Guild Wars 2

ronpierce.2760:

I made top 10 (7) in tPvP with it doing 1/2/2(far) me and a spirit ranger going far. I just roamed with the spirit ranger and we did just fine. I agree MM is actually an UNDERPOWERED (wutttt?!?!!?) spec, and needs help. They’re nerfing its 1v1 viability but forgetting its other mass issues:
-Terrible team use
-No reliable cc breaks outside of wurm which has a 1.5 sec pre-cast and often does more harm than good to sacrifice
-No stability
-Terrible Mobility
-No extra evades/vigor/protection/block
-LF generation comes down to pretty much dagger 1 hits or pets dying, and if you don’t get LF you’re basically a sitting duck.
-Huge weakness to aoe cc/snares/kiting.
- Huge weakness to aoe damage.
- Purely single target.

People don’t understand the true dynamics of mm, they just see a bunch of names and die and freak out. :P

MM could certainly use some less dmging pets, especially for 1v1. I can agree to that. But they desperately need help in many many other ways. I play it because I enjoy it, it does take a lot of ability management, especially to CC lock someone enough for pets to have uptime. The problem is nubs don’t require cc to hit, hence why its so strong against terrible players and 1v1 in general. But its in no way the strongest 1v1 build and having played one in actual competitive gameplay, its not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. It’s hawk… Rabbit killer for life.

Necro has options for being a strong team fighter. You choose not to take them.

Your logic in this post is the same as “PU mesmer is underpowered because it isn’t good in team fights and lacks stability”.

You choose to play with this scrubby, annoying build. So yeah, it should have weaknesses.

Minions should not be massive raw damage against any amount of targets, single or otherwise. Your damage should come primarily from you with telegraphed attacks.

Again, I don’t know how much clearer this can be.

WOW guys, I linked the wrong build, I’ve changed it to the proper longbow power ranger build now

This in my opinion is the best Power Ranger build you can run in PvP currently.

You have:

-High armor
-High HP
-High DPS
-High Condition removal
- Huge amounts of CC
-Lots of Burning
-High Mobility

Weaknesses:

-None

Also, your dog pet can hit people for like 2k!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQJATSjMdUFaXImhwJaAB94LqCuQ9YO2w4IVQMA-ToAA1CnIQShkDJDSSksINsYRB

Paid tournaments have been gone for like a year?

Simon.3794:

totally agree. hambow is annoying, but i would rather fight it over any of those pistol whip thief, mm necro, decap engi, condition war, condition mesmer.

as of FGS, i actually consider it a skill shot, rather then being annoying and stupid.

To be honest, other than combustive shot, after the cast time and animation is added to pin down you will be able to play quite reactively against hambow warriors. This is why I’m not calling out this spec, even though it hardcounters both my main classes.

Chaith.8256:

ronpierce.2760:

Ah, I love seeing all this MM hate.

Started from the bottom now were ’ere! >:D

I love when the enemy team in soloq runs a Minionmancer.

My findings have shown that when the enemy team has a person totally dedicated to virtually AFKing on their home node, and leaving a 4v5 situation on far & mid, the probability of that person being a Minionmancer is 75%+.

Minionmancers have no mobility, so roaming between mid and home is a bit unpleasant, especially when a fast enemy just beats you back to the home you need to defend. Minionmancers have no decapping power, so assaulting far point is impossible as a double-role. Minionmancers have mediocre teamfighting power.

A Minionmancer in solo queue just stares longingly across the map, chained to home point. Please, fight me.

Lol, if that’s the role you enjoy, why aren’t you on a decap Engineer already?

While I do see this happening frequently, my thread is about builds which I think frustrate people and make the game less fun. MM is a troll 1v1 build, and I’ve seen it played effectively as a far point assaulter as well.

Caed (Narcarsis.5739) is currently the best D/P thief playing the game. He streams on Twitch usually once or twice a week where you could watch/ask questions

He uses this build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAoaVlsMp0pdOx7J8PNhs9onqQey7BZNWmlWBaC-TsAg0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1MKYZx0CA

It’s just slightly different from yours.

The best tips I can tell you are remember that this is a steal based build, meaning if you land your steal every time you are at a huge advantage.

Another important thing about thief gameplay in tPvP is that in tournaments thief is not intended as a 1v1 class, instead you stay between home and mid and burst people who have already used their cooldowns in fights. Then, as soon as you see far point left undefended you shadow shot out there really fast, decap the point, and then run back to mid to start bursting people.

1. Berserker’s for PvE.

2. Dire for WvW roaming

3. Power mixed with a bit of survivability for zerging in WvW

There isn’t much point in mixing them really. Also you can roam pretty well as a power necro in zerkers if you want an all in one build power wellomancer works well. No pun intended

Nighthawk.4687:

I’m queuing solo

When you first start playing in solo queue, your MMR starts out pretty high, if you keep playing games then you should eventually be playing with new(er) players closer to your skill level.

I think there arent a lot of people queueing solo right now, so it can be kind of tough for the system to match you with people of a similar skill level.

If you continually get put with players you think are much more advanced than you are it probably is because there aren’t enough people queueing.

Are you queueing in team or solo queue?

When I first tried engi in solo queue I won my first 9/10 games with it and got higher on the leaderboards than I had ever been before (top 300).

And at the time my standard build was spirit ranger.

Condition spamming Automated Response engineer is incredibly powerful and pretty easy to play in solo queue. Much easier than condi necro imo since you can’t be punished nearly as easily for overextending/misrotating.

