a typical fighting game tier list:
http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2008/oct/17/street-fighter-4-tiers-character-rankings/
each character is ranked individually against each other character.
in GW2 terms, the entire team build should be evaluated against other set team builds.
eg. Ele / Ele / Guard / Guard / Mesmer vs Ranger / Ranger / Ele / Ele / Guard vs Mesmer / War / Necro / Ele / Guard vs Thief / Ele / Ranger / Necro / Mesmer, etc.
if ranking professions individually, i would base it purely on 1v1 balance ( which would look very close to the list you have in the OP ).
duuurrr are the GCs that miss their burst & die.
good are the GCs that miss their burst & live.
fighting equal level opponents make gib specs more challenging to play, because the opponent will have a strategy to neutralize your burst—so it becomes more of a chess match of how to effectively land your killshot & execution of contingencies. i think this spec epitomizes that idea very well.
defeating these builds isn’t about killing them, it’s about making them feel useless.
learn to gain satisfaction from outplaying ppl rather than scoring the killing blow & thieves will take on a new perspective for you.
( 80% stealth uptime != conquest victory )
@OP,
if your opponent is running from your pet, your pet is doing its job. if you really want to stay on top of a target that is running from you, you need 1h sword. GS is good too but it doesn’t have 100% uptime cripple like 1h sword. use “about face” to double leap chase with sword 2.
shortbow is a great chasing weapon as well, but it doesn’t have the same gap closing potential outside of short cripple & backside stun. combine both weapons for best chasing—cripple with shortbow, then swap to sword and leap-chase.
Example of a build that doesn’t use conditions (offensive) is my 100% chill ranger build
yep dual axe chill stack is good.
for the ones who believe axe is condi—axe is not a condi weapon, it is hybrid. axe 1 is 100% physical, axe 2 is physical/bleed, axe 3 is non-scaling condi ( chill + weakness ). axe 2 is the only skill that can scale with condi dmg & chill / weakness duration is increased by investment in the power tree.
dual axe is a full power spec. note that nearly everything an ele does is a ranged attack, even d/d. engis also ( 100 nades ). axe 5 is very stronk.
disregarding all trash talk between OP & others, Oni’s first post is the strongest argument imo.
considering they ban racial utilities in the Mists, the only reason to pick a race should be for its aesthetic appeal—no effect on gameplay.
it’s not a question of whether i can “learn to deal with” asura, but whether being asura gives any discernable advantage WHATSOEVER. i don’t think any player who is really honest with himself can say that asura does not affect the gameplay.
not to mention that it is terrible for the viewership to try to discern what a 5 asuran squad is actually doing in pvp. it is against the design philosophy of the game, as already indicated by others here—Asura is simply another example of PvE decisions adversely affecting PvP ( Asura would not exist if this game was PvP-only ).
the reason why gnomes worked in wow was because you never needed to look at character models for anything. if you had to actually track animations in wow, i guarantee gnomes would have been just as op as asura are in gw2.
the TF2 class design should be the model to follow for competitive class based combat—each class’ silhouette is easily distinguishable from a distance without any detail. there should be no differentiation between class & race. but that is discussion for the pre-alpha stage of a game’s release…we are way past that now.
ppl must be smarter with their condi application against someone who passively wipes them every 10s. the key word here is passively.
passive defences are double edged swords b/c the player has no control over when these defences will work. likewise with shared anguish or hide in plain sight.
proper class knowledge places the control over passive defences in the hands of the aggressor. that’s all i will say about beating trappers.
hmm, kinda thinking now that maybe Zephyr’s Speed should be given to Ranger as a default ability ( it kind of is @ only 5 pt investment )…not sure if this trait moving deeper into BM will be healthy for non-trap specs, which are already dangerously hurting by comparison ( mostly thinking of power specs who need that quickness to even hope to compete in dps ). idk, that’s a dicey issue, quickness is so strong.
i agree w/ zenith about danger zones. this game is all about area permission & traps fit into that really nicely. but the pace at which you must deal with traps is a relentless pace if comparing them to wells. wells also do not have a built-in ( undocumented ) immobilize on activation ( spike trap ), makes avoiding the trap stack very very difficult. ( why does muddy terrain exist? lol )
still, i’d like to see EB fixed first before anything b/c that will have a huge impact for a single change; simplest way to move towards balance, ANet style. let’s do this.
