Guild Wars 2

I don’t mean to rain on anybodies parade, but dedicating any sort of resources to pet naming before anything else that affects actual gameplay is just about the last thing I care about.

I can understand that some people are OCD enough that the aesthetic value of being able to save pet names and not take the few moments to just rename them, but seriously, in a completely outrageous metaphor, it’s like complaining about an old flip-phone because you actually have to flip it open to use it.

Enough with humoring myself though, I get it, I really do, but the game didn’t launch with it and there are still like, I would actually say probably about a literal million other things that ANet needs to dedicate those resources to before they worry about rangers not being able to save their pet names.

So while the miniscule effect on the QoL of the class might be nice, I would rate it as overall unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

My opinion though, you don’t have to listen to me, and obviously it will never stop bugging the people that it bugs, so I’m not trying to dissuade you from your arguments lol.

Let me try to reword this thread since I think I can kind of understand what is trying to be said here.

The ability to reuse CC abilities quite frequently, and the ease of use of some (many) of those CC abilities, creates a frustrating gameplay environment that is heavily based in how the conquest game mode functions.

If this is what is actually trying to be said, then while it is an opinion still, it is a much more agreeable statement, and it isn’t class specific, since, of course still an opinion, engineers aren’t the only class who would be main offenders of that statement.

It’s also important to differentiate hard CC and soft CC, since soft CC in general is never really the control type that is being complained about.

While I definitely agree with the generic sentiment that a scaling range mechanic is a poor mechanic, I don’t overall find it to be the core issue; which is the PvE/Dungeon issue that everybody is discussing.

“Zooming out” a bit, looking at the weapons alone, why is achieving maximum damage through a zero cooldown autoattack even an existing mechanic? In a perfect world (perfect game), autoattacking would be considered “filler” damage in a skill rotation that would be maximizing damage and encouraging active gameplay.

The fact that the game even rewards autoattacking with maximum DPS values is a testament to what mechanics would need to be changed, starting with a simple philosophy; skill rotations need to be used to achieve maximum DPS on every weaponset.

If we could make a change like that so that the longbows (mesmer greatswords as well? other than using iZerker on cooldown I’d assume) cooldown skills were actually significant additions to the damage output, then looking at the ranged based damage scaling mechanic again, depending on the severity of changes made, we might be able to leave the mechanic as is, seeing as how the skill would now just be considered a filler damage skill with bonus damage stipulations, so that the weapon would no longer be an autoattack to win weapon.

Sorry for this everybody, but the podcast is going to be delayed until tomorrow due to memorial day weekend events. I sincerely apologize, it’s been a hectic few weeks with personal lives outside of the game, but we’ll get back on schedule as soon as possible.

In the meantime, please continue to let us know what you would like us to talk about!

@Sent; we can absolutely talk about useful or common builds, and I’ll be more than happy to give you links afterwards on this thread, and I’m sure durz will do the same!

Hey Jebro, I’m from the SOAC podcast channel, and one of the ranger casters. Just a heads up that we communicate regularly, and sorry I didn’t respond earlier, I’ve been MIA enjoying the start of my summer off with the gf.

Anyhow, it’s a solid build setup, I’ll give you that. I do have to be honest and say I’d argue with a few of your choices though.

Nothing major. I just personally don’t see flame trap as necessary for the build. Torch 5 already acts as an on demand flame trap and isn’t your only source of burning, and while I totally, totally understand more burning, my preference would be to pick up Signet of the Hunt since it also increases the movement speed of pets and would raise your cats DPS on a moving target significantly.

I also wouldn’t want to go with Protect Me either, mainly because with a heavy investment into Beastmastery, using a utility with a high probability of killing the pet and heavy dependency on the pet being fairly intact when activating it has always seemed counterproductive to me. I’d personally probably replace it with Signet of Renewal, if you are using it for the stunbreak feature, and then it doubles up as an AoE full condi removal that also cleanses allies in range.

Sic’ Em is fine, no argument there. Other than that, there is always the option of working in Signet of the Wild for the passive healing for you (higher passive heals on the pet) and the pet and then activating it for the increase in damage on the pet (25% more damage due to the enlargement transformation it gets).

Still solid though, I’m not going to sit here and nitpick it all day. I just wanted to provide some feedback and some stuff to maybe think about lol. Like Geomancy is usually your typical option for sigils, especially on your sword set. You could probably drop energy sigils with all of the vigor generation the build has. Not a requirement at all though, you’re just making the build more dodge capable and therefore annoying to kill, which is never a bad thing haha.

Glad to see you’re enjoying the ranger though! Especially since they’ve recently fallen out of the EU “meta,” at least for ESLs.

Edit: One last criticism; you should try out Celestial now on builds like this. It’s surprisingly effective, even though you’ll lose a little condition damage and toughness. The vitality gain and damage stats gain seem to more than make up for it, and help rangers compete with the current “tanky” meta builds a bit better than full condi investment does.

ANet has done a pretty good job at keeping their (admittedly snail paced) 3-4 month balance patch schedule going since GW1, and we’ve already seen that they plan on sticking to that in GW2 unless they actually listen to the community.

So take April 15th, and add 3-4 months, and we get July/August. I would personally assume that they will make another go at balance before they do the next ANet hosted PvP tournament or Tournament of Legends 2, which given the past tournament being at PAX (I think it was PAX) in August, it would either have to happen “far enough in advance for any bugs to be taken care of and to not shake things up too much for the competitive teams that it messes with the level of competition” or it might not even happen until after the next “big” competitive tournament.

Rangers have are not part of “meta” team comps actually, so any “meta” builds you are thinking of would actually technically be considered “old meta.”

Just letting you know. There is no “cookie cutter” standard build for the new meta yet.

That being said, I personally roll with A/D S/T Celestial 0/2/6/0/6 with Sigils of Geomancy and Hydromancy on each weaponset and Runes of Grenth, with improved pet crit damage, offhand training, empathic bond, mighty swap, vigorous training, and invigorating bond being your main important traits. Also, Raven and Owl.

Still, it’s a dueling build and not as much as a teamfight build, or at least not as much as some people would want you to be. Though being able to basically soft CC lockdown a target and a pet that does the same sustain as like, a thief, seems pretty valuable to me.

Anyhow, didn’t have the time to make the link. Bunch of finals today and what not. Oh, and celestial trapper is also very fun and effective as well imo.

Oh, just a thought for the thread; would it be wrong to say that the biggest place where longbow suffers is at mid range?

The line of reasoning being:

it loses it’s strong sustain damage, and with no burst damage skill and a long channel, extremely multi-hit, easily avoidable skill has to be relied on to maintain the best sustain damage, which gets lost if you try to make any sort of defense reaction to your opponent at mid range.