BlackBeard.2873:

infantrydiv.1620:

-Decap Engineer: A spec that is based around shoving your enemy off point and forcing them to 2v1 you due to the fact that you are incredibly tanky and have Automated Response. Totally against the spirit of PvP/Conquest in general. Arenanet should create a special mode calling Engi Sumo wrestling, ban these guys from normal pvp, and send them there. They can even have their own leaderboards.

That’s funny! There was actually a skyhammer golf tourney a few weeks back. Maybe that should be a thing (making the best of a terrible situation in both skyhammer and decap/cc spam engies).

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the new game mode they are talking about -.-

Clarification: These are not all top tier tournament specs, I’ve singled out the specs I find least fun to play against. Specs that go against the spirit of conquest in general or have massive amounts of clutter/bad mechanics.

I hear a lot of people on these forums say meta specs like hambow and condition engies/necros, , spirit rangers, bunker guardians take no skill.

For me, I’ve grown to understand these meta specs, and I honestly don’t mind playing against them. Yes, they all have passives and irritating things about them, but overall I find that the above listed builds do fit the descriptions and the general playstyle these classes should exhibit

Then there is a different tier of specs entirely, which I absolutely hate playing against:

-Condition Automated Response Engineer: Yes, Automated response isn’t that good for team queue. However, I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an Automated Response Engi running around at 20% health for almost the entirety of a solo queue game. It’s stupid. It should be removed.

-Minion Necromancer: Differing from the AR Engi, the MM relies on extreme passive damage instead of passive survivability. Minions can deal thousands of damage in seconds if you arent constantly evading or blinding them. This is a 1v1 spec that puts the burden totally on the other play to outplay it. Oh, and you are also punished for killing the minions because they explode on death (which is also unblockable). It’s stupid. It should be removed.

-PU Mesmer: Not seen much in tpvp, but again: Summon phantasms, stealth, wait for enemy to kill what is damaging him and get giant stacks of condis because he kills your clones all while you gain aegis and protection and regen. It’s stupid, it should be removed.

-Decap Engineer: A spec that is based around shoving your enemy off point and forcing them to 2v1 you due to the fact that you are incredibly tanky and have Automated Response. Totally against the spirit of PvP/Conquest in general. Arenanet should create a special mode calling Engi Sumo wrestling, ban these guys from normal pvp, and send them there. They can even have their own leaderboards.

-Sword/Pistol Thief: The idea behind thief sword gameplay appears to be using 2 to port to your enemy and then being vulnerable while you deliver burst, and then being smart about when to port back or swap weapons. Well, GUESS WHAT with sword/pistol you get to evade during your burst. Another stupid spec which should be fixed.

Specific Game Mode
Primarily PvP and WvW, but decent for PvE as well
Proposal Overview
Reverse the leaps on Ranger Sword Skill #2
Goal of Proposal
Currently the Ranger sword skill #2 leaps backwards and then forwards, the goal of the proposal would be to make the sword first leap forwards and then backwards
Proposal Functionality
Currently the sword 2 leap feels kind of wonky and useless in most situations. It’s alright because of the hard evade on it and the distance generation of the initial leap, but reversing the leaps would improve fluidity of gameplay. For example, with my proposal you could do combos like this:
Sword 2 to leap into the fight, Sword 3 to poison, Torch 5 for burning field, Sword 3 to leap out of burning field, swap to longbow or shortbow now at range.
Associated Risks
Not much, I’d say that the evade on Sword 2 could be removed if this was implemented, but keep the cripple and leap finisher.

No. No PvP patches until April.

You better watch yourself sir or you will get an infraction with posts like this.

Arenanet has had just about enough with trolls like you.

In terms of balance patch/pvp update frequency, has the team considered doing small number tweaks on a more frequent basis (Such as 8% healing signet nerf)?

I’ve heard that you guys are basically tied up by whatever the higher-up designers feel like releasing, but a lot of PvPers believe that more frequent balance tweaks would lead to a much better game.

fishball.7204:

mesmers are bad.

Right there!!!

Rickster.8752:

So in conclusion. If you want to get a big ego about being “best players Eu/NA” then really I wouldn’t bother. It just makes yourself look like a fool.

This is coming from the dude who I’m pretty sure posted 3 threads advertising that he was the best player in the game because he was rank 1 solo queue leaderboards.

LOL

Writetyper.1985:

play a ranger, involves some mad skills like actively reacting to passives

Yeah, like actively reacting to Incendiary Powder or Backback Regenerator or Automated Response or Protection Injection

Yeah Zell is a great streamer. His viewers didn’t even ask for the handstand twerk but he always aims to please

apt.9184:

It is you’re perception if you do not have a spirit ranger you have a disadvantage to an actual comp. Only reason you do not see many of them is because no one wants to play a class that rely’s solely on the number 1 (cause it is so fun to auto attack people to death #anet class design). You really can’t be bad at spirit ranger, but you can be bad at game mechanically.

I’ve seen lots of bad spirit rangers. Do you realize how easy it is to absolutely wreck a spirit ranger who only presses spirits, crossfire and heal?

Thieves are one of the strongest classes in spvp currently and a must have at high tier tournaments.

Rangers are good, but losing ground pretty rapidly due to the power of thieves and warriors.

-Ranger who has played both beastmaster and spirit builds in the top 100 team/solo queue.

Morderger.6298:

Solo in teamq, problem solved. This is probably why they left it in the game.

TBH I dont wanna wait 10-15 minutes for a queue pop and then meet a premade, although i do solo queue in team queue quite a bit recently.

