necro left alone to free cast, we’ll wreck your team in no time.
Specifically I’m talking about shatter Mesmer and terrormancer( mind you I’m not talking about the specific professions, just these two builds)

Shatter Mesmer and Terrormancer deserve no buff whatsoever, they use trait lines that reduce the amount of self-sustain in return for huge amounts of dmg.

A shatter Mesmer can be compared to a fresh air ele, same kind of role, but the fresh ele got even less sustain by comparison

A terrormancer can be compared to a zerker staf ele ( 30 air/20 earth and 20 arcana), both try to bring mayhem to the battlefield, still the zerker staff ele can survive a fraction of the time respect to a terrormancer.

Now if I can’t open a thread asking for buffs on zerker staff and fresh air, why?….Because ele got d/d celestial build and trying to ask for (legitimate?) buffs will only give scorn, flaming and hatred in return

But remember that d/d ele does not use the same trait lines as zerker staff ele and fresh air ele, therefore what really should be buffed on Necro and Mesmer are specific traitlines, those would be : blood, chaos, inspiration, death magic.

The buffs should be enough to create a viable bunker/bruiser build for Mesmer and Necro like it is for eles.

In the end shatter and terrormancer don’t need buffs, if they do need buffs…then we need to buff all other specs in the game not built around self-sustain, because those as well get hunted down by thieves, focused and generally lack great mobility

Just wanted to add my two cents I guess.

If you like, you can go to the mists, slap on settler’s or cleric’s and create it 30 seconds a minion master that takes ages to take down. So what? Any class has these builds that do nothing but run around until focus fired by 2 players. The point of a bunker is not simply to be hard to kill, but to provide support to your team, something that necros lack completely. A necro will never (and should never) be a better tank than a guardian can be. And guardian tanks, btw, are mostly extinct now due to the buffs to celestial.

Necros are NOT a counter to either one of the celestial classes. Even a cele engi has very good chances against a necro due to all the CC and diverse sources of damage. Also, the way I see it, your ‘special needs’ theory is simply another way of saying that necros need help, where other classes do not.

Usually, to try to justify why necros require some kind of special assistance, the argument is made that they are devastating to a team if left alone, and hense will be pressured by the opponents . While true for a power necro in Lich form, in all other instances this is actually not the case at all. When is the last time you saw a necro making impact through the use of epidemic? I hardly see condi necros anymore, and the ones that are still there don’t even bother trying anymore because condi removal is so prevalent that everything will be gone by the time you cast it.

Let’s face it, the reason necros are focused so much is primarily not because they are so devastating, but because whenever facing one that is not in Lich the first thought coming to mind is: ‘huh, this will be some nice practice for my burst and cc’. Maining a mesmer, I know what I am talking about.

Yasha.5963:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yasha.5963:

A couple of weeks ago people were saying that necro is one of the strongest classes, especially in pugs and how they could take on three players at once, turn games around etc.

Now suddenly it is weak and needs buff to be viable, ok……..

Umm, what? Who was saying that? Last time that was the case against any decent players was back in the beta weekends (when, let’s face it, everyone was kinda meh).

Here you go: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Experts-What-class-carries-solos-best/page/2#post4636958

Not to mention that some necro builds directly counter some of the most annoying builds in spvp atm. If necro mobility/escape mechanics are boosted they need to have damage and life force regen nerfed.

I know of a single build that a condi necromancer COUNTERS the way thieves counter mesmers or mediguards counter thieves: rabid engi with pistol/shield. However, rifle celestial engis are nowadays 2 or 3 times more common.Versus these or versus d/d cele ele the encounter would I think be mostly even. But of course, either one of these two can do much more than a necro can and is a lot more survivable in actual team play…

I think the main issue is that in group play, utility and healing is MUCH more important than having say a lot of health. Now take for example a celestial elementalist. In a team, the aoe condi removal, healing and boon application on short cooldown are A LOT more useful than the couple of condi transfers / boon corruptions necros have (on longer cooldowns). On top of that, the condition damage output of the two is actually comparabe and in literally ALL other aspects (direct damage, mobility, survivability) the ele is vastly superior to a condi necro.

What I am saying is I guess: as long as the unique abilities of condition necromancers (condi transfer and boon corruption) are not buffed in a meaningfool way, they will not have a place in the current meta.

