Guild Wars 2

Oh, yeah, I meant it more like “we’ll never here the end of it” as far as the qq’ing goes and every time we try to make a logical argument it will be countered with “but you can’t avoid it” which is not at all the same thing lol.

I would hope that if ANet thought it would’ve “broken” the game, that they wouldn’t of given the trait itself a buff on top of the weapon buffs lol. I mean, that right there to me seems like that if they thought it needed a buff, that it wasn’t strong enough to begin with.

DeceiverX.8361:

I see nothing inherently wrong with it and agree with the change entirely since the shots won’t even fire/will not hit anything if the target within melee range moves around your character while close (breaking the required angle for the projectile to track). Most other ranged weapons, if not all of them, also prevent side-stepping. The only attacks you can side-step are melee ones, but that also usually means in a melee vs melee fight, neither players are dealing damage to each other.

Seeing as RtW only really affects the auto-attack, and nobody’s complained about it, I see no reason to try and fix what isn’t broken.

Do recall that this trait is a 6pt investment in the power line just to make a weapon functional, and it subsequently overrides another trait point. It’s like saying HK is overpowered on thief since it lets backstab (unique to one weapon) always guarantee its maximum damage with already-high scaling.

I didn’t claim it was overpowered and I wasn’t making an argument either way though lol. I was just providing information, I thought this was a thread for doing so, and I thought it was a worthwhile note to say it can’t be strafed. Now people will hopefully not waste their keystrokes trying and take it off their mental multitask list so they can focus on doing something else.

As far as I’m concerned, Read the Wind makes the Longbow the Recurve Bow from GW1.

You don’t have to jump all over me when all I did was make a “food for thought” type post. Relax a bit. I’m not trying to make any sort of argument at all and I know all of the sides of both arguments already anyhow.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s nothing new that RtW guarantees the attack to hit if the hitbox timing on the animation isn’t avoided. This reliability increase alone is what allows for LB to be a functional weapon.

Oh, I don’t disagree at all, don’t get me wrong.

But I did figure that you would at least still be able to strafe attacks actively (like, not just because your moving, but stagger stepping, or rapidly changing your movement pattern).

I don’t think anything needs to be nerfed because of it either. What I do think is that ANet should explore why (not necessarily change) increasing the velocity of a previously avoidable projectile is turning it into a not-avoidable at all projectile.

I mostly just posted it for verification. I tested it with a friend and got that result, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t strafe it.

However, if other people get the same result, I think it’s worthwhile not even to talk about it, but just think over whether or not the Longbow really needs to have guarantee-able damage with Read the Wind on top of the buffs, or whether with the projectile speed, if ANet introduced the ability to actively strafe it by stagger stepping, it would be too hard of a hit.

I’m just providing information at this point, I’m entirely in the middle on it and know I have an extreme bias that wouldn’t help lol.

Eggyokeo.9705:

jcbroe.4329:

It’s extremely fair to say that the build is still virtually unknown.

I fined this strange. There have been SotF/Rabid/Krait builds around since April patch and they were effective then, granted that the CD reduction on Entangle is a size able buff to it.

The build has definitely existed, sure, but the only places that it is actually visible in it’s full view is on the forums and metabattle (and possibly into the mists).

If we are to believe what ANet reports as the numbers for the forums, more than half of the population isn’t exposed to the third party information sources, and then we have to take into account that another portion of the community is only PvE players or casual players (not an insult) to the point where if the changes didn’t interest them, they haven’t tried them or seen the build.

But I mean, I could be wrong. I just know that before the build was actually played in a tournament on the official GW2 twitch channel, I have experienced a countable amount of players actually running rabid builds like this.

It could just be the PvP mode for that as well though. I feel like Rabid might be a more common choice in WvW than I realize.

Bast Bow.2958:

jcbroe.4329:

It’s on metabattle though, I mean, it isn’t exactly a secret at that point lol. I’d actually assume metabattle has more visibility than here on the ranger forums, especially after the official twitter brought light to its existence.

Thank you for reminding me that metabattle existed. Forgot, not very active on forums as it shows.

No it’s fine! lol. Not a lot of people on the forums are actually aware of it anyways, ANet just sometimes gives it a shout out through their communication sources like Twitter.

It’s extremely fair to say that the build is still virtually unknown.

Yeah, it’s only while using Read the Wind. Otherwise the weapon acts as it always has as far as avoiding damage by strafing goes.

Honestly I just do it for kicks lol. Can get pretty boring during lecture when your lecturer posts all of their notes online and then reads directly from them with no new information (woes of a college student).

So I’ll pop in on my phone during class and see how much logic and structured conversation can antagonize clueless people who are just there to cry and have no intention of weighing logic and arguments and reaching a constructive conclusion.

Personally, I actually do think there is a conversation to be had, but most of that conversation and my views can be applied universally to all classes (it isn’t like I just formulated my opinion either, the patches just reinforce it every time).

So yeah, it isn’t worthwhile, especially knowing where the toxicity level of the forums is currently at. There is no way it would end constructively or remain unbiased.

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

We actually were testing this. As far as I can guesstimate, out to the realm of about 1800 range (manually pressing the auto and using skills of course), not a single attack was missed from strafing.

Even tried it with leaps as movement modifiers, every attack was still successful.

I honestly thought the same thing about strafing until that last round of testing. After I saw that I kind of just went “ummm, well, at least I never claimed strafing to be a counterplay” lol.

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

…

Ha, so backstab is even easier to land than I thought…
Gonna change concussion shot…

Concussion shot changed

Yeah, attack a golem in PvP from the front and then slowly start to circle around it, and the moment when bleeds start to stack is the moment that you are now within “backstab bonus” range, or in our case, for flanking effects on Crossfire and Concussion shot and etc range lol.

What do you think about the other changes?

I like all of them!

