Guild Wars 2

Wulfrim, thanks for the rundown on the necromancer. Could you link to your builds for conditionmancer/bunker/power?

You should try out a spirit build a few times too; the double hp trait helps a lot, I found big aoes from eles to be the main problem.

With a spirit based build, try using runes on your armor that boost boon duration, and don’t be scared to mix runes to really focus on boon duration.

For weapon runes in that tanky role I usually went for hydromancy for the chill, and used shortbow for the kiting (which u can do on a point like mouse pointed out).

With the traits obviously 30 in NM, if you are just fighting on a point you could try not having mobile spirits, but I’ve never done that. The rest pretty much as mouse etal have pointed out, but I try to take 30 toughness because I like the damage reduction trait.

I’ve never tried that build with greatsword, should be interesting. I think I’ll take it for a spin myself.

@Fynos: Actually, I really like what Chilly has done-taken the time to get some objective data. I don’t think it points to what class gets the most attention from the devs, but it does show the general feeling about a class at a given time within the community. I also like the insight into the reported bugs by class, thanks for using your free/bored time constructively OP!

CRrabbit.1284:

You know the 1-h sword +QZ DPS is still awesome for non-moving target, not less than warrior or theif’s burst damage, but unfortunately in most of time it will root urself, as long as the opponent move a little bit u will do no damage. Now the only reliable way to use 1-h sword is to use entagle 1st, but well, you have to find your own way to get close to 600 range before you die(maybe give ranger a steath skill?) and can only do it every 150 sec(shorten the CD like thief can do it every 45 sec?).

This is the kind of thing to note about the ranger OP-in this case the ranger has to use an elite skill on a 3 minute cool down to fire off a melee attack+quickness that (according to CRrabbit) does similar damage to warroir/thief burst. Compare that with warrior: they have a ranged immobilize on a 20sec cooldown AND have a number of gap closers (rangers really only have one easy to use gap closer which is on their great sword). Oh yes, and thieves? They have skills that teleport them to and immobolize the target so its relatively easy to get out that damage.

There are quite a few little quirky things about rangers like this. On the upside, traps are good and the warhorn (an offhand weapon) is still good.

Wulfrim.4793:

Whine more then rangers. Whine more. I’m sure it will fix all your problems. -rolls eyes- OH wait that patch they said they weren’t going to do this week didn’t happen even after all the whining? I’d say lesson learned but clearly it’s not.

It is not surprising to see players complain when their class gets nerfed. It was surprising that Anet decided to stealth nerf rangers though, I don’t really understand that part.

Putting aside the lying from the company reps related to this nerf, don’t you think it is disturbing that the devs are balancing class damage based on animation glitches and whether they suddenly deem a weapon skill that they spent years designing now “isn’t the most fun gameplay”. Don’t you think classes should be balanced more on a thorough analysis of damage/burst/control/mobility compared to other classes?

From the recent ranger nerf it appears the devs are now basing their class balancing decisions on animation glitches and whether an attack isn’t “the most fun gameplay”. That is a pretty worrisome development in my opinion.

They were ok and fun before the nerf, but SB was the best weapon. It just got hit for a 7% flat damage reduction and perhaps around 20% damage cut on its burst (auto-attack plus quickness).

I think you willl still have fun if you like the playstyle, but consider thief and warrior before you fall in love with ranger. Look at some other facts too-ranger damage in general is lower to compenstate for damage from our pets, which have some issues in pvp.

takatsu.9416:

It’s not face melting, it’s what i consider to be rather normal if you wanted it to be. People keep saying ranger has no dps and can’t survive or are completely useless. I’m saying my ranger is doing fine, not that i am a super ranger. All those things, are things other classes can do too.

But I will share, of course this is my personal build. But it’s also a common build. You may not like my build, or believe me, that’s totally up to you. I personally don’t think i’m a great player like you accuse me of. But all im saying is just from experience. and i want to be honest, word for word. People think this is glass cannon. But I manage to survive well enough, because my pet and i are two targets, and just by using the evasions built into my weapon skills and so on. For PvP, i’m still working things out so i don’t have my final build yet. Right now its like 50/50 gambles for PvP.

currently (I changed it up recently):
25 / 25 / 10 / 10 / 0

attack: 3500 without bloodlust
critical chance: 50%
armor: 2050 ish
health is 17k

Full berserker gear with rune of the Scholar.. maybe changing the rune to ranger or something else. not sure yet. I have an accessory with some good vitality, toughness
right now Berserker Weapons with Bloodlust… im re-thinking the sigils though. Might change it.