1.) Fix Empathic bond so that the pet actually absorbs the conditions and they do not simply evaporate.
yes, yes, 1,000 times yes. raises skillcap for the spec since pets are fragile @ 5 in BM, should be melting quickly on condi transfer, forcing pet swaps for things other than stomp/res.
2.) Switch Zephyr’s Speed (5 trait in Beastmastery) with Loud Whistle (15 trait in Beastmastery). That trait is simply too strong to be that low in the tree.
yep, agree here too. Zephyr’s Speed is a mandatory trait pick for all specs. rule of design is that if an ability becomes mandatory, it needs to either a) be natively given to the profession or b) altered in some fashion to make the choice more difficult.
i think moving deeper into BM is a good move relative to its power level, considering that Quickness is too strong a buff to give natively to the Ranger.
3.) Increase the cooldown of traps or reduce their AoE by a small amount. At the moment, if placed right, traps can completely cover a node which allows for no skillful counter-play. Traps can be placed prior to any engagement and by the time they are triggered they are already up again.
With these 3 fixes, I think rangers will be fine.
i don’t think all traps need adjusting, especially if Empathic Bond gets fixed ( if you get stuck on 60s pet CD with a dead pet, no condi transfers ). i would like to see EB fixed before anything else to really see the impact on trap spec.
but flame trap at 12s is bananas. i can’t say it’s not enjoyable to play with, but i could see it going up to poison trap @ 16s ( traited ).
(edited by faeral.7120)
considering the population is already split between hotjoin & tourneys, being concerned about a population split with the proposed solo Q is a bit redundant.
whatever new Solo Q system that gets implemented should be replacing or augmenting the Hotjoin system, which is the current Solo Q system.
like it or hate it, 95% of the pvp playerbase plays in Hotjoin. that alone should tell ANet what the popularity of Solo Q really is; despite universal disdain that the Hotjoin gametype garners from the community, it is the core of GW2 pvp.
Hotjoin is where the changes need to happen. Instead of 8v8 & 5v5 servers, have Ranked & Unranked Single Map Solo Q ( 5v5 always ). same population distribution, more progressive gameplay.
then it is more simple to continue to strengthen the development of 1v1 paid matchmaking queues without worrying about population splitting.
every artist is a thief. it will be a great addition b/c it doesn’t undermine the Conquest theme & also fulfills the requests for CTF.
ANet has still made a suite of unique conquest maps that haven’t been seen elsewhere.
^^
yep, it’s “Eye of the Storm” for WoW aficionados ( sans purple ).
great gametype imo. best of both worlds. can make for roller coaster matches, great comeback potential.
in order for it to be really awesome though, the Orb can’t be on a timer, it needs to spawn as soon as it has been capped & should be waiting when the match begins. the reason is to incentivize protecting the Orb without capping it to attempt to force your opponents into a bad position, which they then have options for counterplay.
i think this falls under “be careful what you wish for”.
too much boon stripping is worse than not enough. whatever changes they make should be small.
I dont know what the game is like now but I played it from launch into being a top rated arena player for years. GW2 is a wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind on skill based pvp sadly Anet seems like they want the games pvp to die they are sticking to the farm based system for PvP.
you must be very clear when you say “skill based pvp”, because it seems like you are referring to ratings & not gameplay. focus targeting, enemy cast bars & cooldown trackers make wow VERY EASY to play. not to mention that game uses passive defense mechanics instead of active ones.
i loaded up reckful’s twitch out of curiosity a few weeks ago, one of the first things i heard was “ kitten he dodged my full kidney”. a passive RNG defensive stat saved their team’s life. in GW2 when you hear “ kitten he dodged my illusionary leap”, you know the player actively did something to preserve their life.
