Guild Wars 2

If you want increased dmg on staff, look at skill 2 or 4. The autoattack doesn’t need a buff. You are not supposed to kill ppl by spamming a braindead easy to land autoattack with a (semi) bunker build.

You can argue what you want … if core specs would be as strong as elite specs, they wouldn’t be pretty much extinct at pvp tournaments. It is a fact, that almost nobody played core builds at the first pro league matches. And being “new and shiny” is no reason for taking elite specs. All what counts is winning and players will choose classes/builds, which give them the best chance to achieve this goal.

Dahkeus.8243:

Really? Can we drop this tired argument? It’s not kittening pay to win if what you’re paying for is pretty much the game itself. These elites are part of the expansion, not gem store upgrades.

HoT is an upgrade for the game and it can be purchased through the gem store (not exclusively but still …). You don’t need the expansion to play PvP (or WvW or PvE). But it gives you an advantage over those who don’t have it.

I know, my english is not the best, but … are my posts really that hard to understand?

ReaperJr.5967:

You’re implying rev is op. […]

No, i’m not. Yes, i think, some stuff from Rev is just too much, but the same is true for most other elite specs, so compared to those, rev is sort of balanced. Which I – more or less – already mentioned.

And no, I don’t wrote or wanted to imply Glint heal is op because of fields. This was only directed to “It is easy to avoid hitting into the heal, only bad player do so”.

As already stated, the instant activation makes it so strong. It is not only a heal with high healing potential but also an instant invuln on 30 sec cd, which can be used while cc’ed and works even against already applied condis (unlike other invulns).
And no, I’m not implying here, shiro/glint rev is strong vs condis – just in case someone has difficulties with “basic comprehension of the english language".

The pet gains OS every time the ranger gets OS. But applying fury to the pet doesn’t refresh its OS.

I know, what the wiki says. It is wrong. Ingame description says 525, not 58. I used no traits or skills that affect pets for my test. Of course the smokescale can crit for 1,5k with buffs. The wolf can crit for more than 1k too. Both pets have the same low critchance though.
Btw, unlike you, i proved my claims …

Smokescales autoattack dmg is higher, but it is not even 2x higher than the dmg of canides (including the self applied might stacks). Yes, the smokescale is one of the best pets. So are wolf/hound. For different reasons.

Why don’t you test it ingame yourself instead of making stupid claims such as smokescales autoattack dmg is 10×. If you would have used those pets at least once, you would know, this can’t be true.

Exactly, build > skill. Traits and skills became stronger and stronger with trait changes in June and now HoT and have more influence on the outcome of fights than ever. Active counterplay, which – unlike picking the right traits and skills – requires some actual playerskill, is limited more and more. Again – this is not only a rev issue. I wouldn’t mind, i would actually like it, if every single class gets nerfed down to warrior level. At least.

ReaperJr.5967:

What? Are you on crack? High stability uptime? The only stability you get on shiro glint is 1 stack of stab on dodge. And that lasts like what, a second? I wouldnt even bother addressing your other points since they dont even make sense in a 5v5.

2 1/2 – 2 2/3 seconds stab on dodge and if they take Enhanced Bulwark it is 5 seconds.
Of course you don’t respond to my other points. I would do the same if my arguments consist of false claims. Like this “one second of stab”.

ReaperJr.5967:

If the rev knows what he’s doing he will pop glint heal before you hit him with high damage? Are revs psychics now? They can read your mind? If he successfully does that, it means you got read like a book and outplayed. Nothing to do with glint heal being op.

Shiro heal is pathetic, i wont even bother talking about it. Lmao i dont even main revenant and its extremely easy to counter for me.

He can see my animations. You know, those things that should give you a chance for counterplay. Which is totally fine. Glint heal hasn’t such an animation. Or he just sits in fields. You can’t tell already placed fields to stop dealing dmg because the rev used his heal.

Shiro heal isn’t bad. Low casttime, decent healing over time, free extra dmg. Little counterplay …

Btw, i never wrote, revenant is op.

