Guild Wars 2

Honestly, I want to have the NIS experience of leveling. Goes to 9999, but 100 is more than sane enough to stop at. But if you really want to see “how low can you go”, reincarnate your characters for bonus stats based on how many levels that character has earned over all reincarnations

Gotejjeken.1267:

Vol.7601:

One of the biggest things I like about GW2 is the fluid combat and the art style.

I would absolutely hate going over to another game and notice that in order for my skill to go off, I have to be rooted in place.

You can roll a ranger and equip 1H sword if you really want the nostalgia of being rooted.

Or you can click off auto-attack and micromanage the skill chain, where it’s not quite so bad.

I’ve gotten several, much like I get them for my (nonexistent) Runescape/WoW account.

ThunderPanda.1872:

Neural.1824:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

WHy is everyone so obsessed with getting to lvl 80 with tomes/crafting.

Usually it’s because people think level capping means you’re one of the cool kids, or because they are convinced that the “end game” content is so incredibly amazing that the rest of the content isn’t worth doing. So they blitz to 80, then complain on the forums about there being nothing to do.

But mostly it’s about being one of the cool kids.

It’s more about, I’m interested in WvW (Solo Roaming and groups, even zergs), i like duels and fights with other players, and not so much doing PVE with my brain shut down and my eyes closed.

wvw was good for leveling, but the server has kinda died down, it’s not longer really fast anymore…

You do yourself a disservice leveling as fast as you can. Your gear lags behind, you don’t get a chance to really play a class you level to 80 so you’re not comfortable with it, and your skills generally will not be as sharp as someone who put more time into the growth of their character than “oh wow, 80 in a week”.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Novomundum.8325:

Kazuhiro.5809:

Funnily enough, anet has no problem with sticking “and they’re misogynists” onto villains just because it makes them more “evil” and villainous—not one but two enemy factions have something against women: The Flame Legion and the Sons of Svanir.

Really? I never noticed it until now. Those two factions do seem to be the most stupid in my opinion. Maybe it’s Anet’s way of saying only idiots don’t believe in equal rights XD

The misogynist leaning of Sons of Svanir is not due to “girls, cooties, ick” or “girls are weaker”. The root of it is Jora killing Svanir the Nornbear and first norn follower of Jormag. (Mind you, I recall she still got flak for being a “kinslayer” also.)

Flame Legion was largely written that way because there were no female charr in GW1, so someone had to back-fill the lore as to why and fill that darn plothole before someone broke a leg trying to contort around it.

Jocksy.3415:

Some people would rather have me bring one of my level 40ish uplevels than my level 80 ranger…
Does that not give an idea of how well is the ranger profession doing?

May I say again? I’m in four guilds, none of them have ever said “rangers aren’t welcome”. One guild leader said they like playing their ranger, though they main a warrior; they say one is more useful overall, one is more fun though.

I’ve never been told outright to stay out of WvW as a ranger, I’ve been told instead to learn how to counter certain things and to be a team player more.

Norjena.5172:

No u don´t need to spend 30 points always.

I think I spent 25 on Marksmanship, but it’s been a while since I opened my Traits to really study it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Search and Rescue is a group-oriented shout skill which is not meant to do diddly squat for ourselves and more for someone who goes down during combat and is not being focused on so the pet and dive in and help them up. Which, notably, implies the pet is expendable for this and you are not.

I’ve heard many friends of mine often complain, that Search and Rescue is a bit unreliable. That the pet doesn’t always help people up. Is it still unreliable?

I wouldn’t know, I have not yet really experienced it doing that. I have had it bug out in a good way on Marionette Platform fights (i.e., jump through the barriers to the other platform for reviving). I’ve not had it just sit there and do nothing . . .

I have had my Downed Skill #3 (Lick Wounds) fail to do anything once a launch was landed on me, or if I happen to be on a slope. The pet will stand over me but no effect. So, this is probably a related issue and what others talk about with “unreliable”, I think?

I don’t know if the pet shadowstepping to the closest downed player would do anything different since it seems to be a problem activating the revive, and it would also kinda sorta make a difference in events where someone can take out the pet before it got there, maybe? Hard to say.

Chrispy.5641:

• Search and Rescue……you got me there, but that’s about it.
  • If the pet could revive faster, this skill would see more use, but as it is, the skill has its purpose, and there is nothing I can think of that makes this skill bad, only pointless to carry in 99% of all situations.

Search and Rescue is a group-oriented shout skill which is not meant to do diddly squat for ourselves and more for someone who goes down during combat and is not being focused on so the pet and dive in and help them up. Which, notably, implies the pet is expendable for this and you are not.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

And she’s not dead either unless something happened after Zhaitan’s death so that leaves the first theory…. The Big Bad theory…..

Or, you know, any other explanation like he’s just a greedy charr now who wants to profit and keep his vaunted business safe from collapsing. All the while grandstanding about how he could have stopped things if anyone listened to him. You know, instead of actually doing anything himself?

He’s not Big Bad material.

Sitkaz.5463:

I read a great quote on reddit this weekend that summed up a lot of my experiences: “The thing I like most about MMOs are the other players, and the thing I hate most about MMOs are the other players.”