Firebird.8324:

The only actual problem I find with necromancer is the fact that the Blood tree use useless, nothing more.

Which according to your posts you have discovered just half an hour ago. This does not exactly add to your credibility..

Well, my opinion on the current state of the necro should be obvious from the first post. Also, given the current representation of necros in high tier pvp (rapidly approaching zero), I think most people should agree the class has some big issues.

I should say that I don’t even main a necro. I WOULD like to play it a lot more than I currently do, but usually after 15 minutes of being punched around I hop back onto my mesmer.

Anyway, the purpose of the thread was actually to discuss what could be done. Frankly, I don’t think that necros will ever get a block, another teleport or access to vigor (at least not without the expansion). And this is actually OK, given the main idea of the class. However, in the current mobility zerker/boonspam cele meta necros would do much better if they had more soft cc and boon corruption.

Other ideas:

1. Chill.

Issue: In theory, this is a good soft cc, to which necros have ample access. What I find problematic is that it does not apply to initiative regeneration on thieves. The most heavily used heal on thieves (withdraw) also removes chill on a 15 second cooldwon.

Suggestion: make chill apply to initiative regeneration on thieves. This would make a necro somewhat less easily focused by a thief.

2. Rabid on necros.

Issue: Critical chance on a necro is currently largely wasted, unless you play power. The only trait profiting from it (aside from the never-used withering precision) is the adept in curses (apply 2 seconds of bleed on a critical hit, 66% chance).

Suggestion: Change the adept in curses from applying bleed to applying torment, keeping the overall damage and trigger chance. The purpose would be to apply more diverse conditions, making cleansing a bit more difficult. An alernative would be to introduce a trait corrupting a boon on a critical hit (with say a 10 to 15 seconds cooldown).

Skills:

1. Focus is easily the least played weapon on a necro, which I believe is mostly due to the inadequate second skill (spinal shivers). In fact, due to the very long cast time, this weapon skill is completely inferior to the chill of death trait in spites 10.

Suggestion: Reduce the cast time on spinal shivers to 3/4 of a second and make it a small aoe (180 radius) around the target (only triggers when you hit the target successfully). Keep chill of death as is.

2. Corrosive poison cloud (utility skill). This is currently never used. It is basically a marginally better version of shortbow 4 on thieves, which however has a 30 seconds cooldown.

Suggestion: Make this corrupt a boon on foes who enter or leave the area of effect (can only trigger once for each foe).

Here are some suggestions. Note: I am in no way advocating that all of these changes should be made, just trying to come up with some ideas.

Firstly, there is a large number of useless traits that I think should be reworked.

1. On death traits in spite: parasitic bond (gain health when you kill a foe) in spite minor and spiteful removal in spite 3.

Issue: In pve an wvw these are ok, however in tpvp mostly useless and in duels completely useless.

Suggested change: change the first one to: heal for 10% of the life force you gain and the second one to: transfer two of your conditions to your foe when you fall below 25% health (60 seconds cooldown).

2. Spiteful marks (marks deal 10% more damage).

Issue: I think obvious: why would anyone ever take this?

Suggested change: replace by an on interrupt trait. I would think either: corrupt a boon when interrupting a foe or cast epidemic when interrupting a foe (15 seconds cooldown). This would promote better use of interrupts, the latter change also being almost exclusively useful for group play.

3. Withering precision (apply 5 seconds of weakness on a critical hit, 20 second cooldown) trait 13 in curses.

Issue: this should be at most a minor, not a grandmaster trait. Far to weak.
Suggested change: Change this to: blind foes that you weaken (3 seconds of blind, 10 seconds cooldown). This might make it a bit easier to survive being focused.

There is currently a thread on this forum discussing the sad state of necros (especially condition necros) in pvp. In my view it is currently indeed the worst class, countered by most of the current meta builds. I wanted to discuss what could be done to make necros viable.

I think the damage output and the sustain on necros are fine. What I believe should be improved are the other core abilities: applying soft cc (weakness, chill, blind), boon corruption and condition transfer. I will make some suggestions to this end below and invite you to make more.

I can confirm this.

warriorjrd.8695:

Tissitra.4153:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Tissitra.4153:

Raven.9603:

Tissitra.4153:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what you’re saying is adapting to a new threat is unreasonable and you shouldn’t have to shift your playstyle?