Ritt.3069:

Unrelenting Assault:
-CC it during the 3/4s cast time (ez)
-Evade
-Hug a wall
-Block/Invuln
-LoS during cast time
-Stealth unless you have a Reveal (and even that is evadeable)
-Minions/Clones—>What damage?

Many revs have high stability uptime and not every class has (nearly) instant CC. Which makes CC not as “ez” as you claim. Evade only avoids part of the dmg, because ,you know, not every class has 2sec evades on their weaponskills. Invulns have usually long cd. Hugging walls limits your mobility. Stealth isn’t aviable for everyone.

Ritt.3069:

Glint Heal:
-See him going to Glint form? He will use heal soon, if you keep pressuring him
—>Don’t hit heal of stupid

Shiro Heal:
-See him using Shiro heal? Just evade/block/blind through the life steals, and you may effectively nullify a burst AND a heal.

Glint heal is instant and if the rev is not completely stupid he will use it right before you hit him (preferable with high dmg ability) or just tank some fields. It is nearly impossible to never hit into the heal, if the rev knows what he is doing.

To counter Shiro heal you have to avoid every single hit for 15 sec, because the lifesteal doesn’t proc, if the rev doesn’t hit. Not possible in most situations.

Counterplay against rev is limited. Of course it is possible to counterbuild, especially with other elite specialisations. And this isn’t even a rev only issue. More and more it is build > skill.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Very well written reply. Thank you.
Also I wouldn’t disagree with any of your points.
Except for the Reaper.
Just bring a diamond skin ele or tempest and you have a dead condi reaper. even a power reaper will struggle.

Just because there is one single specific build, which can hardcouter (condi) reaper, it doesn’t say, reaper is weak. Especially when we are talking about 1vs1.

Ragnarox.9601:

Daze is not a stun. This breaks all your arguments.

I think he used stun as generic term for every form of hard cc. Which includes daze.

It works. Why do you think, it doesn’t?

It healed for way less at BWE3 (about 60 per tick with 0 healing power if i remember correctly). Now it is more than 200 per tick.

I prefer core ranger over druid too. I use the lb from time to time, but mostly i play full melee (gs + s/a). And it didn’t become easier for me either.

This isn’t a longbow or ranger issue. Many core class builds are weaker relative to elite specs now.

Melee attacks don’t go through evades or blocks. Idk what counterplay you are talking about. Some things are unblockable, but this is not tied to melee. Yes, rangers don’t have access to unblockable ranged attacks. But the same is true for the melee attacks – with the exception of traps and entangle.
Don’t forget, melee attacks can be avoided by running/kiting. So even if there is more counterplay in form of skills/traits against ranged (projectile) attacks, it doesn’t make ranged stuff harder to land in general. It just depends of the specific situation.

Most of the things you mentioned work against all attacks, not only against projectiles.

Not everyone has lots of reflects. (Ranger’s) LB was a decent weapon pre-HoT and still is. Of course camping on LB is usually not the best idea, but this doesn’t mean the weapon is bad. Others have to weaponswap too.

Regarding autoattack of druid staff and mesmer gs, glaphen is right – they deal similar dmg at max range, staff is better at close range. But auto is pretty much the only real dmg source of druid’s staff. Overall mesmer has way better dmg and especially burst than druid.

About MoC druid – i can’t belive, somebody is complaining about this kind of build. Because it sucks. It has either mediocre survability and low burst or mediocre burst and low survability. All it can do is dazing, wow. It gets absolutely hardcountered by stability. Weak against cc and burst. Which some other classes can do much better than MoC druid. Ancient seeds doesn’t even work most of the time, this trait is only strong on paper. Just like MoC druid. It is a troll build, which can wreck inexperienced or stupid players, or other weak builds.

Substance E.4852:

Only birds hit that hard and they already hit reliably. It’s nearly every other melee pet, aside form hounds, that is the problem.

There’s a reason no one brought cats into pvp the second they nerfed the Jaguar.

