Thieves are a proff of extremes; either extreme stealth and burst or evade and sustain.
Extremely squishy outside those mechanics as well.
Personally, i would enjoy playing the proff more if it had a better ratio of facetankiness vs damage, but given their proliferation in all areas of play others disagree.
A situation i would attribute to the proffs ability to completely control the pace /duration of a skirmish, great for the thief, but can be frustrating for everyone else.
As an average usually PU mesmer in my unfavored game mode, I can say that PU mesmers can be wrecked by really skillful non-PU mesmers easily. They are not a problem for people who know how to play, and do not dominate in high-level play either.
You’re doing it wrong then lol
@OP
I agree, good list. Expect CDI in 4 mths followed by 6 mths of silence:D
Ive gotten a few obstructed messages , more than usual, and in circumstances where the target was is direct line of sight as well. It might have something to do with engineer ai, as I seem to remember being obstructed by them
There is a big difference in coordinated vs uncoordinated play as eleshazar pointed out.
In the latter, you want a build that is self sustaining and good vs the greatest amount of proff’s/builds as possible as the likelihood of getting a rez, even in mid team fight, is not guaranteed lol.
In hotjoin this usually translates as 75% warriors, thieves and mesmers. I havent played solo q for ages, but im guessing you could add engineer and ele for slighly more team oriented builds.
I agree, would be nice to know what they have planned if anything and timetable.
In the meantime, outside of occasional hotjoins, Ive stopped playing the ranger in pvp;
other proffs just do it better
The denial is strong in this thread lol
Its a strong ability, too strong imo for an auto target with so many extras (leap finisher, high damage under 25%, gap closer)
Thieves have enough on demand burst, they can be stressful to fight against, they dont need extra burst
Damage and burst have been really high since release and the proff’s with mechanics that allow them to avoid damage all together (stealth/blinds/teleports) are always the hardest to deal with and , for some reason, also tend to have the highest burst lol.
Proffs that cant drop target/reset need to often play more defensively (some proffs just seem to have been designed with pvp in mind, others not so much).
In which case, since you’re just starting to pvp, I would go tanky; think mm necro , shout/regen warrior, regen ranger. Once you get comfortable with class mechanics and gameplay generally, you can start to go more glassy.
The thing with ele’s is that while good, they drop to focus fire and guardians have 1 good build/role as bunker and 1 good duelist build as super glassy.
When you’re not getting insta ganked you can actually start to learn other proff’s animations, abilitites and attack patterns.
PEW 2K CRIT
PEW 2K CRIT
Crap , they noticed me, run run run.
Finds a ledge\ looks around for sword thieves
PEW 2K CRIT
PEW 2K CRIT
Edit: Power rangers are terrible and auto die 1v1, yet kinda fun after having been forced into the now lousy bunker cond build since forever
Edit: About 50% of the rangers I’ve spectated in hotjoins have full spirit traits without a single spirit utility.
Not even joking
yea , i know, non stealth would have to be adjusted, as would all other weapons and initiative for defensive moves. But outside of changing the proff’s mechanics completely, this might allow for other zerker proff’s while keeping thieves strong vs sustain builds like hambow
.
There are outliers that can deal with the extremes (ie: sword thief with traited steal can deal with boon spam), but as these are exceptions themselves, its still possible to look at general trends and proff mechanics in relation to each other.
That being said, this game seems to be very role and comp dependent with both pve and pvp content requiring specific builds/comps, ultimately a question of team synergy.
However a lot of the game is random/pug, in fact most of it is, so questions of balance outside of group organization is important.
Guardians (I know, not a common choice) – Way too much group support and survivability packed into a single class. Way too many group synergies and boon-spamming. They have become essentially what Monks were in Guild Wars 1. And that’s something we wanted to avoid.
Most numerically overpowered class:
Warriors – Healing Signet is still too effective and easy, damage is very high, as is survivability. No real weaknesses, just generally too good at everything.
Most overpowered class:
Engineer – Condition spam is just excessive, especially with all of it being hard to avoid and AoE. Coupled with bunkerish builds it’s incredibly overpowered.
Most overpowered trait:
Prismatic Understanding – Has made Mesmers ridiculously durable with very little trade-off and resulted in a very unfun play-style.
Most overpowered mechanic:
Stealth and Shadow Arts – Remove conditions, Blind, Regenerate Health, run faster, invisibility, Might stacking, high-damage openers). Is there ANYTHING stealth doesn’t do?