Really, the players are why I stick around in GW2 more.

But in the case of UO? It was more a case of going "hi . . . and now I’m paralyzed and on fire . . "

Sitkaz.5463:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

kokiman.2364:

Okay you played TESO why don’t you write about it on the TESO forums and give them feedback about the game?

Mostly because he is saying “I played this other game but darn it felt good to come back to this one.”

Yes, exactly.

I also didn’t want to bring up another game and start a specific debate/comparison, I just felt good coming home.

I’ll call out others. I mean, I had the same experience for the longest time going to try UO on and off for a few years. (Then I’d run into another actual person and remember why I stopped. )

kokiman.2364:

Okay you played TESO why don’t you write about it on the TESO forums and give them feedback about the game?

Mostly because he is saying “I played this other game but darn it felt good to come back to this one.”

CharrGirl.7896:

That was a very well thought out post bullyrook but next time please restrain using re-formulated quotes you drew from other articles to express your opinions . I could name at least 3 I read that use the exact same words.

That being said I agree with your logic. Everything else is beyond logic and doesn’t deserve to be questioned.

Agreed and seconded. It was well-thought and presented in a way which can’t really be discounted even if you don’t agree.

And while you do have questions to respond to the “love” matter, I also . . . suspect . . . you understand those questions cannot be answered in a rational or logical manner. They are emotional concerns, and thus there’s not much logic to them. That is the unfortunate base of the whole discussion: this is a very emotional thing even with the logic and rational thought going into talking about it.

I’d like to wash my hands of further discussion on this particular avenue. I’ve said how I feel and think about it, you’ve said how you feel and think about it. I agree with some parts, but the crucial part remains seated in emotional rather than rational thought/reaction.

There is literally nothing which can be done to say how either of us (or others) are wrong in how we feel. It is what it is.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

Shinjo.6092:

If killing the ranger’s pet is a valid counter to a ranger’s pet, then killing the thief is a valid counter to a thief.

I seriously hope you refine your retort. What a terrible comparison.

Yes, you really should rethink it. Speaking as a ranger, our pet is really like tissue paper compared to an actual character and it’s relatively easy to spike most of them to death. So, from experience, most who want to fight me either focus me and have the damage to drop me quickly, or just swat the pet out of the way.

Shinjo.6092:

Stealth trap. Now give me counter play for Necro’s DS, or Ranger’s pet, or Mesmer clones, or the tanky regen warrior who can drop my life from 100-0 in 5 seconds after cc’ing me into next year.

Ranger’s pet? Spike it to death. When they swap, do it again. Ignore the ranger, they’re not a threat once the pet is down and out because you can then focus them completely. And you’ll probably win or chase them off. Either way, good result for you.

Atherakhia.4086:

Any class can take camps and kill dolyaks though. No one wants their class’s role in WvW to be that of the yak slapper.

I do. I mean, I want my server to win not just in the zerg vs zerg but in the points. Anything I can do to help that with my ranger? I’ll do it.

Also of note – right now? Any other class is almost better off doing something other than the solo roam or havoc. But two rangers can actually be pretty darn effective as havoc if nobody cares about them.

And I also don’t buy into the ’it’s all a conspiracy’ angle of the plight of the Ranger. Everyone knows how strong they are at solo roaming. That alone would dispel that theory imo.

It’s not really a conspiracy, it’s a stand alone complex if anything. And it’s more specific, as we both note, to specific parts. Like the nice gentleman who says we’re pointless to have in dungeons and thus pointless in PvE.

But yea, if you don’t agree that’s cool.

Eh, I find myself mixed on opinion.

Paraka.9724:

Why the HELL is Ash Ketchum STILL ten?!

Time lord.

Atherakhia.4086:

I will agree with you and Chrispy in general… some things for this class don’t need dramatic changes. Pets for example don’t need to be removed from the class. They just need their mechanics to be reliable and some AE cover. Condis could use some cover, the addition of torment would be great, but also pretty solid.

I agree, Torment would be nice, but I also don’t know if we will get it. Remember, the way conditions are parceled out some classes can inflict them easy and others not at all. Letting more classes get access almost waters down the conditions, and Torment was one of the ones with flavor.

But power builds?
WvW overall?

These are areas the majority of the player base (ranger or not) laugh at when you mention them in public. Rangers aren’t close to anything but being phased out in WvW currently. Number crunching and trait tweaks aren’t going to solve these issues.

Dunno about that. I do know while the zerg is busy taking stuff or going head on into other things, I got decent at snagging camps in the distraction or picking on lone havoc-spreaders. I said it earlier – 1v1 we’re not too bad but we often have trouble finishing what we start.

Why do you feel people rank Rangers 8th out of 8 classes so consistently? Why do you think guilds that recruit Rangers ask them to reroll before they’re allowed to join?

For the first? If I’m going to be completely honest? Memetic pressure. The same way you can throw a line from a certain Queen song on a chat channel sometimes and it’s likely someone will throw the next line in a chain for a bit. People determined the Ranger wasn’t the best option for stuff . . . and it’s been going on long enough it’s mutated into “worst class ever”. (For the second game in a row, though Paragons who weren’t gimmicky messes were often “worst class ever”.)