I’m currently running with 2 cats (jaguar and tiger) after using birds most of the time and actually they aren’t that bad. Bird’s F2 are easier to land but there is not very much difference when it comes to hitting with autoattacks, because even if cats have a harder time at connecting with their attacks, they waste less time with “flying circles”.

You can’t constantly block or dodge autoattacks and those can hurt. Again, if you are fast enough, you can avoid melee attacks from players too. Especially if those attacks root the player. Yes the jaguar is a good pet, even if it can get kited. Many other pets are bad, true. I wrote already, improvements are needed. But constantly hitting a target for 2-3k autoattacks or even more without the ranger doing anything would be not ok. And i don’t want pet’s dmg nerfed.

kzar.3079:

Do other classes have to permanently CC to hit their targets? Do other classes lose a huge chunk of theis DPS by not having their targets slowed? Pets should be able to reliably hit moving targets. Period.

Ever played a full melee class/build? Kiting doesn’t work only against pets. Some attacks are hard to land on moving targets, so yes, sometimes other classes have to use cc to land their stuff too. And other classes have to attack actively to deal damage. If ranger’s pets were able to constantly hit moving targets, it would be kind of passive dmg. And if they hit, they can hit quite hard (at least some of them). Strong passive dmg without the need to think about it, is not a good idea imo.

This does not mean, there is no need for improvements. Many pets are completely useless and broken and it is not just because of bad AI. Other pets – even if they need some improvements too, like more control or better protection against aoe/cleave – can be very useful, if used right. Yes, they need help of the ranger to be useful – and that’s how it should be. Fix problems – and there are plenty – but don’t make pets “autopilot”.

Rym.1469:

Watch out for Revenant activating the Shiro’s heal before UA. These green floating daggers. A lot of huge Revenant 1v1 burst comes actually from siphoning of these daggers – use your distortions/defensives there. It will stop both the main spike and cancel about ~4k healing.

It is not possible to avoid the dmg/heal from Shiro’s heal. Unless you never get hit for the whole duration of 15 sec. Which is usually not possible (maybe unless you are a thief/mesmer and sit constantly in stealth – but then you won’t kill the rev anyway).

True. But other classes can loose healing too. Guard who uses JI for the engage, looses the healing from it. Or using the virtue active to remove condis, results in healing loss. A ranger who uses WHaO to copy boons, can loose healing. The actual healing depends on many different factors, not only for the rev. So i was just talking about the potential healing from those skills, which are easy to calculate. I did NOT count things like lifesteal, passive shield 5, dmg during glint heal, … which can increase the healing for revenent by a massive amount.

Edit: Uhm, TU is an active skill, brainless use can get you killed due to long castttime and lack of burstheal. Oakheart salve gives only regen, which revenant has access too. Warrior has only passive heal, yes, but that’s not always an advantage.

Not using skills of cd is the same for all classes – so irrelevant.
Poison affect all classes too. Rev more than some (not all) other classes, true, but rev can have at least some condi remove (on legend swap and/or staff, sigils), can block/evade some poison application and not all classes/builds have decent access to poison.

Just out of curiosity, does poison affect the healing from dmg during glint heal?

Edit: Rangers WhaO traited is 488 hp/s (505 with nature magic). TU + perma regen would be 555 hp/s, which is the max healing for a viable power ranger build. I didn’t even count regen and a lot other healing sources for the rev so the calculation is already in favour of the revenant.

Shiro/Glint Rev with shield has more healing than pretty much every other dps class/build even if you never get hit during glint heal – which is unrealistic in actual combat.
Shiro heal: 216 hp/s (+ ~ 5k unavoidable extra dmg)
Glint base heal: 62 hp/s
Shield 4: 129 hp/s
Shield 5: 195 hp/s

Thats 602 hp/s without regen, lifesteal, passiv healing from retribution gm trait, passive Crystal Hibernation and extra heal through dmg during glint heal. So the actual healing is even higher.