I.e. there are multiple angles to look at each class. Warriors for example, while being slightly overpowered, can easily be fixed by nerfing Runes of Strength and some of their numbers a little.
Guardians on the other hand need a much more fundamental redesign. They encompass way too much defensive utility and have dominated the meta since day 1. There is a reason they are the most commonly request class for Fractals, Dungeons, WvW and even sPvP. And it’s not because they are balanced.
There are always people complaining about 1 build or another.
TBH, all the “braindead” labelling can be just as easily applied to any player who doesn’t want to change tactics in order to counter a mm necro.
That being said, it is easier to beat a mm on proff’s with invis/teleports or spammy aoe’s which both mesmers and eng have in abundance.
Its a good, not great, 1v1 build that will lose to any proff that takes the time to kite and kill you’re minions (hence their use as side node bunker usually), so using cc’s and timing minion death is extremely important,
as Bhawb mentioned.
If its a grp fight in mid, shortbow works well (far better than dual pistols).
You’re other jobs are to use shadow refuge for rezzing and teleports to take out back line/low health targets.
Good idea +1
As to tracking a thief, maybe lower the cd on sic’ em to 20 secs when traited? Would add more counter play and make a thief think twice before attacking a ranger.
Like rolling a cond bunker for small scale skirmnishing/1v1’s?
If yes then ranger is for you, otherwise avoid pvp. (edit: can also go spirit rez bot for team support)
PVE i have limited experience, but questing is a breeze, dungeons are fun as bm (for me anyway, i dont do fractals)
As far as traits go, rangers require 6 points to make utilities of 1 type viable and another 6 for our only decent condition removal, its annoying.
Yea its a decent 1v1 build.
I would take empathic bond over barkskin though (even if it kittens the pet).
Lately ive been trying full bunker cond with balthazar (10sec burns every 12 with torch) and shouts with regen signet.
It works well too, while not being as reliant on pet damage and gives some utility (regen/swiftness).
I think these are the rangers only 2 builds for small scale skirmishing
If we could control when the cc goes off then i might agree. We can’t and compared to any engineer with a rifle, let alone kits, our cc is a joke.
f2 works, 4 or so seconds to cast , but it starts when pressed now lol.
The bottom line with rangers is that they are , at best, mediocre, in all roles.
There isn’t any pvp role where you woudn’t be better off with another proff.
Sad but true
For a few proff’s boon stripping exist. Necro (corrupting boons tend to be longish cd though), Mesmer and thief at least.
Mesmer has to go shatter for the ability and thief has to go s/x/traited steal.
The sigil works every 10 secs, but there’s no guarantee that you’re going to strip might or that you’re playing a toon that has a high crit rating (60% chance for1 boon every 10 on crit).
Not a whole lot tbh given how easily 25 might can be stacked and buried under several other boons.
Go glass but is squishy and easy to kill with only medium high damage and no burst outside 1min cd or melee, highly telegraphed, maul
Go aoe cond but squishy and requires essentially melee (600 units) and giving up utilities
Go bunker and do no damage, wont survive other than 1v1
Go ai, expect to watch pet run, slowly, in circles while missing its auto attacks because youre only real cond cleanse kittens the pet
Spirits, was good at 1 point with an op elite. Watch all spirit elements get nerfed until the build is carried by the elite, which was just nerfed
Ranger—-The last balanced proff ?
We are not talking about team or solo q here so why play a frustrating bunker (no kills, no team help either).
Same with decap engineer, if you find it fun then go for it, but the object in hotjoin is not necessarily to hold a cap or decap a point lol; its to survive getting trained across the map by op builds that outnumber you and to win you’re 1v1’s in mid, far from a node:D
@Larynx
Yes off healers could extend a match as well. However, healing in this game is no where near as powerful as WoW’s off healers; while burst and reset abilities on the other hand are comparable, arguably stronger in gw2.
Hotjoin, my speciality
You can play what you like in that format, however, expect to fight the same three proff’s a majority of the time: Warriors, thieves, mesmers.
They have the best dueling builds in game, offer the greatest autonomy when you cant expect help from teammates and are the best at escaping the angry angry zerg.
Necro: as power you can melt opponents and Lich form is just lol (Ive seen posts where people have claimed 15k+ combos while transformed).
Have fun:D
What made mage/rogue work in wow was their amazing abilities to kite, reset and burst. As far as I can remember that was the only class combo that would work without a dedicated healer in 3’s.
