It is. It is just sloppy implemented.
It is not that the skill has a counter. The skill has no counter, it is just sloppy implemented which leaves room to exploit that implmentation. If ANet would want to have hardcounters in the game, they wouldn’t have given the Warrior his stances in the first place.
The Ranger is contantly playing against his own mechanics, may it be the sword autoattack, where you can’t react when leaping, may it be the new Healing Spring, which takes too long to arm to trigger if you just keep running, may it be the pet which is all around clunky and unresponsive, or may it be the greatsword block which roots you if the kick is triggered. All those things have something in common. First, they all have drawbacks ANet accepted to make their vision work, no matter the downside. Second, all those shortcomings are not intended counters but merely sloppy implementation. Some professions are also affected, like Mesmers and Necros have also problems with their AIs (and their shortcomings can also hardly be seen as intended counter). The Ranger just happens to be the profession who suffers under them all.
In a way, the mentioned skills or mechanics stand representative for the Ranger as a whole: A sloppy implementation of what could have been really cool.
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Lol what? Both Mai Trin and imbued shaman are amongst the very best bosses in the whole game. The only thing that is bad in the Mai Trin fight is the cannon phase, because its timegated and sometimes buggy.
Mai Trin is lame because your party has to be able to stack and tank her or else you end up with her running around randomly and the electric fields shot at random people.
Imbued Shaman is a well designed fight, probably the only fight in the game that forces you to actually play GW2.
You mean stack reflects and sit it out?
If it was that simple why do people think the fight is so hard?
The only part where reflect really helps is during the shield phase because the adds are extremely dangerous at higher scales. You want to stack on the boss with your reflects to nullify the adds attacks while you bring down the shield. Other than that reflects just speed up the DPS phase a little bit.
Anyway I never wipe on this fight even in groups that have no reflects so I think reflect is very overrated.
Well, you seem to never tried to properly reflect his attacks all the time. Because if you do you can almost nullify the damage, given that your team is smart enough to walk out of the AoEs.
I meant that the damage during DPS phase isn’t a big deal and you shouldn’t need to reflect it. The adds are far more dangerous on high scales because of how many spawn and the fact that they apply immobilize.
The damage does hurt, especially when running zerker gear. Reflecting it is the easiest way of mitigating that damage.
Of what use is a block if it’s not only not reliable, but can also backfire?
It is still a block, yes, but like the pet, just because it is working somewhat doesn’t make it good.
Not to insult you, but are you that narrow minded? What I am presenting are mere thoughts. ArenaNet could easily only change the skill Crippling Throw to Kick if a melee attack has been blocked. You lose nothing but the time you need to hit the skill twice to activate Kick if possible, since it’s currently instant activation, while if changed, you had to activate Kick yourself. You gain the full duration block, no matter if melee or ranged attack has been blocked, and if ANet isn’t completely incapable, you could even block the melee attack of one enemy but use Kick on another.
Simple. Once you blocked one attack, the skill changes from Crippling Throw to Kick. You then have short time to use kick on the target you selected.
Lol what? Both Mai Trin and imbued shaman are amongst the very best bosses in the whole game. The only thing that is bad in the Mai Trin fight is the cannon phase, because its timegated and sometimes buggy.
Mai Trin is lame because your party has to be able to stack and tank her or else you end up with her running around randomly and the electric fields shot at random people.
Imbued Shaman is a well designed fight, probably the only fight in the game that forces you to actually play GW2.
You mean stack reflects and sit it out?
If it was that simple why do people think the fight is so hard?
The only part where reflect really helps is during the shield phase because the adds are extremely dangerous at higher scales. You want to stack on the boss with your reflects to nullify the adds attacks while you bring down the shield. Other than that reflects just speed up the DPS phase a little bit.
Anyway I never wipe on this fight even in groups that have no reflects so I think reflect is very overrated.
Well, you seem to never tried to properly reflect his attacks all the time. Because if you do you can almost nullify the damage, given that your team is smart enough to walk out of the AoEs.
