Guild Wars 2

So it continues:

ure, class plays a role in it, but Rangers have roughly the same attack power as a Warrior does when it comes to comparing zerk builds. Also, they have more effective range options. I don’t see how them having a skill that grants them AND their pet Might like that for less point investment is really justified.

Shirk.6421:

How I love laughing about these kind of posts. grabs popcorn

And don’t forget the “5k dmg on storm-spirit is too op, nerf please” thread

Oh I haven’t. ANet always has me laughing hysterically whenever they give burst damage capabilities to non-burst damage specs. It makes for some good laughs.

Its a shame to see that Rangers aren’t getting more of their effective condition removal spread out so that Empathic Bond isn’t such a “necessary” option.

Is that intended? It seems like it really kills build versatility when almost every ranger build has to spec 30 into Wilderness in order to effectively deal with conditions.

Chopps.5047:

I don’t know, dude, troll and signet is pretty good. Kill stuff faster. Stop bunkering down so hard. That’s what I do. I also make sure that through immobilization, the enemy cannot get close enough to be a threat until I tilt the battle in my favor and enter melee for the kill. Although you’re saying that won’t cut it and I’m a scrub basically? Lol

No not at all lol. Eurantien already said this though haha:

tanky condi ranger or full berzerker ranger are the only viable builds

Zerker builds don’t take Empathic Bond.

The main issue is that there is no in between. Without zerkers, you don’t kill quite fast enough and you need Empathic Bond for sustain against the massive amount of conditions being spammed, which in turn limits the build versatility because for a lot of the different gear setups available, Empathic Bond is still a necessity in order to have the required sustainability to win fights.

This also though is more of a metagame problem than a ranger problem, because if condition spam gets “shaved” enough to the point where sacrificing Empathic Bond isn’t as detrimental to as many builds as it is now, then it will open up quite a number of different options.

Chopps.5047:

Indoles.1467:

jcbroe.4329:

Yeah, I thought we decided long ago that Empathic Bond our only source of viable condition removal is the biggest thing that is killing build diversity.

I wish Karl would come back and comment on whether or not there is an internal discussion happening about this very problem (or perceived problem).

I agree it is. Without it, you rely on not taking any focus in a fight and that simply won’t happen. There are some decent changes here, but the only one I see that promotes any build diversity is the spirits unbound and nature’s vengeance swap. Otherwise, rangers are still stuck 30 deep in wilderness survival with 40 points to pick from for their respective build.

If you can’t rely on your team for condition removal and healing spring won’t cut it, why not go troll + signet of renewal? Now you’re a source of aoe cleanse. I must be missing something about tpvp gameplay at the top levels. You guys are talking top levels right?

Chopps.5047:

Indoles.1467:

jcbroe.4329:

Yeah, I thought we decided long ago that Empathic Bond our only source of viable condition removal is the biggest thing that is killing build diversity.

I wish Karl would come back and comment on whether or not there is an internal discussion happening about this very problem (or perceived problem).

I agree it is. Without it, you rely on not taking any focus in a fight and that simply won’t happen. There are some decent changes here, but the only one I see that promotes any build diversity is the spirits unbound and nature’s vengeance swap. Otherwise, rangers are still stuck 30 deep in wilderness survival with 40 points to pick from for their respective build.

If you can’t rely on your team for condition removal and healing spring won’t cut it, why not go troll + signet of renewal? Now you’re a source of aoe cleanse. I must be missing something about tpvp gameplay at the top levels. You guys are talking top levels right?

It’s the cooldown period. A necro/engi can put almost every condition on you in a matter of a few seconds, and they can do this fairly often (I’d say each averages being able to put all conditions on you every 10 seconds). Meaning that in order to survive, you have to have condition removal that’s able to keep up with those classes condition output well enough to be able to get the kill on those classes, and both of those classes have very, very good sustain when played properly.

As to the part about teamfight condition removal, there isn’t much more AoE condi removal that your team can give you, at least not enough to sustain you in such a heavy condition output game with only a 5 man roster. Also, rangers are often used to defend the homepoint, meaning that there are often times when rangers won’t be a part of the teamfight, and that condition removal is important. On top of that, you don’t want to make your team have to blow their cooldowns just for you if you have poor condi removal. It’s a war of attrition, and the team that can retain their cooldowns the longest until they are absolutely necessary is going to be the team that wins, because without cooldowns, classes like Guardians lose a lot of their sustainability, and you really don’t want them to drop that unless they absolutely have to, and not just for you, when you have a good option that can help you manage on your own.

That being said, there are rangers that are at a much higher tier than me that would probably have an even more well explained reasoning than my own.

Taken from a PvP thread:

I’m curious to know why a Ranger 15 Trait is now better than a Warrior’s 25 trait.

Mighty Swap gives both the Ranger and their pet 3 stacks of Might upon the pet being activated. This can occur every 10 seconds.