So translate that into GW2 and you would have the most self sufficient proff’s in a 2/3 v deathmatch. As far as I can tell that would be warrior/thief/ele or mesmer; though ele might suffer with its lack of ability to reset completely.
I think this is also the reason a larger more complex BG would be more fun as well as promote more diversity
Just to point out, back at launch there werent nearly as many bunkers.
You know why they become popular? Because of insta-gib builds from professions like Thief and Mesmer, that didnt need any defense and could rely on other abilities to survive (stealth/teleport/clone).
And would blow anyone up that wasnt a bunker.
Anyone who complained about absurd burst was simply met with “l2build defensively”. And they did.
So the stupid burst-builds that still exist today are atleast complicit in the proliferation of Bunkers.
Excellent point
However, I dont think the extremes are still as bad (not including Lich Form, which needs a nerf and theives keeping other zerkers out of the meta is also still a problem)
More problematic are rune sets and sigils that highly favor certain proff’s (strength) . These proffs are then able to build as tanky as they want while benefiting from 25 might stacks and guaranteed crits. Its almost as bad as the insta gib thief/mesmer meta.
Speaking of Wow, I kinda miss Alterac Valley. A bunch of small but necessary objectives, npc’s and a time limit/ game plan unlike WvW zerg.
Will settle for any new game mode ty
Power without burst OR survivability is pointless yea
Unfortunately , in order to get high sustained damage rangers need to go full glass (it still wont be that bursty outside of maul.
Balanced power builds lack both damage and survivability, so not worth it.
1) Stealth and teleports so thieves, mesmers, lesser extent engineers and ele’s
2) Speed boosts/weapon skills —-Warrior and thief, lesser extent engineer/ranger
3) CC and escape, ---engineers are high here as are ele’s, lesser extent necro (death shroud immob and run)
4)Immunities/blocks and gtfo—-warrior and guardian
But if were relying on general class mechanics, then stealth is by far the easiest to escape on
I would like to see changes for the ranger
More active defences for power ranger (actives on LB and GS)
Traps need to be in a kit (similar to engineers) or otherwise reworked to be far stronger
BM, idk, could use a permanent 30% speed upgrade for pets (maybe as 1 point trait in bm since ai cant be reworked) and definitely more cleave for ALL pets (again points in bm or something)would make them more useful in team fights.
Its a op trait. At best it should be 50-75% cond time reduction, then I would be ok with the uptime. Immunities feel like the bandaid that was applied when warriors sucked and was never removed.
They dont even interrupt capture point turnover do they? sheesh.
Its been said in a 1000 posts, immunities make for lousy gameplay.
Hambow is balanced if youre playing another warrior, thief or bunker guardian.
Personally i dont play any of the above and am sick of seeing them/ having to outplay them 100% to get anywhere
or spirit ranger, or bunker ele, or any other condition/bunker specs. I like the hate for warriors but just sayin the profession you play probably have some annoying and hated builds too.
Theres hate due to inertia (spirit rangers , a proff that hasn’t been able to 1v1 for a while now but at 1 point, several mths ago, the frustration was warranted) and there’s frustration over general meta roles forced by game type (bunkers of any type) and then there’s frustration over proff mechanics (for example poorly implemented stealth) and finally frustration of having to fight the same overtuned proffessions game after game after game (worst offenders: warriors)
Hambow is balanced if youre playing another warrior, thief or bunker guardian.
Personally i dont play any of the above and am sick of seeing them/ having to outplay them 100% to get anywhere
Ive beaten a few warriors built for dueling (axe/sword and lb) as BM with celestial.
That said, even as full regen (healing/tough/cond damage necklace) you cant stay on a point vs hambow with might runes. Possible to kill them, eventually, if you can kite and they stick around; but then hambow is more of a team fighter/game mode build so why would they be dueling with it?
Any other ranger build is laughably underpowered vs any almost any warrior build.
Full bunker-damage is pitiful; power ranger damage can be good if full zerker but lol how did i just instantly die? Traps are similar but without the range advantage lol and spirits wont win any 1v1’s anymore. ./shrug
@Carighan
Fair enough
Unfortunately as HHR pointed out, its not enough. Atm its extremely difficult to reposition, sometimes impossible (los ignoring abilities aka thief teleports). Basically all you can do is stealth (hope it hits) swap and swoop away while other proffs have several gap closing abilities.