For the second? Four guilds and none of them asked me to reroll out of being a Ranger, one of them had the leader roll into a ranger – and say it’s probably a lot more fun playing it than a warrior. Which I agree with; it’s a blast sometimes. It’s just not the most effective in all places.

Nektera.9425:

is Anet really reading all the comment post here? or we’ve just got trolled by other people and troll other people here?. because i think this is just a thread to make people calmer. so they can wait for Anet have the funds to improve the game.

no offense. i think this is a good path for Anet to choose. people need to be calm here in the forum, so Anet will have time to get funds to pay people to improve the game.

don’t get me wrong, i support Anet to improve the game. people just need to understand that they need time. and will not improve the game simply because of this thread.

It’s also not, in any way, going to happen “soon”. So even if they get a fix or several fixes from this topic, we’re not guaranteed to be seeing them in the next month.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

So what does the ranger offer? 2 Neglectible buffs for your team? A pet who can tank a boss? Incredilbe sustain/kite ability? Hell all that doesn’t matter in dungeons.

This game is not all about dungeons. Heck, PvE is not even all about dungeons.

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

Maybe you are ok with the current state of the ranger but I don’t. I want to be as effective as other classes are.

I have never said I’m okay with the current state of the ranger. It needs help and tweaks, but it doesn’t need to be reinvented to be some god of ranged damage.

To put it simple: What would you lose if you would deal more damage? Wouldn’t you be able to revive other people? Wouldn’t your pet be ableo of tanking enemies? What is wrong about the desire to be at least as good as other classes?

It’s not the desire as much as the direction. What would I lose if I deal more damage? What is wrong with wanting to be able to stand up with a warrior and deal the same kind of damage? Nothing, and everything.

Ranger needs to be a ranger. If we’re supposed to be stable and sustainable damage as opposed to dropping spikes like raindrops, then let’s be that and be better at it. Start by looking at our weapons and fixing where the damage isn’t getting there (Rapid Fire, most notably), fix the pet so it’s more useful than it is now, and give us some utility where we can have some use other than “pew pew, Imma DPS ya”.

This game doesn’t have to be just about your DPS figure or Boon Dispensing capability to mean you’re of use to a group.

PeterThomas.7243:

Yes, she made it clear the dragon is her master and that nothing we could do would stop her. But she hates the dragon, so why would she be happy about it rising?

She didn’t make it clear the dragon is her master, and she didn’t make it clear the dragon was even there. We the players know about the dragon rising, but as of yet the characters do not. All they know is Scarlet was fighting some influence until the end when she was either not fighting or so dead-set on something it was no longer important.

We see what it was. She was drilling for magic. Drilling, notably, to disrupt the ley lines feeding into the dragon. If it’s her master then . . . why in Balthazar’s blue balls is she doing something to poke it with a stick?

Easiest answer – she’s not doing it to serve it, she’s doing it to spite it.

No. There was no indication of this whatsoever. She appeared to be happy that it was going to rise, despite her own death (i.e., she acted like a mindless pawn). Watch the ending again yourself if you don’t believe me.

Don’t need to, unskippable cutscene of it every time I did it for the Monthly Dungeon. Still think she’s less happy it’s coming because she’s its pawn and more because “now it’s going to lose”.

Because, you know . . . it is. Mordremoth is coming and it’s going to be deader than the 55 Monk.

You’re absolutely right, and yet Guild Wars 1’s internal logic and writing was still way better than the Living Story in every way.

Do not make me start dragging out examples of GW1 writing which was way worse than the Living Story. I’ll tell you true, all four storylines have a spot where it’s just . . . bad.

I agree with you that the writing as been bad over the past year. However, my point is that the writing has been bad all the way to the end. Especially considering the fact that they didn’t manage to put a workable bandaid over the story’s problems (like they did in Nightfall when they explained why Shiro went bonkers).

Conversely, that . . . that totally and completely ruined the tragedy of the character. And it’s what I’m talking about when I say their backfilling started to weaken things. Shiro was far more compelling when it was his fear of his own mortality which drove him to contemplate the unquestionable, rather than “someone pulled his strings until he became a puppet”.

The change to Vizier Khilbron, I don’t care about. He was barely a character anyway in Prophecies and more one part of a mechanism to get the players from plot point A to plot point B.

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. You’ve heard my reasons, I don’t think they’re invalid, and at this point I’m repeating things I’ve already said.

But you’re repeating the same questions in response, and when I offered something to answer them by approaching from a different direction, you went “nah, I like saying there’s no explanation”.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I would still think that the thief would win but ok. I’m not talking about PvP anyways, I’m talking about structured PvE.

Where there’s no “losing” or “winning” against other players, regardless.

However, I want to be uselful in dungeons, just not playing ranger because it’s fun but because it’s good. If the ranger would be a second guardian, providing defensive buffs, I would be completely fine with that. But still, I think the ranger should be capable of doing competitive damage.