I just dont understand what they are thinking, who are they listening too what ‘pvpers’ are telling them the QP system is fine? The people that like the QP system dont like real competition just garbage farmers.
i’m pretty sure all top pvp players hate the QP system. there is no reason to add QP before they announce their first monthly tournament, it’s a pointless currency in the current state of the game. but it’s the only totem pole to be climbed as it stands.
there is no question that ANet is screwing the pooch right now. awesome product with no support, we all know it. i don’t even care about systems at this point, i am waiting for the announcement stating, “We have hired new PvP staff.” i want pvp class reps & internal pvp teams that test new content thoroughly ( seriously, how does the necro / war vengeance bug get to live state? ) & actively engage the meta themselves instead of basing balance off of feedback.
what happened to ANet’s competitive edge? where are ANet’s Arena Teams? i remember seeing ANet play other teams at press events & they would play teams in tourneys in GW1 as well ( like, the tourney winner would get a chance to fight ANet’s team ). now they can’t even form a team themselves with 2 squad members. sounds like The Heart of the Mists in ANet’s HQ is just as populated as most in-game.
i had a lot of fun with WoW, but for me the golden era was the end of vanilla b/c 10v10 was just balanced better. arena introduced heavy heavy use of mods, funnelled classes into few viable specs & had far too much counter comping. deathmatch is also super boring to both play & watch. conquest is 1000% more interesting than deathmatch to me ( opinions are like onions, they always make me cry ).
no team-oriented game is ever balanced for 1v1, don’t need a dev post for that.
the more you balance for 1v1, the more you homogenize the professions. the devs take tools from 1 class & give them to a number of classes so that 1v1s can be considered fair without hard countering. this damages the integrity of team combat & makes team composition far less important.
if you are looking for properly balanced duels, you are looking for street fighter ( which is amazing & fully designed around 1v1 so no more need to complain ).
duels are useful for figuring out rotations, cooldowns & counters, but less useful as a litmus test for balance. if you want to win duels, you spec hybrid, period. that cuts out a HUGE selection of viable team builds.
seriously, pets are fine. if a ranger is putting his pet on you, he is operating at half strength wherever he is.
just get a ranger buddy to sic his pet on you & practice kiting it, it’s really not hard to neutralize 90% of the dmg.
if you are going to bring a thief into the equation, then you need to have a thief on your side as well, otherwise what are you talking about? these 2v1 scenarios in a vacuum don’t exist.
in this case, the thief on your side either pressures the ranger, gibs the pet, gibs the thief, etc. it’s a team game, even in hotjoins. even without voice coms, you can see where your teammates are on the minimap, & they will ( usually ) help you if you fight near them.
if a pet is on you & you can’t break the leash range, just get a teammate to go pressure the ranger. he will pull the pet back immediately, just like popping a mesmer portal.
the grass is always greener.
many other classes have big problems dealing with ranger. arguably the strongest 1v1 profession, up with ele.
rank 1-10 should be in a separate bracket. rank doesn’t mean much, but 1-10 certainly does.
entangle is a bad elite against anybody that knows how it works. ( many movement abilities will break it immediately )
trap ranger is a very easy, very strong spec due to empathic bond ( many believe will be fixed on jan 28th ) & trap cd functionality ( cd triggering on laying trap ).
but all defenses are passive, very easy for a thief to bait shared anguish/hips with a .25s daze before stacking stealth with d/p & using their real opener on you with defenses down. it is very hard to time your sword evades to dodge the opener when they have 12+ seconds of stealth to choose their opening, & sword evades won’t save you if you can’t heal up past heartseeker range ( +50% health ). unguent is also the easiest ranger heal to interrupt ( 1s cast ), also our most popular heal for non-healing power specs.
there are builds that reliably kill thieves, but are they tourney viable? ( open ended question—the short answer is yes with proper team comp—can’t just throw a random build into a team comp that used to have trap ranger & expect it to fly )
duels “mostly” matter between tourney viable specs, because anybody can counter a build by custom picking utilities & elites, & tourney specs are the ones that will be duelling each other in 5v5.
underwater, thief wins until ranger is downed, then the thief is in trouble ( rofl ).
in pvp you are usually comparing a glass power thief to a condi trap ranger.
of course the thief will do more power dmg, it’s what he’s specced for. it’s like complaining that a power thief’s bleeds can’t compare with traps.
if you want to test actual ranged power numbers, run 20/25/20/0/5 with berserkers & QZ. you say thief can do 12k with 3 shortbow attacks, ranger can do 12k with 1 longbow attack that tracks stealth & pierces targets. full power barrage is 1.2k crits on light armor ( ranger equiv of a power well ). and shortbow isn’t as bursty but very high pressure in a power spec.
while line aoe isn’t quite as strong as true aoe, it is still quite strong in teamfights & against bodyblock classes ( thieves guild, mesmer, ranger, necro ).
icing on the cake is that yes, pets are ranged dps. if you really want to compare ranged power dmg, ranger can win easily. but thief has stronger utility.
