Guild Wars 2

DarkSyze.8627:

Firelysm.4967:

DarkSyze.8627:

I never know how unchallenge range long range is with experience in wvw. I find 1500 too much no risk for ragner class range. Standard long range is 1200, what i do not understand is do ranger class need that +300 range to be effective as a long range class?

In wvw, all i was doing is spam longbow skill #1 and i feel this is too much not having risk for a range class. I am chock that i kill 8 player in 5 minute just for being in 1500 range: i find that problematic not accept for challenge play and require no risk play. No class should have easy advantage + with 0-little cooldown.

In Pve and Pvp: i see same effect and it should not be that way at all.

Last: there is no excuse, there is no reason for that class to have +300 advatage over standard 1200 range especially can spam with very low cool down.

Suggestion again: make ranger class range be 1300 range for challeng play and risk play.

Ranger class need have risk not have over advantage: i remember too, they have pet that can go long range: it make no sense giving ranger 2x long range- rangerpet+high mobility for ranger= too much no risk, too much no challenge

Conclude: Easy acess and easy advantage need to have risk and concequence.

Consider change to ranger range arena net

I don’t know if you are troll or sarcastic or just a guardian that rungs a zerg build and complains to be snipped. Range is all ranger has if you get close you destroy the power ranger, there is no reason to remove 300 range, and LONGBOW has a meaning with longest shot possible.

YOUR arguments have no value because they have no:
- constructed answer why this range is bad
- how to fix it to benefit other things if you nerf the range
- how will you fix close range
- how will you fix mobility
- utility?
- pet ai?

Renting is not solving anything, bring solution and suggest bonuses how to trade 300 range for something useful on utility or mobility.

Range GS is boring and only unskilled players run it with LB. Give me reasonable exchange for 300 range and i give you my range. But then needs warrior nerfs to mobility and thief nerf on shortbow.
Because getting close to ranger is not a problem.

I play other class but my main is Guardian. I post about ranger range only! If you read my post, i describe why ranger range is bad. There should not be any trade off at all. You know that not everything you take need a trade off? Arena net adjusted Teleport in last patch, there was no trade-of. So not everything need trade off That is why i suggestion ranger range be 1300, so that mean no trade-off. 1500 range vs 1200 range is too much advantage for ranger, and also read this forum with link that give description of ranger spec. Ranger is not a weak class, they are very Powerful and should not be under-estimated. I see ranger player kill thief player all the time in wvw and pvp. I even have all ranger party in my server that find enemy thief and kill them.

Here is thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Article-Discussing-Ranger-And-The-Meta/first#post4895936

So you see, 1300 range will not change anything in ranger but just range

(Again, the reason is to encourage ranger to be a challenge class. Not all class have gap closer like thief and warrior and elementalist, so that mean: they deserve to be treated the same challenge like them ).

You don’t pay attention to counterarguments, your knowledge of game balance and game mechanics is laughable at best, and you don’t even know your own profession (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention).

Fashion Mage.3712:

Solandri.9640:

What makes you think 1500 range is unique to ranger or is even the max range? Traited grenade engineer has 1500 range and the grenades explode in a 120 radius AOE. So 1620 AOE for them.

Elementalist arcane blast is 1500 range, and is a guaranteed crit.

Fire staff elementalist autoattack has 1200 range and 180 splash radius. So would be superior to ranger if we accepted your 1300 range longbow nerf. And elementalists put out a heckuva lot more DPS than rangers.

Warrior Kill Shot is 1500 range. No traits needed.

The entire design of longbow is to hurt the target if he tries to to run away, but turns into a wet noodle if he closes with the ranger. If you were positioning yourself so it was difficult for your opponents to close with you (either due to terrain or a big blob of zerg in the way), then your wins were due to good tactical positioning, not due to the skills or range being OP. Try the same thing in a smaller engagement where the opponent realistically has the option to close and engage. If it still works then, then you can talk about it being OP.

The engi’s grenades also have to be traited, they have to use a utility slot, and the grenades move very slowly as opposed to lightning-fast arrows. They also require a grandmaster trait rather than a master trait.

Arcane blast is a single utility skill on a 20 second cooldown, as opposed to an entire 1500 range weapon set.
Ele’s staff abilities are either far slower or are easily avoidable AoEs, and the only splash ability which noticeably increases its “range” is fire #1.

Kill shot is a single skill which requires adrenaline and has a large start up time.

Positioning is important for LB rangers, but they’re probably still one of the easiest builds in the game to play, and it’s not solely due to 1500 range either. Try playing a glass staff ele in PvP and tell me how easy it is compared to LB rangers.
Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t think they’re OP, but I do think they’re easy.

The Grandmaster trait in question gives a 50% increase to grenade skill damage (‘only’ 17% to grenade barrage, but the full value to the rest), and allows them to tag an extra 5 people with each grenade skill. Eagle Eye gives a 5% damage bonus, and doesn’t give or boost AoE or multi-target capability at all. Besides, if you’re talking about tagging bodies in a zerg, as here, the slow projectile speed isn’t as big a problem as you’re making it out to be. When it comes to dungeons and SPvP, 1500 range isn’t actually a significant advantage, so that point is still irrelevant. A longbow ranger taking advantage of 1500 range isn’t holding or capturing a point, which is hurting the team. A ranger taking advantage of it in dungeons prevents that ranger from sharing the buffs of the party.

Elementalist staff doesn’t need to have 1500 range, given its easy access to AoE, several fields and at least one blast finisher, reflect, healing, multiple slowing effects, stun and knockback, a retreat, etc. If an elementalist is 1500 units away from an attacking longbow ranger, all they have to do is make on dodge roll forward and they’ll be in range.

As for ease of use, that’s a problem with the design of the class. In GW1, ranger was actually a class which required skill to use effectively (so was warrior, but that’s another story). Even within GW1, mesmers were changed from a complex, subtle class to keyboard bashing elementalist clones by a major update to their profession.

By the way, both “Save Yourselves!” and “Retreat!” were skills in the original Guild Wars (well, in Factions).

For the out of combat swiftness problem, having direct control of all of our pets’ skills would help with that potentially, at least for people willing to use a bird. I still don’t see why engineers and elementalists can get on the order of 30+ skills in a build, while 20 is considered too many for rangers.

HotHit.6783:

The difference between “ranger pet” and an Animal Companion is that one is a fan nickname, the other is officially the defining feature of the Ranger profession and its profession mechanic. Arenanet have stood their ground against the people whining for Rangers that fight alone and I commend them for that. If you wanna fight alone, feel free to play Warrior.

There’s plenty of ways they could shake up the pet mechanics of the ranger and it’s likely they’ve tried several, but pet with better AI (will not let itself get hit when told to avoid combat, that’s all I want) and the Druid’s primary differences lying in its utilities and traits I’d be happy with.