The only one I’m not too fond of is Poison Volley, and I mean, I don’t even like my own suggestion better lol. Not that I don’t think it’s strong currently because it is, but currently it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the weaponset. It’s a strong skill, but only at point blank on an otherwise ranged weapon. It pieces, but is the only multi target hitting skill by default.

I’d prefer the idea of the skill to be scrapped entirely and just be made into a mirror of Engineers pistol 2 (minus the drunken not on target firing). So yeah, basically a poisoning rapid fire. My own issue with that is that it removes some of the games skill diversity for the sake of functionality, which means it is an unlikely change and would make the game one step closer to by the same professions copy pasted over and over.

SO, tightening the spread will have to do hahaha

Bast Bow.2958:

Nooooo…..

Neko.9021:

Just wanted to make the information largely available to help the meta develop.

but ok….

It’s on metabattle though, I mean, it isn’t exactly a secret at that point lol. I’d actually assume metabattle has more visibility than here on the ranger forums, especially after the official twitter brought light to its existence.

So I just want to follow up and say that I did some testing with a friend and came up with the result that with Read the Wind equipped, you can’t strafe any of the longbows damage (didn’t test it with swiftness up though, so the result might vary on that regard).

As to not divert the goal of the thread, I just want to say it now that this particular detail may prove to be a nail in the coffin factor later on down the line.

Eurantien.4632:

I would never use nature’s protection over evasive purity. In the current meta, every single class runs poison somewhere, even if it is doom sigil. As I am using troll unguent I do not want to be poisoned for any length of time during that heal.

Also @ Jcbroe… I would run that…. but would do sb and a/d for more condi pressure. I loath how much counterplay spirit of nature offers and do not wish to depend on it which makes entangle much better imo. Sun spirit would give you the burning you miss from torch. However, deciding between what to take between SoR, stone spirit, and SoS would be hard. I guess you could take empathic bond… but… I’m no longer a fan of empathic bond.

Yeah that makes sense. And yeah, I only had EB slotted because I set the build link up with dual spirits and didn’t think that SotF and just LR and Entangle would be enough removal. I guess it would ultimately be a matter of player preference, what you’re up against, and whether your team would feel the benefited from you taking more spirit support or more utility.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to respond. I’ve been playing around with all the different build variants today and was genuinely surprised that people aren’t all over the bandwagon yet.

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

…

Ha, so backstab is even easier to land than I thought…
Gonna change concussion shot…

Concussion shot changed

Yeah, attack a golem in PvP from the front and then slowly start to circle around it, and the moment when bleeds start to stack is the moment that you are now within “backstab bonus” range, or in our case, for flanking effects on Crossfire and Concussion shot and etc range lol.

Concussion shot wouldn’t be able to work exactly how you posted because the metrics of the game don’t treat the sides any differently than directly behind (not saying I don’t like the idea).

The parameters are determined by the character models themselves and not the actual skills, which means the game would have to be recoded to differentiate between the sides and directly behind.

Not that it wouldn’t happen, but that would be a VERY big change and a lot of other factors would have to rebalanced alongside it.

It was thrown up on metabattle almost immediately after it was used today in the tourny: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Condition_Survival

Not that I would trust the site to be 100% reliable or anything, just saying.

Curiously, although I get the build, how it is played, and why it works, I’m not sure why, with Made in Meta running a more “traditional” spirit build, and the condi survival builds that ROM (and that Eura) are showing off, that the two builds haven’t been hybridized just yet into this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0savKusQ1aADhq9JEslArAw9PMEXdBbqA-TJhHwAAeCAILDE4iAAa/BA

I just don’t see why the middle ground between the two builds isn’t a more common build, especially compared to going traditional spirits. Is the mindset still “if you’re going spirits, you go full investment and take the elite?”

Obviously condi survival and spirits have two different roles (with overlapping functionality) but I just find it odd that the concepts the condi survival builds bring to the table haven’t been incorporated into the spirit build yet.

Also, a wild Battosai appears? Good to see you again man, I didn’t know if I’d ever see you on the forums again haha.

Arken.3725:

Haven’t posted in a long time but I do believe Engineers bring a bit too much to the table, let me explain.

IP: I think everyone here can agree this needs to be changed. It is literally the mainstay to every Engineer build. You could avoid every single one of the engineer’s abilities that apply pressure and still potentially lose the fight due to the burning application.

Defensive Passive Procs; The whole point of CC is to setup burst, right? Now if I successfully cc/crit someone and they’re rewarded with a defensive boon, there’s an issue. You should not be rewarded for such passive play.

Multiple Kits: This has been a long-standing argument that needs to be brought up. Just because you have access to more skills, doesn’t mean your profession is more SKILLFUL. In fact, to the contrary, you have more buttons to apply both defensive/offensive pressure.

Uninterruptible healing skill: I have NEVER been able to successfully interrupt Healing Turret. We don’t even have to talk about the fact that it’s one of the most effective healing skills in the game.

To finish off i’m not saying there aren’t problems elsewhere because there certainly are(terrormancer, warriors still, cele’s to name a few). I’m just voicing my opinions on simple facts about this profession. Just to reiterate, anyone will drop when you have 2 or more on them bursting, this isn’t Engineer exclusive. One last thing, this post is meant to be constructive, if anyone can provide information to keep this calm discussion going, please do so.

I just wanted to say that I think that good points have been made here. +1’d.

Thank you for this. I surely wasn’t going to spend the time or the energy doing this (and don’t know that I could’ve done the same level of detail either) lol.

I believe you can side most of the LBs damage at a certain distance still, most importantly referring to Rapid Fire, even with Read the Wind. However, it isn’t something I can readily test on my own and I didn’t want to go around making that potentially erroneous claim just anywhere. It’s just something that I’m curious about how effective it is.