I don’t want to be a “second guardian” or a “secondary tank”. I’ve been secondary tank with rangers before – it’s not as much fun. (No, not this game but a game where “tank” was an actual niche.)

I want to be a ranger. And I want rangers to be desired or at least a valuable asset on their own, not because they’re almost as good at something as another class.

Yes, I know I’m repeating myself because this keeps being brought up in this conversation. Make the ranger better at what it does, or make what it does well work better.

Oh I think we should pull out this card. If you want to maximize your damage you just have to care about 1 skill: sword #1. I don’t think you can call this balanced.

Sure I can – maximizing damage isn’t something rangers have really done well at with one exception in my time playing rangers across a lot of games: EverQuest’s “Trueshot Discipline”. Wherein a ranger can basically outdamage anything for a few seconds of arrow-borne death. Then they don’t get it again for a couple hours.

I’d much rather have the survivability I mentioned earlier in thief vs ranger – I’d rather be the one left standing ressing people as my pet can distract things. Why? It’s just good play rather than going “yo I got dis” and getting flattened quicker than the warrior. (Reminder – we’re not as good at taking damage as the warrior is.)

Furthermore, all other weapons, even the power ones, aren’t capable of dealing competitive damage. So yeah, every class has weapons who aren’t able of dealing the maximum damage, but the ranger has the most ones.

Why should I be competing in damage when I still get XP/loot/Event credit so long as I push over a threshold? I don’t need to outpower the warrior or thief, or outperform the guardian, elementalist, or engineer. I only need to do what I do well enough to not die. Bonus points if I can spend time picking up people off the ground so they can go back to being glass cannons, and still not die.

Turning all other classes down will take a lot more time since pretty much all other classes can deal more damage. I don’t want to play a warrior but I want to play a class who deals as much damage as the warrior.

I’d rather ANet put their chips all in and work on making a class which can be actually useful in a support role and still be good enough at dishing the damage to be useful. Rangers are almost there in that score.

What I mean is: This game needs to stop being about DPS output all the time. Especially when it’s the players who care the most about it when the system doesn’t care 99% of the time.

Chrispy.5641:

• On stealth I think Stealth should be moved to the Shortbow because that is a weapon where you have to move to the side or behind an enemy in order to set up attacks (such as concussion shot). I also think that we could benefit even more if we had a utility skill that applied stealth instead, like a Dust Trap, or a Camouflage survival skill for example.

Still digesting the rest of the post but this, hmm. This works for me of all the “fixes” I’ve seen for the Longbow. Though I can see why the Stealth moved there – to take advantage of the change to Remorseless allowing “Opening Strike” to function when coming out of Stealth. I suppose it could be changed so Opening Strike refreshes when flanking an enemy? (Definitely would make enemies pay attention to the Ranger rather than ignoring them, wouldn’t it?)

Why not move the Stealth to “Quick Shot” (skill 3), retain Swiftness if it hits. Something like this.

“Quick Shot”: Shortbow. Range 900. Damage 118. Evade 0.75s, Stealth 3s, Swiftness 3s if it hits. Phys Projectile Finisher. May be fired at a target you are not facing.

Chrispy.5641:

4) Sustained works just fine for me in PvE, and WvW (and even though I don’t play PvP, the most popular Ranger builds are currently a sustain build). Traps (our AE) also works just fine for me. Using the Longbow for its intended purpose (max. Range) works fine for me as well. Do you have any examples for why Sustained doesn’t work? If you want to bring the whole “Dps is all that matters” into the argument, go on ahead, but DPS is not all that matters. I can run through dungeons just fine in sustain and defensive builds, I run with other people who think the same, and I don’t need the 1% Top, World Record Dungeon Runners to come up to me and tell me otherwise.

Strangely, this is how I feel as well mostly. And it jives with my experience . . . but likewise we both agree there are tweaks/changes needed. Not just “moar DPS/Burst” . . . it’s why I’ve focused a lot on the pet (the one definitive point we really and sorely need some improvements) and on making us more useful to the group without necessarily going “Dee-pee-ess” and still winding up less useful than a warrior in that place.

6) Yes, Atherakhia, They all do, and it is the way I play in WvW. I use traps, Torch and Warhorn(when attacking), and Longbow(when defending) to put pressure on Enemies. I would explain how I do it (for the fifth time in this thread), but you don’t seem to want to listen. And the CDI exists because the Ranger is less than Optimal, not because we need to dramatize every aspect of the class, and completely overhaul everything about it.

So I’m not the only one who uses Longbow for pressure? Granted I swapped Torch for Warhorn because “Call of the Wild” was more useful for a blast finisher than some burning (to me), and getting into melee with a zerg seems like asking for a free trip to the local Waypoint.

I don’t use traps so much though, not traited for them. I’m traited for basic/general PvE. Strangely, this works for me.

PeterThomas.7243:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s said earlier on – Scarlet was fighting something and it was quite probable she was doing this out of spite. I personally suspect she did it to make it stir and so even though she died . . . it was going to die too if those who killed her paid it any mind.