Meanwhile, nearly every gap closer in the game can close an opponent in on you from mid range to in your face, and with a lack of the ability to remove any stability they might apply negate your knockback, not to mention that knockback shot isn’t punishing enough and only pushes them back out to mid range, where their short cooldown gap closer will be ready to close them back in as they avoid all of your subpar mid range damage, not to mention that a few of the gap closers are either instantaneous or apply a blind or can be combined with a damage immunity of some sort that also renders Knockback Shot useless. By subpar, I mean that even if you are landing your autoattack and full channel rapid fire, unless the target has zero toughness investment, you won’t dent their hp enough that they are unable to recover, and their is no skill on the longbow weapon set that actually lets you capitalize if your sustain is effective.

So, long range, the longbows sustain is strong and effective enough to down an opponent that persists in trying to either engage you from that distance, or isn’t aware there is a dodge key as they attempt to close the gap. Close range, it’s a bow, not a martial weapon, so a weapon swap is meant to occur at that point, or a defensive utility needs to be blown.

And at mid range, the situation I described is fairly applicable, is it not?

Just food for thought, I want to see what people think. If it’s true from the CDI that the most complained about feature was the pet, then I’d wager the second most complained about topic is the longbow haha.

Prysin.8542:

What if, we added boon ripping+sharing to first strike through the remorseless trait?
Since its a gm trait we should be able to spread them to allies in a small aoe around us…
Then maybe we would have a reason to use remorseless. Since remorseless takes up the spot for RtW, we wouldnt be 100% sure to hit targets, therefore it balancess itself out a little.
To further balance it, add +2 more seconds of stealth to hunters shot, add pet gains stealth too and increase hunters shot cd to 20 seconds.

Yeah, Remorseless giving Opening Strikes a boon rip/removal quality is definitely something I and Battosai and a few others have suggested a few times now, so I’m totally on board with it.

I’m not sure Hunter’s Shot really needs the change though, except of course that it should definitely stealth the pet. I see where a longer stealth could be advantageous, but right now, the cooldown situates it in a good position to be able to basically always be able to use it in combination with LB4, and coupled with Remorseless, is just about the best burst the weapon is going to get.

Of course, the longer cooldown but longer stealth would push the weapon towards being more utility based. But god forbid the class everybody chose as their go-to sniper archer bowmaster 360 noscoper not have a ranged weapon with 1200 range as a primary damage source.

Even though I make jokes, I’d honestly prefer to see the longbow be a heavy damage oriented weapon too, and have to rely on melee weapons for defense and close range damage.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

arkealia.2713:

Dunno if you guys saw this but while we already know about it, I think it’s pretty revelant.
Anet please watch this :
Two pets trying to hit each other

Yeah. That’s the change they made to the pet AI awhile back that makes the pet initiate it’s attack on the flank of what it’s attacking. It was meant as a PvE change so that they don’t run into the cleave of a enemy like a boss in a dungeon, which truthfully has improved dungeon survivability, but it’s also one of those changes were, when the improvement was made for a single game mode, it affects the other game modes in the manner shown in the video.

It’s pretty unfortunate.

Well… no. Exept they change the complete mob AI if they change something related to pets. I observed the same behaving between my pet and a random mob who’s running at my pet.

Yeah, pets share mob AI for sure, but have more things special to them due to their “unique” situation.

As mentioned, they don’t have this behavior with other plays. Outside of their prioritized skill queue, they are pretty good about sticking to players, and players do require a speed boost of some sort to effectively kite our pets.

arkealia.2713:

Dunno if you guys saw this but while we already know about it, I think it’s pretty revelant.
Anet please watch this :
Two pets trying to hit each other

Yeah. That’s the change they made to the pet AI awhile back that makes the pet initiate it’s attack on the flank of what it’s attacking. It was meant as a PvE change so that they don’t run into the cleave of a enemy like a boss in a dungeon, which truthfully has improved dungeon survivability, but it’s also one of those changes were, when the improvement was made for a single game mode, it affects the other game modes in the manner shown in the video.

It’s pretty unfortunate.

The best thing I can tell you is to look at the table on this page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical

So, spotter is a 7% critical chance increase. Based on the increases on the chart, Spotter is equal to the damage increase of Eagle Eye starting at somewhere between 45 and 50% critical damage (between 195% and 200%). For sure at 50% critical damage is when Spotter starts being a better DPS boost than Eagle Eye.Otherwise, run Eagle Eye.

The stipulation to this is that it is primarily focused on the longbow though, meaning that Spotter, because it affects your other weapon sets, would end up being the better damage trait simply because of it’s universal nature. So it depends on how primary you make your longbow use, versus your weapon swap.

@rpfohr.7048;

I love pet swap traits, and I love your suggestions for them particularly. I can totally back all of those, and have especially been wanting a condi cleanse on pet swap for a very, very long time now.

So definitely agreed, and +1.

@Xaylin;

I like your greatsword idea better than mine, and I was just spitballing with a lot of them for discussion purposes, but I’m glad they netted some support! I agree wholeheartedly with all of you feedback too.

Now, this is going to be another “throwing it out there” idea, because it would be the first skill with this particular type of, let’s say, selective boon targeting, but what if Barrage was a field that removed particular boons? Like, make it a slightly more offense Chaos Field (mesmer staff 5 if that isn’t the name). So that it rips a single boon out of an array of protection, retaliation, and maybe swiftness? Dunno, three might be too many, but the important one is retaliation. So if it removed retaliation and protection, either on a 50% chance for either (100% chance to remove a single boon out of those two), or even like, every 3rd hit removes a boon (any boon)?

I mean, I think that currently it’s a hard thing to judge.

@Thread in general;
However, I do know for a fact that out of ever class with a “viable” power build, every one has a way of removing boons except eles and rangers, and eles have god-like self sustain and group support even on their offensive builds, so they fill that role better than any other class imo (offensive support). But rangers need something like boon removal or destruction of the empowered or something. And please, not another Sic’ Em applies reveal type change that in the grand scheme of combat doesn’t improve our competition for a best in slot role.

I think I’m finally on the verge of breaking down and going with Jon Peters on taking the evade off of autoattack. Yes, zerg surfers will forever cry, and there are of course a million different ideas and none of them are truly wrong, but GS4 should gain Autoattack3s evade and animation, while still attempting a knockback on the person who triggered the skill, and Swoop should also be an evade during the leap animation at the very least (maybe not the entire run duration, because it’s a harder to control variable). The new autoattack 3 should restore endurance, similarly to how the thief dagger works.

Couple that with a longer range hilt bash, and we have a very, very nasty weapon on our hands that can still do decent damage, and has the defensive utility that it currently feels as though it’s lacking.