Just updated a few old posts since I got Keanu’s name wrong (I must have a reading problem, I’m so so sorry lol).

Seras.5702:

jcbroe.4329:

It’s not a bad idea, but the stipulations are way too broad to the point where they are universal, and ANet tends to try to make universal investments of that caliber high investment options (mesmer has been nerfed repeatedly for their previously low investment, high effect traits).

However, it could be made into a mirror of the warrior trait, but instead of “while wielding a Melee weapon” it could be “while wielding a ranged weapon (mainhand), you and your pet move 25% faster.”

Ranged weapons of course being Longbow, Shortbow, and Axe.

That would defeat the purpose of the speed buff. You want it with melee weapons to keep on top of your target. So it’d have to be identical to warrior’s trait.

Oddly, it’s actually more universal on the warrior, since they’ve got melee weps equipped 90% of the time. Rangers are the class with a nice balance of melee/range.

Our melee weapons have tons of crippling and CC options compared to most other classes CC capabilities on melee weapons, as well as our pets also having CC options. The speed buff on the bows would allow for better kiting capabilities on the bows, as well as help the pets keep on target while you are at range, which I know is a commonly brought up issue on the forums in regards to ranged weapons while using melee pets.

That being said, I take your point and think that they both have sound reasoning behind them, and the melee option also gives it a trait combination with Stryder’s Defense (not that it would make the elite more functional but still, combinations of benefits across weapon types is always good).

So I mean, either really. There is a valid perspective for either change that ultimately gets dictated by playstyle bias in terms of favoring one over the other.

To give a more realistic response, in a literal programming analogy, any programming or bug issues are more than likely added to a “queue” of things that already exist, and then the things that get addressed are prioritized both by how pressing it is to fix it and how easy it is to make the fix.

Making number changes is easy enough, for instance. But re-purposing skills and traits, changing attack speeds and animations, and in general, making any sort of change that has a direct impact on the physical world as far as how things work or interact with the environment, these are all difficult and time consuming changes to implement.

Not to be an apologist though. I find myself equally as frustrated with the process as anybody else.

But, ANet is working with only a handful of balance developers on staff (that we’re aware of) and made the promise of “no downtime for server maintenance and updates” which means that all the changes that get made have to be ready to not break the game at all when they go live, which is extremely limiting to their ability to test how things will work on the servers once they go live since their is no maintenance time to iron everything out (as it could work perfectly fine on the test servers).

Not to mention having to work with art and design teams for anything that changes the physical world of the game (how skills look or cast and animate, etc), and any other hidden red tape that us players aren’t aware of the constricts the balance team to how exactly much they are allowed to alter when they make changes.

So realistically, while we would all love to make a list of things and say “these are the things need changing” (which the forums do quite often anyhow), we have to remember that we aren’t just dealing with the developers, but a corporation and a business with a business model and operating standards for the employees.

Because given the state of the game, I seriously doubt that the devs sleep easy at night feeling like there isn’t any more they could do to make the game objectively “better.” There is just likely nothing they can immediately do in their given situations, and as a developer, that would probably drive most of them crazy going “it’s right here, I can fix it with few keystrokes, PLEASE LET ME FIX IT” only to not be capable of doing so do to job constraints.

It’s not a bad idea, but the stipulations are way too broad to the point where they are universal, and ANet tends to try to make universal investments of that caliber high investment options (mesmer has been nerfed repeatedly for their previously low investment, high effect traits).

However, it could be made into a mirror of the warrior trait, but instead of “while wielding a Melee weapon” it could be “while wielding a ranged weapon (mainhand), you and your pet move 25% faster.”

Ranged weapons of course being Longbow, Shortbow, and Axe.

Yeah, the duel with Siroso was pretty intense. Not that I think I’m the best player ever, but his build immediately highlighted the limitations of my own, and confirmed a few things I had on my mind going into the KotH challenge:

• Survival of the Fittest with Lightning Reflexes and Entangle alongside Signet of Renewal is enough condition cleansing to counter other rangers (not necessarily other condi classes like Engis and Necros, but there is certainly a possibility there)
• Shortbow does not do enough damage on it’s own to kill a sustain capable, bunker stylized build unless the person makes more than one or two mistakes

Those factors out of the way, I couldn’t have asked for a happier defeat! Against an uncommon (at the very least unpopularized) build no less. I won’t give away ALL of the secrets (not sure if they are secrets, but still, no unfair advantages haha), but I will say that I was both surprised and impressed with it’s capabilities.

I will admit that during the heat of the moment, he actually pushed me to my performance limit, both with the match up fights and the few for fun duels we had afterwards when I switched things up…..
…..Which is exciting! I already have a few ideas on what I could have done differently and the optimal build to play, BUT, I still need to get hands on with his playstyle to figure out the exact limitations of the build (given my own current skill cap as a factor).

Siroso, the meta-killer (I’m sticking by my word hahaha), I do have one request! Please message SadKeanu in game and give him the first chance you can at a duel. He was one of the first people to ask me but our time zones didn’t match up and in the spirit of keeping the activity going and not putting it on hold, I played first come, first serve when I was available.

So please play him as soon as you can! He will have been waiting patiently more than long enough.

To the theorycrafting drawing board with me!

Lucentfir.7430:

STRanger.5120:

Evilek.5690:

Main problem is this. 1960+ range instead 1500 on 4/5 skills in this weapon set and with new projectile velocity/Rapid fire like a Machine gun is this game breaking.

Main problem is this, you have to count the LB Ranger as a threat now, so you noticed…..
Even though only a crazy person would waste RF on the maximal range, because it can be avoided by strafing on that range…..

I have no problem with hitting RF at max range with Read the Wind.

I have no problem hitting AI, golems, and people below the line of garbage skill tier with it either.

At what point do we draw the line for balance at? People seem to think this game should be like, Neo Pets balanced or something. This isn’t a game for low level, minimally functioning human beings.