Versatile Power gives the Warrior 1 stack of Might upon switching weapons. This can occur every 10 seconds, or 5 when using the minor trait Fast Hands.

Even with 15 points in Discipline the Ranger now has better access to Might AND it affects their pet as well. In what ways do you believe this to be a balanced trait?

These types of responses just make my day.

I guess Rangers are going to outdamage warriors next patch in this guys mind….

Yeah, I thought we decided long ago that Empathic Bond our only source of viable condition removal is the biggest thing that is killing build diversity.

I wish Karl would come back and comment on whether or not there is an internal discussion happening about this very problem (or perceived problem).

Chopps.5047:

Shinra.9348:

Also I feel like the change to Storm Spirit will make it less used in the long run in any serious game mode.

Ya I know jcbroe was arguing for this nerf just a few days ago. But I’m still confused as to why. I guess I never realized how strong a 3k attack to 3 enemies is on a 20s cooldown (just doesn’t seem that strong to me but I’m going to keep using it to try and see the level of OP. )

The main issue with it was the ability to do that damage in something like Settler’s Gear, or basically, a bunker setup.

That being said, I do disagree with the way this is being handled in the preview. There is nothing wrong with that amount of damage, it just needed a power scaling factor.

Eurantien.4632:

jcbroe.4329:

Depending on what a PvP team is using the ranger for, spirit builds may still be prevalent, but they could switch to a Settler’s setup with 0/0/30/20/20 and bring the strength of what the BM build used to bring to a fight with the team support the a spirit build has. Storm Spirit may or may not be dropped in this situation due to the lack of Nature’s Vengeance, and builds would probably run Sun/Stone/SotW with DPS pets, Mighty Swap, and Vigorous Training for more dodging, since vigor will likely be more important for rangers now with a decrease in the traited endurance regen.

0/0/30/30/10, nature’s voice instead of nature’s vengeance and swap storm spirit for guard to give AoE perma regen and swiftness with that settler’s healing power. As well as passive spirit buffs.

Good point. I hate using Nature’s Voice and Guard personally, but that looks really solid.

I’m still sad both of our ideas have to go 30 in WS though… that’s my only gripe right now.

I’m still disappointed with the ranger changes, only because in this preview there is no attempt to spread out the sources of condition removal rangers have access to, meaning that for a lot of builds, Empathic Bond will still be a necessity, which hurts Power based builds more than condition based builds since it takes 30 trait points away that could have been spent in a traitline more beneficial to Power builds.

The changes to the ranger (and the other classes as well) look great though. I was just hoping to see some additional condition removal added to the ranger so that Empathic Bond doesn’t seem so necessary; preferably an active source.

Depending on what a PvP team is using the ranger for, spirit builds may still be prevalent, but they could switch to a Settler’s setup with 0/0/30/20/20 and bring the strength of what the BM build used to bring to a fight with the team support the a spirit build has. Storm Spirit may or may not be dropped in this situation due to the lack of Nature’s Vengeance, and builds would probably run Sun/Stone/SotW with DPS pets, Mighty Swap, and Vigorous Training for more dodging, since vigor will likely be more important for rangers now with a decrease in the traited endurance regen.

Also, sorry for the length of the thread @everybody. There was a lot of information involved in what I was attempting to highlight.

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

A rotating hill is an absolute necessity. That way, any team winning a team fight will have to reassemble at a different area of the map in order to win another team fight. In doing this, the team that lost the team fight has the opportunity to set up in the next hill and get a head start on winning that team fight through positioning.

The problem with this is time based hills versus the time it takes to win a team fight. Once a team fight is won, there are going to be numerous situations in which the team that lost that fight will have absolutely no chance of taking the hill back quick enough in order to turn the match around.

This gets alleviated by two options.

Off of the hill secondary objects that directly effect the capture process of the hill. Capture buffs like temple, or boss kills, or something similar or new, can be used, and then whoever wins over those secondary objectives can get buffs along the lines of “resetting the hill to neutral” or “the enemy team takes twice as long to capture the hill for x seconds” or etc.

The other way to make sure matches don’t snowball in the team that wins the initial team fights favor (besides a rotating hill and secondary objectives) is; don’t make the hill a “capture and hold” objective. Instead, whichever team manages to capture the hill gets 1 point (just an example number), at which point the next hill becomes active, the capturing team of which gets another point, and let’s say for the example, it only goes to 10.

In this sense, the game mode is less of a king of the hill and more of an area capture or area defense style mode, but it would be fast paced, fair (it would definitely make sure the team with the best overall coordination combined with their individual skill comes out on top), and fun to watch.

So, assuming this is going to be a simple open-world demonstration, I do have a question;

With rangers substantial lack of power based AoE that isn’t being crippled by poor scaling coefficients, how are rangers expected to clear content in a manner that makes the experience with the class an enjoyable one based of the level of effectiveness of what is being used?

What is the design philosophy behind the ranger, what is the ultimate balance goal, and what does the future of the ranger profession look like as of now?

