Not at all, but arrows should move a bit faster and I wouldnt mind them loosing their ‘stylish’ graphic that simply broadcasts out to targets which way the arrow is traveling for them to dodge.
Doesn’t matter to me, I’ve always preferred the longbow. But it’s funny to see just how many people are relying on the shortbows bleed spam. I think it’s a pretty huge sign that something is wrong here. Either the shortbow is too good, or other weapons are bad. I’m leaning towards the first option.
Your leaning the wrong way. Our other options minus or offhands are crap compared to other classes. Our GS is terrible, id trade our longbow in an instant for warrior rifle, our sword is meak and bad, and our unique class mechanic of pets are just terribly implemented. On any target outside of PvE they just end up missing about 7 out of 10 of their attacks, may as well not even exist.
Also did you know that everyone in the game can negate a rangers single target dmg 100% of the time? I posted the exploit in the rangers forums and how to 100% repeat it. That post got me a 3 day forum ban. The exploit( it really isnt an exploit, its ingame mechanics) works with NPC ranged as well. How about you FIX the broken crap before you try to balance.
It it juking left and right? Same thing works against Guardian Scepter. Can negates about 9/10 hits by just dancing side to side.
Any updates from Devs on this?
Just my two cents. Everyone was using a shortbow not because it was too good(warrior rifle was still better raw dmg) but because it was the absolute LAST option we had to do dmg comparable to EVERY OTHER CLASS. You guys have “balanced” the ranger almost every patch since BWE1. Every weapon we have has had it dmg lowered in 1 way or another. You have forced us down the shortbow path.
Agreed. I would trade shortbow in a heart beat for a warriors rifle. I would trade pets in a heart beat for head shot.
1) Better Pet Mechanics and Responsiveness.
This is what defines us as a class, but the unresponsive nature, slow attack animations, finicky F2 abilities make them hard to use in Dungeons and sometimes useless in PvP. Their natural movement speed is to slow, the attack speed is slow, and it requires traits to resolve many of these things. Our pets should be fantastic out of the gate, with the option for us to focus on making them awesome; not start off mediocre and spend traits to fix them.
2) Our Melee main hand weapons leave alot to be desired. They focus on elusive game play or snare/pursuit, but we have other weapons to that allow for this while offering better or similar dps from ranged. Its very hard to create a build around these weapons as well. Great Swords just do very poor damage if compared to other classes.
3) Our Ranged Weapons are unbalanced. Let me explain.
SB Auto attack speed WAS nice, and does bleed (3 seconds) on flank. The rest of abilities are generally dps decreases, and offer control and situational items. This promotes a relatively passive form of gameplay which is fun (feels like a machine gun) but unengaging. I would like for our SB 2-4 to hit harder or have a bit more.
Longbow: It is a poor weapon i feel outside of specific situations. Longbow attack speed is very slow, and the damage tapering is a bit extreme on the auto attack.
Our pets our terrible. Longbow is just crap as well.
Its not a .04 increase.
There are already videos up shwoing the difference. Before patch you would fire 2.4 arrows a second. Post patch you fire 1.9 arrows a second. So .5 arrows a second loss, over even 2 seconds means one less arrow, etc etc.
Can we get a developer update? Or is it so late this will have to wait till tomorrow?
Hrm..so hours later…is there an update ??
Warriors currently do more ranged dps than rangers outside of SB Spam. Ontop of that they have on demand burst we dont.
They get heavy armor
They have far better support skills (our spirits get one shotted and dont do much since their nerfs). Warrior banners and shouts are amazing
They have viable melee weapons (Ranger GS and Sword are a joke).
Faytte post above say it all.
I’m kind of like Clarissa in that sense.
Please don’t nerf the only viable ranger weapon! Thanks.
Sadly this. Our Great Sword is terrible. Our Sword does meak damage. Our Longbow is seldom useful outside of WvW. Our Pets miss about half their attacks due to very slow animations (im especially fond of my cats rending pounce which has like a 4 second wind up.
I dont think other classes can say this, but the only thing we have really solid is SB and our offhand warhorn. I dont see almost any rangers without these weapons.
I would prefer
Pets being more useful. Its hard to look at BM hunters in WoW and not be jealous. It pets could attack faster and land more hits that be the bees knees.
Mr Peters,
Lots of rangers have posted this is MOST noticeable when you compare SB auto spam with Quickening Zephyr post and pre changes. Not sure if that will help.
I’ll take a look on live right now!