Does anybody remember the spoon (totally doing a matrix reference), and how the spoon bends once you realize there is no spoon at all, but you that is bending?

It is not imbalanced, and once you realize it is not imbalanced, then you will realize that you are just bad and want mechanics nerfed around your garbage tier abilities so that the rest of us functioning human beings suffer. (not directed at any particular person)

-
-
-
NA KING
-
-
-
Tab:

• ItIsFinished.9462 to become the king
• Fluffball.8307 first defense
• Eggyokeo.9705 second defense

The Spirit of Spirits was Spiriting and left me spirited….. Spirited Away? (seriously netflix, why you no have my favorite movies).

It was spirits versus spirits (if the last few statements were too nonsensical to understand the gist)! Fight fire with fire, very strategically intelligent move! Shortbow versus Shortbow as well! It was like a scene right out a Rocky movie, just swinging away at each other, trying to take the other guy (girl/etc) down.

It was a fun fight, and very entertaining to meet another fellow ranger in game my friends list is starting to fill up with you all now (outside of being a semi-recent addition to Wind NA).

Let’s keep it going! SadKeanu is still on the challenger list, but playing time frames are playing time frames, so still accepting challenges!

Who will take on the cheese and forever be known (by me) as: The Meta Killer?

Seriously loving this everybody, and loving the community for the support of the activity.

Isn’t the ranger community the coolest profession community out there?

Eggyokeo.9705:

takes glove off and use to slap Jcbroe across the face and drops it
Jcbroe I challenge thee to a duel

this of course if we can fined a time when our time zone over lap

Absolutely!

You and BadKeanu both challenged me (he messaged me in game) around the same time frame, so I mean, being for fun and all, I’ll talk with him and basically, I’ll see if you guys want to go by whoever’s time zones line up first.

I play late NA EST usually. Midnight (aka now) is right around my most active gameplay time.

Solandri.9640:

X Factor.2641:

That depends now… See warrior ADPS isn’t constant and “passive” like PDPS is

LOL. Clearly you’ve never used a pet on a moving target.

so you would have to look at the PDPS over the time it would take to build up the ADPS. I’m not saying rangers didn’t get shafted on that deal but I am saying that it’s not a straight up comparison.

Of course they’re not a straight up comparison. If they were, they’d be the same thing and there’d be no point distinguishing warriors from rangers.

They are different, and they are going to have differences. But it’s unfair to look only at the features of pets which are advantageous compared to other F1-F4 skills. Warriors can’t lose access to their adrenaline skills for 60 seconds like when a pet dies. Guardian F1-F4 skills always affect the guardian, whereas ranger misses out on pet buffs if the pet is too far. Ranger pets offer a dumb AI target for thief C&D. And as I already pointed out, pet DPS doesn’t scale with better equipment or buffs.

OTOH, ranger pets can take aggro and tank. They can revive a downed ranger even if he’s taking constant damage. The huge variety of pets (compared to other F1-F4 skills) gives rangers a wider access to different effects via F2. Just as pet damage isn’t increased by equipment, pet damage isn’t decreased by going with a bunker build.

You have to look at the whole package, not just those parts which favor the argument you’re trying to make. On balance, the approach you’re taking leaves rangers with a huge DPS deficit compared to other classes – that’s why you ended up with silly things like rangers doing more DPS with warrior banners than their own weapons.

+1’d
/15characters

So, while this is a warranted observation (although it was addressed with a red post about 7 months post game launch with all projectiles), I have to say, what you’re asking for is a difficult issue to address, and a global one with all projectiles.

More than likely, the assumption would be that the ranged attacks in the game have to run through both a physics engine and then a projectile algorithm. It isn’t as simple as just going into the code and going “range cutoff ends here” without altering the algorithm and changing the physical “world” and how the projectiles interact with the world would have to be made fundamentally different.

All of this costs time and programmers and money, and the “issue” has existed since launch and has been built directly into the base of how the game functions with ranged attacks by now.

Speaking on this point, why is this just now a problem? The range is the same range since Day 1, the damage on Long Range Shot at that range hasn’t changed, and Read the Wind has been in the game for a fairly substantial period of time now, and none of those increments had this new found concern being a problem.

So to the rest of us, it looks like you are just making excuses to try to reason that a legitimate quality of life buff the class needed should be nerfed just because you don’t like it.

While we’re on that topic, yes, Rapid Fire got buffed. If Rapid Fire is a problem for you at all, especially at that range, then I highly encourage all posters after me to spam memes like “uninstall” or “Don’t Do Drugs” or some other equally logical equivalent response to signify that if you don’t have the gameplay ability to deal with such a non-issue, that you aren’t coming from a place where anybody but the other people who forgot where they left their intelligence along their path in life will respect your balance opinion or suggestion.

BUT, IF that is not that case, then my response to you is simply: wrong thread. This is a global topic, not a ranger specific topic, and affects all projectiles in the game equally, which also means that in that particular regard, it is balanced.

-
-
-
NA KING
-
-
-

Well, my first defense has been successfully completed! For the running tab:

• ItIsFinished.9462 to become king
  and now:
• Fluffball.8307 first defense

It was a match well played! A full melee build that was way outside the comfort zone of most of us ranger players, I will always respect the bold players who push the boundaries of what builds we run to find the hidden gems we aren’t using!

And me, sitting here, running the cheesiest of the cheese builds (reminder of the cheese: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMq0savK+rQ1aADhqdK8ulAzAodd+DDRBbqA-TJhHwAAeCABuIAg2fwYZAA). I should be ashamed!