I’m not saying they are bad. I’m saying that there are better options for a team to be using then having a ranger dedicate their build for traps. On their own, they are a good option. The trap build is a good build, useful for soloing camps and just generally picking up some sorely missing AoE skills otherwise.

That being said though, my point is that because they haven’t gotten any love to compete with the games power creep, there are other options on other classes that are just better, which depending on the game mode (like PvP, WvW, and even dungeons), makes a world of difference when looking to optimize your teams composition.

Vipers Nest: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Viper%27s_Nest

Skills that outclass it with a short description why:

Chillbains: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilblains

This does have a longer cooldown and a shorter total poison duration, but it does have the benefits of being a single hit attack on a weapon skill with 1200 range. Also, this skill also chills better than frost trap, which implies better skill bar compression than having to take Frost Trap AND Vipers Nest to get the same effects as Chillbains. And it is a combo field.

Choking Gas: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
Pulses 4 seconds inflicting 5 second poisons in a larger radius than Vipers Nest. Also, this is unblockable, like traps, has a longer range of 900, is a weapon skill, is a combo field, and is much more spammable.

Poison Grenade: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison_Grenade
Puts out 2 poison fields that pulse 5 second poisons for 5 seconds. Has a longer cooldown than Vipers Nest, but is a combo field, and, like all other engineer kits, can be considered part of a weapon skill bar. Also, has a much better effective range than Vipers Nest, and only takes 2 of its five pulses to beat out Vipers Nest entirely.

After Trap Potency, these are the skill that are still better than their respective comparison traps:

Flame Trap:

Fire Bomb
Combustive Shot

Frost Trap:

Freeze Grenade
Frozen Ground
Chillbains

Spike Trap:
Shrapnel Grenade
Grasping Dead
Mark of Blood

Vipers Nest:
Choking Gas
Poison Grenade

That means that with a 30 point trait investment, these other skills are still overall better than their trap versions, and that is with no trait investment into their abilities; meaning that many of them could even further outclass traps.

Normally in games, I dislike balance updates that feed the power creep, but with no end to this particular games power creep issues in sight, I say that our ranger traps definitely need to be brought up to be competitive options when fighting for a slot in a team composition.

Frost Trap: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Trap

Skills that outclass it with a short description why:

Freeze Grenade: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Freeze_Grenade
At its base, can apply a 4 second AoE chill every 20 seconds (all grenade skills throw 2 grenades out by default, 3 with a grandmaster trait). Distance is a factor on the accuracy, but with my experience with the class, I can say that you will get the 4 second chill within the 600 range traps can be traited to. Also, has a larger radius. And, as with the other engineer kit skill, can be considered part of a weapon bar.

Frozen Ground: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frozen_Ground
This one does have a longer cooldown than Frost Trap. However, it pulses 2 second chills for 5 seconds, which is double the amount of chill frost trap applies, and almost double the duration. Also, it has a larger radius, 1200 range, and is an on demand combo field.

Chillbains: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilblains
Applies a 4 second chill in a single hit at a base 120 radius. Without traits, the radius is slightly smaller. But the recharge is also 10 seconds shorter, and this skill doesn’t have to pulse. And is 1200 range. AND a combo field.

Spike Trap: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spike_Trap

Skills that outclass it with a short description why:

Box of Nails: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Box_of_Nails
Box of Nails pulses, unlike Spike Trap, which applies all of its bleed and cripple up front. However, this is a pros and cons thing, because while it means Box of Nails takes a longer time to reach its damage potential, it is also a better area denial skill, which also gives more chances to proc traits/sigils. Box of Nails also applies less total bleeds, but is only on a 10 second cooldown, and has a larger radius. And, like other engineer kit skills, can be considered part of a weapon bar.

Shrapnel Grenade: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shrapnel_Grenade
Has the same benefits as all other grenades. Applies a stack of 2 bleeds for 12 seconds, to spike traps 3 for 5 seconds, so more damage over time. Also, only has a 5 seconds cooldown period, meaning it can be used 5 times to every 1 spike trap. And, like other engineer kit skills, can be considered part of a weapon bar.

Caltrops: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Caltrops
This one is a pulse as well. However, Caltrops is much better than Box of Nails, applying a 2 second bleed for 3 seconds, every second for 10 seconds. On top of applying cripple every second for 10 seconds. And it only has a 5 second longer cooldown than Spike Trap, with a better radius of course, and better area denial.

Grasping Dead: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grasping_Dead
This skill is insanely strong comparatively. 1 AoE hit applies 3 bleeds for 7 seconds and cripple for 5, every 10 seconds, on a larger radius than Spike Trap. It has already received a PvP only nerf so that it is only 2 bleed stacks, but still outclasses spike trap due to spammability, and being a weapon skill, and having a 900 range. And this is a weapon skill.