Longbow, oh longbow. I will forever hate rapid fire, and an extension of that is hating barrage, because both skills make the weapon very clunky to use and seemingly slow down the pace of combat and the weapon.

Durz and I were talking about how we agreed that shortbow gets one thing right (all the damage focused in the autoattack is not it) in the sense that it has “an arrow for every occassion.” It’s very Green Arrow or Hawkeye style (don’t start a DC vs Marvel debate here please, that’s what the rest of the internet is for haha), and should conceptually be applied to the longbow as well.

So I personally still think that the best way to handle it is to turn the number 3 skill into a toggle, so that you don’t need your arrow to hit anything to go stealth. You go into a stealth, and then the part 2 of the skill is debatable, though I’d make a push for some sort of soft CC (cripple, chill, immobilize from stealth even, similar to a thief but nowhere near the duration?).

At this point, due to the nature of Moment of Clarity, I would also like to see either Rapid Fire or Barrage be turned into a single hit, bit damage style skill, in order to have so play off of moment of clarity and be able to combo LB4 into the damage skill. I wouldn’t begin to have a suggestion, other than single hit damage, and please no holding a key to charge a skill, the controls can already be clunky to those of us keyboard warriors as it is without trying to strafe around AND hold ANOTHER button down while trying to strafe. I only have so many fingers and a thumb, and I already actively use all of them when I’m playing.

Just spitballing, maybe turn Rapid Fire into an inverse Hundred Blades of sorts, functionality wise. Let’s take Rapid Fire and make it 5 shots With like a 3 second total channel. The first shot is a big damage hit that is essentially 5 of the old arrows combined into a single hit of damage, and applies 5 stacks of vulnerability, followed up by 4 regular shots, fired at a “rapid” pace. Picture it looking like a single, aimed, precise shot that hits for big damage because it was aimed and precisely fired, followed by a volley to down the person in case they aren’t dead, if that makes any sort of visual sense.

I don’t know what to do with Barrage. I mean, my idea right now is just to keep it as is but have it remove a boon per hit (so yes, if a person gets hit all 12 times, then 12 boons removed). Also, it’s a bandaid solution to Barrage doing half our half because of retaliation against groups that have it, on top of it being the boon removal I so desperately want.

Sorry guys, I know I write text walls, but I want to reason out everything for discussion purposes. I know it’s a lot.

Atherakhia.4086:

Hyper offensive? No utility? I’m like on the completely other end of the spectrum :/

LB #2: Utility skill so you do competetive damage at min range.

LB #3: Utility skill so you can defend yourself/escape.

LB #4: Utility skill to get people off you.

LB #5: Utility skill to snare 5 targets (and kill yourself).

GS #2: Burst, but without a fast hands trait it can’t live up to its potential.

GS #3: Utility to escape/engage.

GS #4: Utility to defend with very limited offensive ability against an aware opponent.

GS #5: Utility to interrupt a cast but is primarily used to line up a maul.

I realize I’m oversimplifying this a bit and some sigil combinations have really openned up the potential with some of these options, but overall I’m not seeing the same offensive value you are. Especially when I consider half the attacks do less damage than #1.

I meant hyper offensive in terms of how the skills function. As in, every “utility” function requires you to be full offensive and hitting a target. The only true defensive utilities in the weapon combination are LB 3, LB 4, and the blocking portion of GS 4, coupled with the unreliable autoattack chain evade.

I may have been unclear that I meant defensive utility though, so I apologize. But with those 4 listed, the only skill that doesn’t require you to complete some offensive action to benefit from the defensive value is GS 4. LB 3 has to hit to have any value, and in totality is a weak skill because it’s all or nothing for purely utility function that you need in order to make the weapon work to it’s full potential. Same thing with LB4, but at least it hits for a decent amount.

GS 4 is only good against projectiles, and is elaborated on by Eura in his post, and the evade, again, can’t be relied on for on demand reactions because it’s the autoattack chain.

I’m pretty sure I can speak for a lot of ranger players when I say that most people would probably rather see, function wise, for Maul and Rapid Fire to swap weapon sets. In the very general sense that longbow would have a single, or very few amount of arrows fired in one skill as the damage skill, where Greatsword would get a multi-hit damage skill that stacks vulnerability.

That’s a very basic analysis of course, and I could definitely come up with ideas all day about how to design the longbow and greatsword where they would still work well paired together, but still be functional, and at different things, on their own.

For instance, if longbow was altered by just a few skills and damage numbers, it would be able to be paired with the 1-handed sword and gain all the defensive utility it needs without sacrificing the burst it currently needs from the greatsword because the weapon simply isn’t a good option for instantaneous damage, making it a very difficult weapon to make work on its own in PvP as a power weapon because it’s all sustain and utility and no burst.

I’d say that overall, the combination of LB/GS is more of a hyper offensive setup than anything due to the functionality of all the different weapon skills.

Neither weapon has much defensive utility, but the underlying problem with LB is that it relies on the Greatsword swap for it to be a viable damage build in total. This, to me, indicates that the combination of both weapons has the tools necessary to do damage, but because it isn’t centralized on one weapon or the other, it doesn’t provide the overall defensive utility that’s basically mandatory on all builds that lack defensive stat investments (usually in the form of evades, teleports, stealth, and immunities).

Combine that with a severe lack of function in a lot of our utilities (shouts don’t know what they’re doing, and survival skills are very, very, very basic. Signets are interesting but require heavy investment, and spirits are spirits, meaning they are more group utility than survival utility) and you are left with a build that, comparative to other power options in the game, struggles to stay afloat.

If I keep going though, I’ll go full circle right back to how much I hate Rapid Fire, so I think I’ve said enough with this piece haha.

I wanted to transport a post made by a fellow ranger I hold in high regards to this thread, because I am aware of how much experience this person has with a particular spec, and so their insight on it is very valued and should be visible in a place that isn’t a forum thread with lesser constructive potential:

Eurantien.4632:

I feel like longbow is viable. I feel like greatsword is not which by extension makes longbow not viable since you don’t have a reliable defensive weapon to swap to. The reason I say greatsword and not any other weapon set is because for a power ranger the DPS loss swapping to any other weapon set is just too great. When swapping to greatsword the issues are hilt bash range, and the block which is unable to save you from multiple targets (if one hits melee) because it forces you into a long animation (counter attack which can be sidestepped lol) which is essentially a self stun. I’ve used long bow a ton, played lb/gs 6/6/2 zerker ranger to the top 50 of both EU and NA leaderboards. I really don’t think lb is the problem (i’m generally in lb 75% of the time), but the greatsword which I only swap to If I know I can land the 3->5->2 burst combo or if I need to escape/reposition using swoop->block. Mainly, that is because the GS block (which ideally should keep you in a fight) I only use 1 v 1 or to try to block projectiles after I swoop away because its worthless for anything else.