Normal medi guard has about 520 hps/s from Healskill, meditations and virtue. DH is similar i guess (F2 is stronger but they usually give up some meditations).
Warrior about 460 hp/s from Signet + Adrenal Health.
Ranger about 500 from Healskill + some regen,
and so on …

Now lots of healing doesn’t make a build automatically op. But just stop saying, rev has bad healing if you don’t hit massively into glint heal – this is just not true.

In a pvp context conditions get cleansed often, so the extra duration is usually pretty much wasted. And i doubt, glassy condi builds will work well in pvp anyways (outside of hotjoin). Why would you run a build with the defense of a zerker and way less dmg output (because of the amount of condi remove)?

kdaddy.5431:

I just double dodge the rev’s sword 3 skill since its only way to do damage.

Uhm, hammer and staff don’t deal dmg? Then those 5k+ hits must be imagination i guess …

MUDse.7623:

yes that food was nerfed too and there is a new stat combination to increase condi duration but none that decreases it..imo thoughness should either reduce condi duration or condi dmg.

To get the condi duration from gear they have to give up other stats (condi dmg, defensive stats). The extra duration is not for free.

The + condi duration food was nerfed too, so the food change can’t be the (main) reason for your problems …

1) There is absolutely no reason to give ranger lower stats. The dmg is balanced trough coefficients, as already stated – and yes, in average ranger (without the pet) has lower dmg. Ranger + pet = dmg of other classes = balanced. At least dmg wise.

2) Ranger has the best sustained ranged single target dmg, ok. So what? Other classes are better at something else. Otherwise we could delete all classes and play the same.

Ranger LB has only one real (burst) damage skill – rapid fire
Warrior Rifle has two real damage skills – volley and killshot (killshot is not only a class mechanic, but also a weapon skill) – both together deal way more dmg than rapid fire. And because it is easier to 100% crit (int sigil says hi) with killshot than with rapidfire + warrior has better acess to dmg modifier, the actual average killshot burst is higher than rapidfire burst. So nope, rangers longbow does not deal more dmg than warriors rifle.

Gabriell.4856:

Again, why should any ranger ability hit harder than any other classes when 30% of its stats is suppose to be given to the pet?

Because killshot hits harder than pets! And it hits moving targets …

Btw, why didn’t you compare rangers greatsword with other greatswords?

Ansau.7326:

In one hand, condi duration from foods has been nerf, but in the other hand, now we have stats with expertise, and -% condi duration food has also been nerfed.

In the end, I think condi builds will have more advantage, as now lemongrass is not so appealing, and condi builds with expertise will cover the lost of condi duration from the nerf of foods.

To get extra condition duration from gear they have to give up condition dmg and defensive stats. They don’t get those new stats for free – unlike the bonus from the food, nerfing it (both versions!) was a good decision.

In general Smoke Assault deals still more dmg than Furious Pounce, but the latter benefits more from buffs like Attack of Opportunity and Opening Strike, which allows similar or even higher burst. Pre-nerf the smokescale dealt way more (burst) dmg than every other pet.

Ranger have on average lower weapon dmg coefficients. Idk, if it’s exactly 30%, but if they would have the same dmg as other classes without the pet, rangers would be top dps class in pve, where pets are actually a reliable dmg source. But they aren’t …

Did they fixed this trait?

Last time i checked, it didn’t worked on moving targets, because there is (was?) a delay between hitting the target and spawning the vines. And you know, daze doesn’t prevent movement.

Also this trait is not passive and quite predictable. It actually requires two (active) actions: 1. CC the target (this can be done by other players or the pet though) 2. Hit the CC’ed target.

Edit: Nope, not fixed, still missing on moving targets …

Wuselknusel.4082:

Just go to Lions Arch and ask a few times for a guild able and willing to complete the meta-event. And a crashing client is in 9/10 cases a problem with your computer and not a problem with the game. I, for example, crashed just once since the release and that crash was due to my computer doing weird stuff.

I had 2 crashes since HoT release, both at the end of dragons stand event …
And i know, many ppl have problems at the end of this event.