I run GS and Sword/Torch day to day and melee with ranger is awesome. Even just rushing into a swarm in Orr, is fine, you’ve got tons of aoe and dps. as long as you keep pet swapping and healing.

swoop crits at 2800 – 3500. normal attacks for both 1h sword and gs crit at 1200 – 2200. QZ + 1h sword has about 10-14k total damage. (think about it, i can have about 4 cycles of the auto attack chain in the QZ give or take. thats 3 strikes each cycle, averaging around 1000 – 2000 each hit.) thats just the sword stuff.

Shortbow crits at 1000-1300? QZ is what, 12 arrows?

this isn’t no damage… not the best damage out of all the classes but do you call this no damage?

I run sword/torch and shortbow for other situations like a lot of vets in the mobs or a champion here and there… like retaking arah events, where i need to be some what flexible. And for WvW

Dual bows for dungeons. I just stay away, kite all day, run with devourers. The rest of the team may go down and I have to run around like nuts, hopefully getting more shots here and there.

I run with wolves normally day to day. great damage, great knock downs, and because of their relatively long range leaps, they can keep up with targets a bit better. Devourers for dungeons. I keep them passive sometimes. I constantly pet swap in tougher situations. General pet strategy i keep calling them in and out of danger and so forth.

slots i run with depends on situations:

Usually – Signet of Wild, Signet of Renewal, QZ, Entangle, Heal as One

Dungeons, depends on which though – Signet of Renewal, Protect Me, Frost Trap/Lightning Reflexes, Entangle, Healing Spring/Heal as One

WvW – Protect Me, Stone Signet, QZ, Heal As One

…

This is a suicide build for spvp. Also, you will not be seeing that kind of damage from xfire in spvp, more like 600 or so as glass cannon. My favorite builds only did around 300 damage before the nerf on xfire (condition and support builds).

Another thing, the OP is saying rangers were bad as in “bad compared to other classes”. There are too many variables to compare classes in WvW and Pve- level/gear etc., which is what your posts essentially tries to do. In spvp you can make some reasonable assumptions. Rangers were just ok before the nerf, I say “ok” because I really liked the playstyle-kiting/control/strategy; I understand why some people would say they were crap compared to our mesmer/thief/guardian overlords.

Note: played over 600 spvp games as ranger before the nerf, was able to win 1vs1 most classes, kitten, kitten, w@nk. Also played many games as other classes and was also able to win 1vs1. In fact at I started as thief and thought I must be pro as i kept getting 20+ kills a game; then I tried ranger and realized it was the class not me.

Why are they basing damage balancing changes on things like “It was also encouraging just spamming 1 which isn’t the most fun gameplay” or animation glitches? I hope this is not the new trend for how they intend to balance classes for competative pvp.

I think spirits need to be buffed in several ways as well, but you can make a workable spvp build with them.

Go for 30 NM, high toughness, stack runes with +% boon duration. You’ll also need rune of hydromancy for chill on weapon swap to help against rogues. Unfortunately this build worked well with SB, so the damage output is going to be even worse now.

Please don’t take this as a “spirits are fine” post, they are clearly rooted. I’m just suggesting a build you can try in spvp that works ok given the materials you have to work with.

I think the Ranger is a fine class too Joey, certainly not the strongest class in pvp, but still capable and fun to play. What the majority of the angst is about at the moment is that the devs nerfed SB damage and the xfire/quickness synergy also appears to have been nerfed. But even more than the nerf itself people are upset about the way the nerf was handled-ie, it appears for some mysterious reason to have been an attempted stealth nerf and the follow up from the dev was doubly insulting because not only did it confirm a stealth nerf it suggested that lowering the damage on xfire somehow magically encourages more interesting gameplay.

Now i agree with most of your run down on the skill sets, but there is one thing I disagree with in your post. You say spamming #1 on SB focusing on condition damage was never the intended design of the weapon. I think this is a pretty silly thing for you to say (unless you are being sarcastic?) since the #1 is the main damage dealing skill on the SB and it applies a condition. Cutting its damage by 7% and by perhaps up to 20% during quickness will not make me use the bow any differently. I’ll still be using all those great cc, condition, and utility skills off cd when appropriate. The only difference will be that my main damage ability and only burst potential from the weapon will be lessened from 7-20%.