Map sucks, devs are blind if they cannot see how OP and stupid some skills are on this map

Brix.8461:

infantrydiv.1620:

Woooooo! it’s too bad NA doesn’t have a weekly tournament! looks at Arenanet

You should check our this forum post

No teams have signed up q.q :’(

Woooooo! it’s too bad NA doesn’t have a weekly tournament! looks at Arenanet

Flytrap.8075:

afoot.6932:

Shadowbane.7109:

Now you plan on taking the spirits away and adding it to the kitten pet.

Someone else agrees with me! Removing the spirits diminishes the ranger’s roleplaying options. You might as well rename the vitality traitline if you remove spirits, because the spirits are the only “nature magic” a ranger does.

Just going to reiterate that making spirits automatically follow you, non-targetable, and dependent on the ranger’s health (not the pet’s) would be a much better solution.

The simple truth is that spirits in their current form are ridiculously toxic in sPvP. They require no skill and offer far too much passive power. The whole strategy behind the build is essentially to spam your auto-attack and to hide in the zoo clutter.

I don’t think that Ranger’s “roleplaying options” should be placed ahead of balancing the class.

To be quite honest, mesmers and minion necros make spirits look quite clean/unobtrusive in comparison. I usually have no trouble locating even an Asuran Ranger in the middle of spirits because they are opaque.

Spirit Ranger is currently only taken now for the Elite Spirit and the healing is getting nerfed by 33% soon. This nerf is justified, but spirits in PvP otherwise are in a good place.

The fact is that good spirit ranger gameplay involves activating pet skills and spirit skills at the right time while paying attention to teammates health and dropping healing spring for group cleansing, evading burst, keeping the spirits alive, managing pet targets, interrupting necro and thief heals, and applying poison to warriors and guardians.

However, Crossfire IS very good for keeping up pressure on squishies like S/P thief as soon as they enter the fight. But if you’d like to make Thieves even stronger, then yeah, nerf shortbow.

Specific Game Mode
PvP/WvW
Proposal Overview
Fixing some Ranger traits and modifying pet attacks so that there are less worthless pets
Goal of Proposal
Reliance upon Empathic bond forcing rangers to go 30 into wilderness survival, useless pets
Proposal Functionality
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-WvW-Realistic-Ranger-Changes/first#post3735529
Linking my thread since the list is rather long
Associated Risks
Some things might need to be toned down, but I tried to keep it balanced

Master of Timespace.2548:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Finally, rather than seeking opinions, you should actually take a look at top PvP win percentage. You should check the top ranking matches and see if thieves contribute to the winning rate. That is a far more accurate representation of the current situation rather seeking forum users claims.
.

Do you watch any yoloq, teamq or other tournament streams?

He obviously doesn’t lol

If you actually believe that a skill which functions as CC, massive burst, and evades which can be spammed 6 times in a row is balanced: good luck to you sir.

snow.8097:

i read again and have new critics

dadnir is right with hunters focus
i like the idea from fake patch notes with eagle eye but that would be make power ranger probably op without changes. lesser proc, lesser might duration or a little icd would make it more balanced. but just in pvp/wvw. i think its not important for pve. maybe then rangers do enough dmg for dungeon farmer.

i didnt noticed that the effect of honed axes changed more then the idea with cripple.
in combination with ur dmg buff on mainhand axe it would feel like i through a big hammer on foe. could be too strong. it should be more in line with other weapon bonuses (5/7%)
and means A/A then 20% more dmg?

Expertise training is not needed. in cdi some talked about dmg pets on condi builds are foo strong. maybe with power builds with condi pets and this trait the same.

bountiful hunter is difficult. plsy on warhorn and u have 6%. then with prot on dodge or boons from runes up to to ten percent. and in dungeon and zergfights even more because u hqve almost all boons all the time.
with 1% per boon it would be a nerf. i think 5% is absolutely okay.

intimidation training was the trait for spiddrs and dogs right?
this trait has other problems. why they give us cripple on f2 that concentrate on immob chill and fear? we loose a big part of that effect because the other debuffs are stronger and negates cripple half of the time

guard is weak for its effect but when the effect changes the cd needs to stay.
when not that would kill the shout ranger who use it for perma swift and regen.
i would love to see something with blind. mqybe the pet is invisible because they rolled in dirt and the first attack blinds foes for a small amount of time.

fern hound change with the heal buff on traits would be a bit to strong. i mean its a aoe heal with over 1500 heal. idk how that howl triggers with heal power.

that are my new minds

I think you guys are right about Hunter’s Focus. I’ll add a 1 second ICD and change the Might duration to 8 seconds. This will prevent people from stacking tons of might with Longbow 2 & 5. This should equate to: If someone runs with 50% might duration, the most might they can get is 12 stacks, and that’s only if they land a critical hit every single second for 12 seconds in a row.

I disagree with the damage buff to axes being overpowered though. Right now in PvP I can run a full glass ranger and be dealing around 800s with the Axe auto attack. Thieves with 3300 power would be dealing around 1400s with shortbow auto and would still be much less squishy with their on demand ports and stealth. A 30% increase to Ricochet would be make a full glass ranger deal about 1000-1100 damage on Axe auto which feels about right in my opinion. Axe 4 is the only attack that scales well with power in my opinion.

As for expertise training, this trait is hardly ever taken due to the fact that no pets really do substantial condition damage. Adding an extra 150 definitely would not make pets overpowered.