Warrior doesn’t fit the archer archetype, nor the GW1 ranger playstyle. Besides, maybe if they hadn’t screwed up so many basic design aspects, I wouldn’t mind being a pet class. As it stands, however, pets have problems which hit the very core of their mechanic. It seems to me that ArenaNet isn’t trying to make a place in GW2 for people who favored bow rangers in GW1, and it all starts with the pet mechanic.

You shouldn’t design a whole combat system around dodging from the ground up, then split a good third of a particular class’s damage and utility onto an NPC that can’t use that mechanic, and wouldn’t be intelligent enough to use it effectively even if it did have access to it. This also becomes a problem in PvP (and WvW), where pets either go down in a few hits and lose the ranger considerable damage and utility/cc, or the balance team can instead make pets tougher to take down and cause shutdown to be 30% less effective against the ranger. Or, pets’ inability to move while attacking can make it nearly impossible for a melee pet to even land a hit against a moving foe.

ArenaNet made timing and placement of your cc, fields, and finishers an extremely important part of the game, and then took control of those mechanics (tail swipe, spider poison field, pet leaps) out of the ranger’s hands both in location and timing.

In addition to this, there is another problem assailing bow rangers: the fact that range in this game is often weak in general without numerous cc and self defense options or the ability to work effectively at short range, neither of which the ranger longbow has. On the other side, we have melee professions with stability, easy condition cleanse, dodges, blocks, reflects, retaliation, leaps and teleporting/shadow stepping. Then, there is the short range of shared buffs which, in PvE, force rangers to be close to their team to receive these buffs. This has the side effect of reducing their auto attack damage, which brings me to my next point.

The ranger longbow is a passive weapon. When the game came out, its best damage per second at long range, assuming the enemy had a full stack of vulnerability already (as in a boss fight, for example), is mindless auto attack spam. Even warrior rifles and mesmer greatswords have more variety than this, to say nothing of the elementalist’s staff. And then, as I mentioned, you have an auto attack which punishes you for being at medium range or shorter, preventing ranger’s from having both full basic damage per second and sharing the team’s buffs. Being forced to choose between these two options, or else run a melee build, is getting frustrating.

Add to all of this the painful lack of blast finishers and fields, cc and strong team support, and you get a class that really doesn’t do what it is supposed to do, and certainly alienates many of the ranger players from the first game. While they have made notable strides in improving the pet system, and I commend them for that, it doesn’t change the fact that the pet system as a whole does not support or align with the design philosophy of the game as a whole.

One more point to mention: while necromancers and mesmers do indeed make use of NPC companions (of a sort), these are either completely optional (as with the necro) or mostly expendable (or both). If you lose a couple of illusions to ‘dodge or die’ mechanics because they lack a dodge, you aren’t locked out of your class mechanic entirely for a whole minute. I can’t say that I’ve played mesmer all that much, but I do remember being better able to control when and where phantasmal berserker’s first whirl hits much more effectively than I’ve ever been able to take advantage of a drake’s tail swipe.

It’s absurd how poor our access to fields and finishers is, and even more so how little control we get over the ones we do have. My engineer’s PvE build has 2 water fields, a fire, a smoke, a light, and a poison, plus 4 blast finishers, a leap, and assorted projectiles. Rangers, on the other hand, have only 2 blast finishers at all; both are on a 30 second cooldown and one of them isn’t even under our control.

Guardians are going to be getting longbow, apparently.

Yargesh.4965:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Yargesh.4965:

Why do you think I am joining zerk only groups?
Why do you think everyone joining pugs is going to have a clue?
Why do you think I am in tank gear?

Just curious…so were you instead playing dagger/dagger, max DPS, with full zerker armor and trinkets when you were the last one alive against the boss you mentioned?

Instead? What are you talking about? Instead of what?

I think that he believes that you are in a more defensive setup than pure zerker, despite having no evidence by which to reach this conclusion apart from you being better at surviving than assorted zerkers.

Guhracie.3419:

heartless.6803:

world bosses, thieves they die so fast and have no real ranged option.

Ahahaha, are you kidding me? Pistol, dual pistol, pistol/dagger and shortbow are not real ranged options? And, sure, thieves are squishy, but survivable, if you’re doing it right.

900 range. Without a bazooka, they’re shafted at Claw of Jormag, for example. Hell, even Guardians have 1200 range on scepter and staff.

TeddieJ.2495:

I am not saying i don’t like the idea, but can you imagine the skin different between 1H Axe and 2HAxe? Why not suggest to make ingame Axe a bit bigger ?
The Shortbow and Longbow already pushing its limit.
Note: I hate Anet make Shortbow is just a short version of Longbow

No, shortbows (short self bows, at least) and longbows/recurve bows were used somewhat differently and had very different characteristics, based on draw weights and lengths (you can’t draw a self shortbow all of the way to your face, and their draw force was typically much lower).

Wylf.2586:

I’m a bit baffled that they didn’t even introduce a greatsword (or hammer, really) with the model of an axe. Or a rifle with the model of a crossbow, changing the sounds for that one should be easily doable. shrugs

Your character holds the greatsword with his/her hands about 2 inches apart. With an axe? That looks utterly stupid.

Combine piercing into quickdraw maybe? Those are the two that are lb + sb. I know that you don’t want it in skirm, but that’s the only way that I can see sb rangers not having to pay for lb only effects. Or they could revert eagle eye to affect both…

Rezzet.3614:

Aomine.5012:

Henrik.7560:

All of you saying its fine, kitten. how is 1800 range, 2-3k auto attack, with rapid fire channel through stealth fair????!?!?!?!?!?
Pfft people make me sick.
And yes it is 1800, even 2100 if used on upper ground

Seriously, play one while solo queing in SPVP , or roam in T1 wvw server “SOLO” before you say anything. Pretty sure any decent players and their mom know how to fight power ranger.
(BTW, even in zerg fight, ranger does next to nothing during big scale zerg fight. You can have 1800 range, yet you’re still contributing nothing)

Newbies these days…

tell that to the Dragonbrand zerg i melted in wich i got 122 kills
2000 range+ piercing arrows is ridiculous i dont know about you but i auto around 2900-3600 per shot #2= 8k-13k damage
what Valid justification can you come with for ranger needing 2000 range when others have at tops 1200 ?

First of all, as has been said before, 1500 range can be covered by many professions in less than two seconds, and at melee range a full glass longbow specialized ranger has a huge disadvantage. Yes, I’m sure those two free auto attacks are going to be game changing. Second, why are you acting like rangers are the only class with over 1200 range? Engineers have 1500 range and can hit up to 15 targets with each attack, all while stacking obscene amounts of vulnerability. Warriors can do 15k kill shots from 1500 range.