I would be certain that there has to be a dev on the balance team that, if not yet, will eventually sinking a bunch of time into playing ranger. There are a lot of different variables in that answer, like admitting that it probably isn’t their main or first choice of class, and there is the potential that these devs don’t even play the class on live servers, so that they can play around with values and skills and ideas and such as they play.

That’s fair enough, and I’m not saying it’s inefficient. I’m just saying you could get more damage from a different pet while having the pet perform a similar role to the bear.

Ultimately, the biggest decision you have to make is how useful that condition removal is to you, because if you do find yourself relying on it, then no matter what I say, it’s ultimately a difference in our playstyles, and I do know people that make bears work that are good players.

Last thing though, your own stat investment doesn’t affect the pets damage whatsoever. They have their own stats and own damage outputs that are completely independent of you as the player, and the only thing that affects your pets stats are traits, investment in the BM line, and your level.

Dusk.4708:

jcbroe.4329:

Any “utility” that a bear provides is heavily outweighed by the fact that it’s a bear, meaning that it does nothing outside of tank. If you need a tanky pet, go with a drake.

so you’d rather use a drake that has to stand in place to use its f2 ability in a cone and can’t take as much punishment as a type of bear, rather than use a bear whitch not only is tanky, but can take a beating when i use “protect me” as an anti-burst utility, and have an AoE condi clear on a short CD……doesn’t make much sense to me but, if it makes you feel better i use a black bear sometimes! ;D

River Drake and Marsh Drake both have bouncing 600 range projectiles that both deal decent to massive damage, the second best defensive stats outside of bears, and the cleave, and their attacks do decent damage.

I’d rather have a slightly less tanky pet that actually does something outside of being a sponge for Protect Me, while being able to be used with Protect Me just fine, then a pet that does nothing but soak damage.

Bears just have terrible opportunity cost in comparison. Please tell me you’re at least running a DPS pet as your swap.

I’m going to be completely honest with you. I saw that you were using a bear and I immediately stopped watching.

Any “utility” that a bear provides is heavily outweighed by the fact that it’s a bear, meaning that it does nothing outside of tank. If you need a tanky pet, go with a drake.

You know, you could make shortbow 3 apply some torment, since outside of the evade the functionality is barely noticeable as is.

Also, I saw somebody else suggest putting torment on sword 3, which flows really well with the soft cc theme behind the sword, and would benefit both power and condition builds as well.

Additionally, offhand dagger 5 could have its bleeds replaced with torment.

Those are my big 3.

I wouldn’t expect a response any time too soon. Not because the devs don’t care, but if you guys didn’t hear, Allie recently decided to choose to transition to a job outside of ANet. As far as I’ve been able to tell, we don’t even have an official community coordinator at the moment, who would be the one that more than likely would be making any official statements regarding any notes taken from the ranger CDI.

That being said, we haven’t even done nearly enough discussion about the ranger class post CDI, and definitely not enough post April 15th. If the ToL or my opinion that I share during the Arrow to the Knee podcasts isn’t enough, I’ll say it again:

Ranger builds that were “meta” are no longer nearly as effective as they need to be to stay competitive. It’s a heavy burst, damage tank meta (this is all PvP by the way, not necessarily applicable to WvW or PvE) with a warrior/guardian/thief core, with teams usually opting to fill in the last 2 slots with roamers, or a mirror warrior and a condi tank or secondary support (like a clerics staff ele).

Does that mean that rangers don’t work? Not at all. But I wouldn’t be running Carrion/Forge against mostly direct damage teams with usually 1, if not multiple sources of boon steal/rip to deal with the protection on Carrion/Forge builds that make the build so tanky against both condis and direct damage.

Settler’s is the new ranger “meta” gearing option in PvP. We can run any number of builds with it, and I still wouldn’t recommend, at the highest levels of play, that people use anything other than Empathic Bond for condi clears. Not because SotF is bad, but because it locks your utilities into things that really don’t bring any benefit to your team.

With Settler’s, your best bets are to either run spirits, hybrid spirits with Nature’s Voice, or BM. Each one does something completely different, and the hybrid nature’s voice is probably the least optimal depending on what your team comp is (would work similarly to a banner warrior in a sense, and it doesn’t mean the build won’t succeed, it’s more of a team comp thing). Spirits are the condi tank build, BM is your damage option.

Our power builds are fine…. damage wise. The issue is that our glass builds don’t have the self sustain or the group utility that a thief or a mesmer does to be as an effective best in slot option that another classes glass build gives. However, building tanky and investing in BM is like taking our pets (gotta choose the right pet) and giving them a sword thiefs auto attack, but more consistently high numbers (this is with thinking of ravens).

So to summarize where I think this leaves us, it means that, particularly:

• Skirmishing Traits all need work
• It would be nice to see Opening Strikes revamped so that it is more of a thing that functions during combat without Remorseless than it is now
• Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Beastmaster are all in a good spot. We can nitpick about specific traits, but they have what they need to be competitive options and lend themselves to builds
• Utilities all, except for spirits, need some sort of tune up to make them less bland, and more effective options. Shouts and traps in particular
• Weapons could use a balance pass. Longbow is a clunky weapon that needs to see changes to Rapid Fire and Barrage to improve the pacing of combat. Greatsword is the only weapon that is functionally in a good spot, other than offhands excluding the warhorn.
• Strider’s Defense. Really? Change please (goes along with Skirmishing but still). I don’t think I need to actually describe what is wrong with it. I can’t even say anything positive about it, so that’s the feedback it gets

Durzlla.6295:

jcbroe.4329:

Let’s see what the NA teams bring to the fight this weekend, how about that haha. Not trying to make some big debate of EU vs NA out of it, I just mean that NA will have had more time to play around with new build options and will have been able to watch the EU ToL to add to their game knowledge and build knowledge going in to this weekends tourny.

So hopefully, we’ll see some interesting ranger play this weekend.

You seem to be implying that the NA teams will change anything…. The NA meta evolves quite a bit slower than the EU meta, so i’m not expecting any change, if it were the other way around, MAYBE.

But we’ll see, I hope to god i’m wrong and the NA teams will actually adapt and use some of the new builds that became available due to the traits instead of sticking with the same old kitten.

Well there are enough teams participating that even if overall most of the builds and team comps are the same (I guarantee somebody is going to try to run the exact same team comp TCG won with) by the time the semis come around, I’d expect to see at least a few teams in the lower brackets whose builds indicate that they aren’t Euro-lemmings.

