Guild Wars 2

Manekk.6981:

Puck.9612:

cats=pve
birds=pvp

In my opinion this, also if you pvp I still prefer raven or owl over hawk and eagle as I see the burst of them better than the bleeder birds in most cases you still gain dmg from companions might (might) and will have the bleed as a solid bonus instead.

Hawks are condition-bots.
7 second (5+aftercast) on weakness and blind are a real nuisance to fight against.

Both Owls/Ravens and Hawks are viable choices.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Chokolata.1870:

…If it was % of power into healing then it might be ok.

Yeah, 10% of Power into Healing Power would be good and much more useful than 80 power when in Clerics. Makes Power druid better too, since the scaling.

MDG is alright now, imo, I haven’t tested it or anything, but 15 might for 3s under 50%? Some boon duration and you can get 20 stacks? That’s pretty good. You just need more vitality to take advantage, because you know you will be under 50% health in PvP. For roaming, combo with Enlargement and Dragonfish Candy and it should be super powerful.

You need toughness to make use of it. Not Vitality
With Toughness things get really easier to hold your ground with Troll Unguent.

With Vitality it’s either sink or swim. It would only make sense with conditions.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

And I really think that you are incorrect when you say "I think I speak for most rangers in saying I actually really like the positional requirements of “Cross fire”, if it wasn’t for that, it would be vastly more popular.

Definitely not most rangers …
… But I like the flanking mechanic myself. I just don’t like the numbers, that’s all.

I mean, having it a dancing PvP weapon weak from head to head combat but deadly from behind is what I’d definitely like. I don’t enjoy the boring afk-auto attack pattern on all the weapons we have.

And Rangers do seem like the flanking class. There’s plenty of the traits and weapons to support that kind of play.
I would really enjoy more reward from being able to get behind your opponent’s back.

If the Direct Damage was 25% lower from front (75% of current), and 100% more powerful from behind (aka 150% of current) applying 2sec Torment and 2sec Bleeding, I’d definitely play the weapon any day.
(Numbers can be changed according to balance anyways, that’s not the point. The idea matters)

It’s just that … I don’t feel the difference of flanking or not. People just randomly die while I jump around.

Serious.7083:

Unfortunately the healing stat isn’t strong enough to demand a set of Cleric armor.

They mentioned that Healing coefficients are most probably getting changed to promote using healing stats.

We’ll have to wait and see till we can really say for sure.

I’m thinking of the Cleric.
If you are not going to deal damage because… Astral Bar minigame + DDR minigame of hitting heals … You might as well want to tank a little.

If the coefficients are bad and not going to be changed much – I might end up going Celestial. I already have FullZerk equip for Ranger and Full Sinister for Engineer.
My druid is going to be useful via utility and defensive support only. That’s my goal.

Shirk.6421:

I have a very big problem with how the devs see pets in this game. In my opinion, pets shouldn’t be able to recieve boons, but every boon granted to the ranger should be copied 1 to 1 to the pet. This way, pets can’t “consume” boons. If you WH 5 in your whole group, the pet shouldn’t need to steal the boons from one member, but instead just being granted it anyway because I get the boons. Same goes for resounding timbre. The range is so small, that when your pet is a bit away, it isn’t granted the swiftness/regen – where the hell is the logic in this?

This I have been repeating over and over again. That’s exactly it.

I think I’ll bump all of my Pet Solutions in a few days’ time.

comanche.6813:

healing into power actually could help with druid hybrid builds

Don’t forget Cleric.
That one that looks like being able to heal and soak up some boss damage (while pets are doing the little piece of damage since druid doesn’t really have the opportunity).
I wish I had more time to test.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Tragic Positive.9356:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Toolbox.9375:

My personal favorite approach to a baseline Fortifying Bond isn’t the fixed-duration boon-copying approach the actual trait uses, but a new system entirely for handling Ranger and pet boons. I can’t remember where I saw it, but I’ve mentioned it myself in other topics. X)

Essentially, any boons applied to the Ranger or the pet goes to a pool that they both share. If the Ranger gets a boon, the pet gets exactly the same boon themselves, and if the pet gets a boon, it similarly goes to the Ranger. If both are caught in one boon application, it’s only applied once. Such an approach lets the Ranger send their pet into a boon-stacking group while staying back themselves if need be, or lets the pet stay back for whatever reason while the Ranger fights with the group.