This isn’t Guild Wars 1. The mobility in this game is much higher, and so is the projectile hate, making that extra bit of range all but worthless for ensuring any kind of safety. Also, longbow rangers are far more fragile than bow rangers in GW1, and far more vulnerable to conditions.

Vyktorkun.2643:

They could always make a war scythe greatsword instead of a scythe used for farming, that way people who see a problem with a scythe in both gs and staff won’t get confused by two scythes

and maybe (just maybe) something like the short scythe/sickle in darksiders for daggers, or axes https://xboxoz360.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/darksiders_2_oxcgn_screenshot-3.jpeg

With that first option, you would still be gripping it with both hands on the first foot or so of the haft. It would look ridiculous.

Pockets.3201:

Scythes make for horrible weapons. Most other farming implements are far more effective.

Rake, hoe, pitchfork, shovel, spade. All are more combat capable.

The only thing that fears a scythe is wheat.

I’ll give you pitchfork and maybe shovel, but not the other three, for a traditional farmer’s scythe. However, minor modifications can give you the Chinese dagger-axe, which is somewhat like the GW1 scythe, or a war scythe, which was a reasonably good weapon as well.

Anyways, I still think that they should have put in two-handed axes and made the scythe a skin for that. It just doesn’t work in place of a two handed sword, if only because of the way those are gripped.

Mine is Mortem A Machina

There is also the problem they had (might still have) hitting any moving person in PvP. I don’t know if that one’s been fixed or not.

To be honest, long range weaponry is pretty underpowered in sPvP. It’s just too easy to close that gap or reflect it back at them, and most fights are on top of points anyways.

Sigmoid.7082:

Tragic Positive.9356:

And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Signet of restoration is a full clense for you and your team.
On decent builds on a ranger you will lose 4 condis every 10s as long as your pet is alive and 1 every 10 if not. If there is anything you really need to remove you can use a survival skill.

I really find it annoying that the conditions are just moved to the pet instead of cleansed or transferred to enemies.

Edit: and by “decent build” you mean “melee build”? Because from where I sit, it still looks like bow rangers are being hung out to dry, although with the massive advantages melee typically enjoys in this game that isn’t terribly surprising.

Aomine.5012:

Hey sir, you actually have 14 trait points to allocate instead of 12.
You can go for 4/4/6/0/0, keeping the same function while having way better stats and an additional -20% CD on bows.

That misses out on piercing/RtW, which is a loss of functionality.

Dadnir.5038:

stuff

The longbow has so much support because an enormous part of the community is comprised of GW1 bow rangers (like me) who feel that they have no real place in GW2. For all the ‘love’, the longbow is still all but useless in sPvP and most dungeons.

Dadnir.5038:

1- These traits affect 2 weapon, not only one while warrior trait affect only riffle. Engineer have a trait that allow pistol to pierce (and only pistol) with no other feature. Thieves don’t have piercing traits, They do have a trait that give them a tiny chance of rebound after hitting a foe. I see no fair reason for this number 1.

2- Spotter in skirmish line… Honestly, who care? It’s fine where he is.

4- Pet related trait in skirmish. Sorry but you are hitting a very sensitive spot here. So let’s be blunt : Ranger, in GW2, is THE Pet profession. Which mean that you gotta take in account the pet. Me, as someone that actually use this profession with (and not against) the bound mechanism (Yes the whole pet feature), I am very very glad that skirmishing offer wonderfull buff for my pet who hit like a truck thanks to them.

6- You are looking at trait’s and classes that are totally different. But, in short : ranger have shared anguish (90 CD) AND Hide in plain sight (30 CD) that stealth you. Although I m pretty sur that warrior are jealous of this whole 8 seconds stability and damage boost that ranger gain when falling under 25% HP with the trait enlargement (60 CD).

My opinion : Although you’ve spotted Strider’s defense which is a so-so trait that still may help melee rangers in zerg v zerg situation, all you’ve said is pretty much nonsense. I would be a dev reading this, I would facepalm and sigh.

You’ve spotted the wrong design flaw. The fact that trap traits are in skirmishing (which is the Precision/ferocity line) is a flaw in design, they should be on the wilderness survival trait line. But, they don’t intend to change that.

1. Two weapons that you really can’t use together efficiently, since one is power and the other is condi. So, in an ACTUAL BUILD, it only affects one weapon, you just get tp choose which.

2. There are too many good traits in spotter, too few in skirmishing at the moment. Marksmanship has too many good traits competing for a slot in it, at least for longbow builds.

4. It would be kittening nice if GW1 players had a successor to the GW1 ranger, but we don’t. They force nearly all of our condition removal, blast finishers, fields, and other utility onto AI which has no understanding of combo fields and no ability to dodge or block, then they put in tons of ‘dodge or die’ mechanics in PvE to remove even the slim chance of the pet actually doing something right before it dies. You want GW1 rangers who ran bow without a pet to have no place in this game? Fine. But ostracizing that much of their player base doesn’t earn ArenaNet any points in my book.

6. That isn’t stealth. Any player who knows mechanics (in PvP, obviously) will know that you haven’t gone anywhere because you’re still ‘stealthed’ (camouflaged actually), and plant a ground targeted skill under you. Also, if pets are so kitten ed important, why does all of our condition ‘removal’ and shared anguish give it to our pets instead? As for stability, why would warriors be envious of it when they get far, FAR more stability than rangers do? They also get invulnerability, which rangers don’t (as far as I remember).

There’s also the fact that rangers get like 2 fields and one blast finisher on a 30s cd, while my engie gets 2 water fields, light, smoke, poison, and fire, with 4 blast finishers (ALL with <30s cd).

If they’re going to make us lose control of our character, they could at least make it a leap finisher.

Well, one of the big problems with rangers in GW2 as I see it is that they have little to no access to combos. My ranger has some projectile finishers and a leap (on paper he has a blast too, but that’s just the drake tail swipe so it doesn’t count), and no fields (unless I swap for the water field, which I do sometimes). My engineer, on the other hand, has 2 water fields, light, smoke, fire and poison, plus projectile, leap, and 4 blasts. My ele has 2 fires, 2 waters, ice, and lightning, as well as having projectile and blast finishers. To be fair, I could give my ranger either a blast or a fire field and an unreliable (pet based) poison, but let’s be honest…that’s still not nearly as much. Even my thief has dark, poison and smoke fields, and one blast finisher (1 thief blast > 4 engie blasts lol) plus the projectiles.

Soilder.3607:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Soilder.3607:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Dadnir.5038:

You absolutely don’t get it. And to be honest, i’m playing all 8 classes (and I’m doing a daily rotation of these classes to keep a good feel with each of them), I’ve got a pretty good idea on what’s their own weakness and strenght.