Thank you so much! If you need a test rat, I volunteer!
Warrior Rifle Auto Attack is handily beating the crap out of our new SB. Honestly even before this change, Warrior Rifle Auto attack was sick (6 second bleeds WITHOUT the need to flank the enemy). Only reason I could justify that was we shot about twice as fast. That is no where near the case right now.
Not according to ANET.
“Rangers are proficient with the bow. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance. As an adventurer profession, rangers wear medium armor.”
Thats from ANET, not me.
It should also be noted that unlike out melee classes, our melee primary weapons are mostly avoidance weapons, not damage weapons. sANET did not make a D&D ranger.
(edited by faytte.1057)
I’m comparing my attacks to videos of SB attacks online (no quickness) and I can noticed a slow down. Its not an easy comparison though given those videos are erratic in combat where abilities are being used. i dont think the numbers are 40%, but something closer to about 20% slower.
Bad idea Anet.
Never try to make a ranger player use more than one button.
Other SB skills do not generate damage. They are positioning and control powers. All of the damage from SB steams from its auto attack. If you want to nerf it, rebalance the entire weapon.
Its also the ONLY ranged weapon we have that even compares to Warrior Ranged dps. According to our class description, we ‘excel’ at ranged combat, which is laughable. Warrior Rifle is insane.
Until they post otherwise, I will presume this was intentional.
Rifle Auto Attack now does more damage than it. Compare it on the Wiki. Unless SB attacks about 40% faster (which it doesnt) then Rifle decisively wins. Rifle projectiles are harder to avoid by side stepping, it applies a 6 second bleed WITHOUT positioning requirements (SB applies a 3 second bleed with positioning requirements).
Good thing Rangers are good at ranged eh? We wont even bring up head shot.
While I think the warrior numbers are shopped, the fact that one of the most survivable classes also wins on burst vs everyone but thieves, out supports most classes and is the best ranged damage dealer with head shot is RIDICULOUS.
Can we at least get a “we are looking into it?”
Can we get an official response. Not to be dramatic but if this change (the one in play, not the 40 milliseconds reported) is intended, then I can get to rerolling right away. SB was the only good thing about playing a ranger (and war horn offhands). Our Great Sword does pitifull damage, our longbow is ‘meh’, and our melee is generally lacking. Our Pets are at best damage sponges for PvE, they miss most of their attacks in PvP given how long the wide up animation on their attacks are.
If SB speed was nearly halved, then I can move on to the OP warrior like everyone else in my guild is doing. They out damage rangers at ranged combat, out support and certainly out melee damage us.
Seeing this topic I’m looking at the broken Hundred Blades, lol.
Yeah, I’m not even sure how pistol whip gets nerfed when Hundread Blades is allowed to exist as is.
They havnt said anything so far, which implies its not. Sorry you spent money on it. This is Guild Wars 2: Play a Warrior Edition. They do our job at ranged better, support better, and most certainly melee better.
I noticed this right away and thought it was just me. It was my guardian friend’s mentioning that he thought I was shooting slower that made me wonder if it was broken.
Being only level 67, I still feel like I’ve wasted the past month with this profession. The ranger is broken six ways till Sunday. I came to this game because people were praising how “balanced” it was. Just kidding?
Yep I feel the same way. Pets are meh at best. MoP WoW pets feel meaty, where pets in this game are just kind of lame; they rarely hit in pvp and their active abilities are generally very underwhelming.
Oh and warriors our ranged damage us handily now, so theres that too. In heavy armor no doubt with far better group support skills. Meanwhile our spirits get one shot.
Cross fire is now strictly worse than Warrior Rifle Auto Attack
Theirs fires slightly slower, does more damage
They apply a 6 second bleed with no positional requirements
Rangers apply a 3 second bleed WITH a positional requirement.
Good Game.
So now its fair to compare
Warrior Rifle Shot Auto Attack
Same Range, More damage. Not as fast, but thats no longer a huge difference given the speed nerf.
They apply a 6 second bleed regardless of positioning
Rangers apply a 3 second bleed if behind the target or along the sides.
Its no where near 40 milliseconds. They were off by a decimal point at the very least. I thought it was placebo at first but im no longer able to get anywhere near the bleed stacks I used to and all I have been doing since the restart is testing it.
Be nice to get an official response on this. If this stays in play, then I’m retiring my Ranger. Warriors were already better at ranged combat than Rangers were before this change, this is just the nail in the coffin.