So now I ask you, what is so hard to understand about people being cheesed off about this?

At first I thought the damage reduction and issue with QZ was just an honest oversight. However, after reading the devs response, my feeling is that this nerf to SB and the slower rate of fire when combined with quickness is actually due to several complaints about crossfire and quickness in the spvp forums.

In fact what the dev says in his second post echos a thread on the spvp forum about crossfire being unfair because by just pressing one button you can acheive the same result that other classes need an elaborate set up to perform.

What probably most of us don’t understand is why it did not specifically say in the notes that crossfire was being nerfed by 7% and its synergy with quickness was being cut in order to take away ranger burst. The apparant lie just seems so out of line with everything I’ve seen and read while following the development of this game that I still question whether it was just a mix up; perhaps the dev was just busy and not really paying attention to what he was saying in his response, that kind of thing. Arghh, hate it when things just don’t compute like this.

NinjaKnight.1340:

Yasha.5963:

Just wondering if you think Rangers actually received the biggest nerf damage wise in the Oct 7 patch.

I’m no maths wiz, but it seems to me that a flat 7% reduction on your main damage ability on the most used class weapon and an estimated 25% damage reduction on the burst from crossfire+QZ is actually more than a 15% damage reduction to pistol whip and the potential loss from the longer phantasm CD.

Any thoughts? Any mathematicians want to bang out some numbers?

In the main thread the one with 50K+ views some of the posters did the math and came up with around 30% nerf if you have power/precision build with dmg procs on crit.

In my experience that is about right, i feel about 30% weaker.

I’m not sure if I’m not reading you correctly, or am not communicating my point clearly, but just to (try to) clarify:

When comparing the overall impact of the nerf to SB and to the thief sword/pistol weapon set as a whole, even assuming only a 7% reduction in damage to crossfire, is this not equal to the 15% nerf to PW for the thief sword/pistol set, considering that xfire is the primary damage skill on the SB?

I know that PW does a lot more upfront damage, but that weapon set has two other damage abilities and PW is not “spammable”.

The nerf to thief/guardian/mesmer was kind of understandable given the state of spvp and the overwhelming consensus on the spvp forum. I don’t understand why ranger deserves a nerf of similar magnitude to thief, not to mention that it appears to have been a stealth nerf for some weird reason.

Now if you assume the damage reduction is more in the magnitude of 20%-plus like some people claim then rangers have clearly taken the biggest nerf in the Oct 7 patch, and for no apparant reason and with no explanation. It just leaves a big ? mark in my head, as does the kind of off-the-cuff response from the dev.

roqoco.4053:

Who knows what happened? Probably it started out as an animation fix and then they found that in fact the skill was operating more quick*l*y than intended and so killed two birds with one stone by the 40ms cooldown addition. That seems more reasonable than the absurd idea that it’s some kind of secret conspiracy against rangers, by devs who wish to make their preferred classes op.

It would have been nice if they’d added some corresponding fix to balance things out, but I expect we’ll get more buffs & nerfs over the coming weeks. No doubt the direction they will be going in is to make all the weapon sets equally viable options and to make it more advantageous to use all the skills on weapons, rather than just the auto attack.

1) I don’t think ANET has it in for rangers, lol thats just ridiculous.

2) I’m asking a serious question in this thread about whether others also see the damage reduction as a whole from this nerf as equal to or greater than that from nerfs that were specifically aimed at reducing damage on PW and mesmer phantasms.

3) I use all the skills on SB. Xfire is the damage skill, the other skills are also good but they are cc and debuffs with cds. I also swap weapons in most fights, several times depending on the length of the fight (I only spvp). You can’t buff up the other skills on that weapon to make up for the at least 7% damage nerf (unless one of those skills is changed into a burst).

Kasama.8941:

I think the problem is that people relied too much on shortbow spamming cake with quickness cream on top. And instead of trying to find a new build, it’s much easier to yell nerf. But when so many players complain about such a simply style of play getting taken away, then it’s a good indication that it was the right thing to do. It’s basically ArenaNets way of trying force a deeper build gameplay on the Ranger.