Just seems like a much more straightforward and reliable system.

Sounds very reasonable to me. Simple, elegant and straightforward as you said. +1

I don’t really like the idea of pet giving Ranger Boons.
It pushes everyone else on ranged backwards. And it sounds really complicated.

Rangers already are the best Ranged DPS. Making it profit from 100% of melee stacking boons is wrong if we are talking about balance.
Just let the pet be the promised 30% DPS. That’s all we really need to be the DPS specialization. We already have the support options.

I understand what you’re saying, but at the same time we’ve been told that we more or less have to be in melee range and stack, like everyone else, because if we don’t, we won’t get the buffs everyone else gets, and thereby, we’re not dealing optimal dps.

I say screw the melee stacking, it’s boring as hell. This is probably the only mmo I’ve played that forces everyone into melee, if they don’t they are not optimal to the group. There’s no need for ranged support – stack in melee, go full berzerk or get the hell out. That’s the name of the game.

And no, the game, when using stacking tactics, isn’t in any way harder than fighting from range. That is a myth.

You are dealing optimal DPS. No one stops you from using Sword.
Furthermore, you don’t suffer from damage at Range. You do at melee.

The ZerkMeta tactics work thanks to Guardian that pops Aegis and helps people heal back up – so that you can deal much more damage in way less time than on ranged.

In 50FoTM Pugs? Yes, everyone starts at melee to burst cooldowns with the highest efficiency then proceeds to range the boss down because everyone dies in 1 hit.
The fact that melee bosses don’t deal damage from range is not a myth. If we are talking about farming dungeons – that has and had nothing to do with lvl50 Fractals (former competitive PvE). People were able to ZerkMeta those because of mechanics, skill and time efficiency. Not comfort.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Toolbox.9375:

My personal favorite approach to a baseline Fortifying Bond isn’t the fixed-duration boon-copying approach the actual trait uses, but a new system entirely for handling Ranger and pet boons. I can’t remember where I saw it, but I’ve mentioned it myself in other topics. X)

Essentially, any boons applied to the Ranger or the pet goes to a pool that they both share. If the Ranger gets a boon, the pet gets exactly the same boon themselves, and if the pet gets a boon, it similarly goes to the Ranger. If both are caught in one boon application, it’s only applied once. Such an approach lets the Ranger send their pet into a boon-stacking group while staying back themselves if need be, or lets the pet stay back for whatever reason while the Ranger fights with the group.

Just seems like a much more straightforward and reliable system.

Sounds very reasonable to me. Simple, elegant and straightforward as you said. +1

I don’t really like the idea of pet giving Ranger Boons.
It pushes everyone else on ranged backwards. And it sounds really complicated.

Rangers already are the best Ranged DPS. Making it profit from 100% of melee stacking boons is wrong if we are talking about balance.
Just let the pet be the promised 30% DPS. That’s all we really need to be the DPS specialization. We already have the support options.

The 1st attempt to make it baseline was WHaO.

And what happened then? We had it dest Roy ed.
The problem with pets is that they are unreliable and they do not scale.
Which means we are fine until you get to an organized party. There it becomes a burden.

If it isn’t addressed by making FB baseline – it should be addressed by any other means necessary. Developers currently think Rangers are fine and Healing saved the class to be viable again. Without touching the core problems at all.

I don’t understand why don’t they just let pets scale by certain amount of certain stats. Like Power, Precition, Ferocity, Healing Power, Condition damage.
And coefficients could be reduced to match current amounts.
They would instantly scale with might, Fury, banners, blah blah blah and you wouldn’t feel bad for leaving your pet behind in DPS when upgrading your armor to ascended.

Sube Dai.8496:

@tragic – I hope you’re wrong

That can still be the case.
There wasn’t so much time to do the testing for every build.

It’s just that… I don’t know. The build felt similar to the Crusader build but didn’t have the damage to keep the pressure on target.
And you weren’t really good at supporting the team.

For bunkering – nope, weak.
For rotating and dueling – felt … Like it took waaaay too long to decap.
For Team Fights – I didn’t really feel like the build made such a difference.
But it was a nice … Casual … You know, the build that people play to enjoy, not to win.

But then again, I expect big changes to Astral Form #3 or Moment of Clarity.
Having 6 second daze on 5 second cooldown (after-cast and animation times make it like 85% daze uptime by itself) is out of balance.
Depending on what the changes are – this build might get better or clearly far worse than it currently is.