Then why would sneer at the players and tell them “HAR HAR HAR TYRIA HAS A NEW MASTER NOW!” She gave absolutely no indication in the last scene that she was doing anything out of spite; like I said, she acted like a mindless pawn who had done the dragon’s bidding and was proud of it. Which is completely contrary to her backstory and characterization up to this point.

“This is MY drill!” “I’ll take you down with me if I have to!”’

Yeeees, not at all out of line with her previous times showing up. I mean, it’s not out of line with:

“Die, die die, DIE!”

I can see the distinction now.

Also, hard to say for sure since I’m not the writer, but “Tyria will bow before a new master” has several interpretations.

1 – The master is the dragon, and nothing we were going to do would stop her from making it rise. Assuming, of course, she intended to prod it into action. This also assumes the dragon wasn’t active already.

2 – The master is the dragon, and we stopped her attempts to try to counter it. A huge army which could be seen as a twisted mirror of the Pact, and a weapon in the marionette capable of great destruction. It’s possible she was intending to wake up the dragon and draw it to Lion’s Arch to try to kill it. Much like Destiny’s Edge chose to wait for Kralkatorrik and try to kill it there.

3 – We are the new master to whom Tyria will bow, as we push to go take on the dragons and kick Trahearne out the window of a speeding airship traveling over sharp rocks.

What I mean is the game can still have an internal logic that is consistent. The first game did.

shrugs

No, the first game managed to disguise it by back-writing things in awkward ways when it needed to. Especially around Nightfall and Eye of the North. It also did a terrible job of keeping the plotline of Prophecies straight until about 2/3 of the way through when the Mursaat bamfed onto the scene.

Just because the game has a fantasy setting does not excuse bad writing.

Nope, but this is not the bad writing you are looking for. This is the result of bad writing coming before it, and ANet dropping a hatchet on it so they can move on. Scarlet’s introduction and her first half of existence in the plot was bad writing, bad pacing, or keeping the hand too close to the chest and leaving us all just confused. Pick two.

To be frank, since the recap in the Dead End it’s been “good enough” as far as writing goes. They were running a three-legged race with a corpse, after all. (And no Necros around to help, tsk.)

bullyrook.2165:

However, there is evidence of a handful peaceful Charr who are religious.

Really? Where did they wind up, because I now need to go poke them with sticks. I mean, say hello.

PeterThomas.7243:

Still doesn’t explain a lot of things, such as:

- Why did seeing the eternal alchemy expose her to the dragon’s control?

We don’t know she saw the Eternal Alchemy for certain, either. All we have is what people think she saw was that, when I would speculate she peered into the Mists more.

- If dragons are connected to the Eternal Alchemy somehow, wouldn’t all of them had a chance to control her?

Possibly. Of course, one apparently did take the chance. Oh, though it probably wasn’t Zhaitan trying that. I hear he’s dead now. Some idiot ranger killed him with cannonballs.

- So then, why this dragon? Why not one of the others? Or all of them?

Good question. Don’t really need the answer, though.

- Why did she act like a mindless pawn in the last scene despite appearing completely independent and acting on her own volition up until now?

Was she acting as a mindless pawn? Far as I saw, she was still hoping she could pull through this if people were stupid enough to try walking into mines and her “Vader field”.

Which, mind you, Braham and Marjory were shortsighted enough to do. They need more WvW; send in the stealthed thief.

- Why was the dragon never mentioned or foreshadowed in “What Scarlet Saw”? Being “mind controlled” pretty much contradicts everything they established for her backstory.

Depends on whether it was a solid lock of control or just a fragmented thing. I would suspect fragmented control since . . . well, she acted in such a manner rather than a consistent one. At least, until the end when she had her goal and she was pushing to do it – drill to the leyline.

- If dragons feed on magic, and the ley line was feeding this dragon a constant stream of magic, and Scarlet’s motivation was to disrupt the flow of magic feeding the dragon, wouldn’t that actually HARM the dragon instead of giving it what it wants? Why would the dragon manipulate her over a year-long period with the aim of interrupting its food source? Why would it want to harm itself?

It’s said earlier on – Scarlet was fighting something and it was quite probable she was doing this out of spite. I personally suspect she did it to make it stir and so even though she died . . . it was going to die too if those who killed her paid it any mind.

MAKES. NO. SENSE.

We’re playing a game where there’s a race of seven foot tall men and women who run around in the snow with exposed flesh and can turn into bipedal and faintly anthropomorphic bears, wolves, ravens, and snow leopards. Where there are lava flows you can be fine standing right next to . . . and if you set foot in them you only merely die slowly. Where candy corn can grow out of the ground, be mined, and then baked into cookies.

Making sense is not Tyria’s strength

HHR LostProphet.4801:

What I meant was that the ranger shortbow, especially after the nerfs he recieved, is weaker than his counterpart, the thief shortbow. I’m not aware of the exact numbers and I don’t know if this estimation comes from the point that the ranger is overall worse than the thief regarding the damage output.

But you didn’t touch the assertion I made – in a straight up fight between one thief with shortbow alone and one ranger with shortbow alone, no weapon swaps and no help? A skilled ranger is probably going to come out on top. Give them other weapons, probably the thief due to their pretty high burst potential. But shortbow? I don’t see it.