I agree Guard needs a change, it’s just too strange feeling and doesnt really serve a purpose other than being on a short cooldown for getting regeneration

Buffing the fern hounds heal by 500 again brings it closer to the more powerful attacks of the wolf and krytan drakehound. I currently don’t see anyone at all running this pet, so I doubt we are suddenly going to see it become OP because the healing got increased by approximately 25 per second.

SonofNoob.3102:

tigirius.9014:

OmaiGodman.2098:

PVP seems to have most of the cool armors I hope eventually they’ll also come to PvE.

Yep add it to the long list of armors that PVE players and RPers can’t access.

What? There is a ton of armors/weapons that aren’t available in PvP. Way more than the other way around.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

OGDeadHead.8326:

Lots of good suggestions. For remorseless, I would really like to unlock this trait for other weapons than the longbow. Either regain it on pet swap, or give us more options to gain stealth, maybe through the jaguars F2 and/or through guard.

I prefer the first option though, since I think the game would be better overall with less stealth in it.

Although most probably overpowered, it would be cool if Opening Strike recharged on interrupting your foe as well

AEFA.9035:

Ltomato.8649:

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Potential Longbow Skill Changes (non-overhaul)

Goal of Proposal
Many players feel that the Longbow is an underwhelming weapon. I am offering some non-overhaul skill tweaks, since I (as someone who has put waaaay too much time into longbow ranger) believe that the basic design mechanics of the longbow are sound, unique, and engaging.

Proposal Functionality
s1- Long Range Shot: Increase projectile speed to allow more reliable hits against enemies, as this is a targeted skill and very easy to walk out of the way of at > 1200 range. Doesn’t need to be undodge-able, just more reliable.
: Alternatively- Decrease channel time. The skill would feel more reactive and less “clunky”.

s2- Rapid Fire: Decrease channel time by 1 second while maintaining the damage output. This would make the skill a bit more of a burst of damage, as well as maintaining a higher concentration of vulnerability. (Low cooldown and still comparatively long channel time to damage still allows this to be considered “sustained damage”)

s3-Hunter’s Shot: In addition to current functionality, add 1/2 second of evade on use. This would give the skill more of a use of an escape, providing a better feeling of reactionary dodging.
: Alternatively- In addition to current functionality, add Apply Revealed on target on hit. This would allow Rangers to effectively counter stealth.

s4- Point Blank Shot: Unblockable/Unreflectable. Makes this skill more of a failsafe, and actually effective against enemies that are looming in upon the ranger that may be reflecting projectiles or have some sort of block. Cooldown could be increased to 15 seconds to counteract a very powerful skill.
:Alternatively- Increase base range to 1200. Makes a little less sense since it’s no longer “point-blank”, but maintains the range as other longbow attacks, making it less clunky to use.

s5- Barrage: Buff into more of a projectile storm than an AoE, ala Ice Bow’s skill 4. This would increase damage and enemies affected, which seems fitting for its long cooldown and rooted channel.
:Alternatively- Allow movement while channeling. Evens out the risk/reward balance for using the skill.
:Alternatively- Immobilizes enemies hit by the first barrage or entering the AoE for 1 second. Makes the skill more useful even if the entire channel isn’t launched.

Associated Risks
The skill additions I’m suggesting are very strong. The Longbow is currently still underestimated, and too much tweaking could easily push it over the edge. Just two or three of these suggested skill additions would improve longbow ranger quality of life greatly.

All of them might be a bit much, but very, very fun.

These would also impact PvP and WvW, especially s3 alternative and my suggestions for s5.

I like this guy. Most of these Rangers posts under the impression that the class is just pure useless when they post in CDI. Been reading your post, good stuff. Though LB 4 CD increased to compensate I dont agree on, this is our only gap increaser in game. If LB auto is changed sure. Was thinking ANet should lower CD from this skill actually. I love point blank, using this after your auto animation is just too good plus the the knock back. I do agree this should be on a 1200 range though. Good stuff

Yes, look at these longbow suggestions Allie, they are good!

From a Ranger main, PLEASE!

I hate on Pistol Whip as much as the next guy, but yeah, losing initiative is enough punishment in my opinion

snow.8097:

i am surprised. i thought the most Suggestions would be absolutely opbut.. i like ur thinking. most of them are really good and creative.

ur idea to honed axes could need a ICD
i am critical to changes regarding EB and traps
shout master would be the 6th of soldier rune. idk if this is okay and when with 10p in bm is it maybe too easy to get
i really like stability training. is like the ele master trait solid rock.

personally i dont like the dev idea regarding greatsword. gs is defensive and we would loose sustain without gs evade on AA.
maul dont need the bleed. its strong enough.
good change for stalkers strike
idk why the elite spirit nerf seems a bit too much.

fat plus for drake ideas. really good suggestion. make them really usable in wvw
the attacks of arctodus and black bear seem a bit to strong for me.
the easiest way to make them more attractive when the bonus item is in f2 place like thiefes have. maybe with an option to give the effect an allie too. but donk know how

the rest of ur ideas are good or i have no opinion yet

Thanks for the feedback!

It’s true that shout mastery might need to be broken into two traits, because a ranger running protect me, guard and empathic bond could remove a lot of conditions while being really tanky.

I’m thinking that I’d actually like to see the two trap traits both moved to Wilderness Survival with Martial Mastery being swapped with Trapper’s expertise. This would buff greatsword power builds and make it so that trap ranger became more viable for team fighting.

I wouldn’t mind keeping the evade on the Ranger GS if the auto could be made to not feel like hitting your opponent with a noodle…

jcbroe.4329:

infantrydiv.1620:

jcbroe.4329:

No problem!