Organised guilds – which aren’t that easy to find – doesn’t protect from game crashes at the end of the event.

Dojo.1867:

Why do people keep saying I am supposed to take birds if I like to time my burst?

You are aware that bird f2 don’t really do any burst dps, right? They are about same dmg as just normal attacking.

Before the smokescale, birds (owl/raven) were the pets with the best (reliable) burst. And i think, they are now the best dps/burst pets again …

Play core ranger with smokescale. This pet is the real elite part for ranger. And luckily you can use it without druid traitline.

MUDse.7623:

if the thief wants to hit u with those traps he will have to set em around u and as u correctly said they can be interrupted, all trapper thieves i met with my mesmer i could just interrupt their setting trap with chaos storm and they were revealed shortly afterwards.

So … a skill, with relative long cd, obvious animation, which sometimes randomly applys dazes (and sometimes not …) “always” interrupts those invisible thives exactly at the right time – well either you were incredible lucky or those thieves were incredible bad. Both luck and bad opponents are not reliable counters …

MUDse.7623:

a thief will likely put at least 2 traps below u assuming he put shadow trap on range to escape. as each of them can be interrupted u can interrupt the thief at the 2nd trap or if he uses steal first u might interrupt him even on the 1. trap. so no he is not only vunlnerable when he is doing his somkefield + hs. and well with that lockdown and burst..every thief can just get away if u dont lock em down and they want to get away.

Those thieves i met usually opened with needletrap + steal out of stealth. No way to (reliable) avoid this combo, so i’m forced to cleanse. The thief will try to apply more pressure. At this point i can try to cc him. But most likely it won’t do much, because it doesn’t hit at all (he dodges/he is not in range, …) or if hit him, he has still enough stealth, so he can just wait till the cc ends and then continue to stack stealth. All this time i have to play very careful, otherwise his condis can kill me.
Also getting into the smokefield fast enough isn’t alwasy easy. Super speed allows fast repositioning and i never know, in which direction the thief moves. So countering a ghost thief involves mostly luck/guessing instead of reacting to what he is doing. While he can see, what i’m doing, which makes it easier to counter me.

MUDse.7623:

thing is ppl want a nerf to ‘fix’ a bad mechanic thats prob one of the main reasons this thread is going to no where. u cant demand a nerf for something that is not OP.

Changing does not necessary mean nerfing. I never said, thieves should be nerfed. I actually think, it should be the opposite. Buffing them, so they don’t need this stupid perma stealth any more.

MUDse.7623:

stealth skills r also mostly balanced coz of their duration/cd. and even stacking multiple to get a long stealth duration is not a problem because if u do anything lethally dangerous u get reveald..as u already agreed to a ghost thief is not as op as he would kill anyone with condi removes and any other build with stealth gets reveald at some points in the fight.

Just because it is possible to survive against ghost thief, doesnt mean, he can’t be dangerous. Underestimating their dmg is the best way to die …

MUDse.7623:

also it will increase the amount of insults the thief will get pmed with coz they get a chance to get his name.

Others get raged at too, so maybe everyone should run arround with perma stealth, it would certainly solve many problems :p

You are really complaining, because “your” rune is useful? Better useful for all, instead of useless for everyone including the related specialisation.

@ Gallant Pigeon
Overall i can agree with your point of view, or at least understand it.
Just a few points:

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

How would guards / rangers feel if the random reveals from trap damage disabled one of their weapon skills and a handful of their traits?

As a ranger i know very well, how it feels, if skills and traits get (more or less randomly) disabled – completely independent from traps :p

But yes, stealth is more important for thieves than for other classes.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Yes, but they don’t sacrifice as much. Rangers still have their pet skills, and guardians their virtues. Both are far better than steal.

A trap ranger has to sacrifice as much as a trap thief – utilities and rune – and gain less benefits, because their stealth is less reliable and doesn’t provide additional advantages outside of the invisibility.

And saying, pets and virtues are better than steal … well no, this is VERY situational and not true in general.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Most importantly, why are utilities designed solely to stealth a thief inferior to a single rune bonus? The answer is simple, trapper runes OP.