I don’t know what build you run, but a PU mesmer or a burst mesmer should have little trouble with a glass ranger build.

Well I was asking for counterplay, not a counterbuild. The answer can’t be ‘LB is fine, you just have to play the counterbuild’.

seriously? you have to counter build to beat condition necros, thieves, warriors… literally change your build to beat these classes. how is this different?

Most mesmers have no problem fighting longbow because they can easily body block and have more access to reflects and protection than just about anybody.

If you dont take condi clears, youre gonna have a hard time against a necro.
If you dont take stun breaks, youre gonna have a hard time against a warrior.
If you dont stack armor or defensive cooldowns, youre gonna have a hard time against a thief.
If you dont take gap closers and reflects, youre gonna have a hard time against a ranger.

Its that freakin’ simple. And all the complaints about “reflect / blink / distortion / warden / curtain / feedback / mirror / body block / LoS / terrain” (and thats just mesmers!) has a longer cooldown than rapid fire so its no good" … man, my stun breaker isnt up every time im out of endurance to dodge a hammer. my immunity is only up for one backstab. if i blow my large condi clear on a massive bleed stack, what will i use against signet of spite?

the only people who are getting stomped repeatedly by longbow are those who refuse to give it the same respect they give to necromancers, warriors, and thieves when picking out their skillset. and maybe necros, but someone needs to give those guys a hard time because other than hammer warriors no one else was.

Reflection is not a chore mechanic the way a condi cleanso or a stunbreak is. There is no class without access to condi cleanses or stunbreacks. Necros, thieves and guardians however have no or very limited access to reflect.

I think I will stop arguing at this point. Just count the number of threads on this forum about RF. Do you really think it will stay the way it is?

Engi has pretty lousy access to condi removal and stun breaks. Not every profession has equal access to everything in the game. And you are playing a mesmer who has plenty of access to reflects, stealth, LoS blocking through clones, CC, interupts, heck you have a reflect on your heal with a 15 second cool down.

Number of skills that break stun in the game: 43, no profession has access to less than 4 different stunbreaks.

Number of skills that remove conditions: 55. Even engies have access to at least 6 different condi removal skills. There are altogether 23 different traits which remove conditions.

Total number of skills that reflect projectiles: 16. Necros have no reflects, guardians and thieves each only one.

I mean God forbid you can’t reflect all of the ranger’s attacks. I mean even if he hits you once how are you supposed to win? Going by your great logic I should be able to have a condi cleanse that keeps up with condi application, and a heal skill that can out heal incoming dps. You’re never going to find a build or class that can perfectly counter something, so stop acting stupid. Would you take a thief or a mesmer to go up against a Hammer/mace warrior?

Not all classes can counter things equally, that’s where classes strengths and weaknesses come into play. Rangers din’t have proper condi removal for the longest time, but we didn’t call for the blanket nerf of condi specs. Our pets couldn’t keep up with a target for the longest time (some still have issues), we didn’t call for a blanket nerf on class mobility so our pet could attack.

Adapt your playstyle before you call for nerfs. Not everything is going to be perfect against everything else.

Simply making the point that reflection is not a comparable mechanic to either stunbreak or condition removal, as was claimed by several people above.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Tissitra.4153:

Raven.9603:

Tissitra.4153:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what you’re saying is adapting to a new threat is unreasonable and you shouldn’t have to shift your playstyle?

I don’t know what build you run, but a PU mesmer or a burst mesmer should have little trouble with a glass ranger build.

Well I was asking for counterplay, not a counterbuild. The answer can’t be ‘LB is fine, you just have to play the counterbuild’.

seriously? you have to counter build to beat condition necros, thieves, warriors… literally change your build to beat these classes. how is this different?

Most mesmers have no problem fighting longbow because they can easily body block and have more access to reflects and protection than just about anybody.

If you dont take condi clears, youre gonna have a hard time against a necro.
If you dont take stun breaks, youre gonna have a hard time against a warrior.
If you dont stack armor or defensive cooldowns, youre gonna have a hard time against a thief.
If you dont take gap closers and reflects, youre gonna have a hard time against a ranger.