@OP

I have been testing a similar template with the same idea.
It most definitely is not bad. . .

But I personally thought it doesn’t fit a specific role. Since it’s not as good at surviving to be a point holder, it’s not as useful at dueling or large fights and… Doesn’t really achieve anything except being decent like every other Ranger build.

It just didn’t feel like the build that would be needed by the team. It really felt like a clunky and inferior burst-variation or Celestial Ele. And once my burst was gone, there was literally nothing I could do to bring people with any tiny bit of sustain down.

I decided to further play with the build to change it into a high disrupting close-to-immortal point holding build of : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWn0rCVsglsCWsCEtilFBD+peV3qLXuAwgrpc1B2Alcs0A-TZBHwAFuCALLDA4BAM4QAoZ/BA

Yes, I’m aware. It’s not made for killing people at all but helps your team achieve it big time. Objective of the game is to hold points, after all.
Excellent at healing, excellent at reviving and fine at safe-stomping, amazing at holding a point against 2-3 people. Priceless for teamfights (all the CC and healing for your team is a table-turner.)

If I found myself in a pinch, I avatared (full cleanse), 6sec dazed everybody, Swooped and Staff Travelled away to another point. Usually bought just enough time to do the magic. (I was forced out only if 3 people came, I was able to hold my own against 2 people for about a minute).

Exciton.8942:

I have a feeling that condie might be the way to go for ranger in raids if you want to be a dps.

It is really hard to dish out optimal damage in a team environment with longbow. But we don’t know about other raid encounters yet. So there could definitely be places where longbow is good. But I won’t put too much hope on it.

Max Range longbow actually has the potential to be a really solid DPS weapon. The problem is … You can’t expect people to stack for you on 1500 range.

So by being that far you basically lose 50% of damage via Might, Banners or what not. If you had an organized SafeZerk stack where Longbow Rangers would profit from the buffs – the LongBow DPS is actually quite close to Sword DPS.

If raids are taken into account – LongBow seemed wrong for me because you are too away from your party. The same problem as PvP. You can’t buff, revive or help anyone with anything, you don’t inherit the party boons and if you screw up they have no way of helping you back up unless they spend 7 days running towards you across the 1500 range you stayed away.

I personally felt that GS+S/A remorseless is the way to go for straight DPS.
If you intend to play the druid, there are lots of ways to play it. Hybrid Celestial with A/W + Staff; Condi Settler (healer) with A/T + Staff; Burster Zealot (healer) with GS + Staff …
With raids coming in, there’s nothing like “meta”. You just need the roles to be filled. Whoever fills whichever role – doesn’t matter at all.

If you can get the “safe-fire” role of LB Ranger – there’s no problem in using one in raids. But it’s your duty not to be a burden. Longbow is not a bad weapon. But people tend to use it wrong.

Poison Volley is a farming tool.
… A weak one, but making it a shot that deals 5 stacks on 1 target steals this purpose.

Maybe make it a cask-like arrow that breaks if it hits an enemy and spreads several nearby targets?

The V.8759:

Whats to fix about sword honestly? Its perfectly fine as it is

It’s not perfectly fine. It’s very uncomfortable to be used.
As well as Axe #1.

You have to disable it if you want to play the way you like. If you don’t the mechanics allow you to do your thing only like 40% of the time.
If you unbind and keep spamming it, it gets much better. But if you don’t you are stack with animation and after-cast delays. Which is disastrous and costs you life more often than not.

Also, I already broke the key on #1 from this. It is badly designed. One can find a way to go around it but it’s just not well.

People had this issue with everything.

LB Auto-Attacks, Rapid Fire, Greatsword…
… Everything.

This is just yet another of those things that falls into the category. If you want to find out what caused it, search for it globally.
A good place to start is 10% Raw damage into 10%crit convert from Skirmishing. The rest is up to you. I’ll come check later after my own research.

Wondrouswall.7169:

It seems pretty reasonable to me. Pet is defeated, Shared Anguish affects the pet, if it’s dead, it shouldn’t activate.

Guess I’m not a true Ranger. :P

The logic says so. If the pet is dead it shouldn’t activate.
From balance perspective it’s absurd.

Currently this kind of trait is the weakest version from all the similar traits on other classes. Nerfing it further makes no sense.

There is a trinity coming, though.