You can hit 5 when MoOAd but it wont help you if you are imobilized or you get imobilized when you hit 5.
i often prefer to be immobilized before i use moa 5 so i can maintain my positioning & still have that super long duration evade. similar to why some warriors don’t take mobile strikes so they can whirlwind in place when snared.
firstly, pvp is not dead. but the game has a huge problem retaining new players, so the subject of the thread is spot on.
every day in hotjoins i see rank 1s, & i see rank 1s in free tourneys as well. this goes hand in hand with continued success in gw2 sales, as these are brand new players to pvp.
90% of the pvp population is in hotjoins, where competitive players mostly do not like to play. but casuals mostly don’t enjoy it either, hence low retention. the people that stay are here mostly for the combat system itself & not because the system is welcoming in any fashion.
to make hotjoin more friendly:
1. servers only last for a single match then spit players to the mists.
2. implement a “leaver” system which will place players who leave matches early into a separate queue.
3. allow 2 people to queue together but no more, & put them on the same team.
4. let players queue for whichever map they want.
these forced rotation servers are garbage & are a big reason for afk rates & autobalancing woes, which in turn is another big reason for loss of player retention. the devs would also gain valuable information about which maps are being played the most & which professions are being played on which maps.
more than anything, players want to feel in control of their gaming experience, & atm they have no control. so they go back to pve or wvw, where they can have that type of experience.
hi countless, good times ) hotjoins, where longbow is king!
- worst ranger na
agree 100% with taym, giving portal to other classes is a terrible idea. it will be a portal-fest. now instead of “requiring” 1 player with portal ( not required at all, 100% agree with follidus as well ), you can have 3 players with portal & still maintain comp diversity?
ANet, open up Public Test Server pls so that we can give you feedback on balance before it’s pushed live.
could maybe give the portal charges ( lets say 3 charges ). so 2 ppl could come through with the mesmer, but the charges would be depleted & the portal would dissipate, meaning nobody could go back through. or 1 could come back with mesmer, leaving a single charge for 1 player to go back through the portal. keeps team synergy of portal but reduces the ability to insta-gib with full squad & send a few back through once they drop a burst.
gj forsaker & co. been watching your twitch replays since your team got back, good stuff.
some ppl need to learn pet micro ( pmuch anyone saying pets are useless ).
some species are useless, i will give you that.
atm there are 2 defined & competitive specs ( outside of niche tweaks that some players hold close to the chest ) in tpvp: trap & full bunker. trap is the default because of the existence of home point mesmer. full bunker is a far better straight up point defender than a mesmer, but that won’t matter until portal sees a change.
a viable power build is very difficult to come by for rangers right now, & the primary reason is because we do not have any power-based damage utilities except Quickness. so we must rely on weapon for all power damage, whereas a trap spec can dps with shortbow + 3 utilities on sub-20s cooldowns with decent survivability.
really, we have 8 utilities locked up in our pets, which is too many ( all signets & shouts ). this leaves traps for condi, then survival is split between condi, power & utility.
i would recommend:
Frost Trap becomes a power-based DPS trap in addition to current effects.
Muddy Terrain cast time reduced to instant or 1/4s, immobilize increased to 4s. Remove snare field or shorten duration.
Change Sharpening Stone to add damage to next 5 attacks, scales with Power.
All Signet actives should affect both pet & player by default, then give us a new master trait in the power line. it feels like we are forced 30 deep in power just to have basic functionality of 20% of our utilities.