Its that freakin’ simple. And all the complaints about “reflect / blink / distortion / warden / curtain / feedback / mirror / body block / LoS / terrain” (and thats just mesmers!) has a longer cooldown than rapid fire so its no good" … man, my stun breaker isnt up every time im out of endurance to dodge a hammer. my immunity is only up for one backstab. if i blow my large condi clear on a massive bleed stack, what will i use against signet of spite?

the only people who are getting stomped repeatedly by longbow are those who refuse to give it the same respect they give to necromancers, warriors, and thieves when picking out their skillset. and maybe necros, but someone needs to give those guys a hard time because other than hammer warriors no one else was.

Reflection is not a chore mechanic the way a condi cleanso or a stunbreak is. There is no class without access to condi cleanses or stunbreacks. Necros, thieves and guardians however have no or very limited access to reflect.

I think I will stop arguing at this point. Just count the number of threads on this forum about RF. Do you really think it will stay the way it is?

Engi has pretty lousy access to condi removal and stun breaks. Not every profession has equal access to everything in the game. And you are playing a mesmer who has plenty of access to reflects, stealth, LoS blocking through clones, CC, interupts, heck you have a reflect on your heal with a 15 second cool down.

Number of skills that break stun in the game: 43, no profession has access to less than 4 different stunbreaks.

Number of skills that remove conditions: 55. Even engies have access to at least 6 different condi removal skills. There are altogether 23 different traits which remove conditions.

Total number of skills that reflect projectiles: 16. Necros have no reflects, guardians and thieves each only one.

Raven.9603:

Tissitra.4153:

Atherakhia.4086:

So what you’re saying is adapting to a new threat is unreasonable and you shouldn’t have to shift your playstyle?

I don’t know what build you run, but a PU mesmer or a burst mesmer should have little trouble with a glass ranger build.

Well I was asking for counterplay, not a counterbuild. The answer can’t be ‘LB is fine, you just have to play the counterbuild’.

seriously? you have to counter build to beat condition necros, thieves, warriors… literally change your build to beat these classes. how is this different?

Most mesmers have no problem fighting longbow because they can easily body block and have more access to reflects and protection than just about anybody.

If you dont take condi clears, youre gonna have a hard time against a necro.
If you dont take stun breaks, youre gonna have a hard time against a warrior.
If you dont stack armor or defensive cooldowns, youre gonna have a hard time against a thief.
If you dont take gap closers and reflects, youre gonna have a hard time against a ranger.

Its that freakin’ simple. And all the complaints about “reflect / blink / distortion / warden / curtain / feedback / mirror / body block / LoS / terrain” (and thats just mesmers!) has a longer cooldown than rapid fire so its no good" … man, my stun breaker isnt up every time im out of endurance to dodge a hammer. my immunity is only up for one backstab. if i blow my large condi clear on a massive bleed stack, what will i use against signet of spite?

the only people who are getting stomped repeatedly by longbow are those who refuse to give it the same respect they give to necromancers, warriors, and thieves when picking out their skillset. and maybe necros, but someone needs to give those guys a hard time because other than hammer warriors no one else was.

Reflection is not a chore mechanic the way a condi cleanso or a stunbreak is. There is no class without access to condi cleanses or stunbreacks. Necros, thieves and guardians however have no or very limited access to reflect.

I think I will stop arguing at this point. Just count the number of threads on this forum about RF. Do you really think it will stay the way it is?

Atherakhia.4086:

So what you’re saying is adapting to a new threat is unreasonable and you shouldn’t have to shift your playstyle?

I don’t know what build you run, but a PU mesmer or a burst mesmer should have little trouble with a glass ranger build.

Well I was asking for counterplay, not a counterbuild. The answer can’t be ‘LB is fine, you just have to play the counterbuild’. Also, you can see in the above video that even specifically building to counter the RF spam does not get you that far. And what about necros who have a grand total of zero reflects and guardians and thieves, who have one skill each, on a 40s and 90s cooldown respectively?

But actually, this discussion is probably pointless. There is no way they will leave it in the current state. I am guessing they decided that potentially overbuffing it first and then toning it back down in coming patches would be OK since rangers did not have much luck in the past updates.