If you’re going to compare it to anything, I would compare it to Mug on a Sleight of Hand Thief build. Anyhow, I would say it’s overall better than choosing Natural Healing, but that if you want offense, with the pet changes, Zephyr’s Speed is very decent now.

There’s an internal cooldown so that you’ll only receive the healing from the trait every 20 seconds.

Let’s see what the NA teams bring to the fight this weekend, how about that haha. Not trying to make some big debate of EU vs NA out of it, I just mean that NA will have had more time to play around with new build options and will have been able to watch the EU ToL to add to their game knowledge and build knowledge going in to this weekends tourny.

So hopefully, we’ll see some interesting ranger play this weekend.

AEFA.9035:

Numbers over everything.

I don’t even mean it like, to argue with you lol. I’m just saying that they could build wars better based on who they’re up against. No point in building cleanse heavy against a team with no condi investment haha.

AEFA.9035:

Fluffball.8307:

I’ma go on record as saying SotF never becomes PvP meta without further buffs. It’s in too weird of a line.

Ranger needs to evolve. All of you are stuck 6 deep into WS for EB? Random 10 seconds condi clear > On the go 2 condi clear. Outdated.

It’s too limiting to utility choice is the issue, and most teams push for people to take as much team support as they can instead of building selfish. EB is useful in the sense that it doesn’t lock up your utility choices.

However, SotF could have been run in a hybrid spirits build during the tournament, and particularly with this tournament, Car Crash was the most condi-heavy team (in the semis that I can recall at this time), and TCG didn’t even have a condi-user on their team I don’t believe.

I don’t even think it should be a debate on whether or not to go SotF or EB. In this particular tournament, it should be a question of whether or not Healing Spring and SoR would have been more than enough condi removal, which against certain team comps, it absolutely would have been.

But I guess that’s why TCG won, with no ranger, and as far as builds go, a less than standard array of selections and a complete lack of condi-spam classes. Because why out-meta the meta when you can just counter it?

Durzlla.6295:

mikdepadua.8376:

“- Keen Edge is your best choice in Marks mostly because of the extra fury”

What do you mean by this? Extra fury?

EDIT: Ah nevermind, I just got it. The new grandmaster trait triggers when you use keen edge in marks. Cool

Also, wouldn’t using runes of the traveler, and changing signet of the hunt with another survival skill make more sense? QZ, LR, and MT are all great utilities.

It really depends, if he wants to be able to roam better and have better all around mobility, no he’d wanna keep SoTH, if he wants more actual utility, then you’d be right.

PS: If you’ve got a “bursty” pet like a drake, bird, maybe even canine IE anything with a big hit attack you can clearly see, SotH can give you quite a large damage boost too.

Not to mention that on top of this, there are better rune choices than Traveler’s Runes, especially for a build that can’t afford to put any traits into the Skirmishing line, that allow you to stack precision and critical damage much better than Traveler’s, and are therefore better for DPS.

And that’s on top of what Durz is saying here.

Tragic Positive.9356:

geogyf.5087:

Piercing Arrows & Spotter are mandatory.
So RtW gets left behind

for SPvP and WvW i could see RtW being picked

Neither for sPvP. You’d like to hit as many people as possible to grind rank points.
… If you don’t want to grind points but win the game – you don’t need the trait at all since you rarely fire more than 2-3 shots from 1000+

You DO know that in PvP, the score you accumulate during the match has nothing to do at all with how much rank you receive, right?

It doesn’t matter at all whether your score is 80 or 300, the only rank you receive is the win/loss reward and 5 additional rank points for every top stat you receive, like top revives, etc.

This change was made a fairly substantial amount of time ago to discourage rank farming and encourage people to play the game correctly, as far as match objectives go.

Well, I’d say sword just because sword can be used in a variety of builds and isn’t limited to being a “power only” option. Also, it is the preferred weaponset in dungeons, which is another huge bonus.

I’d say it’s worthwhile for every ranger to learn how to use sword, and the awesomeness of Bolt just adds icing to the cake.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8YjMq0vaBLWsQ0agDhqdJ8rjArA4dVssXdBPSA-TJhHwAPLDI4kAEa/BAPBAA

@DeceiverX.8361;

I agree that the class isn’t where it should be as far as competing for a unique role.

I just don’t agree with some people’s impression that the class is useless. Pressure builds were an actual thing in Guild Wars 1, where certain builds just sustained damage, and trained down targets, harassing them. Those build would usually have a fairly slow time to kill in comparison to a spike damage setup, but could keep the pressure on in order to force position and the use of cooldowns, or allow a team to transition to that pressure player’s target if that target allowed themselves to get too low and spike them down really quickly.

Granted that a lot has changed between that game and this, and for whatever reason, people seem to think if you can’t 100-0 somebody, then your build isn’t strong enough, and the value of constant pressure has been totally lost.

That being said, again, I don’t feel we are in a perfect spot. Weapons like the shortbow and longbow being autoattack weapons for damage is poor design, and Rapid Fire and it’s effectiveness (lack thereof) is the most frustrating thing to me in the whole world. Rangers block stances, which made us effective midliners or even frontliners in GW1 were removed, and interrupt builds, which were our competitive staple build, have been completely removed in the effective iteration and replaced with only Moment of Clarity, which is the saddest thing I think I’ve ever experienced in the entire time I’ve been playing videogames.

Particularly, we need to be able to bring more to a team composition on our power builds. Most people ask for more burst, but I’d also like to see boon removal options to make us competitive with thieves and mesmers (not in efficiency, but in general team role comparisons since they can both remove boons too), as well as maybe some more utility options outside of spirits that do something for our team (which to me involves an entire shout rework and/or an update to the effectiveness of traps).

But these are all things I’ve discussed to death, and even though I like where we have been put with the patch and I’m excited for how we currently play, I know that it isn’t the ultimate placement of where I’d like to see the class.

I just don’t always include my negative evaluations because I think that they’ve been beaten to death, and that people tend to start to believe that rangers are useless when truthfully the terminology should be more so that “we do nothing special.”

I’ve been using dual birds (raven/owl) on my Invigorating Bond build, but I have perma-chill for maximum pet damage and having pet F2’s be nearly the same as the ICD as invigorating bond while also being reliable now is the big reason.

Comparably, the wolf F2 is too valuable to “use on cooldown” and can be used for much “bigger” plays, where as with the bird F2’s, they are a damage option and should really be used just, at the best time to do damage mostly.

Other than that though, every other build I would run would have wolf on it. Really, I just wouldn’t run it with Invigorating bond, with the way I build my build.