Mark of Blood: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark_of_Blood
1200 range 3 bleeds for 8 seconds (spike trap is only 5 seconds), and applies regen to allies, which is a nice little bonus team support that ranger AoE skills just aren’t really all that great at giving, outside of using them as a conditional combo field (conditional because an enemy has to trigger a trap to give allies access to the combo field. Spike Trap isn’t even a combo field). And this is a weapon skill.

Enfeebling Blood: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enfeebling_Blood
2 Bleeds for 10 seconds which do more damage than spike traps 3 for 5. Also, Enfeebling Blood has the same cooldown but gives the much stronger Weakness versus Spike Traps cripple. And it has a 900 range and a larger radius. And this is a weapon skill.

Ring of Earth: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Earth
Now, the effect of the skill isn’t outright better, but the cooldown is the closing factor. This skill can be used 3 times to every 1 of spike trap, giving it a higher damage potential. And this is a weapon skill.

Cluster Bomb: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb
3 bleeds for 4 seconds on a fairly spammable, fairly low initiative cost skill. Also has a 900 range, and is a blast finisher, and is a weapon skill. Almost the same duration bleed stacks, but much, much more spammable than spike trap. Much more.

So, as my other similarly titled thread was requesting a nerf for rangers, I decided in order to balance out the equation, I would discuss a very specific utility tree that, as it currently stands, needs to be buffed.

Traps.

Traps are, without a doubt, currently one of the less desirable utilities to be running when talking about choosing a BiS (best in slot) team composition, simply because of how outclassed they are, and how they haven’t been balanced appropriately in order to keep up with the games power creep.

So, let’s compare some utilities. These are going to be done on this basis: the things that are being compared are AoE skills that share a particular function, if not having every function in common. Trap Potency will not be part of this portion of the break down. Direct damage values won’t be a part of this discussion either, as traps basically have garbage direct damage values and the majority of the listed skills will be doing better direct damage than the trap they’re compared to.

So:

Flame Trap: Description is here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Trap

Skills that outclass it with a short description why:

Combustive Shot: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combustive_Shot
This skill is incredibly strong right now. It has a short recharge, and is refilled fairly quickly by any warrior competently managing their adrenaline; much quicker than 15 seconds which is Flame Traps base cooldown. Applies twice as much burning in the same duration as flame trap, and it doesn’t need traits in order to do so, or to have a decent radius. Also, is on a weapon bar and an on demand combo field.

Fire Bomb: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Bomb
This skill could be considered on a weapon bar as well, since technically, as a part of the engineers class design, having access to kits replaces having a second weaponset. Still, it could be argued, so it is more of a grey area thing. That being said, the skill itself has twice the burning output as flame trap does on a 5 second shorter cooldown and carries a very decent base radius to go along with it. Also, it is an on demand combo field.

Ring of Fire: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Fire
Now, I’m admittedly not at liberty to discuss the exacts of this weapon skill since I lack ele experience, however, based on what the wiki is telling me, the skill either applies kitten burn each time somebody passed through it for 6 seconds, or a 1 seconds burn each time somebody passes through it that adds up to 5 (6?). Regardless, it is a 5 second burn on a 15 second cooldown, almost double what Flame Trap is. Also, it is an on demand combo field.

Whoever gets hit with it, forget getting killed by it, should just suck it up and deal with it as being lost in the chaos of the battlefield.

At the moment this is true, but I would also say that it is an issue, although it is another issue entirely than what I was trying to highlight.

Essentially, nothing vital to combat should be getting “lost” on the battlefield, at least not in small scale fights (like PvP is). There is nothing worse than having an important function of a fight, like a pet or a spirit, get lost in the chaos of a blob of unnecessary graphics. There needs to be some better middle ground at times between things looking “pretty” and seeing actually being able to see what’s going on.

Especially as a ranger. I hate losing my pet in a group of enemies (especially in WvW) and then having to sit there and wonder if it’s actually doing anything, because I don’t see it and I don’t have a pet status bar on my UI.

@Thread about crits;

I mean, I know it’s tedious (and I’ve been at a new job for a few days now and unable to put in the time) but is it possible that the crit rate is so atrociously low on the storm spirit that it just doesn’t occur that often? For example, what if it has base player stats, so that it only has a 4% crit rate?

If it does only crit 4 out of every 100 times, and we are only considering on activation (and not on death) Call Lightnings, then wouldn’t it take about 2000 seconds to get 4 crits (on average)? Meaning that, if that is correct (I’m just speculating), it would take about 34 minutes to reach 4 crits, meaning you would only get about 1 crit every 8.5 minutes, and only if the Storm Spirit is being used on cooldown.

Nature’s Vengeance would essentially cut the times in half I believe, meaning you would probably see a crit about every 4.25 minutes, assuming 2 Call Lightnings per 20 seconds.