Spirits feel like signets, they can only be useful in a single trait line, & even then are still underwhelming. I actually like their design, giving an activated ability each in addition to passives, but they just don’t make a big enough impact. In the current state of the game, we need to get DPS out of our utilities. So I would say the best way to improve spirits is to add Damage to their activated / on death abilities.
build is fine.
pls don’t homogenize this game.
i’m sorry nerva, but stealth counters pets. i’m pretty sure you play bunker ranger, so you will have a hard time putting that spec down on your own. but he will never kill you & never take your point, so outside of honor duelling i don’t see the issue.
even anvil rock is pmuch dead.
i’ll be back when the single match queue with rating is implemented to see what the population is like. gl to you all sticking with it.
ANet, hire a team to support your terribly implemented awesome game. the news that you actually have staff to support us would go a lot further than any blog post.
the gem is in 5v5, but i agree that currently you have to wade through some unnecessary steps to get there. i disagree on your balance issues. we have a beta-sized testing community for builds & most players follow trends rather than setting their own.
i think you have the right mentality for where you’re at wrt this game—take a break & come back in 6 months.
ppl quit gw1 for periods of time as well. the non-sub model works, because huge releases do bring players back.
i will duel you. msg me.
scrag, lol.
as an experiment garathorn, you should join solo for 5v5 tourneys. if the game is as random & keyspammy as you claim, you should have little problems getting to kyhlo. surely teamwork has nothing to do with this game.
there is an oceanic scene during morning – midday hours ( NA EST ), which will bring a number of teams into the mix that can never play during paid hours.
our team will definitely be queuing, we play frees most days from around 10am – 2pm. i think a lot of teams will emerge for single match queues, even if it is only Temple ( will be good to have competitive matches on this map imo ).
i can see why they might want it to be Temple-only at first, since they do want to add this to tourney rotation so a concentrated period of competitive testing would be welcome to correct any imbalances.
cooldown isn’t a justification for power level if an ability is strong enough to cause a snowball effect in a match that renders that cooldown irrelevant.
i feel like the game has the appropriate balance of “easy to play, hard to master”, noobs just need to fight against other noobs. considering ranking is on the horizon, much of this discussion will change dramatically over the next month.
a common resource that is useful for new players in fighting games is the dojo—a sparring area where all skill effects, boons, conditions, etc get applied, but when a player’s health reaches zero, it is reset to full. so new players can figure out how all their skills work & see what kind of damage they do in real combat, but without the risk of instant death that makes them rage & uninstall.
so you could join “pub training” rooms to practice against certain things & it could even be the very first place a rank 1 player goes to before they can hotjoin to run through basic exercises ( directed by ANet ) on dodging, healing, interrupts, boons, conditions, aoe, ressing, stomping, profession specific exercises, etc. ( all would be elective, you could jump right in if you want to )
i think if new players even knew more information about all the game systems, they would be more open to learning them, instead of joining a hotjoin, not knowing any of their skills, & getting rolled by rank 40s.
this feature is a pipe dream until they hire more pvp staff, but something to ease the learning curve without detrimentally affecting the game for higher level would be nice.
reduce dmg by 30% in hotjoin. nobody in tournies will care anyway, just make it more friendly to new players.
update the default profession builds based on meta, so you aren’t giving players useless specs out of the gate.
everything else has already been asked for.
without good teamwork, you will rarely use down3. with good teamwork, you will rarely use down3.
don’t let the ranger bleed out or interrupt pet channel. np.
i find fighting thieves to be fun.
but the fight against a thief doesn’t start when he opens on you, it starts when the gate drops.
afk, ragequit, etc, all these things happen to make 4v5s. it just makes a bad situation worse.
as much as ppl hate hotjoins, it is a heck of a lot more productive than pugging frees. there might be the very rare tourney where you fight pugs all the way to final, but 99% of the time, you are not getting past foefire.
when you join a hotjoin, you can at least practice specific things & test build scenarios without feeling like a hindrance to your team. you will also have a greater chance of meeting people to form a team by hanging out in hotjoins than by pugging frees, especially if you spend time in lower pop servers that turn into duelling servers where you actually have a dialogue going with the folks you are playing with.
there are a number of pvp training guilds now that are helping players to get better. if you need a pvp home on NA, msg me in-game & i can get you an invite to an active pvp guild with members at all skill levels. we don’t want this game to lose more players due to infrastructure when the gameplay is so good. so we will give tips, builds, advice, etc to help you get into the frees scene a bit more smoothly ( which we are starting to do this weekend with paids ).
good watch, ty for doing this.