I think making it deal MORE damage at closer range is very counter intuitive, given that this is a long range weapon. It should be LESS damage at close range, say -10% for each 300 units the target is closer. This would fit in well with positioning and kiting being the key mechanics of rangers. Also, there should be a small precast (say 0,5 sec) with a telegraph – currently you eat up to 5k damage even if you react immidiately.

warriorjrd.8695:

Tissitra.4153:

Prysin.8542:

A fair point that should be raised is that prior to this patch rangers had ZERO truly noob friendly builds that was event remotely seen as “viable” by the community.
You may think condi bunker is easy, but infact it is not THAT easy. you are still required to evade at the right time, heal prior to taking too much damage and as always, manage the darn pet.
Some say trapper is easy, but trapper has many weaknesses that, if left to their own, will ensure your death.
Same goes for a PVT setup too, it has some weaknesses due to class design as therefor it requires you to stay alert.

Pre patch, there was no real “viable” build that allowed anyone to play the class with some level of effectiveness. At the same time, anybody can roll a hambow, a D/P or S/D thief, a PU blackwater mesmer, a turret engi, minionmancer or even a healway guard.
Some say spirits was viable, however since the build first “emerged”, the whole ranger community knew how to counter it, we told you how to (in order to avoid too many nerfs), yet it took players 3-4 months to realize, or rather to listen to the ranger community that supplied the counters almost immediately.

Once again the ranger community tells you how to counter and shut down the new ranger meta build, why do we do this? because we know that if fnot, we will get nerfed into oblivion. Why is this a problem? because recent power creep has placed the ranger quite far down in comparison to others when looking at a cross mode PoV. Rangers cannot afford to get nerfed, because most of their buffs only ever let them catch up, and 2-3 patches later some power creep is introduced and rangers will again be falling ever so slightly behind.

So how do you ‘counter or shut down this’? Let me describe how a fight on my zerker mesmer goes against the new ‘noob-friendly build’. He does his RF pewpew, dealing some 3-4k damage before I can react since each arrow has 0,25sec cast time and there is now telegraoh or precast. I interrupt or dodge, he pops his 6 seconds of invulnerability continuing with 2k autoattacks. And by the time the invulnerability is over he uses RF again, only that this time I am most likely to be out of cooldowns and eat the 10k-12k damage. You can indeed call that noob-friendly: he only has to use two skills apart from the autoattack. Add to this the fact that he can also knockback and stealth.

RF right now actually deals considerably more damage over its duration than Backstab, which is much more risky and difficult to land. Also. there is a reason why thieves don’t have access to invulnerabilty. Imagine a zerker thief could just go invulnerable for 6 seconds-

You play mesmer? You should grab a pen and paper and take some notes while watching this video then. It’s very basic, so don’t worry about comprehension problems, but I think you will learn a lot from it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsE5TMN1-M

Also comparing ranger to thief is stupid. Of course they don’t have invulnerability, because they have much more access to stealth and moblity. Classes are seperate classes for a reason.

So your answer is to change my whole build: change weapon to focus, invest heavily into traits to reflect. With moderate success, if I might add looking at your video.

Prysin.8542:

A fair point that should be raised is that prior to this patch rangers had ZERO truly noob friendly builds that was event remotely seen as “viable” by the community.
You may think condi bunker is easy, but infact it is not THAT easy. you are still required to evade at the right time, heal prior to taking too much damage and as always, manage the darn pet.
Some say trapper is easy, but trapper has many weaknesses that, if left to their own, will ensure your death.
Same goes for a PVT setup too, it has some weaknesses due to class design as therefor it requires you to stay alert.

Pre patch, there was no real “viable” build that allowed anyone to play the class with some level of effectiveness. At the same time, anybody can roll a hambow, a D/P or S/D thief, a PU blackwater mesmer, a turret engi, minionmancer or even a healway guard.
Some say spirits was viable, however since the build first “emerged”, the whole ranger community knew how to counter it, we told you how to (in order to avoid too many nerfs), yet it took players 3-4 months to realize, or rather to listen to the ranger community that supplied the counters almost immediately.

Once again the ranger community tells you how to counter and shut down the new ranger meta build, why do we do this? because we know that if fnot, we will get nerfed into oblivion. Why is this a problem? because recent power creep has placed the ranger quite far down in comparison to others when looking at a cross mode PoV. Rangers cannot afford to get nerfed, because most of their buffs only ever let them catch up, and 2-3 patches later some power creep is introduced and rangers will again be falling ever so slightly behind.