So, that being said, can anybody kill the all too familiar ranger horror story of the build that I chose to use? I will up the ante beyond the parameters of the ruleset:

Whoever dethrones me shall forever be referred by me as: The Meta-Killer

Seriously though guys, this is amazingly fun. Fluffball definitely deserves a round of applause for kickstarting this amazing ranger community event, and it’s already major fun interacting with you guys beyond the constraints of the forum.

We really do have a pretty awesome community

Well ItsFinished and I had our matchup, and let me tell you guys, it was something! I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think the handicaps determined the outcome of the matchup, and I’d advise everybody to take a look at his build because Celestial Longbow is not to be trifled with after what I experienced.

However, formalities and respect aside (because I could probably go on for a very long time with the flattery lol), I walked away victorious from the fight (and I’ll have to duel him more with no handicaps once I refine my build).

So, the build to beat is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMq0savK+rQ1aADhqdK8ulAzAodd+DDRBbqA-TJhHwAAeCABuIAg2fwYZAA

Do I regret a particular weapon choice? Absolutely, but I set out to prove to myself that the shortbow is in a good place. Whether it is or not, well, I wasn’t entirely happy with it’s performance, but we’ll see going forward! (my immediate thoughts after some for funsies duels with the build was that Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch would have been an infinitely better decision and is my personal more comfortable set).

So, I will be the current NA champ! However, let’s give it up for ItsFinished, who was more than likely defeated more by handicaps! Though he made me very happy with myself that I have keybound the store weapon function (anybody looking at our two builds will understand what I mean).

Anyhow, let the challenging commence! I will do my best to accommodate peoples play times, but I will warn everybody I’m an evening to late night EST NA player, and binge play Destiny on the weekends when I go home to enjoy the get away from the crappy lifestyle that is trying to sleep on a campus mattress (though I will make the effort on the weekends to support the thread! )

Rozbuska.5263:

Ranger buff is fine only problem is that bugged range of bow attacks

Every ranged projectile (beams too, like mesmer GS) attack in the game has a longer “actual” range than what is listed on the tooptip.

There is a red post from forever ago saying this functionality is working as intended, and outside of that point, asking for a fix to this “issue” is a universal nerf to every ranged weapon in the game.

Now, I’m not going to be the one that argues for or against that, or start that particular debate here since there is already a thread for that. I just wanted to highlight that it isn’t singular to a particular instance, and that it is a universal issue, and would be universally addressed if changed.

I think the players make a good point (either the tooltips should match the functionality or the ranges should match the intended tooltip values), but that from a developmental side, they are probably just using a trajectory algorithm and applying it and that it isn’t a very simple (or time efficient compared to other issues) thing to change.

But either way, yeah. It isn’t just rangers, this issue is universal.

This is a good topic! I hope one of the forum math guys sees this (I’m not one unfortunately). However, I will echo you in saying that the 10% is most noticeable on the autoattack.

However, that brings up the question, how is the 10% being applied? Given the way it works with the autoattack, if you are testing for the actually cast time of rapid fire to be reduced, that might just simply not be how the 10% is being applied.

More than likely, the 10% is being applied to the hidden aftercast value of the skill, meaning that the 10% increase in attack speed isn’t being applied to the initial speed at which the skill can be used or the speed at which the skill casts, but the speed at which you can follow up with another skill.

That would be a good explanation for why the 10% is most evident in the autoattack speed.

I want the poison volley to be fired the same way, but change the cone, and make it sort of a “weaving cone,” keeping with the “serpent” animal theme of our poison (or at least one of our poison) skills. Let me try to illustrate it:
I
III
IIIII
III
I 600 range
III
IIIII
III
I 900 range

Still piercing and applying poison to all targets hit of course. And combined with the suggested crossfire change.

I mean, obviously I could come up with a more effective function for poison volley, but so could ANet (by that I’m implying that it was designed to be difficult to use for a reason, so my suggestion keeps the difficulty but extends the range capacity to be effective).

I’m extremely interested and would love to take on the NA champ (dueling ItsFinished is always infinitely entertaining haha).

Unfortunately, I have busy college student “team no sleep” problems 24/7 and log on for very brief (only a few hours at a time compared to my old 6+ hour a day gameplay) periods of off NA hours time late at night after I’ve finished all of my work.

Still, I can try to find the time, because I love the concept and the idea, so I’ll work it out this week.

Oh, on a “rules and observations” note, I personally love the idea of the build restrictions as to what can be changed, it adds the very specific strategy of allowing the option to go with a build the most directly counters the current King/Queen, however, upon a “dethroning,” that build may be so specific and particular that it has glaring weaknesses elsewhere.

Observation wise, people should pay particular attention to that detail. There is a King/Queen build posted in this thread that is extremely well suited to the rules and is setup as a “jack of all trades” build, and I’d imagine he is pretty well aware of that fact since his build is setup with almost no weaknesses to speak of when we’re talking ranger vs ranger specific matchups (not meaning that it’s unbeatable, but it’s certainly designed to turn any duel into a “skill matters” fight, and also not insinuating that any person having lost is a lesser skilled player as the builds versatility plays a definitive part in its success).

SO, I’ll try to work something out with you ItsFinished, you and are at least both more free in the evenings. If anybody else gets around to that beforehand though, be my guest, I’m just submitting my interest!

Personally, I’d drop QZ at the very least and pick up Signet of Stone (or something). Between SoR, Entangle, and LR, along with the chosen weapon sets and traits, it’s more than enough condi removal for 1v1 situations.

Actually, I’ve been running power lately in WvW, and really, for roaming, I run either 6/6/2/0/0 or 6/5/3/0/0 and I do fine with just SoR (I’ve been practicing playing like this for awhile now, given). In extreme cases, I would go with the same setup, with Entangle and Lyssa Runes (instead of the Ranger Runes for damage).

Anyhow, yeah, it’s all about how well you as an individual handle condi pressure, so custom tailor the build to your needs.