Ranger’s don’t need a knock back on their longbow. I would understand if they were rooted when using a skill but no, you can move while attacking. I would understand if they hadn’t any melee option but it’s the same here, you can switch weapon.

The fact is that longbow is a weapon for lazy rangers. You can’t change people, they will always stick to their bad habit. A slight twick to the most annoying skill (when playing with and not against the ranger. Because, you know, I could careless about a ranger blowing me to nowhere but it’s extremly annoying when a ranger blow my foe to the end of the world.) would relieve tons of hate.

Don’t misunderstand this skill, in bad hand (sadly there are tons of bad hand), is a vast dps loss for every group. You need your foe to stand in the aoe and PBS blow foes out of aoe. Melee need to be at melee range to be effective and PBS blow their foe at range. Your pet need a stationnary foe to be effective and PBS blow your foe out of it’s range. Most of the hate ranger suffer come from this not from people complaining that they’ve been blown by a ranger, Engi are way better at that. PvP wise, I’m perfectly fine when the ranger newby blow me out of range of the thief that’s killing me.

Moving the knockback to an utility skill would be even better for the ranger since they wouldn’t be pigeonholed in the longbow to use it. Oh and lore wise, “point blank” is melee range not 900 or 1200 range and more then that, don’t you think that the fact that you can deliver a hit so strong that you blow your foe away without any kind of drawback like casting time is strange? Even guardian’s hammer blow have a cast time (maybe that’s why they use it more wisely then ranger use PBS)

PBS is pretty much the only remnant of the entire GW1 bow ranger. Instead of the flexible, tough toolbox we get a fragile DPS whose only purpose seems to be punishing bad players, or punishing those who team up with bad rangers. You want to destroy PBS? How about you give me the ability to change the course of fights with carefully placed and timed arrows, to support my teammates with my bow instead of just forcing me to go glass cannon and leaving me out to dry when it comes to competitive PvP. In GW1, a bow ranger could be a toolbox but not a damage dealer. In GW2, the opposite is true, it seems. Why can’t we have both options, and choose which one to use in a given situation?

Woah, rangers were plenty capable damage dealers in GW1. People made a big fuss over the r-spike meta, which is why plenty of their skills got nerfed to hell in PvP.

I was talking about after that, since they were overnerfed there. The aftercast and GA nerfs alone would have made r-spike manageable, but they had to go ahead and gut every skill that it used (or could potentially use) individually. And then they went even further, and nerfed just about every other +damage bow attack in the game as well. Bow rangers then all had to run almost identical builds in order to be effective. You’d use d shot, savage, apply, lightning reflexes, natural stride, mending touch, an elite bow attack (you had perhaps three to choose from), and res sig or troll unguent depending on the arena. Some 140 ranger skills to choose from and there aren’t even a dozen viable for PvP bow rangers. And yet, that playstyle brought more utility and team contribution than GW2 bow rangers. Cue frustration.

Oh, don’t even get me started. They went above and beyond when it came to nerfing ranger in that aspect.

I remember not too long ago, trying to make a decent damage build to run in RA (since most other pvp is dead) and virtually every skill I wanted to put on my bar I couldn’t because its PvP form lost out on ~50% of its original damage.

I managed to get a decent damage build to smack down nukers at FA using Melandru’s Arrows, but yea that’s about it for PvP damage with a bow lol.

Another annoyance was the Onslaught nerf. Again, they didn’t balance it so much as remove it completely.

Soilder.3607:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Dadnir.5038:

You absolutely don’t get it. And to be honest, i’m playing all 8 classes (and I’m doing a daily rotation of these classes to keep a good feel with each of them), I’ve got a pretty good idea on what’s their own weakness and strenght.

Ranger’s don’t need a knock back on their longbow. I would understand if they were rooted when using a skill but no, you can move while attacking. I would understand if they hadn’t any melee option but it’s the same here, you can switch weapon.

The fact is that longbow is a weapon for lazy rangers. You can’t change people, they will always stick to their bad habit. A slight twick to the most annoying skill (when playing with and not against the ranger. Because, you know, I could careless about a ranger blowing me to nowhere but it’s extremly annoying when a ranger blow my foe to the end of the world.) would relieve tons of hate.

Don’t misunderstand this skill, in bad hand (sadly there are tons of bad hand), is a vast dps loss for every group. You need your foe to stand in the aoe and PBS blow foes out of aoe. Melee need to be at melee range to be effective and PBS blow their foe at range. Your pet need a stationnary foe to be effective and PBS blow your foe out of it’s range. Most of the hate ranger suffer come from this not from people complaining that they’ve been blown by a ranger, Engi are way better at that. PvP wise, I’m perfectly fine when the ranger newby blow me out of range of the thief that’s killing me.

Moving the knockback to an utility skill would be even better for the ranger since they wouldn’t be pigeonholed in the longbow to use it. Oh and lore wise, “point blank” is melee range not 900 or 1200 range and more then that, don’t you think that the fact that you can deliver a hit so strong that you blow your foe away without any kind of drawback like casting time is strange? Even guardian’s hammer blow have a cast time (maybe that’s why they use it more wisely then ranger use PBS)

PBS is pretty much the only remnant of the entire GW1 bow ranger. Instead of the flexible, tough toolbox we get a fragile DPS whose only purpose seems to be punishing bad players, or punishing those who team up with bad rangers. You want to destroy PBS? How about you give me the ability to change the course of fights with carefully placed and timed arrows, to support my teammates with my bow instead of just forcing me to go glass cannon and leaving me out to dry when it comes to competitive PvP. In GW1, a bow ranger could be a toolbox but not a damage dealer. In GW2, the opposite is true, it seems. Why can’t we have both options, and choose which one to use in a given situation?

Woah, rangers were plenty capable damage dealers in GW1. People made a big fuss over the r-spike meta, which is why plenty of their skills got nerfed to hell in PvP.

I was talking about after that, since they were overnerfed there. The aftercast and GA nerfs alone would have made r-spike manageable, but they had to go ahead and gut every skill that it used (or could potentially use) individually. And then they went even further, and nerfed just about every other +damage bow attack in the game as well. Bow rangers then all had to run almost identical builds in order to be effective. You’d use d shot, savage, apply, lightning reflexes, natural stride, mending touch, an elite bow attack (you had perhaps three to choose from), and res sig or troll unguent depending on the arena. Some 140 ranger skills to choose from and there aren’t even a dozen viable for PvP bow rangers. And yet, that playstyle brought more utility and team contribution than GW2 bow rangers. Cue frustration.

Dadnir.5038:

You absolutely don’t get it. And to be honest, i’m playing all 8 classes (and I’m doing a daily rotation of these classes to keep a good feel with each of them), I’ve got a pretty good idea on what’s their own weakness and strenght.