Yeah, the Trap Potency idea isn’t even a bad switch, it’s just hard to speculate how build would change without sitting in front of a build editor and seeing possible build combinations.

Like, with your changes, a trap build would become x/20/30/x/x with Trapper’s Expertise, Trap Potency, and Empathic Bond, and either Offhand Training or Shared Anguish, which is a new tough decision that I didn’t previously have to make. That leaves me with 20 points to spend, and I can honestly say I have no idea what I would spend them on. Because of the range on traps,

I’d be tempted to go 30 points into Skirmishing anyways to pick up Honed Axes for that much more CC lockdown to keep people I’m attacking in traps while doing more consistent damage combined with a Rabid Amulet, and then the last 10 in Either Marksmanship or Nature Magic I guess.

But that’s just off the top of my head theorycrafting. I would probably end up testing lots of different variations before I could even begin to give a solid opinion.

Well for example you could go 20 into marksmanship for piercing arrows and sharpening stone to play traps with more team fight capability or you could put it into beastmastery and run with a shaman’s amulet for tanky trap Beastmaster type spec

Yeah, but I’m thinking at that point, with the damage increase on the Axe plus Rabid plus potentially Sharpened Edges (bleed on crit) and the chance to cripple, the axe might end up being the overall better team fight utility.

Entirely up to preference though, you would still have to get point blank to create bleed stacks which would probably discourage the axe from team fights a lot, and being forced into Rabid isn’t really the most enjoyable thing in the world.

Ehhhh, just semantics lol. Overall, again, I don’t seen anything wrong with any of your suggestions, so nitpicking over theorycrafting preferences is like, for the sake of doing it at that point hahaha.

Well, I think my axe changes would really help MH Axe become the group fighter it seems it was meant to be. Right now the axe auto feels insanely weak compared to thief shortbow. Axe 2 is a good team fighting ability since it automatically pierces targets, but after you use axe 2 and 3 the auto feels like you have nothing left. Right now the ranger shortbow is used to apply consistent pressure to any target the team calls and it’s really good at that because of the fire rate, the interrupt and the poison.

Personally I find Carrion to almost always be the better option for offensive based condition builds and the current meta would agree with me since almost all rangers are using carrion. I’ve often wondered why this is and I think it’s mainly because the Ranger class relies a lot on attrition and having a big health pool to soak up initial hits is pretty valuable against warriors/thieves. It’s also great against necromancers and engineers… since toughness doesnt matter at all to them

solrik.6028:

You just nerfed our condi cleanse, traps and a lot of other stuff.

Am I supposed to spend 50 (!!!!) points for traps now?

How many hours do you have on your ranger?

If you had bothered to read the entirety of my changes you would see that condition removal is added in other places. Rangers already have great condition removal in condition based builds like spirits. My changes add condition removal to shouts as well as adding it to two heals. It also makes Empathic bond easier to get on all builds and more team based.

And as for traps, I suppose you have a point, but I consider traps only worth taking in condition builds, and clearly Wilderness Survival is the strongest condition traitline. Therefore to me it would seem as though I actually had to spend less points in Skirmishing

Vuh.1328:

Not pistolwhip related really, but one of the best ideas i’ve seen for thieves in general with the broken initiative system:

Acandis.3250:

I think if they just made it so every consecutive cast of the same skill costs + 1 (Eg. Cast 3 heartseekers in a row will cost 3 + 4 + 5) it’d go a long way towards the blind spam of the same skill.

Would also be nice if chill affected initiative regeneration.

But hell, I’m only a player with top competitive background, leave it to the bright minds of the balance team to dig us out of this meta.

Lol both Lux and I had this same idea earlier too :O Seems like it would be pretty cool

Well rounded:

1. Warrior
2. Guardian
3. Thief

jcbroe.4329:

No problem!

Yeah, the Trap Potency idea isn’t even a bad switch, it’s just hard to speculate how build would change without sitting in front of a build editor and seeing possible build combinations.

Like, with your changes, a trap build would become x/20/30/x/x with Trapper’s Expertise, Trap Potency, and Empathic Bond, and either Offhand Training or Shared Anguish, which is a new tough decision that I didn’t previously have to make. That leaves me with 20 points to spend, and I can honestly say I have no idea what I would spend them on. Because of the range on traps,

I’d be tempted to go 30 points into Skirmishing anyways to pick up Honed Axes for that much more CC lockdown to keep people I’m attacking in traps while doing more consistent damage combined with a Rabid Amulet, and then the last 10 in Either Marksmanship or Nature Magic I guess.

But that’s just off the top of my head theorycrafting. I would probably end up testing lots of different variations before I could even begin to give a solid opinion.

Well for example you could go 20 into marksmanship for piercing arrows and sharpening stone to play traps with more team fight capability or you could put it into beastmastery and run with a shaman’s amulet for tanky trap Beastmaster type spec

Lux.7169:

infantrydiv.1620:

Lux.7169:

infantrydiv.1620:

Lux.7169:

I think pistol whip is more or less fine in the competitive scene. Meaning it’s a low skill cap build that is rarely seen (if ever) in high-end pvp. I don’t know anyone in the top 200 running pistol whip, at least not in NA. I think I K is the really only successful high-end top 100 pw thief NA.

I think the problem with PW is that it’s a gimmicky mechanic that gives a squishy class invuln frames to spam high burst damage back to back. As such a bad PW thief can kill a very good non-PW glassy class (ele, mes, thieves, bad necros etc etc). So as a thief who has invested thousands of hours into your class and spec, if you die to a person who is just picking up PW for the first time and won by 3-spam teleporting because you ate a basi when your stunbreak was on cd then you kind of feel crappy.