The most annoying condi roaming setup I can think of is P/D thieves, and I mean, it isn’t like they have the most amazing damage in the world or anything, they just have scumbag survival stealth healing spam, and you can still beat them by dodging the necessary condi skills.

Just thoughts though. My personal advice, coming from how I figured out a comfortable spot, is try a build with no condi removal, or only SoR, and then play it and see where you sit with playing a build like that, and then increase or decrease removal options as needed. The less you spend focusing on condi clearing is more you get to spend on other traits/utilities, so finding a good ratio of survival to output for your own playstyle is key.

I wonder (because I can’t test this myself), for the people NOT getting 6 seconds, are you opening combat with Technobabble, or using it after you are already in combat?

Same with people getting 6 seconds, are you already in combat when you use it?

Quite a few people watch the visible tournaments being streamed to get a sense of both “meta” builds and the frequency and effectiveness with which such builds can be used, or have the capability of.

The issue with balance threads, as the OP and many others have so aptly pointed out, is that people then take their observations and experiences and use them to form an opinion, and then instead of trying to discuss their opinion in a logical way, treat their own opinion as fact and rebuke every dissenting point or opinion presented.

But ignoring the forums, as far as in game is concerned, it is almost entirely educated guesses based on personal knowledge or common knowledge. Most people do tend to focus on a single class or a small handful of classes though, so finer details of what exactly is occurring does have the potential to be lost.

At the same time though, it could be argued that some details are so minor (they may add up to something major in totality, but minor on their own) that during the course of combat they would have simply been missed anyhow (a good example of this is Ranger Spirits active ability can proc the passive effects of other spirits, like stone spirit proc’ing sun spirits passive).

Anyhow, forum opinions, and generally opinions about anything being strong/overpowered boil down to some sort of combination of high frequency (how often you see it), perceived effectiveness, and usually but not always, direct bias on how individuals both use and combat against the option.

Ultimately though, no (visible) forum goer has run the numbers and gathered data and done data analysis on every possible situation before making claims, they just try to draw the most logical conclusion they can think of from their own personal experiences.

That certainly doesn’t mean, however, that every balance based thread is inaccurate. In fact, in certain extreme cases, it is more likely that somebody is making fairly accurate enough assumptions and conclusions, and that those assumptions/conclusions simply aren’t precise or are unfounded (which doesn’t make them incorrect).

Not sure it’s worth dropping one of the Air/Fire sigils on my longbow currently. In almost every imaginable situation I can think of, I’d prefer the extra damage proc.

That’s just my preference (for a power build) though.

I actually find it extremely interesting that this topic is suggesting what it is suggesting given that a ton of people I know in the game consider the tanky condi/hybrid/etc builds to be cheese builds that rely on passive mechanics to win, where as the “zerk LB/GS” build is being considered “man mode,” or being skill intensive comparatively to play since it relies almost 100% on managing skills and positioning and reacting (as opposed to passively “sponging”) to opponents efforts.

Very interesting.

Anyhow, the game is right around where you would expect to see in WvW, with more players in general choosing to run power options since power scales better for large group play than condi does (given foods and AoE cleanses and etc).

So it is only natural that Rangers take their place doing ranged power damage alongside Mesmers, Eles, and Wells Necros (though necros are arguably more midline than backline).

ANYHOW, yeah. Most people that would otherwise be playing the melee stylized builds are probably still enjoying the change of pace of playing the buffed to viability playstyle as opposed to the same old build they’ve been running forever now.

In the meantime, it’s basically a game of footsies between glass vs glass fights of rangers and thieves. Just remember to play to the rangers weaknesses in the meantime (aka dodge the rapid fire, close the gap, blind/dodge the hilt bash + maul combo, and tear down the ranger, right through the defensive cooldowns. Both LB and GS are one trick pony sets).

Ehecatl.9172:

Perhaps not the MOST comparable. I haven’t a lot of experience with the greatsword to compare. But both the longbow and the rifle are primarily long range, single target damage weapons, and the ranger’s longbow has better damage at it’s maximum range despite us having a “-30% damage penalty” on all our skills.

The longbow has good damage on it’s own, you don’t really NEED the pet to hit reliably. In that build the pet is still extremely important, just not for damage, which was my point.

Fair enough, and agreed on the point being made

Sorry for nitpicking details and I do personally appreciate the clarity.

I would actually say that boons and boon stacking in general (particularly in this specific instance might) can, and should be considered a bit out of control.

Yes, boons already have a few viable hard counters in the game, but they are very limited to a few particular classes, and the amount of capability classes have to stack and maintain boons far exceeds the amount of punishing boon mechanics that exist within the game.

Now, that isn’t to say that we need more hard counters like boon removal, because we don’t. Clearly, ANet intended with the updates so far this year for certain builds to be able to maintain a certain amount of boons and boon uptime.

However, not enough classes have access to removal/punishment options to justify the current level of stacking capabilities, which currently leaves only 2 options against boon heavy/stacking builds. You either:

• play a class with removal/punishment capabilities (3 classes with potentially viable options for this out of 8 )
  or
• play a cookie cutter boon focused build for your class to create an even playing field

However, for the sake of gameplay versatility, it would be nice to see some more counterplay introduced for boons (which would directly affect the particular might stacking issue). If more classes had more options, extending as far as a tad bit more removal introduced into the game, or more soft counter style like Destruction of the Empowered, then it would create more gameplay situations in which skill was a deciding factor in the outcome of the matchup, instead of just running mirror builds, spamming boons and maintaining them, and exchanging blows until somebody dies (obviously dumbed down but the gist is there).

So, tl;dr, yes, might stacking is, in this case, the more prevalent issue as opposed to Celestial. However, it is important that the issue gets addressed in the healthiest manner for gameplay, which may or may not be a direct nerf to stacking capabilities.