Also, it should be factored in that because we don’t have direct access to the code, we don’t know if there is something quirky coded in that makes potential crits more conditional. For instance, maybe Storm Spirit only crits on it’s own when taking Nature’s Vengeance. Maybe it only crits when it Call Lightnings on death. Maybe, it only crits when under the effects of another spirits passive effect.

However, all of that is all just speculation on my part haha.

What I do know, is that when I have noticed my storm spirit crit, I have never really noticed any sources of fury. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have fury on it, and I was just inattentive or unaware of the source at the time (which is admittedly a very likely case).

Just food for thought I guess.

Again, the problem isn’t the amount of damage, it’s the lack of stat investment needed to achieve the amount of damage.

If the Storm Spirit had to have Power investment in order to do that type of damage, it would be balanced.

Atherakhia.4086:

jcbroe.4329:

AoE with all Spirit Traits, no amulet:

Why is it only hitting 3 targets…

That is a very, very good question. Seems like all of our AoE only hits 3 targets.

Ryan.8367:

Nerf it, doesn’t matter to us… Ranger is a class that has been nerfed so much in the past year, it really won’t even affect much honestly, still kittenty subpar spirit build that’s only used in PvP for a specific role which is a minute percentage of the entire Gw2 playerbase, it really won’t make much of a difference.

Oh yea , while you’re complaining to them, can you ask anet to give us some viable power builds too? We have none, if you haven’t noticed.

From my own OP:

“I am going to put out there ahead of time though that I would prefer not to see the build nerfed without other positive changes for the ranger class, because the ranger could use a good few changes to kill the “Apex Predator” build problem we suffer from (at least in a pvp setting). But this definitely needs to be fixed as soon as possible, along with many, many other balance issues that plague the game of course.”

I would LOVE to see power builds become more viable. Ranger is my main, I want to be able to play as many builds on it as humanly possible.

Ryan.8367:

jcbroe.4329:

Chopps.5047:

Two things: I gave you a level headed response and the spirit A) needs fury to crit 3k and needs 25 stack might to hit 8k, not to mention be in range

This is on a ability that the enemy can kill, launch, stun, daze, or interrupt on a 20s cooldown.

In light of these facts, jcbroe, why does it need a nerf? Because it killed you one time? I need more substance. I bet that’s why you’re getting knuckleheaded responses. Where’s the actual argument again? It’s not a free 8k, not even a free 3k.

Chopps, it doesn’t need fury to hit for 3k. It hits for a base 3k. Its crits for 5k.

And the argument is that it shouldn’t be doing that kind of damage without any power investment. It would be no problem if it hit for the amount of damage from a person built glass cannon, or semi glass cannon, the way thieves/mesmers/warriors HAVE to in order to be able to do the amount of damage they do.

For the purposes of what I’m trying to get at, I’ll post a bunch of pics.

Actually mesmers doesn’t need to spec burst for their swordsman to hit high numbers, nor their warlock

Same situation, no traits, no amulet, swordsman damage. Doesn’t look anywhere close to storm spirit:

Last one, trying to show off max range:

AoE with all Spirit Traits, no amulet:

First example:

Only runes are active in that pic, this pic shows traits:

Chopps.5047:

Two things: I gave you a level headed response and the spirit A) needs fury to crit 3k and needs 25 stack might to hit 8k, not to mention be in range

This is on a ability that the enemy can kill, launch, stun, daze, or interrupt on a 20s cooldown.

In light of these facts, jcbroe, why does it need a nerf? Because it killed you one time? I need more substance. I bet that’s why you’re getting knuckleheaded responses. Where’s the actual argument again? It’s not a free 8k, not even a free 3k.

Chopps, it doesn’t need fury to hit for 3k. It hits for a base 3k. Its crits for 5k.

And the argument is that it shouldn’t be doing that kind of damage without any power investment. It would be no problem if it hit for the amount of damage from a person built glass cannon, or semi glass cannon, the way thieves/mesmers/warriors HAVE to in order to be able to do the amount of damage they do.

For the purposes of what I’m trying to get at, I’ll post a bunch of pics.

Clearly there are people out there who are just being rude to be rude, and would rather try to debate my experience with the game (I probably have much more play time and experience, especially competitive experience, with this game than they do) than actually try to be constructive.

But that’s okay, I’m not here to argue with them.

The issue that people are missing, is that even if the storm spirit DOESN’T crit, it still hits for about 3k damage.

Now, this isn’t a huge issue in itself, until we acknowledge the fact that you don’t even have to build any stats towards power damage or crit damage or etc. You can build full bunker and have a utility doing very high spike damage (very high for being a full toughness/healing power/condition damage, for example) on a decent AoE radius with a fairly short cooldown.

And for all of the “obviously you don’t play warrior/thief/etc” posts, please, show me a screen shot of a warrior/thief with a settler’s amulet, or even no amulet, hitting for 3k in one hit.

So no, the issue isn’t necessarily that the storm spirit can hit for a good amount of damage, it’s the conditions in which the storm spirit can hit for that amount of damage, aka, not having to build for any amount of direct damage stats whatsoever.