PTR for everybody is a great call, if for nothing else than to give ANet better feedback or report on exploits before they go live. PTR is also a great PR tool for upcoming features.
if they do allow utility swapping again, i would like to be able to keybind utility swaps so it feels more like a real feature of the game. i knew about weapon swapping, but i didn’t even know about swapping utilities mid-tourney until i started watching streams.
i enjoyed all 3 perspectives on the dreaded “meta”. especially that high level players feel there is more flex to team comp than is presently represented.
as a ranger i recommend going beastmode, but i hear the best advice is to release the kraken.
what is opinion about the game releasing tons of content for pve and nothing for pvp? what is opinion about gw1 being pvp centered and gw2 being pve centered? these are facts.
PvPers don’t care about gems. PvE is the financial backbone of this game. Of course the first few patches will be catering to them mostly. This is how ANet will finance the hiring of more PvP staff & gives them more time to get changes made. It is why they chose to hire a team to wipe out PvE bots instead of beefing up PvP staff. If they left the bot problem unchecked, the game would have truly died. Crying about lack of PvP features when the features are already announced is ridiculous.
im sorry i missed the member only lock on this thread. also curious what blind praise threads add to the pvp discussion? oh right, nothing.
the negativity requires a counterbalance, because there are a lot of people that enjoy this game, even those who have quit for the time being. but people in general don’t post positively on forums. those who enjoy the game the most are too busy playing it. the combat engine in this game is phenomenal, & that is all you need to build on to eventually make a great game. i would say a single thread of positivity should be welcomed, & you aren’t REQUIRED to spout your negativity here. sure, you have the freedom of speech to do whatever you choose, but all you are doing is tearing down something positive without giving anything in return. you help nobody with your comments & you complain about problems that are already addressed & being worked on.
so thank you for your opinions, but i also love gw2 pvp & will work to help it succeed. happy ny, universe.
great talk, thanks for the post.
the character switching is becoming more of a problem, or maybe it’s not a problem. but some teams, for example, are starting legacy with a thief to port in & steal lord without the alarm being raised, then swap characters back out to non-thief. this is above & beyond counter-comping; it is imo, map cheesing. ( i know this strat is counterable, but knowing you need to counter it is extremely difficult unless you predict it, since no alarms are raised until lord is dead )
i like the idea of portal only working for the mesmer. it has a large CD, so the mesmer is giving something up to run it for a 1v1 fight on D. there’s no drawback when you bring a team back with you.
time warp’s aoe radius could be drastically reduced, so opponents can kite out of it without losing the point & would make the ability more of a skillshot to drop it on a downed opp/pull enemies into it/position ranged inside/bubble trap/etc. ( something like ranger torch size )
hello folks.
i am looking for solid daytime players to form tourney groups. or conversely, if you are a daytime team & need more contacts, please add me.
i see a lot of paid players in the mists in the mornings, but maybe your teams are not around to play. add me or msg me if you are interested in daytime practice. i’m active in voip, listen, & am ready to learn. ( i’m always lurking in paid streams @ work, ty for putting these up, it’s much appreciated )
i’m kind of in a state of crisis with respect to moving forward in this game. i feel like i’ve learned everything i can outside of tourney play, but i work during paid hours, so i don’t have the opportunity to play with people i need to in order to get better.
my main playtime is 9am – 3pm EST. i can flex this to as late as 8pm EST if i adjust sleep schedule. i can play Paids 2 or 3 times a week. i really don’t want to quit this game, it is too good.
if the contact list grows, i will run groups every morning.
peace, gl, hf.