For the current duration of Stability the skill gives, I would prefer it if the skill gave AoE Stability on F2 (let’s say a 600 radius) use, with the trait having it’s own ICD to not be used by lower cooldown pet F2 skills.

Just in general, I always find on demand stability better than passive proc stability, since Stability is one of those boons you absolutely want to be able to actively take advantage of without having to rely on guesswork.

So what I’m seeing is this:

Based on my highly anecdotal and extremely biased experience, I think a skill or weapon is overpowered, and because I state my opinion with stronger language and believe in it more strongly than I believe in any sort of factual or counter anecdotal arguments that don’t agree with mine, I believe the game developers should listen to my highly biased opinion about balance and balance the game just for me.

It couldn’t possibly be that I need to learn to play or adjust my skill level to compensate with a new element that previously did not exist within the game (purely in potency per time frame). That’s absurd. Clearly, anything that I can’t facetank and win against is OP.

Ehecatl.9172:

As much as I defend the longbow, I’m pretty confident in saying it WOULD be overpowered if it got a 30% damage boost. Longbow does good damage and can be built to be solid long ranged burst. It already has higher sustain damage than the most similar weapon, the warrior rifle, and it’s burst hits harder than the rifle’s burst. Damage wise, the longbow is fine without the pet’s damage.

Which is why I feel like Anet might be shifting priorities on rangers. With the longbow the damage is definitely there. The pet hitting is really just more like bonus damage with that set up, and it’s primary role is to add extra control and set the opponent up for the ranger’s own damage.

I’m just pointing out that I think that while comparable, it’s a false statement that the rifle is the most comparable weapon.

In actuality, the most similar weapon is the mesmer greatsword as far as total overall function, purpose, and even damage output is concerned. You will find a very, very similar ranged sustain damage capability, as well as burst capabilities.

I’m not trying to start some big to do or anything, I’m just trying to point on that the reason there might seem to be some disparity between the Longbow and the warrior rifle is because outside of Volley and Vulnerability, the weapons share almost nothing in common.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Necrotize.2974:

Seeing as Rapid Fire has what, an 8 sec cd, and spectral walk has 60 seconds base.

I love how everyone does this. Let’s compare the fully traited rapid fire, make sure to add in damage from utilities, sigils, food buffs, might, etc. and then compare it to an untraited skill in the worst possible situation.

When people do this players that know the classes will never take your argument seriously.

You want to talk about something that is seriously under powered? Try using a longbow without putting 6 points into marksmanship. Good luck hitting anything.

Not even that far (piggybacking off your response from here, this isn’t directed at you hahaha).

What burst skill in the game PERIOD has a cooldown that allows classes to directly counter/hardcounter it with their cooldown skills EVERY time they come off of cooldown?

It’s a rhetorical question for all of those people making the argument that you should be able to have protection or reflection or damage immunity EVERY single time Rapid Fire (or any burst skill) is used against you. The game isn’t designed for people to be able to shrug off damage or completely ignore/mitigate the efforts of an opponent. It’s designed around forcing you into making you make decisions with your cooldowns and dodges that will ultimately effect the outcome of a fight.

The game is balanced around that fact, and the idea that people think they should be able to completely mitigate and ignore their opponents and that if they can’t do that then something isn’t balanced is the most flawed argument you could ever make for balance.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

jcbroe.4329:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

RF is essentially former eviscerate spam.

It was too hard for players to counter evisc, why should they be expected to counter a long range burst that can be used every 8 seconds, whether or not they have filled a meter?

No, adrenaline and burst skills were normalized by putting the skill on it’s full cooldown regardless of whether it lands or was missed, just like every other burst mechanic in the game.

You’re comparing apples to oranges with extreme bias, and imo people are wasting their time debating balance with you.

you seem to be misunderstanding the simplicity of my argument.

Nothing has changed for skill cooldown, regarding warriors. The difficulty of landing the skill has simply been increased a couple of times. My argument is merely “if evading a close range spike (tells notwithstanding) every 7 seconds was too difficult for players, why would it be expected that a long range spike every 8 seconds would be completely tolerable?”

I am not placing focus on mechanics here. obviously the skills both have very different prerequisites, but the majority of complaints focused on evisc was how quickly and how heavily it hit, with very little concern given to how much time it took to fill the adren bar.

That’s actually entirely fair then, I misinterpreted as “well one burst got nerfed so they should all get nerfed” like I’m starting to expect to see from these arguments.

As far as warriors alone go, I can understand why the adrenaline change was made to some degree, but the hindsight of it exists where the time it takes to build adrenaline now may inadvertently put the skill on a much longer cooldown (from use to use) in practice, because to some degree, with burst skills also having their own cooldown, it’s like getting punished MORE for missing, which doesn’t inherently seem right since missing on it’s own should be the punishment, and the cooldowns themselves honestly could have just been played around with imo.

As far as Rapid Fire goes, I think it’s just honestly too soon to tell. People are experiencing an extreme knee jerk reaction and the meta hasn’t had time to settle for the skill to be logically analyzed and discussed between most people. Personally I’d be curious to see, in terms of matching up with the announced class philosophies, how close Mesmer (the second best ranged damage in the game) matches to the new Ranger longbow, because if the ranger longbow is outperforming it, I would be curious to know how much it is outperforming the next closest option by.

Other than that, it’s just extremely clear the the community is having a major knee jerk meltdown, and I don’t think many people have truly let themselves try to adapt. Like for instance, I know it’s an isolated game mode comparatively, but there is only 1 glass ranger (or ANY ranger for that matter) on top teams in the PvP scene right now across all of the top teams. Is it because the build hasn’t be experimented with, or is it because it still isn’t viable at a top tier level?

People need to just calm down and give the state of the current game a chance. We all know that ANet has a long balancing cycle anyhow, so all of the knee jerk complaints are probably just being written off as too soon to tell at the moment anyhow.