Any glass class without a stunbreak will be roasted by PW unless you are truly advanced in your respective class.

One more thing I would like to mention. The great thing about classes like thief and ele is that you can counter burst. Basically if a class goes in to burst you you can usually interrupt their burst and counter it with your own. This is extremely difficult to do with the nature of PW since it’s a burst that evades and any good PW thief will be able to mitigate the few fractions of a second that they’re vulnerable.

Magic Toker, Shad, and Sizer all run S/P now.

Aren’t shad and sizer EU? And I honestly haven’t seen toker in weeks and I have been extremely active recently.

Yup, toker hasn’t team Q’d since 2/25 and he’s decayed off top 1k solo Q

Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen google on his PW thief in at least a month, maybe longer. Last two times I have seen him he was not even thief.

So… no one in NA currently running PW at a top tier level?

Not saying it’s impossible because clearly it is since I’ve seen sizer streaming with it before, but just pointing out that it’s not prominent in the high-end competitive scene on NA.

Why does it matter which server side people are playing it? These EU teams have beaten all the best NA teams. And these threads are primarily coming from EU players I believe because the spec is spreading fast in EU solo queue.

This is the only thief spec I’ve ever taken issue with because you are literally evading while doing massive damage.

In NA, I’ve seen Ozielol run pistol whip. I don’t really know who is left in the competitive NA scene other than vVv and Disney Channel

The only reason I differentiated between EU and NA is because I have no experience in EU at all. I don’t know how they play. I know they’ve out-performed NA in every major tournament which is why I said it’s definitely possible to be a top tier PW thief.

What’s with the hostility? I never said it was unviable in high-tier play. You seem really offended that I differentiated between NA and EU and when I pointed out that the ONLY two thieves you mentioned haven’t played PW in weeks you got aggressive.

Of course I know EU has beaten NA multiple times. Where did I say it mattered that EU or NA thieves mattered at all in this conversation? You’re assuming things and putting things in my mouth that I never said or even suggested.

I can’t even see a speck of hostility in my post, sorry if it came across like that.

What I was responding to was: “I think pistol whip is more or less fine in the competitive scene. Meaning it’s a low skill cap build that is rarely seen (if ever) in high-end pvp”

I think it’s becoming increasingly common in high tier pvp and for the obvious reasons about the evade frames/ lack of risk involved.

I expect it soon to start transitioning from EU meta to NA :/

Lux.7169:

infantrydiv.1620:

Lux.7169:

I think pistol whip is more or less fine in the competitive scene. Meaning it’s a low skill cap build that is rarely seen (if ever) in high-end pvp. I don’t know anyone in the top 200 running pistol whip, at least not in NA. I think I K is the really only successful high-end top 100 pw thief NA.

I think the problem with PW is that it’s a gimmicky mechanic that gives a squishy class invuln frames to spam high burst damage back to back. As such a bad PW thief can kill a very good non-PW glassy class (ele, mes, thieves, bad necros etc etc). So as a thief who has invested thousands of hours into your class and spec, if you die to a person who is just picking up PW for the first time and won by 3-spam teleporting because you ate a basi when your stunbreak was on cd then you kind of feel crappy.

Any glass class without a stunbreak will be roasted by PW unless you are truly advanced in your respective class.

One more thing I would like to mention. The great thing about classes like thief and ele is that you can counter burst. Basically if a class goes in to burst you you can usually interrupt their burst and counter it with your own. This is extremely difficult to do with the nature of PW since it’s a burst that evades and any good PW thief will be able to mitigate the few fractions of a second that they’re vulnerable.

Magic Toker, Shad, and Sizer all run S/P now.

Aren’t shad and sizer EU? And I honestly haven’t seen toker in weeks and I have been extremely active recently.

Yup, toker hasn’t team Q’d since 2/25 and he’s decayed off top 1k solo Q

Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen google on his PW thief in at least a month, maybe longer. Last two times I have seen him he was not even thief.

So… no one in NA currently running PW at a top tier level?

Not saying it’s impossible because clearly it is since I’ve seen sizer streaming with it before, but just pointing out that it’s not prominent in the high-end competitive scene on NA.

Why does it matter which server side people are playing it? These EU teams have beaten all the best NA teams. And these threads are primarily coming from EU players I believe because the spec is spreading fast in EU solo queue.

This is the only thief spec I’ve ever taken issue with because you are literally evading while doing massive damage.

In NA, I’ve seen Ozielol run pistol whip. I don’t really know who is left in the competitive NA scene other than vVv and Disney Channel

Pet Changes
Dogs: Design philosophy – Strong skirmishers whose howls can have a dramatic effect on both team fights as well as solo play
Alpine Wolf – Reduced F2 (Chilling Howl) Cooldown to 25 seconds from 30, more in line with Krytan Drakehound
Fern Hound – F2 (Regenerate) base heal increased to 1500 from 1000
Hyena – Power scaled to that of a normal pet, F2 (Howl of the Pack) now applies weakness to foes within range for 5 seconds, 25 second cooldown

Birds: Design philosophy – Strong solo fighters with damage mitigation and soft CC used to shut down single targets
White Raven –
Hawk -
Eagle -
Owl – F2 (Chilling Slash) increased chill duration to 4 seconds from 3

Cats: Intense single target pressure with powerful attacks and the ability to stick on the target with gap closers
Lynx – F2 (Rending Pounce) cast time decreased to 1/2 second. CD decreased to 25 seconds
Snow Leopard – F2 (Chilling Pounce) cast time decreased to 1/2 second. CD maintained at 30 seconds
Jungle Stalker – F2 (Mighty Roar) cast time decreased to 2 seconds from 3