Ranger’s don’t need a knock back on their longbow. I would understand if they were rooted when using a skill but no, you can move while attacking. I would understand if they hadn’t any melee option but it’s the same here, you can switch weapon.

The fact is that longbow is a weapon for lazy rangers. You can’t change people, they will always stick to their bad habit. A slight twick to the most annoying skill (when playing with and not against the ranger. Because, you know, I could careless about a ranger blowing me to nowhere but it’s extremly annoying when a ranger blow my foe to the end of the world.) would relieve tons of hate.

Don’t misunderstand this skill, in bad hand (sadly there are tons of bad hand), is a vast dps loss for every group. You need your foe to stand in the aoe and PBS blow foes out of aoe. Melee need to be at melee range to be effective and PBS blow their foe at range. Your pet need a stationnary foe to be effective and PBS blow your foe out of it’s range. Most of the hate ranger suffer come from this not from people complaining that they’ve been blown by a ranger, Engi are way better at that. PvP wise, I’m perfectly fine when the ranger newby blow me out of range of the thief that’s killing me.

Moving the knockback to an utility skill would be even better for the ranger since they wouldn’t be pigeonholed in the longbow to use it. Oh and lore wise, “point blank” is melee range not 900 or 1200 range and more then that, don’t you think that the fact that you can deliver a hit so strong that you blow your foe away without any kind of drawback like casting time is strange? Even guardian’s hammer blow have a cast time (maybe that’s why they use it more wisely then ranger use PBS)

PBS is pretty much the only remnant of the entire GW1 bow ranger. Instead of the flexible, tough toolbox we get a fragile DPS whose only purpose seems to be punishing bad players, or punishing those who team up with bad rangers. You want to destroy PBS? How about you give me the ability to change the course of fights with carefully placed and timed arrows, to support my teammates with my bow instead of just forcing me to go glass cannon and leaving me out to dry when it comes to competitive PvP. In GW1, a bow ranger could be a toolbox but not a damage dealer. In GW2, the opposite is true, it seems. Why can’t we have both options, and choose which one to use in a given situation?

DarkSyze.8627:

I am not doing that at all and i am listening. I will stop writing.

Yes, you are, because you continue to maintain that 1500 range is a significant advantage to overcome. Guess what? Thieves can get to you from 1500 range instantly (technically, they can get to you from 2100 units in 1.5 seconds while evading for the entire duration). Over any terrain, even if they’re crippled or chilled. And once they do, you die.

Guardians can reflect your rapid fire back at you, cover 300 range in 0.75 seconds with a dodge, and start shooting you with scepter or staff as they move into melee range. The closer they get, the lower your damage becomes and the more of an advantage they have. They also have easy access to a ranged immobilize as well as protection and stability. You lose that fight, too.

Engineers can hit back from 1500 range (with a large AoE, too), as well as cause blindness and poison while doing so. They can also stack vulnerability better than rangers can.

Rifle warriors can do strong DPS from 1200 units (just one dodge away from 1500) without being nearly as fragile as a longbow ranger. They also get an extremely powerful rifle attack with 1500 range. They also get stability and can catch a longbow ranger pretty easily, covering 1500 range distance in less than 2 seconds. Warrior rifle also has better access to cripple than ranger longbow, and isn’t weakened at shorter distances.

Mesmers can hit from 1200 range, and again they just dodge once to get that close. Alternatively, they can stealth or use a clone as a meat shield in order to do so. Either way, they 1500 range advantage doesn’t even get you one free shot. Mesmers also have better cc than rangers.

Staff elementalists have reflection and weakness in their earth line and swiftness, blindness and stun in air. They have better damage and better utility at long range than a ranger does, but they have to since they can’t switch to a short melee range weapon. Either way, in a long range duel the elementalist probably has the advantage here.

Do I need to go on, or do you get the idea? 1500 range doesn’t actually give rangers an advantage against an aware and skilled foe, and balancing something based on how it fares against unskilled players is a bad idea.

DarkSyze.8627:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

DarkSyze.8627:

yLoon.5289:

I don’t see your justification valid just by killing 8 players in 5 mins in WvW, more explaining on detail how you’ve done it perhaps? Are they engaging? Are they low level players? etc etc Are they new players or veteran players? Killed them on 1v1? What class are they?

Unless arena reverse back the ninja nerfed on the velocity of arrow, i may agree with you. Atm, big no.

I was in keep while enemy zerg attacking it: i was only ranger attacking in range while my server party was attacking with close range. That is how i experience the long range 1500 easy kill: i keep spamming #1 until it kill enemy. The class i kill are- ranger, mesmer and warrior. I do not know what level they are because wvw is automatically level 80. I do not know if they are veteran player: just enemy player.

I made other suggestion for ranger longbow speed increase and have longbow ranger range decrease to 1300. I think it is ok fair trade?

Balancing an already underpowered class around the anarchy that is WvW zerging? One of the worst balance ideas I have ever heard. And, as I’ve said already, an engineer would have gotten DOZENS OF KILLS IN THAT TIME. Do you even pay attention when people respond to you?

The longbow ranger is already one of the worst setups in both PvP and organized PvE. The only areas in which it does well are WvW zerging and open world PvE, because its only real strength is severely punishing unskilled and/or preoccupied players. Setting up for long range shooting on a ranger makes you exceptionally weak in every other area, and rangers are already exceptionally weak in most of those areas. Rangers have some of the worst boon stacking, combo field access/use, stability and stunbreaks, boon stripping, and condition management of any class in the game. What do we get in return? In a certain setup, we get two free ( fairly weak) attacks on the enemy before they get in range. And you, seeing this, want to take it away.

If you read why i respond instead of not reading and tell me i do not pay attention, you would know why i respond. Now i am pay attention to you.

The problem here is that I did read what you said, poorly phrased though it was. I also responded to it, several times. The entirety of your argument is based on the assumptions that the game should be balanced around WvW zerging, that nobody else has 1500 range, and that 1500 range actually represents a noticeable advantage in ‘normal, balanced’ play, that is to say sPvP and dungeons/fractals. Each of these assumptions is false.

If longbow rangers enjoyed actual success in sPvP, you might have a point. They don’t. The fact that a ranger with a longbow can get some easy kills in a WvW zerg means absolutely nothing as far as game balance goes, because in a fair fight (such as the 5v5 of sPvP), a longbow ranger’s 1500 range isn’t enough to compete with the better utility, mobility, toughness and damage that other setups and other professions bring to the table. Range in general isn’t much of an advantage in this game due to the extreme mobility and universal access to dodging and blocking. If this were GW1 and you were downing people in a few hits with a bow you would have a strong argument. But it isn’t, and you don’t.

mtpelion.4562:

1500 range is offset by low DPS under 1200, plus the attacks are ridiculously easy to dodge (they are slow firing, slow traveling, and you have lots of time to see them coming from 1500 away).