Are we really trying to compare an elite weapon set with core. When comparing a class one should look at it as a whole not just one weapon or skill. While we do lack passive defense compare to other class, the rev isn’t to much better.
Just because the class next door gets a newer shiner skill doesn’t mean we need or deserver it.
Block is one of the reasons people use this weapon it wasn’t a problem before. They have a better one so we should get one like it too, isn’t remotely a good argument especially when we need so many other real things looked at like pet ai, pets damage scaling with gear, spirits and more passive defense (to compete with all the passive every other class have).
First: Shiro is not the elite specialization of the Revenant. The Sword is not the weapon the elite specialization will add. No matter under which circumstances the Revenant happens to use the sword, the block is comparable to the block the Ranger has.
Second: Why shouldn’t I compare two skills that work exactly the same with one another? Especially if the block the Ranger has has more drawbacks than other skills of that kind.
Third: If you would go back and look through the old threads, you could very well find people complaining about this a long time ago. I can remember people suggesting this change in the Ranger CDI.
phantasmal berserker and #5 are the only blockable skills on the mesmer GS so GS block isnt gona help much against them.
The only attack that can’t be blocked is Mirror Blade.
You just have to play it smarter (Not saying you don’t already play smart). You can block infinite amount of attacks if you are not in melee range (even melee attacks) so you just have to move away at the same time as blocking, if you don’t want to trigger the kick. Or stow, or swap, or Crippling Throw or dodge or even F2 taunt, fear, immob or blind so they cannot attack you immediately.
Ranger and Revenant get the same amount of blocks from these skills. Infinite. Assuming they all happen during the block duration. For the Ranger, you also need to be out of melee range so the skill channels for the entire duration.
To me, that is fine as I like having the kick and can play around it. As I said, though, the animation could do with more fluidity, being able to move properly while it happens would be good, same goes for Hilt Bash too.
The Phantasmal Berserker spins into you and if you block when that happens, the kick will be triggered, since the Phantasmal Berserker is in melee range to you, eventhough the Mesmer isn’t.
I never said that I want to remove the kick. I said that I want to decide if I want to kick the attacker or not.
Lol what? Both Mai Trin and imbued shaman are amongst the very best bosses in the whole game. The only thing that is bad in the Mai Trin fight is the cannon phase, because its timegated and sometimes buggy.
Mai Trin is lame because your party has to be able to stack and tank her or else you end up with her running around randomly and the electric fields shot at random people.
Imbued Shaman is a well designed fight, probably the only fight in the game that forces you to actually play GW2.
You mean stack reflects and sit it out?
Well, good that we sorted that out. Just that it doesn’t matter either way for this discussion. If the block bugs in PvE or not does not change the fact that it’s clunky and should have been changed by now.
And if you use your block defensively, do you stand in melee range to the enemy?
Just because it doesn’t bug in PvE doesn’t mean it’s fine. PvE rarely holds any challenge.
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Why does everyone expect that you should get the full rewards the game offers if you don’t want to play all gametypes the game offers? We have seen them trying to do that and it failed. Instead of forcing players to do specific parts of the game for specific rewards, ANet incentivized the players to farm the same, most rewarding part of the game. I would rather have to play specific parts to get the reward I want than to grind the same stuff over and over again.
By blowing weaponswap cd or dodging? If I use a defensive mechanic I don’t want to use another one just because the first one fails.
I don’t care if it’s better in PvE. You don’t die in PvE if your block goes off randomly.
And? Do you think I don’t know that? I have literally just responded with one example where being out of melee range isn’t possible.
The replies defending the fractals requirement in this thread are hilarious after people whined so hard to get WvW out of world completion and badges in achievement chests.
So you compare two entirely different things and make an argument about that? Well played, exept, it has no relevance whatsoever.
Duelist’s Preparation on the Rev OH sword has no secondary effect like Counterattack, which blocks all attacks for 3s (50% longer than revenant) and also attack back anyone in melee range for good damage and knock them back 300.
If you do not want the KB animation to happen, you have to get out of melee range, or use Crippling Throw before the animation begins.