But still, the ranger lacks of competitive damage. If we move away from the shortbow, there is only one weapon that his considered as “good” dps weapon, and that’s the sword.

I find that a problem, but primarily a problem which tells me things need to get toned down rather than us toned up. Though if it winds up easier, tone us up some but primarily I’d much rather see us be useful more than damaging. Our ability to survive a lot of things runs into the problem of us not doing enough damage often enough to finish a fight.

But in a group scenario, it’s more . . . to me . . . about making groups find us useful rather than “not a burden”.

The ranger has no role he can fill in dungeons. That’s the problem I want to address.
You are right if you say that you can do every content with your ranger. But you can’t do the content as effective as you could with other classes. Every weapon of the ranger has flaws, no weapon is a real power-weapon. The sword is the only one and it’s very hard to utilize the damage. The guard gets chosen because he is the only class in the game who can stack all defensive boons and most offensive boons while offering condition remove and reflection. One guard alone can make up for the other members being head-on offensive. The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Every weapon of other classes have flaws too, so let’s not pull that card.

And yes, all paths of all dungeons are different. Still, the only thing you need to complete any path is damage.

Actually the only thing you need is persistence with a good group. A subpar group could still do it, if they’re willing to keep trying. What people want is to do it with no snags and finish in record times.

(What I want is to finish them all once and never go back unless I find someone doing a path I had fun in.)

The ranger needs tuning, but I do really want to stop trying to measure the class against all the others and go “the damage isn’t as good as X” or “they don’t do Y as well as Z”. I’d much rather we have our own identity and usefulness outside of . . . well “moar DPS!”.

If we’re going to be “the class with the pet” then . . . let’s be that, and be exceptional over that rather than “warrior/thief DPS/burst with a pet on the side”.

Nurgle.6597:

Yeah they suck horribly and anet seems to not care. There is literally not a single reason for me to play my ranger over my warrior or guardian.

Well there’s plenty for me. Notably and primarily: I go down with my warrior a lot more often than I do as my ranger.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Dungeons are the only way to compare things in PvE. Damage is the only maxim that matters.

Yeah, we’re not going anywhere with this. You’ve bounced between “thief shortbow vs ranger shortbow” to “dungeons are what matter”/“damage over all” and it still doesn’t address the problems I’ve seen/experienced with the class.

(Cliff’s Notes: Pets aren’t as useful as they could be, longbow needs some tweaks, traits might need some adjusting to make more builds viable.)

Dungeons might be what you want to use as a yardstick, but no two dungeons are created equal. Heck, no two dungeon paths are created equal – that’s why CoF1 is/was such a popular quick grab for gold/loot. Some rooms are handled better by some classes, and rangers do have moments where they are rather useful. Particularly in conjunction with melee classes like warriors.

But I’ve also not really suffered “not enough damage” to finish something in a dungeon.

Fluffball.8307:

He started out as a ranger, he turned in to a paladin. Trahearn had a similar journey and there are a lot of others from other genres. Every leader turns in to a guardian..

Nope. I might go so far as to allow fighter with wilderness survival secondary proficiencies but not ranger. Not the book Aragorn. I mean, he hit level 9 and started gathering followers too. An elf (who is undoubtedly a ranger) and a dwarf. That’s not ranger, that’s warrior.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

But we’re talking about PvE, ok? You get kitten with yor suvivability in dungeons. The only thing that matters is damage. And the ranger lacks of competitive damage.

There’s more to PvE than dungeons. Strange, I know. I have pretty decent survivability in most places. Even Grenth, by not facetanking the Priest with everyone else. Champion Spiders hurt though. But what was the concern? Oh right, damage.

Yeah, I still get loot off things in dungeons. Even with “crap damage”, which is really strange also.

PvE doesn’t have as much issues with Rangers and how they perform as much as they do when dealing with WvW or large-scale boss fights where one blow can put the pet to sleep. Not saying there can’t be improvement but I’m not exactly sure they’re total crap.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Who would win? Thief shortbow or ranger shortbow? I bet the thief.

Depends on the skill of the players, and some other variables which can’t quite be nailed down so easily.

Assuming similar skill levels. If there was a thief who solely used shortbow and no other skills, and a ranger who used only his shortbow? I’d almost put money on a skilled ranger. Why?

More likely to be able to outlast the thief.

Yeah ok, the ranger could outlast the thief but the damage-comparison would probably win the thief.

That’s not winning if they die before you do, my friend. That’s called “losing”. Running away to live is also losing to the ranger.

Star Ace.5207:

Zorby.8236:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Zulika Mi Nam.1092:

Forzani.2584:

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’m sick of people complaining about their pet.

If you don’t want a pet-class, you don’t want Ranger. It’s as simple as that.

No, it’s not as simple as that.

When people rolled a Ranger they realized it came with a pet. It wasn’t a surprise. What they discovered was pets don’t work correctly…and Anet has said they are not sure if they can fix it.

If the pets worked as intended, you would get very few, if any, complaints about them.

I want to play an archer like I do in every game. There is no other class that can wield both bows. The pet is just a horrible nuisance I have had to deal with. How pets got tied to “rangers” I have no idea -must be one of those copying WoW things.