That’s already been mentioned. So has dodging, reflection, blocking, and the fact that 1500 range can be covered in about 3 seconds by most professions. Also the fact that rangers have terrible defenses if specced for longbow. The problem here is that the OP doesn’t actually give the responses more than a cursory glance, and wonders why we get upset with him. It’s the online equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling “la la la I can’t hear you 1500 range OP!”

Maybe they could make different options for skills with a given weapon…or more bows. Bow rangers went from having some of the best survivability, utility and condition removal (GW1) to having some of the worst. I blame pets, at least partially. They stick kittentons of cc and damage onto those, and take it away from the ranger. So, we have plenty of combo fields and blast finishers on paper (and by ‘plenty’ I mean ‘half as many as any other profession’), but in practice we can’t control when and where they’re used, so our performance is based on worthless AI and a kitten ed RNG. If I wanted to rely on RNG, I would play staff mes or elixir engie.

The GW1 ranger is dead, and the worst part is that the ashes were given not to GW2 rangers, but to thieves, warriors and engineers.

DarkSyze.8627:

yLoon.5289:

I don’t see your justification valid just by killing 8 players in 5 mins in WvW, more explaining on detail how you’ve done it perhaps? Are they engaging? Are they low level players? etc etc Are they new players or veteran players? Killed them on 1v1? What class are they?

Unless arena reverse back the ninja nerfed on the velocity of arrow, i may agree with you. Atm, big no.

I was in keep while enemy zerg attacking it: i was only ranger attacking in range while my server party was attacking with close range. That is how i experience the long range 1500 easy kill: i keep spamming #1 until it kill enemy. The class i kill are- ranger, mesmer and warrior. I do not know what level they are because wvw is automatically level 80. I do not know if they are veteran player: just enemy player.

I made other suggestion for ranger longbow speed increase and have longbow ranger range decrease to 1300. I think it is ok fair trade?

Balancing an already underpowered class around the anarchy that is WvW zerging? One of the worst balance ideas I have ever heard. And, as I’ve said already, an engineer would have gotten DOZENS OF KILLS IN THAT TIME. Do you even pay attention when people respond to you?

The longbow ranger is already one of the worst setups in both PvP and organized PvE. The only areas in which it does well are WvW zerging and open world PvE, because its only real strength is severely punishing unskilled and/or preoccupied players. Setting up for long range shooting on a ranger makes you exceptionally weak in every other area, and rangers are already exceptionally weak in most of those areas. Rangers have some of the worst boon stacking, combo field access/use, stability and stunbreaks, boon stripping, and condition management of any class in the game. What do we get in return? In a certain setup, we get two free ( fairly weak) attacks on the enemy before they get in range. And you, seeing this, want to take it away.

DarkSyze.8627:

Shanks.2907:

Darksyze, I’m going to give you some honest advice and I hope you take this to heart.

Making threads on the forums about mechanics that you deem to be “too easy” is a waste of your time. Why is that? First off, the devs simply don’t listen to the noise. They balance their game on their own and threads like this have no constructive feedback. Second, instead of of a thread demanding a nerf, your time would be much better spent by simply asking the ranger community how to deal with longbows. They’re pretty good guys and have given more advice than they should have to. Each profession has some mechanics that helps to deal with it, so start out by naming which one you’re playing and asking how YOU can get better.

Besides all that, it just gives you a bad image when you campaign for nerfs.

so because of bad image, i have to say everything is ok? so because of bad image, i can not report what is not challenge to arena net? So because of bad image, i have agree with every player? Example: Do you know if you do good, some people will still have bad image of you? If no one have bad image of you, something is wrong. It is like, if everyone say they love you and you find that ok, that is not ok! because the enemy will surprise attack you. So, bad image is good as long respect rule and policy and that is why arena net create forum so player can post idea and make criticism.

Last, there is nothing that is waste time, every time is important. Example: What is wasted time is when you ignore problem and pretend everything is ok, what is wasted time is when you only want every one agree with you and to not give criticism.

Criticism and not agree is important so thing can fix and get better. Why do you thing arena net realease patch note? Arena net release patch note to fix problem and to improve thing because player make time to report to them. So in end, no time is waste and that is why all time mean something.

I do not have right to tell any player that he or she is waste time: how dare i do that? Nobody own time so who am i to tell them what is waste or not waste? Instead of pretend own time, use own time for what important to you.

Very last: how do you know arena net do not listen to player for reporting? did arena net tell you this? i want to see post by arena net. Every feedback is important: constructive or not constructive, as long respect policy and rule.

Arena net want us player to report, Player want Arena net to give result of report: that is why report is good, not bad.

Fine, I’ll be blunt because you obviously aren’t getting the point. You are an inexperienced, unskilled player who refuses to listen to arguments made by others both more skilled and more experienced than you regarding game balance. You didn’t lose everybody’s respect by making the complaint, you lost it (and played the fool) by ignoring all counterarguments and continuing to make the same claims, claims which have been disproven time and again on this thread. You have every right to say the same thing over and over again, despite unaddressed counterarguments. Just as I have every right to think less of you because of it. And I do.

Solandri.9640:

DarkSyze.8627:

Suggestion again: make ranger class range be 1300 range for challeng play and risk play.

What makes you think 1500 range is unique to ranger or is even the max range? Traited grenade engineer has 1500 range and the grenades explode in a 120 radius AOE. So 1620 AOE for them.

Elementalist arcane blast is 1500 range, and is a guaranteed crit.

Fire staff elementalist autoattack has 1200 range and 180 splash radius. So would be superior to ranger if we accepted your 1300 range longbow nerf. And elementalists put out a heckuva lot more DPS than rangers.

Warrior Kill Shot is 1500 range. No traits needed.

The entire design of longbow is to hurt the target if he tries to to run away, but turns into a wet noodle if he closes with the ranger. If you were positioning yourself so it was difficult for your opponents to close with you (either due to terrain or a big blob of zerg in the way), then your wins were due to good tactical positioning, not due to the skills or range being OP. Try the same thing in a smaller engagement where the opponent realistically has the option to close and engage. If it still works then, then you can talk about it being OP.

True, not to mention that the grenade kit’s auto attack can theoretically hit up to 15 different targets simultaneously, while most rangers can only hit one (unless they use a master trait in a grandmaster slot), and just accept the significant loss in DPS and arrow speed.