Rev gets a 2nd skill on OH #4 that is like crippling throw, but immobilises 3 targets.
The animation could be a little more fluid, but the amount of people I have interrupted and crit for 5k+ with counterattack means I want it to stay as is really. I just love it, especially with intelligence sigil.
It is pretty hard to get out of melee range if you’re blocking and a Mesmer is using Phantasmal Berserker on you.
And your argumentation that the Revenant can block only half as long as the Ranger can is irrelevant when you look at the quantity of blocks the Revenant gets. The Ranger has exactly one block.
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We all have probably seen the Shiro reveal for Revenant now. So as you should be aware, The Revenant can block with his offhand sword, like every other class with offhand sword can. But unlike those, the Revenant can choose to not use the second skill when he blocks.
Now the Ranger still can’t choose to not use the second part of the Greatsword block, eventhough it roots the Ranger.
It is time that ANet adresses this already.
I don’t understand why there is a notion that it is crazy to lock certain rewards behind certain content. I don’t think there has ever been a game that hasn’t done this. It’s not like GW2 doesn’t offer similar rewards.
This isn’t how GW2 works. The whole notion of the game is that you should be able to get the rewards you want by playing the way you want. They actually locked ascended trinkets behind fractals when it first game out and later admitted that was a mistake.
The beauty of GW2 has always been to earn rewards the way you want.
The beauty of earning the gold the way you want to buy it from the TP?
Yeah. No.
from what it states to be able to fully complete it you have to do fractals :/ i know alot of people don’t do them and still not above level 10, so does this mean we are forced to do them ?
First: A legendary brings NO POWERSPIKE whatsoever. So you lose nothing if you don’t have it.
Second: It will be a skin that is not in the gemstore! That fact alone should be enough to convince you.
Third: There are already skins that are tied to one gamemode specificly. Just because you don’t feel like doing fractals, doesn’t mean noone does. That is your problem.
When will you release the other elite specializations? Keep in mind that the longer you wait, the less time you have to gather feedback and balance properly. Especially the Ranger specialization will need a closer look, since the pet is also a huge factor to consider.
Ranger changes?
See signature.
Ah, this thread again. It is always good to see an old friend…
You are talking about PvE. You simply can’t have any issues no matter what you are doing if you’re not out of your mind.
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Because the power build comes with the better weaponset. Also, who said that condi builds are better? I just saw a power build being used in a tournament.
Do you keep those redesign links in your signature in hope someone at anet will read it? Lul
On the one hand, yes. I’ve put some thought into the ideas, enough to think that is worth noting. With the search function broken, noone would ever see those ideas again otherwise.
On the other hand, it may remind the devs that there is something down there on the forums called Ranger subforum and that they just have to scroll down to find it.
Last but not least, all things are subject to change and if I have an idea that I think suits the goal I want to reach better, then I can quickly alter the posts I’ve made.
Their tools are specially designed to work with the game engine. While this makes it easier for programmers to work with the engine of GW2, it also requires them to maintain the tool themself and to expand it if needed. However, since the devs usually have other things to do than to maintain these tools, it is most likely that those tools are outdated and not state-of-the-art. It also stops them from updating the engine, since they would not only have to update the engine, but their tools aswell. Last but not least, if they would use an engine and tools maintained by anther company, they could get updates way easier.
So it’s a tradeoff. You have the full control over your software, but you also have to maintain it. This usually leads to outdated and poorly written software.
Spirits need an overhaul, as well as the Ranger in general needs serious touch-ups.
Yes it is strong if used on a zerker Ranger. You just have to ask yourself what you have to invest to get it that strong. First the obvious ones:
You’ve dedicated your traits, your armor, your weapon and atleast one utility skill to being able to hit that hard. That limits the other things you can work with. You wont have any defensive stats, you have to play accordingly to use the longbow and you have to atleast sacrifice one utility you could’ve used otherwise.
Now to the not so obvious part: Choosing your opponent.