Drizzt Do’urden from The dark elf trilogy is a Ranger that has a pet Jaguar as a companion. The are many iconic Rangers who develop relationships with animals.

Even the Ranger in after earth develop a brief but close boon with a gian bird of prey. So close that the animal gave its life to save the ranger.

Rangers and pet have a long history some closer than other but there has always been a connetion.

Counter example~
Everyone’s favourite ranger (especially among anti-archers) Aragorn certainly did not have a pet in tow…unless of course you count Gimli.

Nice that you mentioned that example, as he wasn’t the Ranger “Archer kit” that people love. Not all Rangers are Archers.

He also was a ranger as “race”, as in “descendant of Numenor” and they were known as “Rangers” to the people who knew about them but not their lineage.

As far as class goes, Aragorn was undoubtedly a paladin.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Who would win? Thief shortbow or ranger shortbow? I bet the thief.

Depends on the skill of the players, and some other variables which can’t quite be nailed down so easily.

Assuming similar skill levels. If there was a thief who solely used shortbow and no other skills, and a ranger who used only his shortbow? I’d almost put money on a skilled ranger. Why?

More likely to be able to outlast the thief.

bullyrook.2165:

Vid, I am going to answer. Just have to phrase it right. lil bit o’ time, please? I’m starting to feel like Mr. Spock, shoving all my emotion, morals, culture, and beliefs to the side so I can make an argument I can prove is logical. It is very taxing to strip away everything you are just because the other guy won’t agree to disagree. No worries guys, you’ll get a well reasoned, perfectly understandable answer soon.

Please take as much time as you can to sharpen this post and refine it. I actually, no sarcasm, look forward to seeing it. You do strike me as intelligent, but . . . still the opposition.

By the way, I am prepared to agree to disagree, so long as it’s clear we do need to. I have my reasons for holding the opinions I do. (I do not call them facts because they are largely subjective.) In the interests of clarity I might as well go ahead:

1. People are inherently people, regardless of gender or race. They are rational, irrational, logical, illogical, educated, ignorant, but most of all they are still intelligent and thinking beings who deserve at least some respect if they are serious when they speak of their beliefs.

2. You cannot necessarily help what you find interesting/beautiful/adorable. It just is, and what some people find disgusting some find intriguing . . . consider the amount of people fascinated by insects, taxidermy, or some cultural haut cuisine dishes. (Guaranteed there will be one which is a centerpiece to a culture which someone somewhere will find disgusting.)

3. It is okay to love another person, regardless of gender/race, so long as it is not “merely” lust and has a basis in something more concrete. It is not necessarily a sexual love either.

And on the technical side:

4. Writers have a responsibility to portray characters who remain true to their nature, even if they know it’s not going to be popular.

5. Writers have a responsibility to follow through on events developing even though they know it’s going to upset people if they already set the ball rolling.

6. Characters must behave like people, but they are not people. They must be a believable facsimile, but they are not any single person.

7. Tragic events are always better when they have time to mature. We need to get to know the characters, get connected to them, and believe it’s a tragedy something happens to them. For whatever fall is planned, there must be a rise of at least equal magnitude.

So, to be blunt in the extreme:

The whole of Marjory/Kasmeer is a setup for tragedy later which will evoke emotional responses in those who invested themselves in the narrative and characters.

Which is why I think the whole of this? It’s not a publicity stunt or social agenda. This is writers doing their craft and this time doing it patiently.

Atherakhia.4086:

LOL! Best of luck with any improvements to our downed state. It’s the only thing most everyone can agree on being overpowered.

Really? I don’t see it. I usually get about 10 seconds of being downed before someone stomps me. PvE wise, yeah it’s pretty useful to have the pet as a dedicated res asssist . . . but WvW? Doesn’t help.

Rangers are not as capable of kicking great amounts of posterior as other classes. They never were that good at it even in the previous game – they have been more useful as pressure or single-target focus.

So it’s not a matter of the pet behavior stinking to high heaven, or our DPS, it’s a matter of our niche not being balanced towards the same ends. I’d_like_ for our niche to return to “pressure enemies into making mistakes other classes can capitalize on”. Why? Because we’re not that terrible currently in general PvE, and the biggest place we’re “meh” from what I understand is WvW.

So in WvW I want to return to what I used to be for in JQ – capture points, or drop pressure on people so others can capitalize on it.

dutchiez.7502:

There’s still the problem of why you would add rewards for one class but not another? Why not add something everyone can use like armor skins?

Wethospu.6437:

Pets and whatever won’t really make the content any better.

And that’s very true aswell.

I’d much rather have new armor outside of Fractals first? I mean, it was noted by Chris (I think) there’s a dearth of new armor getting added to the general game availability.

I would say having a non-random way of earning the Fractal skins would be a step forward from where it is now. I would say also if Fractals become disproportionately lucrative, there’s also pressure to partake in them even if people don’t really want to . . . due to how advantageous the loot becomes. Some people already see dungeons this way, as “required” if you want to make money.