Drakes: Design philosophy – Offensive skirmishers with devastating activated attacks
Reef Drake – F2 (Sonic Shriek) functionality changed: Emit waves of discordant sonic energy to confuse foes. (Frontal wave pattern similar to Guardian Staff auto)
Ice Drake – F2 (Frost Breath) funtionality changed: Breath a wave of frost, damaging and chilling foes. (Frontal wave pattern similar to Guardian Staff auto) CD increased to 30 seconds
Salamander Drake – F2 (Fire Breath) functionality changed: Breath a wave of fire which burns foes. (Frontal wave pattern similar to Guardian Staff auto)

Bears: Design philosophy – Tanky group fights with good downed body cleave or group support

All bear attacks now cleave

Arctodus: F2 (Rending Maul) functionality and name changed: “Fury of the North”: Unleash a fury of six brutal cleaving strikes each chilling your foe for 1 second. Cast time 3/4 second, duration 2 seconds. This attack should deal between 3-6k damage depending on beastmastery traits/opponent defense ratings.
Polar Bear: F2 (Icy Roar) cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 45
Black Bear: F2 (Enfeebling Roar) functionality and name changed: “Fury of the Grove”: Unleash a fury of six brutal cleaving strikes which weaken and cripple foes for 2 seconds. Cast time 3/4 second, duration 2 seconds. This attack should deal between 3-6k damage depending on beastmastery traits/opponent defense ratings.
Murellow: F2 (Poison cloud) functionality and named changed: “Noxious Cloud”: Added 2 seconds of weakness in addition to 2 seconds of poison, 7 pulses.
Brown Bear: F2 (Shake It Off) cooldown reduced to 20 seconds

Devourers: Design Philosophy – Fast ranged attacks with a focus on conditions
Whiptail Devourer: Increased auto attack speed by 25% (from 1 second to 3/4 second), F2 (Poison Barbs) cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 15, cast time reduced to 1 second from 2 1/2
Carrion Devourer: Increased autoattack speed by 25%
Lashtail Devourer: Increased autoattack speed by 25%, F2 (Rending Barbs) number of barbs increased from 7 to 9, cooldown reduced to 25 seconds

Spiders: Design Philosophy – Accurate single target duelists with the ability to hamper enemies through timely venom use

Porcine Family
Currently every pig is a clone of the same design ideas needed

Moas
Are currently underrated in my opinion, possible cooldown adjustments, attack functionality changes are needed.

Weapon Skills
Axes
#1: Ricochet – Increased base damage by 25% (still decently below the power of thief shortbow auto)
#5: Whirling Defense: Unrooted, Now lasts for 4 seconds with 8 attacks instead of 5/12
Greatsword
Evade removed from chain, replaced with 3 stacks of vulnerability, damage increased by 20% on each attack
Maul – vulnerability removed, bleeds returned to maul
Swoop – Now evades all attacks for the duration
Longbow
Barrage – Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 30
Dagger
Stalker’s Strike – Evade reduced to 1/2 seconds from 1 1/4 seconds. Added two stacks of Torment for 3 seconds. Reduced poison from 10 seconds to 6 seconds
Utility Skills
Shouts
“Protect me!” – Your pet now takes half the damage you would take for 6 seconds (reduced from 6), CD reduced to 40 seconds from 60
“Sic ’Em” – Reduced recharge to 35 seconds.
“Guard” – suggestions wanted
“Search and Rescue” – suggestions wanted
Spirits
Stone Spirit – Reduced base protection duration to 2 seconds (from 3 seconds)
Frost Spirit – Bonus damage increased to 20%
Nature Spirit – Active will now only remove 2 conditions on nearby allies (compared to 5)
Healing Skills
Heal as One: Is now a shout, Cooldown increased to 25 seconds, now removes Poison, Bleeding and Burning
Water Spirit: The passive proc now also removes one condition

This thread is intended as a bunch of realistic suggestions and tweaks to ranger to solve a number of issues:

-Power based builds being weak for Pvp/Roaming
-Reliance upon 30 in Wilderness Survival for Empathic Bond in a PvP setting
-Pet clones and worthless pets
-Slow pet F2s
-Bad power scaling on a number of weapons
-More emphasis traditional Ranger boons and conditions such as regeneration, swiftness, vulnerability, cripple and chill
-Makes pets better for team support with improved F2 abilities and better beastmastery traits

Marksmanship
IV New Trait : Hunter’s Focus – Critical hits with longbow skills now have a 33% chance to grant might for 8 seconds, 1 second ICD
V Predator’s Instinct – Added 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds
VI Beastmaster’s Bond – Reduced ICD to 30 seconds from 60
IX Beastmaster’s Might/Signet Mastery – Combined into one trait (3 stacks of might & 20% reduced signet cooldown)
XII Remorseless – Regain opening strike whenever you kill a foe or gain stealth. Opening Strikes now remove a boon

Skirmishing
V Companion’s Might – Increased Might duration from 5 seconds to 7
IX Honed Axes – Axes do 10% more damage. Critical hits with axes have a 33% chance to cripple for 2 seconds.
XI Trap Potency – Now moved to Wilderness Survival XI, Replaced with: suggestions for new GM traits