Car Crash (wasn’t sure on the second pet, assumed wolf): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjMq0savKeqQ0aAAhaVA0eGa2Yw9S8EJRBraA-TZRAwAFOCAsLD85kAA4BA4b/BA

TDI: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMq0savK+rQ0aABhaVA0+FS2Ww9RsEFRBraA-TpxFwAWLDk4gAsZ/hDHBAAXAAEPAAA

55 hp monks: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8YjMq0ya/KWsQ0aAMhq9A0pBw7RNVrZXbQBPqA-TJhHwAPLDI4kAge/BAPBAA

Personally, I would have gone for this with the BM build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8YjMq0vaBLWsQ0agDhqdJ8rjArA4dVssXdBPSA-TJhHwAPLDI4kAEa/BAPBAA

This for the spirits: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8YjMq0savK+rQ0aAMhq9A0pBArk19G8BZwB/q9A-TJhHwAPLDI4kAEa/BAPBAA

I’m going to say flat out that the builds that were being run were not optimized for how they were being played versus the matchups they were up against.

Niah on 55 hp monks had the best build versus what he/she was doing , but even then, there would probably have been better options (I was just talking about this on the podcast) that would have made that build better.

CC players haven’t, as far as I know, been playing together, at least during the ESLs, for nearly enough time going into the tournament. Nothing against them, they are all great players, and I personally root for Super’s team every time he plays, but that ranger build was spirits, and was not a good matchup imo versus a p/w thief, a s/d thief, a well played shatter mesmer, a hambow warrior, a well played D/D ele, or a well played engi (all of the builds at this level are pretty well played too, usually).

There is a serious disadvantage, and overall, the patch did just drop on the 15th, but there could have been some better gearing decisions made and build choices that would have brought more for the team as far as what you can accomplish as a player, versus just bringing the passive procs of the spirits, which imo if you go for full investment makes you give up a lot of your dueling capabilities versus all the classes I just mentioned, ESPECIALLY if you are still running carrion/forge.

I don’t mean to sound negative towards any of these ranger players though. I just feel as though they could have had much more optimized builds for how they were being played.

We’re in a “meta” transition phase though, so I don’t blame them as much as I will NA players if they try to force their build to work against bad matchups and bad situations and not succeed, because they have the entire EU ToL to study, and an entire week to work out and play a better build versus their competition.

Prysin.8542:

jcbroe.4329:

you aren’t transparent, or even allowed to be transparent, about any of the details.

that is my main concern about this game.
Sure, saying “we are working on function X and expect to be done with it in Y weeks/months” is a bad thing. As that means you are committed into making that a reality. So vague answers is the best way to ensure they can use manpower where they need it, and not lock down X amount of employees in a content making process because someone said on the forums that “we shall give you this, soon™!!!”

Transparency in the form of dynamic balancing – listening to the crowd when they say “skill X is too strong” then asking “how much do you think we need to shave it”….
Obviously, when you reach the conclusion that skill X must be shaven down, all the “it’s fine” answers can just be ignored unless they carry a very strong counter argument.

Lack of feedback on discussions is also a “bad” behavior… take the CDI topics, sometimes they litterally spam one thread, and a couple of the others are just left alone without any proper monitoring. Sure, they may be reading it, but to ensure a healthy discussion, not to mention a healthy development process where you start with a brainstorming, then narrow things down, then find a number of subjects you want to discuss, then discuss these subjects – pro’s and con’s. THEN move onto discussing how to implement this and the needed “power”…
Instead they just leave us in the brainstorming process, without any decent leads as to “what should we discuss”…. In the ranger CDI, that caused a whole debate thread to degrade into a spamfest of ideas that overwhelmed them beyond the point of reading it……
Now, complete transparency isn’t always good, for us nor for them, but i agree that the lack of transparency is a big issue with Arena Nets community management team.

I couldn’t agree more.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

I can tell you for certain that I suggested Invigorating Bond exactly how it functions (with a 2k base heal) back at the beginning of 2012. So either somebody at ANet thinks exactly like me, or they do read through our suggestions and implement stuff.

If they implemented your suggestion, they must work near a black hole. Time runs slower over there. Way, way slower.

Brace yourselves, we can expect the first CDI based changes in almost 2 years!

I’m not saying they took it directly from me though, that would be so egotistical lol. I just mean to suggest that there is anecdotal evidence of them paying attention to the community if that happens to be the case.

I can’t argue with you either, the balancing in this process is so slow. Healing Signet just received a not good enough shave to efectiveness after being OP for like 1+ year I think. They just now nerfed the infamous dhuumfire. It’s like, everything the game needs for Player versus Player enviroments is already in place, but the balance is still in pre-launch development phase.

I don’t mean it to insult any ANet members that might happen to read this comment either. It’s just very hard as a community member to try to see where you guys are trying to take this game, and you aren’t transparent, or even allowed to be transparent, about any of the details.

I can tell you for certain that I suggested Invigorating Bond exactly how it functions (with a 2k base heal) back at the beginning of 2012. So either somebody at ANet thinks exactly like me, or they do read through our suggestions and implement stuff.

Just throwing it out there. I know it isn’t directly related, but I do know of a few players who have had their suggestions for ranger implemented almost verbatim to the suggestion made by those players.

So for me, it’s exciting to see what ANet takes and implements from the CDI in the future, since I have a pretty good idea of what they would take and implement. However, this patch had nothing to do with the CDI, and had been in the making long before the ranger CDI even occurred. I wouldn’t expect to see direct effects of the CDI until the summer at the earliest, unless ANet does listen to the players and starts rolling out more frequent balance updates (ANet noted that we would rather see smaller quantities in faster time frames than big patches every few months in a thread a little while back).

If you want to truly optimize your build, you want to calculate how much damage you gain from Spotter versus Eagle Eye in regards to the critical damage chart. Piercing Arrows is a hard take for me personally, especially for 1 reason alone in WvW; retaliation. I’d much rather play the part of picking off the back lines than doing almost 1k damage per attack to myself because I’m hitting multiple targets with retal on them.

Now, in other game modes, like PvE, any sort of cleave or AoE capability is a welcome addition. PvP is small scale enough where you can win by positioning. WvW imo is always where the trait debate is at full force. Eagle Eye is incredible for what it does, especially when you manual your autoattack to hit targets at 1500 range (went a little more glass, was autoattacking for 2.5k crits before air and fire procs). I would probably run with Piercing Arrows if a played a different role, and Spotter if I had more that 50% critical damage and precision (there are a bunch of other ratios of crit damage and precision where adding precision adds more than 5% additional damage).

Again, there is a lot of it that is just knowing how to play. I could honestly probably go full glass in WvW and be fine in dueling and zerg fights. The only reason I don’t is because I know WvW is the environment where a thief I won’t be able to react to is going to come up behind me and 2 shot me me at any given time, and I don’t like being so glass that I can only win in fights I’m ready for.