Power/Condi/Sustain classes.
No one tells you who should play and what but your raid group needs all of those.
And yes, Water Fields with Blasts count as a form of sustain. Druid just helps it without that much organization.

Photinous.4628:

Don’t expect any statement from a dev to be truthful here.

Irenio is actually keeping his word, so far.
You can’t blame him for other developers have the very same right to impact a game with changes … or better said counter-changes.

Rutee.1058:

I swear to christ, for people who allegedly care about science, nerds are extraordinarily bad at applying its principles in day to day life. Also, the last thing YOU want to try is to pull this ‘experience’ card. I don’t exactly have cause to value your opinion. My experience with you tells me to disregard your opinion – if you had data, I would have a much harder time gainsaying you. But you don’t (granted, because it doesn’t appear to exist). I mean, I don’t even know you’ve been here – the hell makes you think I ought to trust you? I could just as easily as you say I’ve been paying attention the whole time.

I believe my own data.
That’s why I was so eager to hop in onto the test fest.
Remember me saying that?
You’re shading yourself with your past few replies. I had literally no problem going to check who was right or not. You, however, only mentioned data that you didn’t provide.

I’m all up for research. As I said – anything that helps ranger is everything I will dedicate my time to. But as clearly as data goes,
93% of data from statistics are made on the spot
(it’s a joke, you’ll get it)
Just as
An independent research proved that most people believe American or Independent researchers.

I always use my own head and I keep it open to any valid ideas. If you have no proof to support validity of your data, the data is nothing more than a pure speculation or assumption.
Believing blindly in this world of lies is a double edged weapon. Everything you see around you is a lie in half. People lie to each other without even knowing they do.
In this case it’s either the person who claimed Condi LB to be the highest DPS weapon or the one that cut him down with anti-statement.
I, for example had a test where my GS dps was doing ~5% less damage than the sword on stationary targets. ~15% more DPS than sword in practice. Do you want data? I can support my statements.

Your data does not mean anything unless people blindly believe the numbers without knowing what they mean. That’s not how science but life works.

Holland.9351:

It’s also a Waterfield. The tooltip doesn’t say so and it also doesn’t show on the ground, but it still acts as one.

Therefore I think it’s fine.

Isn’t every reflect wall or bubble a field?
Like Chaos or Light?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

SkiTz.4590:

Oh do tell, please show me the light as I am clearly ignorant to your superior knowledge….

All over 60s fight, after that there is some downtime. 100% uptime on 11 Might, Fury, Swiftness, Regeneration and Protection. 60% uptime on Vigor. 60% uptime on Stability. Healing Spring heals for 25k. Spotter for 150 Precision. Frost Spirit for +10% damage x 5 people. Sun Spirit for 30 burn ticks every 8s. SmokeScale pushing out top damage.

Then you have the Druid healing on top of that.

Consider yourself enlightened.

Thanks for helping me out with killing the thrashtalk, Heim.
You have no idea how I appreciate your doing.

There’s the combo guyz.

Using Full Ranged Ranger. Immune to reflects.
Just disrupt and keep poking with staff from afar. When you see the opportunity, drop the Sublime Wall, swap to Longbow and watch how enemy reflects suddenly became useful for you.

Haven’t tested it for more than 1 game. Looked fun but the concept is still why Ranger is considered bad in PvP … He does not contribute by anything at all except damage. No stomps, no point contribution, no revives… But the Staff offers that fast hop-in ability with several glyphs to achieve that.
The problem was always to get back away.

nagymbear.5280:

With all due respect, become a more concious consumer maybe and don’t buy something you know nothing about.

There are several types of people.
And I actually like the ones like myself.

When you are passing a hotel in mountains you should always buy at least a soda drink. Not because it’s polite, or your manners should tell you so.
There’s more to it.
Because if you do – you know they are going to be there in 5 years tame in case you’ll be feeling thirsty.

For all the people like myself – I know ANet is struggling in gaming industry. They can’t even watch blizzard from the fence because it’s like a never-ending ladder to heaven.
While different money-grinding industries just sleep on people’s money – ANet had a vision of fair game, where people could gather around, not fight each other.

And they offered you all the content “for free”. Because you only payed for the game and not the content they updated.
Since I like their ideology and game as such, I know I won’t find any other with such a friendly community as this one’s. Supporting them with at least the basic expansion purchase is what I can do to support their development in progress.
And if more people do – we’ll know the game will be there for us for several year’s time.