And for the people just attacking my opinion and disagreeing because it is a ranger nerf, I’m sorry to say this, but if you can’t approach an issue with a level head and remove your bias when assessing something about your class, and would rather just scream “buff buff buff,” then you will never see a level of balance that you like in this game.

An easy to implement game mode would be to take the current structure of the Conquest game mode, turn on only 1 capture point, and create a rotation king of the hill game mode with secondary objectives like shrine stat buffs or boss kills for points and etc spawning in set locations across the rest of the map depending on which “hill” is active.

If a very literal comparison is made, take a game that has just recently entered the limelight of esport turnaments; call of duty: black ops 2, and take from it the “hardpoint” game mode (this example is also being made in order to represent the “ability to watch” as a competitive game mode).

I got hit with like a 9 second total immobilize earlier. Granted it wasn’t a tournament setting (meaning there were more players who have access to immobilize to stack it), but I can see how in an organized tournament there are a few classes that when working together with very basic collaborative effort, can completely shut down somebody with immobilize stacking.

If we aren’t going to “rollback” a few of the excessive changes, then at least let’s feed the power creep and add some more active condition removal into the game to be able to deal with some of these situations.

Don’t forget other classes transformation stomps, like Engineers Elixir invulnerability, eles mist form, and necros plague form. These can all also be initiated during the initial stomps activation time, which means the issue seems to be that because of the lack of cast time, the activation of the skill doesn’t interrupt the current action/animation, allowing the stomp to continue.

The thing is, I don’t even think rangers are capable of doing that. I mean, a 30 point trait investment for the only source of Stability attainable outside of Rampage as One, and we can’t even stomp with it when other classes can take a free from trait investment transformation that has multiple purposes including being used for “free” stomping.

Just seems to be a little bit of a glaringly obvious balance issue that has gone completely vocally unnoticed and unaddressed by the dev team. Hopefully they address it sooner or later (sooner, please sooner).

Vaxx.3178:

Wait….you are complaining about a 5k crit? Do I have that right?

Unless you live in a country that does not provide its citizens the freedom of speech, then yes, I believe you do have that right

So I was kitten ing around on my engineer for my daily, when all of a sudden I get insta-downed. Now, as a reference point, this scenario happened in a 2v3, and it was versus a spirit ranger, minion necro, and hammer warrior. So there’s lots of screen clutter going on between minions and visuals and screen clutter from stuns/dazes. The point is, and yes I’m making a few excuses, but paying attention to the storm spirit wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world in this scenario.

The ranger starts rapid firing me, the pet is biting my ankle, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle at that point, and then all of a sudden I’m on the ground. I look through the battle log and I see what you’re looking at on my battlelog in the screenshot; a storm spirit crit me for just about 5k damage WHILE I had almost 2.9k armor.

Now, normally I’m not an advocate for ranger nerfs since I do main ranger, but I mean, this is a tad ridiculous to be doing that type of damage in an AoE radius on a build that doesn’t even have to build glass cannon.

Admittedly I’ve been abusing the crap out of my spirit build whenever I play my ranger, but being on the receiving end of it for once, I do have to say that it needs some serious adjusting; at the very least removing its ability to crit.

I am going to put out there ahead of time though that I would prefer not to see the build nerfed without other positive changes for the ranger class, because the ranger could use a good few changes to kill the “Apex Predator” build problem we suffer from (at least in a pvp setting). But this definitely needs to be fixed as soon as possible, along with many, many other balance issues that plague the game of course.

Overthrust.2659:

lol walk for your kill obviously if everything is in cd the best choice is to press #4. O.o

Actually, the best choice is to weapon swap to a different weapon and continue DPS with that weapon, while reserving the utility from longbow 4 for when its actually needed o.O

@Topic; I can’t even begin to describe how many times a longbow user has saved an enemy because they decided to knock them away with LB 4 and all of the collapsing group wastes their cooldowns spiking the area where the person used to be, giving the person enough time to escape.

A public service announcement is definitely needed.

Without Spirits Unbound, I’d argue that Storm Spirit becomes less powerful since the main DPS use for Storm is to get it close for its active.

If you’re looking solely for DPS increases from the passive procs, then Frost and Sun spirit are going to be the ones you’re looking for.

If these were implemented, I wouldn’t have a single thing left to say as far as improvements go; everything has been addressed.

+1 and I hope more people read, understand, and agree with the proposed changes (especially the devs).

Well the comparison that is most accurate, and the one I was trying to avoid, is Necro Wells. More than anything, including trait functionality, traps and wells are very similar, but wells are more viable just because they do more damage in a larger radius, with better effects, but on a longer cooldown, which is why I was avoiding the comparison because then the argument can be made that if traps were stronger they would need longer cooldowns haha.

But if Traps could be made as strong as necro wells in terms of total damage output, I think that it would be a good direction. In fact, they might end up being too strong haha.