DarkSyze.8627:

RoyalPredator.9163:

@ DarkSyze.8627: We can not mantain the 1500 range most of the times, which we need to trait for, not to mention the “broken” distance calculations of the game where we barely hit a gus in a fort wall with 1500 but he can outrange us with 1200.
+ the arrow projectile speeds are ridiculously slooooow.

#GW2RangerLB1500RangeWithoutTraitsPls!

you say he can outrange us with 1200 and is broken distance calculation of the game; would it make sense to make ranger range at 1200 instead? ranger arrow is ridiculousl slow… i have other suggestion:

why not make ranger arrow projectile fast with 1200 range+cool-down, would it make sense? would it make sense if ranger arrow shoot faster than have too much range?

Which would you ranger class pick: 1-fast arrow projectile or have too much range?

You aren’t actually responding to any of the points made. The game isn’t balanced around WvW zerging, and in other areas 1500 range doesn’t mean a kitten thing. Also, making rangers choose between 1500 range and fast projectile speed is like making thieves choose between stealth and mobility: they’d better get both, because unless they have both, the class doesn’t work properly.

So they appear to be leaving rangers without good options for elite skills…now, why does that sound so familiar?

DarkSyze.8627:

Bran.7425:

On word: reflection.

Here a freebie: Line of Sight.

I understand: the point is how ranger long range do not have risk at range 1500 vs standard range 1200 with risk.

You see, if there is no risk or consequence for easy access, than there is problem. That is why i suggest arena net give ranger range 1300 range instead: that make sense better.

Range 1500 is too much vs range 1300

I have question for you: Example wvw- if you are fighting other class and ranger attack you range 1500, are you going to ignore other class for ranger? Continue exampe- so you kill other class and go to kill ranger, before you reach ranger, you will die.

But if ranger is range 1300, you will have better chance to reach ranger. Line of sight is ok if not distracted but if distracted, line of sight will have you die.

First of all, in order to actually be effective at 1500 range, you need to drop in a ton of points. Once they get close, the ranger is at a distinct disadvantage because of that specialization. Secondly, you seem unable to understand just how trivially easy it is to close a 1500 range gap in this game. In the original Guild Wars, it actually took some effort to close with a ranger from longbow range. In GW2? Not at all. Dodges and leaps, as well as the ability to cast while moving, make range less of an advantage. Also, you might want to note that engineers get access to 1500 range as well. Also, in your WvW example, you’re talking about a 1v2. All other factors being equal, you will lose a 1v2 just about every time unless you get lucky.

Bran.7425:

A pet with some sort of boon strip would be helpful with the potential of boon removing being vital to new content.

It might be better if they put that on staff, so that we have more control over it. Even the F2 skills aren’t always the most reliable; other pet skills are a game of chance.

I would love to have some mustelids for once.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Terrahero.9358:

To me it looks like it might be a fun profession to play with the potential to really hinge on player skill.
But people let themselves be wowed far to easily.

“oh my gawd! Revenant’s ranged attack will deal more damage the further a target is away!? That is so OP, also i’ve never heard of Rangers or Mesmers”

How many people can throw a two-handed War Hammer? In real life, you gotta be pretty OP to be able to do something like that.

You’ve apparently never heard of the shot put? Also worth mentioning is that pretty much every medieval weapon weighs far less than what the average person thinks it does. Two handed axes, for example, weighed around 2.5 pounds.

chronometria.3708:

Dante.1763:

…I still would rather see prison camps for corrupted sylvari only….

The problem being that any sylvari is now a major threat and the races of Tyria need to take preventative action to protect themselves. The threat of sylvari is not that they are dangerous “when corrupt”, its that they seem perfectly friendly, positive and harmless and then suddenly turn on their previous allies and friends.

And every single on of them is going to say “we are fine, its unfair to treat us like this, you`ve got it all wrong”, just before they poison your supplies or flip the switch on the self-destruct button of your airship.

The only ones I would trust are the corrupted ones, as at least we can clearly establish what side they are on and can plan accordingly.

Amusingly enough, in the book (EoD), that’s what it’s like for any person of any race looking upon Jormag’s champion. No chance, instant corruption, unless they had powerful and rare protection against it. Even the protective items used by Destiny’s Edge didn’t give complete protection, just a ‘saving throw’ of sorts which would be completely negated anyway if you made eye contact. I don’t see any real problem with the Sylvari that isn’t canonically shared by every race.

I’m really hoping for bows being available on more classes. Bows of both types, rifles, hammers and maces are each used by only 2 classes at present.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I am skewed in my perspective, since I never played with more than a single other actual person in GW1, but I think the balance thing you’re talking about is a side effect of hard vs. soft trinity design. Both have their pros and cons, and the Six know there’s little chance of me saying anything about it that hasn’t already been said, but it bears pointing out that it’s not a matter of one succeeding at doing the same thing better than the other, but rather of the two being designed to play different ways.

I don’t dismiss that possibility, as it is almost certainly a factor, but I believe that there are other factors as well. For example, in dungeons the short range of AoE boons is a major problem for longbow rangers and greatsword mesmers, who both have a minimum range cap for their maximum dps. On the other hand, GW1 featured a much longer ranged and more effective system for buffing party members. In GW2, party members need to cluster in order to share boons effectively, with the side effect of forcing everyone to be in melee range. There is no option to stay out of melee range in these situations in order to lower your risk, as doing so would deprive you of many of the boons that your party members are giving. In fact, there often isn’t a need either, as damage mitigation is largely an all or nothing affair that favors dodging and blocking over armor and healing.

GW1 was different. You had, as you referred to, a distinct difference between front, mid, and back line roles. However, another major difference was the boon system used. Most beneficial targeted spells and other skills had spellcast range and a single target, which allowed the party to spread out. Most AoE ‘boon’ skills had spellcasting (or shout) range as well, also allowing the party to spread out considerably. The lack of these mechanics in GW2 causes most scenarios to favor a clustered up, mobbing behavior rather than careful positioning, at least for dungeons and bosses in PvE.

Honestly, I would like to know what GW2 would look like if they had kept the shout range AoE on boons, even for combos, with the limitation that it affects the caster and the 4 closest allies, with party members favored over others. I think that this would make things a little bit more even between short and long ranged play, at least in dungeons and such. I also think that the amount of gap closing, dodging, blocking, and retaliation is rather excessive and tilts things too far toward melee advantage; the only reason long range combat is viable in PvP, from what I can tell, is that most builds ignore those options in favor of more damage.