Providing constructive criticism and crying for candy are 2 absolutely different things.

Rutee.1058:

You are, in a very real sense, confusing me for someone else.
How you misread “Rutee” for “lxghostxl” I don’t know,

Holy, I did indeed. My sincere apologies.
It’s just that there’s so much new names ever since Druid reveal that I lost track of who said what.

I’m going through various threads so I did confuse you for Ghoster.
I really am sorry about that.

Levetty.1279:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Kodama.6453:

A skill with 2s evasion, constantly porting to the enemy so you can’t run away and able to hit for 27k? This is the essence of overpowered and needs to be nerfed.

This is a discussion about Ranger precious SmokeScale, not Mesmer mechanics.
Please, leave the food at the doorstep and leave.

I mean the Smokescales skill is the exact same one that Revenant has on its Sword but you still decided to whine about non existant Mesmer abilities instead.

No wonder balance in this game is so messed up.

You didn’t know it yourself when you were referring to the 27K number.
Since Revenant can’t do that. A mesmer can.

Plus, I know it feels bad to see that Rangers can do it too. I know. I really do. But until they nerf it like the rest of nice things we had, I’ll just enjoy my 1st time in life-time comfort I could only see from distance.

Give it a rest. You don’t want to lure me into balance discussion. Some fellows who follow through my replies and threads would tell you why.

Dojo.1867:

I get what you mean but you really need the push for decapping in basic form.

That’s one situation out of many. While you can decap in Astral Form regardless. Nothing prevents you from doing so.

In PvE, there are situations that do prevent you from using the pull in astral form as opener. Dealing the damage is the job you’ll focus on more often than healing or staff-supporting. Which means it takes far longer to fill the astral meter.

Plus, if you are trying to decap a point – it means someone is logically standing there. Which means filling your Astral Form bar takes … 3 seconds (you do wield the staff, if you don’t – you are not playing any decap build so the idea does not fit).

Balancing an ability according to 1 situation is more or less Roy’s way of doing things. I want the ability to be useful most of the time. I want abilities to fill my needs. I don’t want to play according to my abilities when it’s clear that it can be the other way round.

Rutee.1058:

…does this game not have parsers made for it? It’s /weird/ to see requests for proof with math, and not, like, data.

No it’s just that you mentioned a weapon for highest DPS … a dagger.
If you had any idea what an error that is, you’d see why Heim asked you to demonstrate.

The Longbow might just as well be what you are trying to make it sound, but under veeeeery specific conditions. Or better said, it’s a roulette. So no, your calculations are sheer speculation. No facts whatsoever.

But since I’m long aware you can’t prove it with math, I asked when do we hop in for the demonstration. If you surprise me, I’m nothing but all in for better DPS than the one hundreds of people kept improving for several months.

Holland.9351:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Holland.9351:

Kinda sucks that they’re going to have to nerf a pet because some people will waste their entire build on buffing it. +25% and +40% damage from long cooldown utilities.

That’s why we can’t have a nice things. Maybe Sick Em should get a damage nerf rather than the pets.

You mean … That Sick’Em that increases Rangers DPS by 12% for 6 seconds with no DPS boosts and by 6% for 6 seconds with 25 might on Ranger on 40 second cooldown?
Nope, only over my dead body.

I meant for example:

• remove damage from Sick ’Em and make it apply 2s stun instead.
• increase base damage of all pet skills by 20% (except Smokescale)

We’re having weak pets because people can boost them by 40% and 25% for a few seconds and burst someone down.

We’re having weak pets because ANet was busy with HoT. Or Eles. Or warriors. Or what not.

ANet haven’t really touched ranger apart from simple HoT niches until Irenio came. And since he is a person in the crowd he can’t really do much himself. We saw that when he tried to give us something as nice as WHaO buff.

Right Roy?
Doesn’t he want to nerf everything in the game, since the build with perma quickness can be maintained by Rangers with like 60% uptime even now?
It’s fun though, because that build was a mathematical DPS decrease from the standard Zerk. It’s a pity what a name he did with just one declaration of clear anti-ranger attitude.

Can someone twitter him this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veg12_-_4Uw
And it’s getting buffed with daredevil obviously.

Holland.9351:

Kinda sucks that they’re going to have to nerf a pet because some people will waste their entire build on buffing it. +25% and +40% damage from long cooldown utilities.