- cutsu, ranger – anvil rock NA
well yak’s bend mists were dead, i xferred to anvil rock & there were about 100 ppl there with an active map chat.
i heard it through folks i pvp with & haven’t looked back. i hear SBI is active as well.
yep, anvil rock mists are hopping.
yes, great suggestion.
this is very similar to how street fighter tourneys work, a winner’s bracket & loser’s bracket, except the final matchup is attained a bit differently.
the winner of winner’s finals goes ahead to grand finals.
the winner of loser’s finals fights the loser of winner’s finals to determine who goes ahead to grand finals.
that might be a bit too convoluted for this tourney system with map rotations, but the point is that successful e-sport games already adopt a system like sataar is suggesting to good effect.
pets shouldnt be able to hit someone at another node while ur capping a different one, thats plain stupid that you think thats even ok
it’s true, the ranger profession shouldn’t have any qualities that other professions don’t get as well. aside from it being something unique to ranger, you have not presented any reasonable argument as to why the leash range should be shortened.
pets can hit a target at another node. it is a profession strength. it is not overpowered. without the ranger there to support the pet, its damage is easily neutralized or killed outright. the pet needs snared targets to secure its damage. if i’m defending another point, i can’t snare my pet’s target—& i will also be doing negligible damage on my point if a fight is happening there.
think of the pet leash range as a profession equivalency to thief mobility or mesmer portal. it means that a BM ranger can still assist a team fight in a limited capacity while being responsible for bunkering a node. this is a GOOD THING. it means there are more viable options for team comps than if this mechanic did not exist, because it is extremely difficult to run anything but mesmer on home point.
pets are also not bots, they require manual control to get the most out of them. i consider the pet as a detachable 3rd arm of my ranger. the only things which are controlled by AI is 1) pathing & 2) pet executing passives. but the ranger decides if & when the pet does anything in particular. if you are dying to a “petbot”, you just need to start paying attention to pets, that’s all. because all that pet is going to do is mindlessly chase you in a straight line & try to land passive attacks unless the ranger is controlling it well ( but that usually requires being in the same place as pet ).
in WvW, pets should be AoE’d down. if you have 5 pets chasing you solo, gg, you just got 5v1’d. welcome to pvp.
apologies if my thoughts seem blunt, but those are my thoughts on leash; peace gl hf.
leash range is fine as it stands. if you stand on clocktower, you cannot always send your pet to an enemy on a far node if they are at the back of the node. this is a good example of the leash range on pets.
WvW, all rangers did was cry for the first 3 months. now their pets are doing well in WvW & other ppl are crying instead of dealing with it.
so much crying. not enough personal growth.
yes, this game is awesome.
All GW2 did was get me wanted to play real ranked games where skill and teamwork matters.
skill & teamwork matter in non-ranked games.
merry christmas everyone )
10/10. best combat system of any MMO to date. i am still excited to log in every day to continue practice & learning. a hybrid MMO-FPS is exactly what i want to play. this game is the MMO side of Team Fortress 2 style gameplay.
if you care about FIGHTING other people, combat system is all that matters, imo.
i think the maps are great. there are nuances of every map that can be exploited in various ways for positioning around the nodes. kyhlo’s clocktower is the epitome of this. good teams will shred inexperienced teams based purely on their positioning on CT. ( something i have been experiencing of late learning this map better, hehe )
i really am interested to see Temple added to tourney rotation, just to have team fights on that map. considering it’s the newest map & it is close to kyhlo’s level in terms of complexity, i think future map design will give us things to look forward to.
class balance is pretty good, i think. burst is not high when defenses are binary ( 100% avoidance through evade, block, blind, dodge ). but any player coming from a casual MMO is going to get gibbed constantly until they embrace the active style. in a game like warcraft, you have passive defenses. so you just pump up your dodge rating on your character sheet & wham bam, 40% dodge rate without actively doing anything.
“but i get caught with stunbreakers on cd etc”—oh hello team based combat, sup. remember wow arena? “he trinketed kidney, fear now, gg”.
i vastly prefer the possibility for quick kills than playing healer mana wars ( anyone complaining about bunkers here is putting the blinders on & forgetting that every healer in another MMO is in effect a bunker )
blah blah no ratings blah blah no matchmaking.
i can’t even play during paid times & i still <3 this game. peace folks, keep up the good fight.
a mesmer vs ranger fight can potentially never end, but a mesmer has a very hard time holding a node against a ranger.
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