So you mean that they were decieving us all along for our own good?

I understand that the general consensus here is that the crossfire nerf is more than 7% when considering other factors like quickness and bleeds.

However, does anyone feel that since a SB build uses crossfire for the large bulk of its damage that the nerf is effectively equal to or greater than the 15% pistol whip nerf that was implemented specifically to balance the excess damage of that skill?

I mean, the decision to nerf PW was probably not taken lightly. There was probably meetings, tests, arguments, brainstorming and all that stressful stuff over at Arenanet about it. And yet it seems the damage nerf to SB was just an afterthought; even though it appears to be of a similar magnitude.

Its just weird.

Just wondering if you think Rangers actually received the biggest nerf damage wise in the Oct 7 patch.

I’m no maths wiz, but it seems to me that a flat 7% reduction on your main damage ability on the most used class weapon and an estimated 25% damage reduction on the burst from crossfire+QZ is actually more than a 15% damage reduction to pistol whip and the potential loss from the longer phantasm CD.

Any thoughts? Any mathematicians want to bang out some numbers?

mouse.1689:

JonPeters.5630:

Took a couple of days to get debugging in on this. It is in fact a 40ms difference which equates to about 7% less damage when spamming 1. We made this change because it was creating some animation bugs to leave it where it was. It was also encouraging just spamming 1 which isn’t the most fun gameplay. If our data shows shortly that shortbow is now not effective we can certainly address that, but would do so by improving other skills on that weapon rather than by reintroducing the spam on 1 and the bugs that it was creating.

Thanks for the response, Jon.

Was your team able to look into the fact that Crossfire when under the effects of Quickness from Quickening Zephyr or Zephyr’s Swiftness is measurably slower than the intended 40ms change?

It seems like this point sort of got lost in the noise, but it’s exceedingly relevant; the change to Crossfire seems on target for the normal attack, but it appears to be applying a .4 second increase when under Swiftness, not .04. People better at math than I am made some good posts about it earlier in this thread.

Any chance that could be looked into as well? Thanks.

I know there is a lot of angst on the forum at the moment, but the above is likely the question on everyones lips; it would be great if you could give us a heads up about this.

@neverborne (sorry sometimes forum won’t let me quote), but regarding your story above:

You should do your testing and practice in spvp, its also the only place you can really use to give as an example of something being problematic in the OP/UP way you are talking about because its an even playing field. Note that it should take you quite a while to get used to using all those new weapons, I find the one handed sword tricky but some people swear by it.

Nevertheless, it is hard to see a really decent non-shortbow build, no doubt that is compounding why everyone is so angsty about the SB nerf. If they had nerfed the torch or dagger I’m sure we would not be seeing this kind of response.

Jordan.9132:

I can tell by your post you are really inexperienced in pvp.
1. Warriors are mediocre, can do good damage and good single damage disables but really have nothing special about them.
2. Rangers after the last patch are even weaker than they already were. Only had 1 good pvp weapon with only 1 good attack and they nerfed that one attack’s damage by 20%+, ouch
3. Elementalists can be good offensively in the right hands, and they can be godly defensively if played in the right hands.
4. Engineers are very very strong and always have been. They are so viable can either be super strong bunkers or super strong AoE or single target damage/condition both with huge teamfight support.
5. Thieves and mesmers are still very strong and priceless in a team with great utility skils such as portal or shadow refuge. They are still the strongest roamers/1v1 classes in the game.
6. Guardians are still strong as hell, they nerf one weapon and they are useless? Lol? Can’t tell if trolling or just stupid.
7. Necros have never had issues since day one, they are very good in teamfights and can dish out a ton of damage and easily kill a bunker, or can build to become a very strong bunker as well.

This is one of the most accurate descriptions of the current class balance in spvp I have read, nice.

neverborne.4736:

Bemused.3187:

And we never saw Jon Peters again.

Well he hasn’t made a peep on the forums since his post on this topic. Maybe he went and looked at it and his head exploded from what a kitten the Ranger class had become. RIP Jon.

ORRR maybe he’s working diligently on fixing it, AND re balancing our other weapons while he’s at it!!!

Or maybe he took a nap and forgot about the whole thing.