I might switch to a Warrior after these changes. They were already arguably better at ranged than Rangers were. Better damage and they have burst where rangers have none.
Ditto on hearing their thoughts. This has basically gutted my Ranger. If this stays in play I might just convert to a warrior. They were already arguably better at ranged than us before hand, and now its just harder to justify not playing them. No positional requirement on their 1 condition damage (Which is a longer bleed and easier to stack) and KILL SHOT. Any ranger would give up their pet for kill shot.
I’ve never noticed a glitch.
Ranger SB is basically the reason I played the class.
Guess I can reroll warrior and be better at ranged with OP crap like Killshot.
Yeah theres no way its 40 milliseconds…
Anyway we can alert Devs of this thread?
Its significantly slower. At first I thought it was placebo but after killing 30 mobs in game, I’m not able to get anywhere near the bleed stacking I could earlier and the same creatures I was killing before the restart are taking significantly longer to down.
Can you please review your change. I think you were off by a decimal point.
Well I take it back. I just tested it. Theres no way this is a 40 milli second decrease.
Um..you realize 40 ms is about .004 of a second? I noticed no difference in my attack speed.
I think your suffering from placibo.
It would be nice to have a burst damage ranged weapon given that our Long Bow is more of a vulnerability/long range weapon and our SB is more of a DPS weapon.
Its strange that as a class we have very little long range burst.
My main issue with pets is how often they miss attacks cause targets move. Their attack animations just seem too long, especially F2 attack animations. This is more annoying in PvP but comes up in PvE given how mobile the fights can be.
Melee Combat
In general I feel our melee combat set is fairly weak. To break it down
Greatsword
Damage here is lack luster. Compared to GS of other classes, its simply very small. My SB handily out damages it and its similar to my Longbow damage on single targets, despite all the added danger of using this weapon vs staying ranged.
Auto Attack: No conditions are applied, buffs or otherwise. One and two strike about as fast as any other classes great sword hits, third attack has a very brief evade. This is very underwhelming for an auto attack spam.
Swoop: Compared to Guardians similar leap which also blinds nearby foes, the Ranger variant is again, kind of underwhelming. The AoE damage is ‘ok’.
Counter Attack/Crippling Throw: Interesting ability but somewhat odd in this set. It is a knock back primarily on what is our heavy melee build. Not terrible.
Maul: Not a bad skill
Hit Bash: Good Control.
Overall this becomes a very difficult to position weapon. It has some movement and evasiveness built in, and some control and some condition damage, but in general very little of any one thing. Hard to build a ‘build’ around a great sword. Damage is simply poor.
Sword
More of our skirmishing weapon
Auto Attack: A three attack chain that moves us, gives might to our pet and cripples our foe. Damage is so so but overall the snare and might and movement give it a unique purpose for chasing down people.
Hornet Sting/Monarch Leap: Very good set overall
Serpent Strike: Um…how few times this connects? I hear other classes with similar ‘roll behind the target’ abilities also seem to disdain them. The thing is the evasive animation takes to long, enemies move, the strike never connects.
There is no real theme here to build around other than straight power in general. I feel our melee offhands (axe/dagger) are quite good but the main hands are just lacking compared to other classes.
Pets
Pet animations for attack and F2 abilities are simply to long. While I dont want to see their DPS increased, I think the animations need to be made far shorter, with longer periods between attacks to compensate. Right now if someone just keeps moving, pets almost never get an attack off on the opponent because of how long the attack animation is.
Spirits
They die in a hit…they were simply over nerfed
Rangers are better overall than Warriors in ranged. That said its not like they are twice as good, warriors are a good ranged class same as rangers can do good melee damage if they choose to do so. In general our ranged arsenal is better as our the traits that compliment it and our general play style. The one huge advantage I give to Warriors is head shot. I wish we had something similar. Technically our pets are a far greater source of DPS than head shot, but the burst of it is rather nice.
In sPvP I can kill just about anyone on a One on One pretty easily. The method though is not staying at melee, so I’m not sure how a melee ranger would fair, but between conditions, traps, kitting, my pets powers, I can burn people down. Healing spring with SB procing for regen is a great way to keep up health, and we have a ton of fields and effects. I typically run axe/torch in my off set from SB, giving me another snare, and fire damage sources ontop of a great fire field (which I try to ‘fight in’ during its duration to eat up my targets health).
For runes i go undead, which make me pretty tanky. Traits go for condition and crit and those come with some rather nifty tanky effects like sending conditions to my pet and going into stealth, etc.