That’s why we can’t have a nice things. Maybe Sick Em should get a damage nerf rather than the pets.

You mean … That Sick’Em that increases Rangers DPS by 12% for 6 seconds with no DPS boosts and by 6% for 6 seconds with 25 might on Ranger on 40 second cooldown?
Nope, only over my dead body.

Hammerguard.9834:

Chokolata.1870:

This simply is not true. A lot of the pets were very good before the massive pet damage nerf patch. Pretty much every spike ability got reduced by 50% damage, cat maul, birds f2 and so on and so forth.

This will probably get the same treatment

It’s not even about how much damage the skills do but rather the skills doing damage at all. The Smokescale has a very reliable source of dealing damage to enemy targets while other pets struggle to even get within range of an attack. Second, the smokefield creates a beautiful synergy between the pet and the ranger which is also something other pets lack.

This.

Kodama.6453:

A skill with 2s evasion, constantly porting to the enemy so you can’t run away and able to hit for 27k? This is the essence of overpowered and needs to be nerfed.

This is a discussion about Ranger precious SmokeScale, not Mesmer mechanics.
Please, leave the food at the doorstep and leave.

Yashuoa.9527:

I am talking about sublime conversion.
Our staff #5 when I talked about the fixed healing amount.

You keep talking about reflecting dmg but our #5 wall does not reflect.
It converts a dmg projectile into a heal.

I was not talking in the quoted part and the pve comment about Glyph of Unity.

You completely missed the point altogether.

Dojo.1867:

Knighthonor.4061:

No I like the push on GoTT base form. Its needed for self defense when out of form.

It simply need a AoE regen and maybe even a blast finisher or water field.

Vine Surge need its cast time reduced to 1/2 seconds. far too hard to hit.

On second thought ai think you are right about this. Thematically a pull would be more aggressive and a push more defensive but I think the push in basic form is needed for decapping and stuff like that. Will edit original post.

I agree on your original idea. Pull and Push should get swapped.
Without celestial form you are on the offensive and want to deal as much as you can – thus pulling enemies to yourself is what you need.

On the other hand, in celestial you are purely defensive which means you want enemies out.
[edit] The only use is with Astral Form #5. That’s it. Nothing more [/edit]

Furthermore – in PvE you are starting without celestial form, so being able to pull enemies in (like you always do in PvE) to do damage and out when you need to heal your peers is what we need.

Current functionality is just wrong. I don’t want to deplete all my Celestial form just to feel useful with 1 glyph for PvE. Not to mention how absurd it is to fill the bar without staff in PvE.
(I’ve been testing druid for PvE without staff – it’s a tiny bit less DPS but can fill several roles; it’s optional)

Nope, haven’t had this problem.

Double Check your Keyboard Binding options. There might have been set a second option for your pet swap and you press it not knowing.
You might also be using a combination of various keybinds that are identical to your Pet Swap bind.

Let me know if that’s the case.

+1 for Chokolata.
It’s nice to see open-minded people here to share the right messages.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Hammerguard.9834:

The Smokescale is legitimately the first good pet in the entire game. It’s so well designed and useful in multiple ways. If any other pet was nearly as good, Rangers might actually stop hating pets for once.

…and we can’t have that now, can we?

It’s gonna be R………..
…….
……. Wait for it …….
…….
……. oy!

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

lxghostxl.5097:

Most players are not aware but the highest dps build for rangers is Longbow Condi, A/D or A/T. and this build can compare about the same to an Ele burst combo/Guard just not require to be up close, and have allot of cleanse. even tho we can do this, rangers are still not liked in dungeons.

I’d like to see you prove this with math.

I’ll tag onto this.
When do we do the test fest?

Chrispy.5641:

What I keep getting out of this thread is that everyone keeps saying that Optimal and Meta doesn’t matter, and its okay for the Ranger to be viable but still less than par at everything compared to other professions, because as long as you sing the happy song and play with friends, everything will be okay in the end!

What you keep getting is a wonderful accurate social analysis of realism and a nice bunch of skeptics, pessimists or, simply said, people who put human factor above everything.

Sometimes when I think about it, I usually see people’s nature than replies to what threads ask for. Not that it’s a bad thing, of course not. But I just tend to answer the questioned with the answer I know will be right, not the answer I feel is right.

Yashuoa.9527:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Yashuoa.9527:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I personally suggest the Projectiles to become healing ones.
That heal for 50% of the damage they’d originally should deal.