Your opponent can be key to wether or not you are able to get the upper hand.
The armor your opponent is carrying, the weapon and the utility skills decide how much he can counter you. A fight is won by stripping the enemy of his defensive capabilities. If you spec for damage, you can force the enemy to use his defensive mechanics in a quick succession until he runs out of defensive mechanics to counter you. Then, and only then, you can deal your full damage. However, if you choose to spec into damage, you relinquish defensive capabilities yourself, which make you in turn prone to the enemies attacks.
So yes, the QZ+RF combo can hit hard, but an experienced player will not let you hit him until you have stripped all his defensive capabilities. Unless you’ve done so, you are prone to counterattacks. That’s why the combo is not OP and working as intended.
If you are able to defeat a player even with his defenive mechanics off cooldown, then that player is just bad and needs to get better.
The last thing this game needs is more restrictions only because some are just not paying attention.
- “Bad environment within the programming department, with a standoffish and isolated tools team, a core engine team disconnected from reality, and gameplay programmers often left without support.”
They are using the same engine they used in GW1. They said they are using their own tools. No wonder those complains come up. At this rate, I’m rather astonished that GW2 still looks somewhat good.
Reading through the “GW2 needs DX12 support!” threads with that in mind is rather funny… and saddening.
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I r8 8/8 m8 gr8 b8.
An AoE has to be blocked by each player individually. A projectile has only to be blocked once.
AoE’s have a higher chance of hitting players, since they cover more ground. It is currently way more effective to just use AoE than to line up your projectiles.
Right now, all piercing projectiles can only pierce 5 targets.
That makes them not better than AoE attacks.
However, unlike an AoE, the entire projectile can be obstructed, blocked or reflected.
So to give projectiles atleast one advantage, I’d suggest a target cap of atleast 10 for piercing projectiles.
The ones saying the LB is dead are as exaggerating as the ones saying the LB Ranger can keep up with other go-to classes. Sure the LB does a lot of damage, but there is no way in hell you can outdamage a staff ele. Not only that, but the Ranger is also missing support when using the LB. Other classes bring way more to the table while providing the same usefulness.
I’d like to elaborate the different niches the pets could fill.
Note that my ideas don’t necessarily add up with the examples I’ve given above.
I will name the pet species, the situation it could be used in and what the main ability will be to make them work for that situation.
General – All pets affected
- Can traverse any terrain if following a player, as long as the player doesn’t use any mobility skills
- Marks the player the pet is following in the minimap
Drakes – Zergfights/difficult bosses
- An ability that blocks attacks for several seconds/several attacks
- Knockbacks and walls for area denial
Moa – Hunting down strugglers
- Increased movementspeed (over 133%)
- Soft CC
- No falling damage
Birds – Scouts
- Can traverse walls/ravines
- Can mark enemies on the minimap
- No falling damage
Canine – Hunting enemies
- Can spot stealthed targets
- Can CC targets
- Has limited stealth remove
Porcine – Buffs
- Can buff the Ranger and party members
Bears – CC machines
- Provides hard CC
- Defensive capabilities
- Decreased movementspeed
Spiders – ranged combat
- Deals damage when used as beastmaster
Felines – melee combat
- Deals damage when used as beastmaster
And as always, keep in mind that all those ideas are neither final, nor balanced.
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I figured that the Ranger never really had convincing damage, may it be power or condition. What makes/made the Ranger decent in 1v1 scenarios is that he can keep the enemy at bay. A fight usually revolves around lowering the damage taken to the point that your damage starts to hit your enemy harder than your enemy is able to hit you.
[…]
Since when are you criticizing the Ranger that harshly? You used to have a more balanced (in terms of how good the Ranger is) opinion back then. Not that I disagree, my signature certainly shows that there are many things I would like to see changed, but I wonder what got you to change sides.
Anyways, I think the main reason why the Ranger gets no meaningful mechanics (the Ranger lacks blast finishers, reflects/blocks, party healing, party condition remove, reliable buffing potential and so on) is his nature of being slippery if traited correctly. This is the reason why we see full-melee builds being the most desired build now for roaming IMO.