I think they have a few major issues that they are likely prioritizing over the annoying, but not gamebreaking SB issue.

MrNobody.4357:

then rename your favourite class to “Archers” and win to the devs, i do not care, but rangers are the ones who do ranges, not the one who dps at range.

The devs can call them whatever they want. It could be “beastmaster” but if the game describes them as:

“Beastmasters rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, Beastmasters are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, Beastmasters can adapt to any situation.”

Then it is irrelevant what the dictionary “definition” of beastmaster is, you expect a “beastmaster” to have the attributes identified in the games’ description.

I am not convinced that warrior is a better ranged class than the ranger, but people do have a point that they should be given the devs themselves say that rangers are “unparalled archers”.

MrNobody.4357:

the fact that warriors can outdps most of the other classes melee or ranged while still keeping a good mitigation and a good self healing has really nothing to do with the common misconception about Rangers and the meaning of their name.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ranger
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ranger

I don’t think you can keep bringing this agrument up and maintain any self respect after MeGaZlo points out a couple of posts above that the devs envision “ranger” to mean:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

Hmmm, sounds good but 3 of your 5 suggestions are the result of nerfs because (i guess) it was judged that those builds were too OP.

Greatsword damage was nerfed
Longbow damage was nerfed
Spirit hps (among other things) were nerfed

I don’t see how these things are just going to be unerfed- although I pretty much agree with all your suggestions.

I’m always left wondering if those ranger builds really were so OP compared to say the mesmer/thief/guardian builds we have now, and if not why these ranger builds were nerfed in the first place.

Despite all the people who say spirits are terrible, I think a spirit boon build is viable for spvp. I found it to be pretty much on par with condition trap build-more survivability and healing but less damage. Also brings great group buffs and the elite skill can change the tide of battle.

I guess SB will still be ok for this build, although the damage was terrible before so taking a further step down is a bummer.

Note, I don’t think any Ranger build even before SB nerf was really optimal for tpvp compared to the synergy other classes had, so I’m just talking about a casual spvp build that can do well.

The sword is a surprisingly difficult weapon to use, perhaps because it does all that stuff “automatically”. However, now that you write out the skill set like that I can see that on paper at least it looks good if you can time those evades well (much harder than using block skills).

OK thanks Durzlla, I was about to implode just thinking about that.

Durzlla.6295:

How in the world are you speccing for spirits and having these issues? I have one trait boosting my spirits (natures vengeance) and my spirits go through their entire 60 second duration, or get killed around 45 second (unless i’m low health and throwing the spirit out to eat a shot or two for me then they die almost immediately)…

For the AI, they don’t need one… they’re totems from WoW except optional, can be made to follow you, and have their own active skills, i don’t WANT my spirit to run into combat when i activate his ability i activate his ability if enemy players, or npcs get to close to my spirit and then i normally either A) knock them away from my spirit or descend on them like the angel of death and make absolutely sure they will get away from my spirit.

As for the Spirit of Nature active, that baby is FIIIIIIIINE i get 3 AoE rezzes from him, as well as passive healing, why in gods name should i nerf it so he only runs over and rezzes one dude? I tend to run with the same group of people so they all know to stand in a general 900yd radius of him to ensure they’ll be in the effect zone, and my god has he saved my groups kitten many a times, it’s gone from me being the last man standing to everyone being standing up and looking pretty as my spirit picks them all up and cleanses all the conditions on us.

As for the buffs and distance, the more i use them, the more i realize that i can be within axe throwing range of them (900 yds) and still get the buff… i tend to put the thing ~900 yds from the boss and then back up so both me, the longbow ranger plucking away from 1200 and the rest of my team who is almost all melee, can get the buffs. As for the procs… don’t even get me started on this… in a team of me, a thief, a necro, a riffle/hammer warrior, a pistol pistol shortbow thief, i was able to put down the sun spirit and the bosses would get so much burning on them that the white bar would just stop showing up and if you hovered over it’d say 2min or more… i think they proc well enough…

PS: When i go for an ALL spirit build i go with the double health trait, natures vengeance, and the increased proc chance, granted i ONLY run this in pvp and don’t do it in PvE (yet) but the reason i don’t take the one where they follow me is from my experience that almost always gets them out of the frying pan and into the fire so i’d rather just put them down and watch em do their work.