Wilderness Survival
II Healer’s Celerity – Replaced with new Empathic Bond
V Expertise Training – Increased condition damage bonus to 500
VI Wilderness Knowledge: Now also affects Marksmanship III Keen Edge ICD
XI Empathic Bond: Moved to Wilderness Survival II – Pets now remove 1 condition every 10 seconds from you, and also from up to 5 allies in a 360 radius Note remove, not take. Empathic Bond replaced by Trap Potency

Nature Magic
II Concentration Training: This trait is broken and needs to be fixed, it currently does nothing for a lot of pets
VIII Evasive Purity: Reduced ICD to 5 seconds
IX Greatsword Training: Increased damage to 10% bonus
Grandmaster Minor: Bountiful Hunter – Now increased damage by 2% per boon instead of 5% if you have a boon

Beastmastery
I Speed Training: Reduces cooldown on Pet Skills by 20% (from 10%)
III Shout Master: Shouts now also remove 1 condition from all allies within a 600 radius
IV Compassion Training: Pet healing attributes are increased by 350. Activating a moa pet now grants 7 seconds of regeneration to all nearby allies
VIII Stability Training – Ursine, Porcine and Armor Fish pets now grant 3 seconds of stability to nearby allies when activated, 600 radius
IX Intimidation Training – Now applies an addition 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds
X Vigorous Training – Added 5 seconds of Swiftness in addition to Vigor
XI Zephyr’s Speed – In addition to quickness, now removed chilled/crippled/immobilize when swapping pets.

jcbroe.4329:

I see what you’re trying to accomplish, and while I don’t disagree with the idea on most of the changes you’re proposing, I also am having issues with some of them, but mostly because of the “it wouldn’t really be how I would do it, or what I would prefer.”

Nothing too serious though. For the traits:
Remorseless: Vulnerability is already very maintainable, so I personally think that, while Remorseless is a good place to make changes, more vulnerability doesn’t really seem like the most beneficial change. I think that I would prefer to see Remorseless cause Opening Strikes to either remove a boon from an enemy, or to remove a condition from you (my preference is for boon removal because of how immensely better power builds have the potential to be with that simple change, and how easily it would be to add more condition removal elsewhere).

Trap Potency: because Trapper’s Expertise remains in the Skirmishing line, I don’t think that further spreading the traits out between different lines, even with the Empathic Bond change, would be the most beneficial change that could be made. It would probably be fine as far as balance goes, however.

Personally though, I think that with Skirmishing, Traps can be left in the line, though I would prefer to see Spike Trap turned into a pulse (pulses after initial hit only pulse a lower duration cripple and single bleed stack), Frost Trap have a 25 second cooldown and have damage per pulse, and then see the base damage of the traps increase so that on crit they hit around 300-400 per pulse each (assuming of course 30 in skirmishing only, with no power investment). Then, merge/remove traits from Skirmishing and introduce more “on interrupt” traits that have more synergy with Moment of Clarity.

Of course, there is no right or wrong, and my preconceived vision of what I’d like to see doesn’t make your suggestions any worse or less good, they’re just different, and I’m only trying to introduce perspective so that you can understand my view to see where I’m coming from.

For Beastmastery, I would suggest just removing the pet type limitation on traits entirely, so that while there are optimal and suboptimal choices, pet selection doesn’t entirely force you into a particular trait and you could still benefit from the other options.

Really, nothing to big if you ask me, as far as traits go.

For the weapons, I only have minor adjustments, like, keeping your greatsword changes, but giving Maul a decent duration cripple, and adding the vulnerability lost from Maul to swoop, on top of your suggestion for swoop. That way, there is a nice soft CC option that doesn’t perma cripple, so that Mainhand Sword remains unique, but that allows the Greatsword more of a close range sustain role that punishes players that get hit by Maul with more than just a big damage hit.

Also, instead of torment on Dagger 4, I’d prefer to see it on Sword 3, to keep with the whole “punish movement and soft CC” lockdown theme.

I don’t really have anything else to offer. Just some friendly insight on places that I think we differ, and I don’t think that I truly disagree with any of the suggested changes, but rather, already have bias based on what my preferences are.

I like the boon removal idea! Thanks for the feedback

The idea behind the trap change was so that you now only have to put 20 into Skirmishing since crit and precision don’t synergize with traps that well.

Also, to those who say PW is not spammable:

With 15 initiative you can press it 6 times in a row before you run out of initiative if you let the cast go for its full length (delivering all swings).

With the evades this is a HUGE evade uptime WHILE doing tons of damage.

Lux.7169:

I think pistol whip is more or less fine in the competitive scene. Meaning it’s a low skill cap build that is rarely seen (if ever) in high-end pvp. I don’t know anyone in the top 200 running pistol whip, at least not in NA. I think I K is the really only successful high-end top 100 pw thief NA.

I think the problem with PW is that it’s a gimmicky mechanic that gives a squishy class invuln frames to spam high burst damage back to back. As such a bad PW thief can kill a very good non-PW glassy class (ele, mes, thieves, bad necros etc etc). So as a thief who has invested thousands of hours into your class and spec, if you die to a person who is just picking up PW for the first time and won by 3-spam teleporting because you ate a basi when your stunbreak was on cd then you kind of feel crappy.

Any glass class without a stunbreak will be roasted by PW unless you are truly advanced in your respective class.

One more thing I would like to mention. The great thing about classes like thief and ele is that you can counter burst. Basically if a class goes in to burst you you can usually interrupt their burst and counter it with your own. This is extremely difficult to do with the nature of PW since it’s a burst that evades and any good PW thief will be able to mitigate the few fractions of a second that they’re vulnerable.

Magic Toker, Shad, and Sizer all run S/P now.