Splash on hit projectiles included.
Simply because of balance.

Reflect is a 200% damage difference. Not only all the damage you should have taken is negated into 0 -> it’s even reflected back for the original amount (100%) back to the attacker.

Our current wall is pretty much nothing but a projectile denial which isn’t fair due to all the reflects that are present in the game.

I agree pvp wise but wouldnt that be to good in some situations in pve?
Maybe just buff the healing a lot for each projectile, rather than 50% of the dmg of a projectile?

You mean this is the problem when bosses like Lupi can instakill themselves with reflects? You can’t be serious about this one, can you?

Who is the YOU in this quote? Since you quote two people.

I suggest that there is a fixed amount of healing for each projectile (2k for example), rather than x% healing of the dmg of a projectile being converted into healing.

That’s exactly what some people say is the problem even with glyph of the unity or retaliation. It either does completely nothing at all (like our sublime at the moment) or instakills anyone who tries to mass-multi-hit the target.

Fixed % damage just means a straight convert without “I don’t like it” situations. If a sniper can fire a shot for 10K that a Ranger can convert into 5K healing – it will most probably induce a though for a sniper “Screw it, I should have waited when I saw the Wall” or “Good reaction time, well played”.
If it’s a set amount I usually talk to myself “who designed this? The only trade off from 20K boss hit is 340 damage back. GG, well played”.

Rutee.1058:

Er, aren’t you confusing ‘meta’ with ‘strong’? Maybe the NA servers are different, maybe I’m not looking often enough, but the meta seems unchanged from Guards, Eles, and Wars. I’ve not seen people ask for Rangers. I believe you when you say they’re good (I reserve such judgements for parses and similar, personally), but that doesn’t make them the meta, because the meta is determined by the community.

I’ve seen several groups (not many but still) ask directly for Frost Spotter rangers.

And the class has been recognized as MetaZerk by the community by metabattle (where, of course, the meta comes from) for the past few weeks even though we haven’t really been directly buffed in DPS ever since Trait Changes.

Plus, all the maths and experience say that Rangers provide better DPS than a warrior, can fill the party with perma fury and swiftness, 11 permanent might, and high amount of vulnerability.

The reason why people believe Rangers are not in meta is because people (rangers) suck. 9 out of 10 rangers you see are horrible. That’s just plain statistics. Dunno if you guyz have better luck but I don’t.
But that is nothing but human factor. A skilled Ranger is better contribution for the party than any other DPS fill-in (unless you need utility like skips or heavy reflects).
A bad ranger, on the other hand, is the worst nightmare you can probably get. That’s why people do not risk for the trade-off is not worth.

Yashuoa.9527:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I personally suggest the Projectiles to become healing ones.
That heal for 50% of the damage they’d originally should deal.

Splash on hit projectiles included.
Simply because of balance.

Reflect is a 200% damage difference. Not only all the damage you should have taken is negated into 0 -> it’s even reflected back for the original amount (100%) back to the attacker.

Our current wall is pretty much nothing but a projectile denial which isn’t fair due to all the reflects that are present in the game.

I agree pvp wise but wouldnt that be to good in some situations in pve?
Maybe just buff the healing a lot for each projectile, rather than 50% of the dmg of a projectile?

You mean this is the problem when bosses like Lupi can instakill themselves with reflects? You can’t be serious about this one, can you?

Dradiin.8935:

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

If Rangers can “do high damage” we would be part of the Meta, we are from from that, so i guess i would need to know what you think is “high damage”.

That’s sad… Because Rangers have been meta ever since pre-HoT update.
I’ve explained it countless of times so I don’t feel like going through with it again.

If you feel like reading in through (instead of using your own head), feel free to do so. But I’d say chances for that are too slim. You skeptical attitude will prevent you from doing it because why on earth would someone else be right when you weren’t able to prove anything at all.

Yep, I wanted to kill myself when a Low-Health (10%) green name popped in front of me (through like 7 others) and I almost sold my kidney just to track the name and heal the poor guy.

Just so I could realize after he died that I kept healing a bloody pet! (Yes, I’m using a model limiter for flooded areas).
If I could see the Health Bars in larger area, not just one by one, that would give Druid a life-time change. To the better.

Ehecatl.9172:

Ranger didn’t need an elite spec to specialize in DPS since ranger already focuses on DPS.