Which utilities are solely designed to stealth a thief? Most don’t provide stealth at all, and those which do, have additional effects.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

The issue is a rune set giving very easy access to thief tier stealth. Of course the issue is exacerbated on thief, mostly due to d/p in addition to the trap utilities.

Ranger/DH don’t gain “thief tier stealth”. They can only stack lots of stealth outside of fights – where the stealth isn’t neccessary …

Mediocre sustained dmg, low burst, bad survability, zero mobility, zero support. I can’t think of much worse ranger builds …

+ passive protection and weakness every 15 sec.

MUDse.7623:

in order to keep up invisibility u need to use stealth skill which u agree can be countered.
invisibility itsself.. well i also cant counter invuln or immunities not even with a special trait like lock on for stealth.

As i wrote, not all stealth skills are counterable. Steal, HiS and stealth from traps are not counterable (yes i know, theoretically you can avoid steal and interrupt HiS and the traps, but good luck avoiding an instant skill and interrupting an invisible target). So how much stealth can a thief get from those skills? I don’t know, if SA trait affects the stealth duration from the rune, so i assume 3 sec per trap. So 9 seconds from traps (2x needle + 1 other, usually shadowtrap – potentially more from improv, but lets ignore this, because it is too random), 3 from steal, 4 from HiS, total of 16 sec stealth. 4x HS into smokefield adds 12 sec. During this combo the thief is “vulnerable” for about 4 seconds. As long you are near enough and/or have access to aoe cc, and the thief still has to make mistakes (hitting you with HS/getting hit by cc).

So for 4 seconds every ~ 28 seconds the thief has to be careful. If he gets revealed somehow, you have to lock him down with cc/immob and burst immediately. Otherwise he can SB5 away, and/or stealth again after 3 seconds. And if he uses shadowtrap to port away, you can do absolutely nothing.

Now, i don’t think ghost thief is really op, because it is possible to stay alive/run away with enough condi remove (+ reliable immob remove) and careful playstyle. I just think, being able to attack and kill while being permanently stealthed is terrible game design. Creating a class/build, which can’t work otherwise, is terrible too …

Edit: Invulns/immunities are (mostly) balanced because of low duration/long cd – some doesn’t even allow to attack (f.e: elixir s, mist form). I’m not a fan of the passive ones, but that’s an other issue. The only exception is diamond skin – which i don’t like, because again – perma anything (powerful) is not good.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

I would also question why rangers / dragonhunters should get such easy access to so much stealth considering the utility slots and traits mesmers and theives have to sacrifice for comparable up time.

The stealth from trapper rune is very unreliable for ranger/DH, because unlike thieves they are revealed, when somebody steps into those traps.

DeceiverX.8361:

Invisibility is really easy to counter once you learn how to play it and subsequently against it, though.

Stealth skills (at least some, not even all) can be countered, but not the invisibility itself (with the exception of engi with lock on, and stealthtrap – the latter is not very practical during fights though). And no, guessing/randomly spamming skills is not a reliable counter.

Entangle can be very strong against opponents without CD, yes. But some classes/builds (mainly warrior and thieves) have so many ways to counter it, that it is basically impossible to catch them with entangle. And maybe it will be worse with HoT, too early to tell though …

Currently i would consider entangle as fairly balanced: situational, but potentially very strong. Synergie with WK. The low cd evens out the amount of counters. At least for now …

Edit: AS not working well with dazes, because ppl can walk away before the first vine spawns, is imo the main problem of this trait. Or at least was the main problem for me at BWE3.

Power LB doesn’t have to be glass. WK/NM/BM + LR/QZ/SoS (or SoR against condi) gives strong survability even with zerker gear, and you can always add some defensive pieces, if you feel the need for it. It is actually a fairly “tanky” and forgiving build, which still deals decent damage. Very strong in 1vs1 against almost everything.

Edit: It counters trap ranger pretty hard btw ^^