@Chrispy;

It’s still completely valid to compare it to Volley as far as function versus function is concerned. But doing so apparently invited in the idea that it should be a comparison that ignores all other variables and factors, which we all know isn’t how the game is balanced or designed.

For a small example of what I mean, Longbow is designed directly around using Rapid Fire as it’s big damage option. There is no setup for the skill, there is no skill rotation, it is 100% a one trick pony, cut to the chase weapon. Warrior Rifle, on the other hand, is designed around a damage rotation. Volley, while contributing to the weapons damage output, isn’t designed to be the weapons only burst skill with the existence of Kill Shot, and Volley is designed more to function as sustainable damage while the Rifle builds adrenaline to go for a Kill Shot.

The weapons goals are very different by design, and while comparing Volley to Rapid Fire is significant, it shouldn’t be an “if and only if” type argument where A is balanced if and only if it is equal to B when the goals of both skills for their respective weapon sets as a whole don’t align.

Which is exactly why I suggested more comparisons. If we take a look at more similarly functioning ranged weapons, we will actually be able to have a logical discussion about this while looking at all the factors at a time instead of the whole thread be about taking each unique element and making a final decision in a vacuum without looking at the whole picture.

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

This isn’t even worth discussing imo. Rapid Fire isn’t too strong and doesn’t deserve any nerfs. A good developer balances for skill, not the skill level of bad players, and if ANet is going to promote a balanced product, then they will stick to their guns with the update.

IF ANYTHING, a global nerf needs to be implemented so that Air and Fire sigils either cannot be proc’d at the same time and/or cannot be used on the same weapon. They are what is creating issues with ridiculously fast times to kill, and even 1 shot mechanics, but it isn’t something specific to any class, and rather, an issue with all strong burst options in the game.

GW2 is already a dying game, it doesn’t need to pander to the worst possible denominator of players, it will just kill the remaining populations motivation to play even more and all that will be left are the mouthbreathers.

Read again, I don’t want RF to be nerfed.
This is a discussion about what would be the best change to RF in order to make it easier to avoid, for an (according to anet) “Average Player”.

The first paragraph of yours is wrong, because any company will always prioritise the average population. 90% of bad players who continue to play the game means more money than those 10% who are very skilled.

Still, all this is irrelevant because this is a thread for discussing what would be the best change to RF if anet decides to change it. There is nothing more to it.
No need to bring up how much you think this game fails.

Btw, not trolling, how do you know it’s dying?

And my argument is that ANet shouldn’t decide to change it, and then I listed what should be changed if anything should be changed.

If bad players make a skill good, you don’t nerf the skill so that the bad players appear better, you let them adapt to the skill before you even start to run numbers on where the skill is. It’s been 2 weeks since the patch dropped and nerf threads started cropping up only hours after the patch, there is no reason to discuss a theoretical knee jerk reaction to a knee jerk response coming from bad players when the meta hasn’t even had time to settle yet.

As far as a dying game goes, the statement is made in reference to the competitive scene being at an all time low with a lot of competitive teams quitting or disbanding, as well as weekly tournament turn out and viewership being at an all time low. That being said, the Tournament of Glory hopefully succeeds as the stimulus package it is designed to be for the competitive community. That probably isn’t indicative of the blanket statement I made, since what I really meant is that a subcommunity is dying, but regardless, when balance is made almost directly in regards to that subcommunity, it is important to note that there is a dwindling population for a very valid reason (top players that I speak to are tired of all of the passive, carry mechanics that remove direct skill from the equation of successful play).

Azure The Heartless.3261:

RF is essentially former eviscerate spam.

It was too hard for players to counter evisc, why should they be expected to counter a long range burst that can be used every 8 seconds, whether or not they have filled a meter?

No, adrenaline and burst skills were normalized by putting the skill on it’s full cooldown regardless of whether it lands or was missed, just like every other burst mechanic in the game.

You’re comparing apples to oranges with extreme bias, and imo people are wasting their time debating balance with you.

This isn’t even worth discussing imo. Rapid Fire isn’t too strong and doesn’t deserve any nerfs. A good developer balances for skill, not the skill level of bad players, and if ANet is going to promote a balanced product, then they will stick to their guns with the update.

IF ANYTHING, a global nerf needs to be implemented so that Air and Fire sigils either cannot be proc’d at the same time and/or cannot be used on the same weapon. They are what is creating issues with ridiculously fast times to kill, and even 1 shot mechanics, but it isn’t something specific to any class, and rather, an issue with all strong burst options in the game.

GW2 is already a dying game, it doesn’t need to pander to the worst possible denominator of players, it will just kill the remaining populations motivation to play even more and all that will be left are the mouthbreathers.

Rapid Fire has a sound cue (similar to mesmer shatters) that plays before you take any damage, which gives even more time to react to it the farther the distance is from the player using the skill. The animation is also extremely obvious, and due to the nature of projectiles, you can here both the sound cue and see the animation to be able to react and dodge.

The only time neither factor matters is just about point blank range, and at that point, you can just dodge or close the gap through the player using Rapid Fire and break the channeling animation like with any other channeled skill in the game.

Given that most players haven’t played enough against power rangers due to the fact that they were never effective (and still aren’t top tier effective) until now, it is forgivable that people don’t have the practice to play correctly against the build.

BUT, that does not excuse the knee jerk reaction of seeing it, not understanding any of the nuances of the skill (that have always existed), and then saying it should be nerfed.

The build itself versus other skills in the game is actually extremely balanced for skill, and it’s effectiveness is literally only determined by player input and opponent output. Any player who doesn’t have the (imo minimal) output abilities to outplay the build presents a biased opinion because they want the game to be balanced for their skill level as opposed to how it is now (catering to high end balance) and should be ignored (like the complaints that have cropped up since the patch dropped).