I’ve been reading some info on the forums that the spirits only buff ONE team member every 3 secs due to an internal CD of about 3 secs. Have you noticed this or do you think it buffs the whole group (if within range) when a buff procs?

arcaneclarity.5283:

The answer of the ranger having a bunch of crappy weapons isn’t to nerf the last good ranger weapon to make it crappy as well.

While I agree with the sentiment, the nerf to shortbow does still leave us with one OP weapon- the warhorn.

Warhorn + sword and axe+torch could be the new FOTM ranger builds in spvp, if anyone will still play them.

Seems like many of the good things about ranger were nerfed in beta- spirits, greatsword, longbow, healing signet, and ?

but somehow mesmers got through like they are. Were rangers that amazingly OP ? were they the godlike figures of legend in pvp that mesmers are now? Or the one shotting wonders that thief is?

Now SB is nerfed to complete the story. The good thing is that we still have a super OP warhorn to smite our foes with.

Hang on, does it not in fact work like this: every time I attack there is a % chance for the buff on each spirit to go off. When the buff procs it affects everyone in range and then goes on a 3sec cd. Also length of the buffs are dependant on my buff duration stats (I know this is so for me at least, but i assume this applies to everyone who gets the buff).

I probably seem ignorant here arcane, its just that I cannot believe that what you say is true (I believe you, but I just can’t believe it if you know what I mean). I can’t believe that any dev would put in a skill like that, I mean the game has been in development for years.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

Are you sure? i ask my team when i play spirit if they are getting the buffs and they say they are, but if what you say is true then that is just hilarious, please tell me you are just trolling.

Definitely not trolling. It is like a 3 second internal cooldown.

Oh kitten it can’t be true that’s the most absurd thing I have ever heard (not directed at you arcane!). What’s the kitten kitten kitten, use of such a kitten, kitten, kitten, piece of kitten.

That’s the biggest litter of kittens I’ve ever heard, surely surely there is some misunderstanding as to what the internal cd on this does, otherwise what is the kitten point?

Are you sure? i ask my team when i play spirit if they are getting the buffs and they say they are, but if what you say is true then that is just hilarious, please tell me you are just trolling.

Levetty.1279:

So still no reversal on this horrendous patch?

Pathetic Anet, can’t wait to watch this game crash and burn due to your utter disregard for the fanbase.

Hey, i understand the pain but come on. This game still kicks kitten in so many ways its not funny, especially pvp wise. I just have to polish up on my thief skillz again, its always a bit embarrasing the first couple of days but you know what they say, “a change is as good as a holiday”.

Awesome that I can just take up another class from max level, with no grinding necessary except to build skill, when the devs decide to nerf one class into oblivion.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Yasha.5963:

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

I disagree with this. The spirit boon-based build was good prior to the spirit nerf, but post-nerf became useless. You have to take 30 points in a trait line just to use them, and their internal cooldown makes the boons they provide scarce.

I sure do think those spirits could do with a buff in numerous ways, but by stacking plus-boon duration toughness and healing and mainly relying on condition damage the build held up better than most other options and was a pleasant change. Also its so nice to run around with all your friends, I was OP friend wise with that build unless a treb or ele spanked them all to oblivion.

Oh, I guess the spirits dying just as you entered combat half the time and the need for that 2 sec or whatever channel to get them up again was a bit of a pain, but perhaps that just added to the complexity of this wonderfully thought out class.

I was able to beat a lot of different builds 1vs1 before the SB nerf and it was fun doing it for the reasons I stated above. I don’t agree that the ranger had no viable builds pre-SB nerf.

A spirit boon-based build could 1vs1 well, brought good buffs to the group, and had depth of play as you now had 4 or 5 (including elite) “pets” to handle. Using the activated abilities of the spirits and pets was incredibly challanging given the substantial delay and lack of acurate control on where you wanted the skill to go off.

The other viable build was the condition SB+ other weapon and toughness build.

I’m not sure if rangers were UP pre-SB nerf, I enjoyed the cat and mouse against the burst classes and there were only a few specific builds that I knew I could not beat.

Now, however, well I guess the warhorn is still pretty cool…..could it be next in line for the nerf bat?

Its strange you say that, I find the ranger to be one of the most complex classes in spvp.