Still, I see your points and I’m not disagreeing. I just took the current situation and found the quickest fix I could think of in order to improve traps, as I’m sure it would take much much longer to work out how to move traits around, or how to make traps into a new weapon set or kit, or etc.

It would be nice to see some sort of progress on issues like this before the end of the year. Once CoD Ghosts comes out, I doubt I’ll have any reason to even play GW2 anymore, if the patches keep going the way they have. So it would be nice to see a nice, quick, efficient patch addressing balance to maybe redeem the games value for me, personally.

Don’t forget the Storm Spirits active can do about 3k damage on a non-crit. Depending on the content you’re in, it can either be useful or useless.

Well it isn’t necessarily just for power builds. Running a rabid trapper would be much more beneficial than it is currently because now you would have traps doing a actually helpful amount of direct damage on top of the condition damage output it has.

Basically, I was trying to think about what made Engineer grenade kit feel so much better and stronger than ranger traps when using the same gear, since Engineers Grenade kits have less/equal (with Incendiary Ammo and bleed crit procs) condition output, and what I realized is that when comparing the two, grenades do a ton of direct damage, compared to traps.

Now, I do get that they are different utilities entirely, but it just sort of clicked that if ranger traps could do better direct damage, then they would be more valuable to the Skirmishing trait line, and more usable across the different build setups. Every other utility we have can be valuable for both condition damage and direct damage setups, while traps are the only ones that favor a particular setup.

So, to me, it kind of just makes sense if we’re looking for a quick fix that brings up a currently underused (in the tpvp format which is what the balance devs seem to keep the closest eye on) and/or lackluster utility, AND make it viable for a multitude of builds without having to do any serious trait juggling.

So, after revisiting traps since the last patch dropped, and in playing my other classes, it has become clear (even more clear than it already was) that traps just don’t make the cut in the current metagame, with their only redeeming quality being that it they are some of the best AoE skills the ranger has access to.

There is just no reason to use traps over other options if you’re looking at a team composition, and the only reason to use them solo is to make up for the AoE that isn’t really all that available to the ranger class otherwise.

So a very simplistic (compared to moving trap traits around or etc) change that would fix a whole lot of different concerns in one would be this:

-Increase the base direct damage done by traps
-Make them scale decently well with power
-Make Frost Trap pulses do damage

Really, this would address a whole slew of issues at once. Without feeding the “condi meta” (more prevalent in a tpvp setting than anywhere else), traps would be a better option, and without moving them out of Skirmishing, they could become a viable addition to a power based build.

For instance, currently, Flame Trap does 73 direct damage per pulse. With the change, the new flame trap, at it’s base value, would do something like 273 direct damage per pulse, and then have a power scaling introduced to that number, on top of traps ability to crit (obviously this isn’t a balanced to perfection example, but the point still stands).

With just that small handful of changes, I do believe that build versatility would open up around Traps a lot better, especially by being beneficial to both the different types of damage in the game, as opposed to the current iteration of traps only reaching their full potential through condition damage.

Would anybody else be on board with making traps do better direct damage, and scale with power?

I don’t get how Bark Skin is even in the debate. Generally speaking, if an enemy is capable of getting you down to 25% health, then they will be able to kill you from 25% heath even with 25% damage reduction, not to mention conditions that aren’t affected by Bark Skin and still doing full damage.

Empathic Bond is always active (and not conditionally active) and therefore always reducing a form of incoming damage and/or CC that can lead to damage, therefore being a more constant damage mitigation.

Combined with all of the dodges and evasion frames rangers have access to, and now you’re capable of defending yourself from both forms of incoming damage better than leaving yourself almost completely susceptible to conditions with Bark Skin.

@Euratien;

Ah, I see how that works out then, I didn’t factor in the strength of the suggested traits in combination with the runes that could be used with it.

I do stand by the transfer suggestion needing to transfer more conditions than just one though, since I think the shortest cooldown on interrupt is the 15 second untraited knockback, and it takes more skill to interrupt an opponent and thereby transfer the conditions than it does for most opponents (Engi, Necro, etc) to apply conditions.

Then again, that can be addressed by a patch that tones down the power creep, as opposed to my suggestion of feeding the power creep.

I don’t think that you gain Quickness often enough to remove conditions well enough to benefit a build over just running Empathic Bond.

With the proposed changes, on a trap build, I have a tough time figuring out where the condition removal would come from other than SoR and maybe taking QZ as a third utility. With the pet swap quickness now being a 30 point BM trait, I’m just having a hard time seeing how the proposed changes can compete with Empathic Bond.

I like the direction you’re suggesting though, don’t get me wrong. I think the main problem rangers suffer from is Empathic Bond. It can be a hard option to give up at times, but it’s also a hard trait to propose changes around, because any additional cleansing added to the game has the potential to be run with empathic bond, making rangers far too good defensively.