I dont want the power ranger to be op, but i would like to have options other than run
Well, giving the longbow and GS some active defence would be great (smoke fields, dodges etc Oid’s suggestions), not only would they solve a lot of ranger survival issues, but would make them fun to play again.
At the moment its pewpew from range and hope to not get noticed, which is not only completely lame but also unrealistic, especially in a any organized play.
If there are underperforming builds then there is no reason for there to be a nerf accompanying a buff.
One of the biggest shortcomings of trap rangers is their kitten survivability. So if traps were turned into a kit, with grandmaster traits that allowed for a greater variety (say dust trap for example) or something along those lines it would greatly expand rangers versatility and survivability. Traps need to be good without a 30 point investment, and they aren’t at the moment.
Would this make the build similar to other aoe cond builds? Yes ,I suppose it would, but I dont have a problem with that. It would still retain the ranger flavor while narrowing the, imo wide, gap between aoe cond classes.
Really really bursty, to the point of being able to insta gib with JI/smite cond and scepter aoe (if using it).
I would use scepter and torch instead of gs because 1) you are squishy and want range occasionally as well as immobilize and 2) Guardians have no mobility, most ive seen use run speed runes, but hard to give up runes of strength, so a ranged weapon helps (and the orb can crit for 1-2k or so). 3)Scepter allows for torch which is maybe the hardest hitting weapon. It allows for extra burn plus cond removal on allies + the thrown flame hits for 4k or so (if i remember correctly) Its really strong
The build looks good, i like the extra damage on burn instead of extra crit % on sword.
In organized play the role of bursty builds is to get a quick decap or help kill a bunker. The problem with guardians in that capacity is the run speed issue as well as no escape capacity if losing a fight, although gs would help a bit with this (still better off with torch /scepter imo)
TBH if you find a thief squishy in melee, a ranger is not going to be an improvement unless you go bm regen (which you said you dont want to do). However, if you can compromise on the pet issue, then a BM ranger can melee with his pet. Its a combination that ive come to appreciate, constant sword cripple with evades and lots of toughness and regen (only way a ranger can melee really) so that the pet can hit reliably while managing its cd’s and yours can be fun and effective.
Unlike a thief or mesmer, rangers have no invis or illusions, so expect to be constantly targeted, even focused by enemy team
New builds are being explored, 2/x/6/6/x looks promising for tpvp with additional cond removal instead of the full spirit build (though still essentially mid support).
Mostly spvp, though I used to do some wvw roaming as well.
I would argue that trap shortcomings in wvw are similar in spvp.
I just dont see trap rangers in spvp unless its the default build (new and just trying a ranger, thought he default might be spirits now idk). They just dont cut it imo. I have made them work but, man, you have to play like you have 3 arms and position yourself so well , otherwise your dead once evades are on cd and any opponent with a teleport/evade/invulnerability (so , like , all of them lol) can evade a large part of your damage.
I still play pu mes every now and then, its still pretty boring though. I know other posters have played it to higher ranking on the solo leader board as well.
When I face a pu mes, which is actually pretty rare, it depends a lot on what im playing.
If its single target with no cleave and good cleanse/regen then np (although it will take a while). If its a toon with weapons that cleave then its far more of a problem even impossible if I dont have a ranged weapon.
A lot of this game is rock/paper/scissors given equal skill, which is lame imo.
I will say this: Fighting a PU mes feels more tactical than any of their other builds; shatter/phantasm (havent played vs interrupt yet) is a question of killing mes as quick as possible before you get bursted down while PU requires more planning/ caution
From what i understand spirit ranger isn’t a very good bunker these days, its more mid support.
Sounds like you want an autonomous bunker type of toon for home point, so i would go for mm necro; good damage or support by swapping 1 point around, can assault far as well, works well with spirits
Or you could go with eng, they have rly good bunking abilities combined decent offensive pressure.
For mid bunkering you cant beat a good guardian though, just dont expect to kill anything with it
There is a small power component to traps as well as the conditions, they are supposed to be balanced between the two. So when i said 2 components to traps i meant 3, 1 small power aspect and 2 conditions (damage and cc).
True, its a choice to take 3 traps, however, traps atm are a try to kill them quick playstyle. Playing with 1 less trap makes a noticeable dps difference when stacking them.
Unfottunately traps are really neither great in large or small scale combat. Large scale the range and target limitation (3 as opposed to 5)is a problem. In small scale, 1 invul/teleport/ai setting off traps and your hooped.
I like the trap playstyle but they just need to be better
.