The Ranger in general can be described as getting its main power through weird combinations. There are not many mechanics the Ranger has access to, as said earlier, but the Ranger can combo many subpar traits and abilities to halfway decent builds. The obvious downside to this is that it requires more skill to keep track of all the details, as well as a lack of build variety.
It is up to ANet to decide if that’s the way the Ranger is meant to be played, or if the Ranger needs reworks and QoL changes, which I’d prefer.
After 3 years still my pet finds some really strange paths to chase foes sometimes.. Sometimes i find myself screaming at it “JUST GO STRAIGHT YOU STUPID BURDEN”..
What really scares me with Druid specialization is if an option where you merge with your pet comes out i strongly believe that its the end for every other thing Ranger has..
It would be like we were playing for 3 years a beta class.. And we can finally say “Ooooh! So thats how it is?”
well if we merge with our pet it’ll be for utility, not damage.
If we merge with our pet for utility, it will see no use in the current PvE environment.
Lol. Players consider everything, especially the good ones. They just pick what is most effective and that happens to be not the Ranger.
Boy, let me tell ya, I have 16 characters and 15 of which are level 80. The one who’s not level 80 is the one I only play with a friend of mine who rarely logs in.
If ya talking about map completion, I could understand ya. After all, 16 times map completion is a pain in the butt. Non the less, this is mostly due to me being lazy.
A good Thief will just enter stealth before he is in range of the longbow. If the Thief is able to close the gap stealthed, the longbow is render useless. The Thief might still lose to the Ranger, but not because the longbow has a good range. Any class has conterplay to ranged combat, so if you don’t bring atleast some counterplay fighting a longbow Ranger, it should come as no surprise that you lose.
Let me tell you this: You are wrong.
This wont change your mind, but it’s true. And if you’d dig more into the Ranger, then you would understand. You came here with a claim and most people think that claim is wrong. If you don’t want to accept that, fine. But don’t expect love for your idea.
I don’t want to become the CC-bot for my pet. If anything, the pet should be a CC-bot for me.
I don’t have any hopes for the Druid. The name alone indicates a support oriented specialization. And support is simply not what kills things. Damage does.
@OP: It is probably not the best way to measure your understanding of the game, but your name in combination with your claim made me laugh. You are not the first one who complains about the range of the LB and you probably, and sadly, wont be the last one. Yet, here we are and the LB still has his 1500 range. The fact that especially the ranged weapons of the Ranger don’t see much love in any gametype should be evidence enough that the LB is not overpowered.
A — No.
B — Double no.
C — I don’t care but no.
A: GW2 already offers very little insight how good a player is. If I am looking for experienced players, I want them to play this game for atleast two weeks.
B: The only outcome this change would have is that, once it is obvious that the group is lacking damage, the player with the wrong gear gets kicked. So instead of being kicked instantly, ergo not losing much time, the player gets kicked later on, ergo, is losing more time.
C: I don’t care.
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Which is why I’m asking to strip the damage from the pets. If the pets do no damage anymore, the player would be in full control of the damage application and ANet wouldn’t have to deal with balancing the pet anymore.
I really cannot see that happening as it basically removes the point of pets completely, if they did no damage, they may as well not exist and ANet will never remove them.
They could probably fix pets inability to hit players by making the +30% run speed on Pets Prowess a base run speed increase. As it is now, if you take BM, your swiftness on the pet only increases its run speed by 3%. If Pet’s prowess was base run speed, you could buff your pet to +63% faster than a normal speed player, meaning they could catch people pretty easily and it would definitely fit thematically, since that is what they seem to be going for lately.
I don’t think the +% base run speed should be baseline unless you choose BM.
Feel free to check out the idea I linked below how I would tackle the problem of the pet not having a purpose if its damage got stripped.
Which is why I’m asking to strip the damage from the pets. If the pets do no damage anymore, the player would be in full control of the damage application and ANet wouldn’t have to deal with balancing the pet anymore.