(Personally, I don’t see it. I make enough money myself through normal play to fund normal activities and a modest bit of crafting. Sure, I’m not buying a precursor anytime soon but I’m not busking for Waypoint/repair fees.)

Just a note of caution to be thrown in there and repeated: I shouldn’t feel that I’m being held back from earning a large chunk of loot/cash by not doing something. Especially if I don’t want to do that. That leads to resentment over “having” to do it, or potential implications of Trading Post pricing.

DarcShriek.5829:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DarcShriek.5829:

The problem you have is that many leaders have successfully led through fear and intimidation, despite your claim of the opposite.

Yup, worked really well for Caligula . . .

Congratulations, you had to go back in time 2000 years to find an example.

I don’t have to, but you know, it’s a lot easier when one doesn’t have to think about modern-day politics . . . who have missiles and possibly are crazy enough to send one my way.

Plus, I think you missed the mark by the better part of a century, but what the heck.

But, if you insist, I’ll go more contemporary. We could talk about Temujin, I suppose. Dude conquered through fear.

Only if it comes with Kurzick vs Luxon again. Or Joko vs Everyone Else

bullyrook.2165:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

zenleto.6179:

I might be putting my very manly apron on to have a go at these myself!

Doesn’t need to be a manly apron, just need to channel some Alton Brown.

My apron becomes manly when I put it on.

Yes, but my suggestion helps you do the implausible . . . such as cooking a turkey dinner by driving your car. (Though to be honest, Adam and Jaime helped.)

DarcShriek.5829:

The problem you have is that many leaders have successfully led through fear and intimidation, despite your claim of the opposite.

Yup, worked really well for Caligula . . .

zenleto.6179:

I might be putting my very manly apron on to have a go at these myself!

Doesn’t need to be a manly apron, just need to channel some Alton Brown.

Zulika Mi Nam.1092:

Forzani.2584:

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’m sick of people complaining about their pet.

If you don’t want a pet-class, you don’t want Ranger. It’s as simple as that.

No, it’s not as simple as that.

When people rolled a Ranger they realized it came with a pet. It wasn’t a surprise. What they discovered was pets don’t work correctly…and Anet has said they are not sure if they can fix it.

If the pets worked as intended, you would get very few, if any, complaints about them.

I want to play an archer like I do in every game. There is no other class that can wield both bows. The pet is just a horrible nuisance I have had to deal with. How pets got tied to “rangers” I have no idea -must be one of those copying WoW things.

. . . pets and Rangers were tied together in GW1 too, you could however leave them off if you chose. But only Rangers could have pets rather than minions.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dirt we never learned what it was.

I heard you were meddlesome, Konig, but until you need to know that information is going to remain very closely held.

DarcShriek.5829:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fext.3614:

no real human beings can be such a bunch of annoying drama queens like the Destiny Edge.

Clearly, you have not been around tabletop gamers for very long in your lifetime. Trust me . . . there’s worse which inhabits your Friendly Local Gaming Store.

Teachers. Teachers are the biggest drama queens I know. It seems that being around kids all day rubs off on them. Not all teachers of course, but more teachers than other professions I am familiar with.

As someone who did substitute teaching? It’s exactly that. Teachers cannot win in the system, some places, and it beats them down until they just don’t care anymore. Or they turn it from a career into a social club, but those type of people do it anywhere.

College teachers, not quite so much.

But seriously, the kind of drama Destiny’s Edge has going on? I’ve almost exactly seen it happen on tabletop gaming. Especially White Wolf games.

Substance E.4852:

Again though, same issue as we have now. Why would you not slot d-shot? It was borderline OP and almost always hit when used with a recurve bow.

Time to hurt my ranger cred. I couldn’t ever connect with D-shot properly. So I used other skills instead. Those I could almost always nail, but never D-Shot.

We also had the same problem we have now, people would just sit at max range with their flat bows and spam barrage, doing nothing else. They wouldn’t even slot splinter weapon with it. It wasn’t hard to build for solid damage on a ranger, people just didn’t want to put in the effort of hitting more than one button. We were pretty useless in FoW/DoA groups but we never had the “no rangers allowed” bullkitten that we have here.

We had exactly as much as we have here – it’s present but it depends on where you are and what is getting done. We’re doing runs of CoF HM, wait you have a ranger? Nope. I gave up on PUGs for many things because it was just . . . frustrating to hear “do you have any other classes?” often enough.

That said? It’s still not as widespread here. Yet.

That said, I tended to run Recurve almost exclusively. Decent range and responsiveness, not as limited as the shortbow in range. Dabbled in hornbow for a while, didn’t really find it working too much for me.

I did keep flatbow/longbow on hand for some specific things. And a melee weapon set which was never intended to be used, just to fool enemy AI.

But yeah, while I like the GW1 ranger . . . still do, a lot . . . I also like the GW2 ranger. I just miss the preview we got with Keiran Thackeray in “Hearts of the North” where he could one-shot things with proper teamwork.

DarcShriek.5829:

It’s not enough for just Caudecus to die. He must also be discredited, shown to be a traitor. Also, his wife and children must also die.

No, he needs to have what they pulled on Sejanus pulled on him.