So how do you ‘counter or shut down this’? Let me describe how a fight on my zerker mesmer goes against the new ‘noob-friendly build’. He does his RF pewpew, dealing some 3-4k damage before I can react since each arrow has 0,25sec cast time and there is now telegraoh or precast. I interrupt or dodge, he pops his 6 seconds of invulnerability continuing with 2k autoattacks. And by the time the invulnerability is over he uses RF again, only that this time I am most likely to be out of cooldowns and eat the 10k-12k damage. You can indeed call that noob-friendly: he only has to use two skills apart from the autoattack. Add to this the fact that he can also knockback and stealth.

RF right now actually deals considerably more damage over its duration than Backstab, which is much more risky and difficult to land. Also. there is a reason why thieves don’t have access to invulnerabilty. Imagine a zerker thief could just go invulnerable for 6 seconds-

Atherakhia.4086:

Tissitra.4153:

Rangers would be better served making some sort of constructive suggestions as to how RF could be chnged. Looking at the number of Zerker Rangers that pvp is currently crawling with and the number of threads on the forum, telling everyone to just’l2p’ seems to me a rather bad idea. It WILL be nerfed.

It CAN have high damage, but compared to any othe burst skill currently available, it is unbalanced since you get this burst by literally just pressing one button every 8 seconds.

I’ve got it!

Cut the number of arrows down from 10 to 5, but double the damage each individual arrow does! You see that! Same damage, less arrows! It’s perfect!

Why would such an inane change be perfect you ask? Because now RF functions almost identically to how Volley does! A skill that hasn’t received a single complaint in 2 years! Granted it does 15% more damage than Volley, but Rangers could never be confused for Warriors!

What’s that? You want to pretend the vulnerability is the problem now? Lets move the vuln back to Hunter’s Shot! Granted that would actually be a 5% damage buff, but you don’t care about that, you want balance!

Oh? Another complaint? About the range? You’re ok with 1500 but not 2000 you say? Perfect! Lets have ANet change ALL projectiles to match their listed range! Grenades, traps, wells, and marks included!

That is kind of exactly the point I was making. There is no way it won’t be nerfed given the community reaction to the changes and given how every ranger is suddenly zerker in pvp. You would be better served making actual constructive suggestions.

Rangers would be better served making some sort of constructive suggestions as to how RF could be chnged. Looking at the number of Zerker Rangers that pvp is currently crawling with and the number of threads on the forum, telling everyone to just’l2p’ seems to me a rather bad idea. It WILL be nerfed.

It CAN have high damage, but compared to any othe burst skill currently available, it is unbalanced since you get this burst by literally just pressing one button every 8 seconds.

Well first of all it either has to be an aoe or a single target ability. I don’t think there is a single skill in the game that can be both depending on how you use it. My guess is that it would be difficult to implement. Also, making RF a close range AOE burst wuld buff it even further.

Other than a purely numerical nurf, which is I think what will most likely happen, it would be nice to make RF have a ranged penalty: Full damage at over 1200 range, then -10% for each 300 units the target is closer. Then rangers would have to be more careful about positioning, knockback and immobilize since once a target is close, the burst potential would be much reduced. I mean if this is RANGED burst then the most natural disadvantage is that it should only worlk well at range.

It was not a good idea to give rangers this kind of burst without introducing some disadvantage. Backstab damage at the press of one button with 1500 range and 8sec colldown is hardly justifyable., especially given that rangers have invulnerability, stealth, stability and good mobility. What they should have is to increase the damage somewhat rather than cutting the duration in half.

Having said that, I don’t think they can just roll back the duration change, as taking back changes is generally not what they do. I think they should leave the cast time, but introduce a precast of 0.5sec to 1sec and a clear telegraph. In addition, they should either decrease the number of arrows from 10 to say 8, or introduce a range penalty like on the LB autoattack. So full damage would be dealt at 1200 to 1500 range (traited), then -10% for every 300 units the target is closer to the ranger, down to -30% at 600 units or less.

This last option makes the most sense to me: This would encourage better use of the ranger’s mobility and introduce more risk as letting the target come close would cut the ranger’s burst potential. If there is to be good ranged burst, then this I think is the way to balance it.

Was fine yesterday for me aswell. My internet connection works fine, but the game is effectively unplayable.

German user. Currently unplayable due to lag.

German user. Currently unplayable due to lag.