Warriors a jack of all trades but master of none..seems wrong.
They are tied for best melee and competitive for best ranged, have the best signets, some of the best support builds…etc etc.
Um ok a few things
1500 range matters because in WvW, dash closers arnt going to matter in most situations. A ranger will have his team around to support him, dashing in on them gets you killed, while they have 300 more range (quite a bit) to snipe, kite and kill. In general their longbow > fighter longbow at this range for a variety of reasons (non reliance on target being ignited, on average can sustain 15% bonus damage from traits).
Within 1200 range, the debate is Rifle vs SB (sPvP)
SB auto fires twice as fast (do a side by side test). It has a positional requirement for its bleed, but applies straight dps much MUCH better than rifle.
For 2-5 Warriors have
a 5 sec cripple every 10 seconds
a barrage that lets them do about the damage shortbow does with their auto attack
vulnerability (rangers apply this from LB before switching to SB)
a knock back that requires melee range
For 2-5 Rangers have
a aoe poison that works like a shot gun;multiple arrows can hit the same target and stack duration (-33% healing is no joke)
a very short cooldown (9 without traits) evasive shot that also grants swiftness (prefer this to melee range knock back, since it can bounce you back into your friends)
a 3 sec cripple that also applies 3 stacks of bleeds on the target (so not as long of a chill vs a warrior, but more total damage)
a daze or stun (warrior has no counter part)
As a SET of weapons, Ranger LB/SB also compliment eachother more than Warrior LB/SB. Ranger LB becomes a source of knock backs (better than warrior) and vulnerabilities (shorter cooldown than warrior counter part).
So the differentiation is head shot.
Is it good? Hell yes. Does it in my opinion compensate. No, in general people dont understand pets and how freaking awesome they are. In an sPvP fight if my pets been on you a few seconds, even moving around and with their crappy auto/move issues, a lynx on its own is going to apply a number of stacks of vulnerabilities, plenty of bleeds (especially with its active, which can be done every 30 seconds. Since you can swap pets between that, you can realistically use a special about 20 seconds form your pets).
Head Shot is great, but Ranger just feels better at ranged than Warriors. They can laugh all around the amazing damage they sometimes get off a head shot, but I feel thats more or less the extent of their ranged. Their LB is so so, i find the auto attack speed is worse than that of a rangers (which is already kind of slow).
Ranger is not really a burst damage class, and it relies on the pet a lot so when your pet dies or cannot reach your target you loose a lot of dps on the way.
The way i see it…there is not a build that doesn’t use the pets like in GW1, so it’s quite an issue in terms of dps because pets hit quite hard. I’d stay with warrior/thief if you want burst damage.
Here is the thing though, compare our abilities to a warriors or a thief, and the abilities on their OWN stack up. The pet is gravy. In general our ranged kit (as a whole) seems better than either of the before mentioned classes (much more so than thieves whom are stuck at 900 range). At melee range though its reverse. So I guess it depends on what type of ranger you are playing…?
In short? Yes.
Let me explain that its not a huge difference, and its subtle, but there is one, and its generally due to how we operate vs other classes at ranged.
This is due to traits, pets and attack speed.
Our longbow seems to fire a bit faster than other classes longbow (i.e warrior). Our shortbow by comparison is a machine gun (and balanced as such).
For long range power, a ranger can get his longbow to 1500 range, his 1 hits like a ton of bricks. In general the suite (compared to warrior who I feel is the closest competitor for non raw AOE damage like the Elementalist). Warriors can get extra range but our talent also ups longbow damage by 5% at the same time (theres does not). Its not a significant difference before you examine it as a total kit. Rangers have more access to many different conditions, they are on shorter cooldowns and can stack them better to.
Ontop of that, you have your pet. In PvE, these are beats. Mine regularly will tank champions while I solo kill them. In PvP, a pet is an extra damage source with an active ability that can be clutch. My Lynx for instance on my condition builds can stack tons of bleeds on its own, while things like Wolf can AOE immobilize my foes (awesome sauce!).
The best things about a ranger though are the traits.
10% bonus damage when endurance is full is an easy to fufill condition. Your arrows penetrate targets is great in WvW and sPvP, letting you rack up easy extra damage. Warrior ranged extra damage is based off a burning foe which can be cleansed away.
Its just how balance is made. You are insanely mobile and great in every other aspect of the game. Your 900 range is also very solid to be frank, having you guys at 1200 with your autos I feel is a bit 2 strong.