Other classes have their gimicky burst combos, but with ranger you have to be able to kite and position yourself well, while at the same time trying to coordinate your pet and utility skills or on weapon swap rune abilities to gradually wear down the enemy.

It would be even more fun if you could more easily pull off pet based combo’s like Chilly mentioned though.

Kneru.8014:

Yasha.5963:

Irishbrewed.6537:

neoxide.7320:

Lol. Pets only attack an enemy if

A) you attacked the ranger/pet first

or

B) the ranger targeted you and told their pet to attack you

Stealth actually breaks the pet AI since the pet drops target and the ranger must manually tell its pet to keep attacking a thief or mesmer etc. slipping in and out of stealth. That also gives you the chance to get so many opening blows on the ranger since the pet won’t attack you until you hit the ranger while out of stealth.

No stealth doesn’t break it, pet will get right back on ya when stealth wears off. They are crucial.

My warrior would like a heartseeker Theif as a pet tho… ":p

Those must be some special Ranger pets there Irish, because my pets do not lock back on to targets that stealth.

Mesmer pets on the other hand follow you till the gates of hell, passing through walls, castle gates, locking back onto the poor doomed soul that tries to stealth away. They are some awesome relentless beasts, I like them a lot.

Ranger pets do it all the time. Especially if you’re downed and pop stealth. As soon as it wears off they come right back unless they were called to attack another target.

That would be the ranger telling it to attack you.

If you fully spec into them and stac +boon/healing/toughness gear they seem ok in spvp, but a little underwhelming.

Note, I do agree they need a boost and am not disagreeing with you at all, except I would say they are useless unless you fully spec into them and mould your whole toon into a support/heal bot and then they are just average at best and like you say other classes probably play a similar role better.

Elite spirit is the bomb though.

Yvilthi.5413:

I completely disaggree with “So 1v1 Ranger is a joke”!

If a ranger uses his your brain (instead of instant panicking) and combo his way trough the skills 1vs1 is very easy and almost a as easy as putting a knife trough butter.

With full Exo Berserker’s gear (guilds back with exo gem), Superior rune of Rage and Superior sigil of Force on both weapons:

My traits: 30-30-5-0-5
in marksman —> I / VI / X
Skirmishing --> II / IV / X

WvW
1) Rampage as one & proc petskill f2 ( in my case passive Red moa buff)
2) Hunters Shot (point blank shot if the enemy is already close to you)
3) Quickening zephyr
4) Rapid Fire
5) Weapon swap and poisson volley
6) Quickshot
7) finish with crossfire and petswap (for quickness provided by 5 points BM)
8) No hits taken and enemy downed

At point 5) you’ll already done 15K of dmg (maybe 17 when flanked) and can easely finish with shortbow without putting alot of effort into it.

*Only downthing is —> since full dmg specced you will have to stay in the background because ure pretty much a glass canon. When a enemy becomes closer you WILL have to kite your way around him with the shortbow, luckely we have a cripple, stun and jumpback skill on this weapon.

Just my 2 copper,
Yvilthi

I don’t think this is a good 1vs1 build for pvp. A thief, if the least bit good, will destroy you, and you won’t get past point (1) before dying. One immobilize for this build will ruin your day completely.

Looks good for WvW where you can stay out of danger a bit or if you have a good team to support you though.

If I could ask for one change to ranger pet AI it would probably be to relock onto players when they come out of stealth.

Irishbrewed.6537:

neoxide.7320:

Lol. Pets only attack an enemy if

A) you attacked the ranger/pet first

or

B) the ranger targeted you and told their pet to attack you

Stealth actually breaks the pet AI since the pet drops target and the ranger must manually tell its pet to keep attacking a thief or mesmer etc. slipping in and out of stealth. That also gives you the chance to get so many opening blows on the ranger since the pet won’t attack you until you hit the ranger while out of stealth.

No stealth doesn’t break it, pet will get right back on ya when stealth wears off. They are crucial.

My warrior would like a heartseeker Theif as a pet tho… ":p

Those must be some special Ranger pets there Irish, because my pets do not lock back on to targets that stealth.

Mesmer pets on the other hand follow you till the gates of hell, passing through walls, castle gates, locking back onto the poor doomed soul that tries to stealth away. They are some awesome relentless beasts, I like them a lot.