Unfortunately, despite promises to keep it alive, it appears that ANet has all but abandoned GW1. There was supposed to be at least one more chapter to Beyond, taking place in Elona, as well as more skill balancing which never got done. It’s a pity, really. In all honesty, many aspects of balance were better in GW1 than GW2, particularly in balancing the effectiveness of long and short range combat. In GW1 you would have players with both long range and short range builds working together in a scenario, whereas for much of GW2 either one or the other is vastly more effective. Dungeons? Almost always melee only, and they few that are ranged friendly are actually ranged exclusive. I think that, with reflection, dodging, and leaps/teleports so common, long ranged skills should do roughly the same damage per second as melee ranged skills, especially given the often far superior utility of the latter.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Because rifle is the least weeaboo, no offense. All these players wanting to be samurai, monks and ninjas just really bug me.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but samurai were obsessed with the arquebus pretty much from the moment it was introduced to Japan in 1543. If you want to avoid the kitten, you’ll need to go hammer, mace, axe, warhorn, torch, or shield, I’m afraid.

Touche Amore.2083:

Kysin.6349:

Seriously can’t wait to play my ranger again!

“Rise from your grave!”

It’s not just a necromancer thing.

Rym.1469:

Prysin.8542:

Rym.1469:

If Combustive Shot had to at least hit something to proc Cleansing Ire, we could see a shift in warrior meta.

As it stands for now, the hardest foes for LB ranger to beat are both D/D faceroll Ele and Thief in general.

I had an idea to revmap Heal as One into more evasive/kiting healing skill. Let’s say 15-20 sec cd with decent heal and jump backwards similar to Engi’s Acid Bomb but with 800-900 range, maybe cripple removal. For next couple seconds after using this heal, your pet prevents all gapclosers and teleports into your area of, let’s say 300 with a stun.

to keep things more simple;
Heal as One
CD 18 seconds
Initial Self heal: 7500 + 1.00 x healing power
When struck, stun the enemy for 2 seconds and heal an additional 2000 + 0.25 x healing power.

Simpler, stronger and more flexible (if that stun would work with Moment of Clarity to produce 4 sec stun if traited, even better)

That’s okay. But I’d be glad to get even a little bit less healing, but long leap backwards, to maintain decent kiting range.

I would suggest a condition cleanse in it, which is currently sorely lacking in longbow traited rangers.

Tman.6349:

In Guild Wars 2, Rangers ARE ‘unparalleled’ archers though. No other profession can u"s"e both shortbow and longbow, nor can they trait/modify their bows to the extent that a Ranger can. “Rangers are unparalleled archers” does not equal “Rangers can do 100 Blades from 1500 range”. It’s not just a Ranger. It is the Ranger/Pet, a duality that must be played as such to be most effective. That’s not going to change and it shouldn’t IMO. This “give us back our 30% damage” demand is completely ridiculous. Anet NEVER ‘took away’ any damage from the Ranger; the damage split has been like that since launch so idk why anyone (2 years later) would be acting surprised/upset like this just happened last week. Yes, the AI could be improved quite a bit, like pet skill usage or being able to attack while moving, but demanding the devs completely overhaul their game just seems crazy to me.

The problem, then, is that archery (and ranged options in general) are poorly implemented compared to melee. When your opponent can dodge forward then swoop/shadow step 1000+ range instantly, ranged needs better damage to compensate. They already lack most of the defensive/control options available on melee weapons, and the only reason ranged weapons traditionally do less damage is because they’re supposed to be safer. Given how much mobility and projectile reflect/destroy/evade are available, ranged damage is far too low. Range is only an advantage if you can keep your enemy away from you.

Of course, this assumes that rangers’ bows are as powerful as the ranged weapons of other classes. I don’t know if they are, but if not then this needs to be addressed. I know that rangers have far more limiting trait options than other classes, though, and that their condition removal is nothing short of pathetic.

Eggyokeo.9705:

But then you would lose all the benefits of using pets as a major source damage. If i didn’t want to be heavily reliant on a pet then i would play a different class.

Making this change to fix a problem with the way you want play would break the way I want to play.

There is no class that plays the way I want. The GW1 ranger is dead. Where is the archer? Thieves have a shortbow, but it’s a short ranged, AoE weapon based on spamming poison field and blast finishers. Not exactly what I’m looking for. Warriors have longbow, but it’s meant to support their generally more effective melee options, and it also focuses on slow moving AoE options rather than precise single shots. If you want us to stop clamoring for a no-pet ranger, then convince ANet to give the longbow to thieves as a long range, single target weapon. They need a 1200 range weapon anyways, and those of us who favored a petless bow ranger in GW1 will just play thief.

My problem, however, isn’t with the pet itself. It’s with how they were implemented. They have no dodge, yet the entire combat system is based on dodging. They represent some 30% of our damage and significant utility, yet they often miss and we can’t control when they use most of their skills. Would mesmers be useful if their illusions were sometimes shattered by an AI script with no sense of timing or positioning? That’s how I feel every time my drake tries to tail swipe a moving enemy (noooo! my only blast finish!) or my spider wastes its poison field on an enemy structure (or corpse). Not only that, some of our traits and utilities seem to be geared toward getting the pet killed for no reason. Other classes get adept or master level condition removal; we get a grandmaster trait that transfers the conditions to our pet. In GW1, we had amazing condition removal. Where the hell did it go? Other classes get a quick burst of invulnerability; we get a quick burst of transferring our damage to our pet. At least when mesmers do it they don’t have to wait for a whole minute before summoning up any more illusions, and they’re not dropping their DPS by 30% in the meantime.

I might have just decided to play the successor to the dervish, had they actually made one, but that’s another issue.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Valtarius.8671:

Grandmaster trait where your projectiles can pass through reflects and projectile absorption.

Simply piercing through everything seems a little bit OP for me. But if we could pierce through everything but only dealing half the damage if we do so seems ok for me.

Why? It isn’t as if you can force enemies to line up and give you more than three to five hits (kitten ed censor) per arrow. On average, cleave hits more reliably due to enemies moving in clumps rather than lines.

No, he wasn’t suggesting that the arrows should pierce through players, we already have that. He suggested that with this trait we should be able to pierce through every block or reflect, basically rendering both useless. This would hard-counter way too many skills in GW2.

Ah, I see now. It really should be a skill rather than a trait though, as a spike skill to put them down when they try to turn the fight around.

Liewec.2896:

Balsa.3951:

ur melee dps is higher then a warrior

sure…

rangers used to have their own thing until their pets were nerfed to hell,
funny how the only class tied to having an AI companion playing a large role in the players effectiveness had that companion nerfed right down while at this very moment there will be MM necros and turret engis running rampant.

The advantage that necros, engis, mesmers, and guardians have over rangers is that their pets are an optional extra, rather than a mechanic around which their entire class is built. In dodge-or-die areas, they don’t need to rely on AI creatures with no evasion (much less the programming required to use it properly) to deal full DPS.

ANet built an entire combat system around blocking and evasion, then tacked 30% of our DPS and utility on a pet which has neither. Then, they wonder why they can’t seem to balance it properly.