People just need to figure out how to make the build work for them.

DeceiverX.8361:

jcbroe.4329:

Loyo.8526:

My only problem with the build in places like WvW is that Longbow, even with consistent hits, does not hit for much on most targets. Maybe its my build itself thats the problem, but im only seeing 1.8-2.2k and very rarely 2.6ks

Those are autoattacks. 1500+ range autoattacks, that are hard to avoid with Read the Wind.

It honestly sounds to me, like if I have to evaluate your opinion, that it isn’t that your problem with the weapon is that damage output you mentioned, but that there isn’t a better way to damage than those numbers, and that the weapon skills don’t really hit for higher (or much higher in total) than the autoattack.

Maybe I’m projecting, so tell me if I’m wrong. I see in your sig that you have a mesmer, so I would ask you if you end up wishing that the longbow, damage wise alone, functioned more like the mesmer greatsword (one of the best weapons you can compare ranger longbow to).

Because if that is the case, I would be more than agreeable that would could use cooldown skills on the longbow that result in bigger hits than we do now. Point Blank Shot could stand to do 50% more damage imo, but that’s without bringing up any of the millions of suggestions I’ve discussed to death elsewhere since launch, and heavily since December.

Depends on the class you compare it to.

Like my thief does 3k damage autos at a way faster speed, and range is so irrelevant seeing as it can close 2400 range in literally .78 seconds. Every class in the game except for some guardians and some mesmers have incredible means of closing such gaps extremely quickly. 1500 range is nothing in the scheme of things, and the damage that the ranger can deal through his entire skill rotation – including the auto, is pitiful.

Unfortunately, 30%+ increases in damage will never happen until ANet allows for players to choose to play without the pet. Currently, the ranger actually has fair DPS values with the pet included, so they can’t justify damage buffs from the ranger alone, especially with skills like RoA causing some havoc.

It isn’t the gap closing. That wasn’t the point I was trying to make. It’s that you don’t have to dedicate your position for melee range. Sure, you might be able to gap close into the back lines of a group/zerg and do more damage to the squishies there, but the only class that can truthfully reliably escape if the group collapses on them is a thief. Maybe a mesmer if they take far reaching manipulations and still have their cooldowns to use, but if they gap closed in, then chances are they don’t have much escape left outside of stealth if they are using that setup, which won’t save them from a smart group of players.

Rangers don’t have to make the decision to dedicate their “safer” ranged position. They can poke safely from their own back lines, and function much more like a single target damage version of a staff ele when they are played this way.

My guild group, for instance, plays with 2 thieves. I brought up the fact that ranger could replace one of our thieves since the main goal of our thieves is being a back line harasser and rangers can perform the same role (our thieves run with our backline groups, so its us mesmers, thieves, and some of our eles in the same group) but bring an AoE immobilize that right now our group doesn’t really have and could be really useful based on the way my guild likes to play.

After assessing the build, my leader came to the conclusion that the ranger would be a good choice for the role, but then went on to say “but you’d have to find a ranger that doesn’t suck to play it, or a mesmer to replace you.”

It’s an anecdote, but it goes to show that when you start teaching people about the ranger class, they actually realize that we can do more useful things than they realize, and that a lot of the time, the way a percentage of the population plays rangers has given people a bad perception of what the class is actually capable of.

Viking Jorun.5413:

You know what should happen? Reduce the necessity to take 5 Condi clears for a shot at beating a condition build. Essentially, increase the amount of conditions removed on Condi clears across the board, or cause specific weapon skills to remove certain conditions (aside from the standard immob/chill/cripple removals – ones that clear damaging conditions).

This right here is the best thing I have read in this entire thread. Couldn’t agree more, when with new gearing options classes can apply/stack 3 different conditions on autoattack (not that every/any class would go that route), and most condition application is effortless, spammable, and on a very low cooldown.

As an anecdote, I think a good baseline for condi clearing is the engineers turret heal. Being able to remove 2 conditions every 15 seconds seems like a very fair baseline. Condition builds can still load up the condis while the heal/cleanse is on cooldown and deal decent damage, while the engi isn’t totally screwed by all of the different condition sources a single class can bring.

Ultimately it should be balanced around that baseline, with certain classes thematically getting different options revolving around that baseline (multiple smaller cleanses on lower cooldowns, or multiple big cleanses on large cooldowns).

Rangers also now have the perfect amount of condition removal and removal options, as another anecdote, although it may not be spread on the traitlines that compliment certain peoples ideal builds.

So +1

Loyo.8526:

My only problem with the build in places like WvW is that Longbow, even with consistent hits, does not hit for much on most targets. Maybe its my build itself thats the problem, but im only seeing 1.8-2.2k and very rarely 2.6ks

Those are autoattacks. 1500+ range autoattacks, that are hard to avoid with Read the Wind.

It honestly sounds to me, like if I have to evaluate your opinion, that it isn’t that your problem with the weapon is that damage output you mentioned, but that there isn’t a better way to damage than those numbers, and that the weapon skills don’t really hit for higher (or much higher in total) than the autoattack.

Maybe I’m projecting, so tell me if I’m wrong. I see in your sig that you have a mesmer, so I would ask you if you end up wishing that the longbow, damage wise alone, functioned more like the mesmer greatsword (one of the best weapons you can compare ranger longbow to).

Because if that is the case, I would be more than agreeable that would could use cooldown skills on the longbow that result in bigger hits than we do now. Point Blank Shot could stand to do 50% more damage imo, but that’s without bringing up any of the millions of suggestions I’ve discussed to death elsewhere since launch, and heavily since December.

Know your role people! Ranger power builds, for any given team comp, compete at for a team role with thiefs and mesmers. What does this mean? They are a roaming, damage class. Roamers aren’t always necessarily even good 1v1 duelists (I mean, they are, but they tend to be so damage focused that part of their build has an extremely exploitable weakness, like mesmers and thieves versus condi damage, so you have to know what you’re up against and be able to handle the situation).

You’re job is to go where you’re needed, helping in team fights to DPS targets down, and you have the map mobility to be able to harass far point whenever you can, especially for free neuts/caps.

Just like a thief with shortbow versus their burst weapon set, and a mesmer with their shatters and rotations, you need to know when to swap to greatsword (I wouldn’t run longbow without greatsword in PvP since the build I’m thinking of is a zerker and the sword/x has much more of a utility purpose in PvP than it does damage). Longbow is not burst, it is sustain. Knowing when to swap to greatsword and how to burst with it is an absolute necessity.