So I like that Trap Potency has to compete with Empathic Bond in this scenario, but I don’t like that for that particular trap build, condition removal would become much more scarce compared to the output of conditions the game has.

I’d rather see your adept and master skirmishing suggestions switched around, and then the transfer condition amount be increased to 2 or even 3. The weapons cooldowns on their skills and the skill it takes to actually land an interrupt versus just throwing it out and hope it interrupts something is enough to justify more potency.

Honestly, the Skirmishing grandmaster slot could be “activating signets removes 3 conditions” though I know I’m not thinking through all of the permutations of how it could be run. I’m only thinking of how it would compliment the Marksmanship line.

Sorry for the ramblings. I shouldn’t, as well all have ideas as to how to make the game better. I could think the ideas are too tame, and you could think my ideas are too extreme haha.

I personally have never noticed any change in the traited version of SoR. The situation you described in the question makes sense, but I’ve never actually seen any significant difference.

1. Update weapons damage coefficients to scale better with power.

2. Provide ranger with boon removal of some sort to remove protection/stability and make power builds more viable.

3. Spread condition removal to add an addition traiting option other than Empathic Bond, in order to increase build diversity.

Long term:

1) Pet AI and functionality improvement. Pets still need to be improved when it comes to pathing and giving the F2 skills top priority in the skill queue so they are more reliable.

2) Total trait rework. Lots of the traits are extremely poor choices and have little to no viable functionality. Part of the goal would to be make Skirmishing more valuable for power builds, as well as consolidating/moving/removing traits that just don’t make the cut in the current iteration (I’m sure there are traits that have a zero usage statistic).

3) Expanding the current philosophy on the function of the pet to the player to the player and implementing a new philosophy that allows the player to choose whether their pet is just an extra source of damage, a main source of damage, or heavy support in some majorly useful way (like 3 seconds of AoE stability on Pet Swap as a Grandmaster trait while providing AoE boons on F2 activation on top of the actual function of the F2).

I just think traps are weak. Mainly, this comes from 2 different classes with 2 traits and their weapon/utility options.

Engineer and Necro: Incendiary Powder with Bombs/Grenades and Dhuumfire with Necro Staff.

Staff doesn’t pulse, but applies everything our traps do upfront.

Engineer not only applies the same things we apply with our traps, but their bombs also have a pulsing duration, and the grenades apply upfront and the poison grenade pulses. AND they are more spammable.

Really, the only thing ranger traps offer are the ability to be hidden on the ground, which in itself isn’t the biggest deal breaker in the world.

I would say it’s a power creep issue, if over the past few big patches the necro and engineer didn’t have their options be made better in some way, like radius increases to their already strong effects.

That to me implies that a reduction in their classes is less likely, meaning in this case rangers actually need a buff in order to keep up with the power creep. However, ANet has acknowledged in the past that conditions can be a bit too strong, so I’d hope that ranger traps get made the baseline to get balanced around.

This would be my current iteration of a regen ranger: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnY8fjAVV2BWKWo2Bi2jMZeMxPYIPjR5fA-jUxAIuBRnHLiGbdrIasaZioa1NGA-w

Though currently, my build is a hybrid trap build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnY8fjAV11xVKWo2Bi2jMZeMxeYIH9IXB/D-jUBBIODiOPqIaslhFRjVLjIqWdDDA-w

Traps are extremely lackluster to me though after playing my necro/engineer. They feel very underpowered, and the only redeeming quality of running them on my ranger is rangers natural evasiveness. Engineer can do the same thing, but arguably, it takes much more APM to perform well, and depending on the situation, is much less forgiving.

My next setup I’ll be running is just: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8fjAVN1lVKWo2Bi2jMZeMxKYI3jSRqTB-jUBBIOCy5RFRjtMsIasaZER1qbYA-w

I understand the limitations of a spirit build after playing it in PvP for so long, and I believe it can be made just as effective as it is in PvP outside of a zerging situation in WvW. So I’m going to give it a shot again, knowing full well that AoE cleave is more prevalent in WvW, in order to see if I can make it outperform traps due to better functionality than traps while sacrificing rangers only spammable AoE.

I’m posting these here because they all take the idea of a regen ranger and either use a trait combination that is very rare, or they take most of the positives of a regen ranger and apply it to a different utility set than a BM build.

Yeah, true.

The thread is definitely a good reference point. With the lack of a resource like GW1’s PvXwiki, it’s definitely a good place for players looking to get into PvP to see the most popular meta builds.

Particularly, I (not being a part of an organized team and have really only kept up with current info due to lack of interest until a reward revamp) would say that on the Shamans build, the Stone Spirit can be traded for a different option. Personally, I’ve found use in both Signet of Renewal and Signet of the Wild.

They all have their pros and cons.

In general, Stone Spirit becomes more valuable either based on whether or not you are running Carrion, and how often you are joining teamfights (giving your whole team protection is a huge benefit).

Rabid is probably the most underestimated of the options, which is a real shame.