Florgknight.1589:

Really? I’ve had no problems with my ranger’s pets in fights. They just go autoattack and do their thing really. My lynx gets like 3-4 auto attacks even on the move every 10 seconds or so

I’ll try out lynx again, but what I notice is that any player that doesn’t stand still avoids most pet damage. I also notice this when ranger pets are attacking me.

So far for me the best strategy is to slow my target and then set my pet on them, also kiting around traps with melee pet. But I can see much more potential for this and wondered if anyone had some brilliant strategies they would like to share.

The best part?

Mesmer pets automatically lock back on to targets after they come out of stealth, their pet attacks are really good at hitting the target, they can go through walls and just magically appear through LoS and other normally inaccessible areas, they can be destroyed to create CC and can be resummoned with a very short CD, and you can have two of these beasts out at once. Oh I forgot when you summon them to attack a target they apply their damage straight away, giving a very nice burst effect.

I like the way mesmer pets are set up and think Ranger pets could borrow a few of these mechanics for pvp.

I posted this question in another thread, but thought it might be good as a topic of its own.

Has anyone got their coordination with pets downpat in spvp, and if so could you share your strategies/experiences?

There are a lot of complaints about our pets being unresponsive etc, but as I see it to get the most out of Ranger you need to get good at using and working with your pet.

At the moment I take advantage of the random knockdowns and CC my pet provides, and the occasional timed F2 like wolf fear on downed state, but I have an image of really working together with it, especially to provide some burst. I find in the heat of battle though and with everyone moving around it is difficult.

Look forward to hearing your advice.

Has anyone got down pat how to coordinate pet and ranger attacks in pvp (especially spvp)? If so please share your strategies and how you practiced to get good at it.

Please make Ranger pets do this heatseeking thing.

Rangers don’t have burst skills like warrior etc, except for rapid fire on the long bow. Our only “burst” for most weapons is to use quickness with auto attack.

I guess you can get an impressive burst if you can coordinate well with a dps pet, I’ve never been able to pull it off properly (in pvp), it has a high skill cap and probably requires more set up than 100B, but should hit hard. If our pets attacked with the same efficacy as a mesmers pets we would have an easier time.

Actually, Mesmer is in some ways quite like ranger- a phantasm build summons its pets and then autoattacks for damage from range (for the most part). You get great burst doing that. A big difference is the Mesmer pets reliably hit their target and follow them through walls and to other inaccessible places.

Merciless.5349:

Yasha.5963:

I was confused at first when I started reading this thread- crossfire OP? Rangers just use one skill? What have I been doing wrong! Usually my fingers are aching from playing the keyboard like a piano as I struggle to direct pets, lay traps, dodge, change weapons/pets etc. Now you tell me I can just press the “1” key and dominate! Please show me this build!

So like I said I was confused at first…and then I read the OP’s name. Now it all makes sense, its Merciless posting again about how his mesmer gets owned by everyone.

Oh the irony of a mesmer complaining about how easy other classes are to play, lol.

You have never encountered anything like the rest of the community has? You have never come across a Crossfire only Ranger or a Pistol Whip only Thief?

The issue is not how to beat or counter those builds/skills (and I have beaten them :p). The issue, which, if you read all of my postings in the thread you would know, is their viability and effectiveness vs those whose “fingers are aching from playing the keyboard like a piano” to achieve same/similar results.

I am sure a Ranger would love to help you with a Crossfire build. And then you can try it out for yourself.

“The rest of the community”- quite a grand statement.

I’ve certainly never seen a ranger that only uses crossfire. I have played against thieves and warriors that mistime there use of 100B/whip and pay for it. No way that a ranger just using cross fire could acheive the same result as someone who knows how to play. Same for thief and warrior.

Given the threads you have made I don’t think you really understand pvp. More pewpew and less QQ is the order of the day I think.

I was confused at first when I started reading this thread- crossfire OP? Rangers just use one skill? What have I been doing wrong! Usually my fingers are aching from playing the keyboard like a piano as I struggle to direct pets, lay traps, dodge, change weapons/pets etc. Now you tell me I can just press the “1” key and dominate! Please show me this build!

So like I said I was confused at first…and then I read the OP’s name. Now it all makes sense, its Merciless posting again about how his mesmer gets owned by everyone.

Oh the irony of a mesmer complaining about how easy other classes are to play, lol.