The build itself requires skill as a generic roamer to use before it can ever be effective, and then on top of that you have to effectively be able to play the build. However, that doesn’t mean that the build isn’t viable. There are just zero (actually, 1, Eurantien, but for exaggeration purposes) people with that skill level running the build at top tiers, and I can say without hesitation that other top tier players that don’t play ranger currently would actually be able to play the build extremely effectively before I can start naming off a list of ranger players.

Heck, I’m not even on my own list lol, I would not be able to perform at the level my team would need me to on the build. Granted, I’d be more of a benefit to my team than I currently am when I queue on my shatter mesmer (I am SO sorry to all my teammates, but it’s the best way to learn), but I know for a fact I don’t have the experience playing a glassy build and the roaming mindset (terrible at dedicating myself to decisions), and I’d have to see a few of the people I hold in high regards in the ranger community actually play the build before I’d confidently list them off here (sorry guys, don’t know many of us that play glass outside of Eurantien is all, nothing against you).

All in all, the build is definitely viable in its own right, though a big thing ranger power builds wouldn’t be able to fill as a roamer versus the current power roaming classes is that we don’t have the boon removal that shatter mesmers and Sleight of Hand thieves have. That alone is the biggest issue zerker/power ranger builds have always had in PvP, or more generically stated, we lack some of the utility that other classes bring to the table playing similar roles, and have slightly less burst in favor of more sustain.

Sorry for the long, ranty post. It just irks me that people are trying to discredit the build without actually trying to evaluate it in any sort of manner.

Aridia.3042:

Atherakhia.4086:

Am I the only one that didn’t notice any increase in range with this trait? I keep seeing people bring it up, but I tested it for like 30mins and never saw any increase in range

There’s no increase in range.

It is very buggy though however. At max range every 5 shot would hit while the rest would say out of range.

And if a target is moving horizontally across your screen, your arrows are actually hitting where the target was before but it would still register as a hit. So it looks like the travel time is not in sync with the arrow’s animation.

Building on that, I honestly haven’t checked if it’s only with RtW traited or not, but have you guys noticed that the arrows (with RtW traited at least) shoot like, an arms length away from the bow? There is just a huge space in between where the arrow leaves the bow and where you first see it.

Maybe it’s only me though, so I want to make sure hahaha.

I wouldn’t immediately kick a ranger that has a longbow equipped, but I wouldn’t make the claim that longbow is an efficient dungeon weaponset either. I definitely would prefer not to have a ranger in the group that just sits at max range autoattacking.

However, if a range weapon is actually to be used by the ranger, it is not a DPS weapon in dungeons. It is there primarily to provide relief from taking damage when your health dips too low and there isn’t the coordination by your team to keep you from going down, and Rapid Fire adds vulnerability (even if sometimes at a reduced duration) which adds total DPS output from your entire group.

But please don’t just sit in longbow. Melee is the way to go, and IF you NEED to get out of melee, hop back, Rapid Fire, then look to either summon frost spirit, heal, or reposition if needed, and then hop right back into melee.

Obviously, speed runners are going to have an even stricter policy about things of this nature, but this is just a general rule. I’m also not inclined to think that choosing the shortbow over the longbow provides any benefit, other than personal DPS, which until I seem some math, I will assume that the vulnerability plus your teams DPS during the time at which you apply vulnerability makes up for the personal DPS you lose by not taking Shortbow, if not surpassing it.

There are a lot more conditionals within that comparison though, starting with team and build comp, and which dungeon, etc.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

@HHR;

It did actually hit all my builds hard since I use hybrid builds (not full glass, not full tank), and I had to re-gear in order to be able to make up for the ferocity change. That being said, with my new gearing, I’m honestly doing more damage, and more reliable damage, than I’ve ever done.

Here’s what I ended up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLGsQ1ag+ga9CEAjdrfw9VMEp9B/q9A-TlyEABXqWRQ7PEwTAgHlGDcJAISZmH6CqRVFAM/RgSQA-w

Hmm, my complete-ascended-full-berserker gear is rendered useless… I wonder where this “Give us refunds when ferocity hits” thread is, I want to express my support.

I mean, it is pretty crappy that they waited so long after launch to implement this change. I know I’m going to be out a lot of gold regearing all my characters that this affects. But all ANet really did was fix the stat ratios on gear so that critical damage on gear didn’t have a differing efficiency ratio.

However, I really don’t have any idea why the traitlines were changed on top of that. I mean, I get going for a full transition into ferocity and using a 30 point scaling system, but it hurt a lot more builds than it helped that only semi-invest into their critical damage line because the traits in that line aren’t worth it (Ranger Skirmishing, Mesmer Dueling Grandmasters, etc) for those builds.

AND, there is of course mention of future gearing options for Ferocity being the primary stat, but that’s going to a be a rage-filled transition as people are forced to regear just to make up for damage taken away from them in a different patch without the overall balance being affected in the slightest.

So yeah, in a sense, it’s going to be a cyclical balance process that keeps forcing players to spread their in game resources thin in order to keep up with the forced shift of their build effectiveness.

What the game actually needs is a large balance pass on weapon and utility skills. Buffing up underused utility skills, nerfing down skills that over perform, and update the weapons in order for them to be more combat fluent and efficient, while perhaps introducing new weapon sets to all of the classes. While the balance team is at that, the content team can take a mechanics pass on PvE and update the enemies and AI and dungeon encounters to not be so DPS gated so that differing builds like support and conditions are actually better supported by the content and mechanics than just “damage it quickly enough and it will die.”

Don’t even know how to try to make my post ranger specific at this point lol. Sorry @Thread, for this offtopic rant/explanation/opinion.

Viking Jorun.5413:

jcbroe.4329:

Just imagine playing Solo Q, where every word somebody types is some toxic, rage induced garbage that ultimately only reflects on the person who has to talk.

How that’s related? Simply put, there is a portion of the community that is absolutely toxic, and they are everywhere. in GW1, people would even recruit “mature” members to the guild and simply kick you if you were toxic as the OP describes.

So like others said, just shrug it off, remind yourself that the person was probably a mouth-breather, drooling all over their keyboard, struggling to play the easiest profession in the game, and keep moving.

If you’re in SoloQ or pugging TeamQ, chances are if someone decides to rage over a loss they’ll blame the ranger. It’s just something you’ve got to put up with, and if you don’t have thick skin, ranger class probably isn’t for you.

Quite the opposite in my experience, I NEVER get raged at ever on my ranger. It’s just an observation I was making in regards to the toxicity of the community, that no matter where you go in GW2, somebody is going to have a kittenty attitude about something and rage at everything and everybody.

Because of that, I was using the shared information to explain that essentially, people are just kittens to be kittens and to not let one of those people affect your gameplay experience.