Elite specializations aren’t suppose to be an upgrade to the core, they are suppose to open up a new playstyle that wasn’t there before.

It’s not a childish response to tell you to simply not play the druid. Druid is a completely optional addition to the profession. Core ranger is still there and still functional without the druid trait line.

Just do it Ehecatl.
Tell him that his Ranged ranger is viable.

And while at it, tell him that we already are ZerkMeta.

We need people like him realize that Elite Specialization was not supposed to buff their current play-style but to give ranger more options.

Relshdan.6854:

infantrydiv.1620:

I agree that there probably will be a place for a dedicated healer druid running clerics or whatnot, but it just seems like many people don’t understand that it would be entirely possible to play druid as a hybrid and only go into the form for 5-10 seconds to use the 3/4 skills once or twice on your party and then go back to DPS focus. This would be even more possible if changes are made to up the Astral Force gain from damaging skills and regen, then a Druid could play BM/Skirmishing with the standard condi stacking rotation while being tanky and being able to do heals on demand.

yep…..it’s weird to see so many sleeping on this.

I actually already play it this way, but the other way round.
The only faulty atm is that Astral Force is literally glued to nothing but staff.
If the astral meter is build in 6-10 seconds by doing Zerk DPS, that would become a viable solution. It currently takes ages.

I was totally consumed by Crusader (power,tough>healing,ferocity) gameplay where I baited all the cooldowns of the enemy, playing defensive and when I saw the opportunity, I left Astra/Staff formation and swapped to GS>Sigil of Intelligence+Maul, stun, pressure.

If this worked the other way, as well… Now that would be all and exactly what the druid needs.
Some numerical tweaks like Glyph of Unity or Staff skills would be welcome but core changes like DPS Astral form access need to get to live.

Relshdan.6854:

Dradiin.8935:

Relshdan.6854:

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

Ummm have you looked at your sig ?

i assume that’s an insult, but pls explain?

He might have been referring to the lack of Ranger Main in your signature. Just ignore it. Lots of people tend to get aggressive due to the Elite spec reveal.

It’s to be expected since not everybody got what he wanted.

Rym.1469:

I wonder how many of you guys actually tried healing Druid or Ventari/Glint Revenant for real in PvP/Raid and saw the numbers before throwing laughable statements that something doesn’t work. Let me guess, the previewed Raid is easy, too?

Git gud, then we talk.

The raid was actually much easier than it was promised.
Any raid group made with logic could get it down. If you weren’t 9 Zerks and 1 druid, but had a balanced group of Condi,Offensive/Defensive support and Zerk classes you could have made the raids without a problem.

It was a challenge for people who never saw Fractals with double digit level, but definitely not for veteran players.

From my testing perspective, Druids are decent at what they do.
And they hold a vast PvP/WvW potential. The lockdown/burst/Sustain nature of MoC druid is amazing.

As it goes for PvE – people do not really need you unless the group is organized. Which raids are (or better said are supposed to be).
Playing a healer in open world PvE is pointless. As it is in current Dungeon System (you are either insta-killed or you suffice with your own sustain) – no one really needs you. But that’s not a problem. No one needs a full Signet Warrior either.

Will druid be mandatory for Raids? No, not really. But druid is one of the better options how to fill a certain role. To sustain the damage that you cannot avoid and your own healing source cannot keep up.
Of course there are other choices how to do the sustain. Simply bring a DPS ranger with Healing Spring, pre-set it somewhere, bring Staff ele and other blasts and you can get healed by 18K easily.
The problem is that it sacrifices a whole set of other utility (for Might, AoE blindness, Team positioning, cooldowns and stuff) while a Druid can run with the water field to you, heal you all in seconds while all of you can deal the damage – making it much better in efficiency.

Is druid needed in raids? Yes and no.
Druids role is needed but can be replaced by other strategies.

Gilgalas.7860:

When fighting 1 or 2 enemy, the damage is completely lacking. When fighting 5-10 enemies at once, especially enemies that hit very quickly (1000 blades, dagger thiefs), then it turns into hell for the tethered enemies: because their is no ICD, so they suddenly huge amounts of 300 damage ticks, enough to get them down in seconds.

This glyph needs to find a middle ground between useless and instagib.

You mean being something more than 300 range retaliation on 20 second cooldown and 1/2 cast time?
Yup, that would be nice. Something like a 40% damage return of sort?