Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t read this as a direct nerf to rangers at all. Particularly, the wording of “condition spam” seems to immediately single out necromancers and their ability to absolutely dominate team fights with AoE conditions pouring out of them.

It’s actually an overall good direction to take the game in. Since the “condi meta” hit full force and has remained in effect, condi classes have had the ability to burst conditions onto targets that just couldn’t cleanse them fast enough, or often enough. So, it looks like instead of bringing up the power of condi cleansing to keep up with the condi output, they are trying to make skillfully using cleanses more balanced at countering conditions.

Rangers, however, aren’t particularly good at spamming conditions. The conditions we can apply either have a positional requirement (like shortbow) or they are on a long enough cooldown where if a person cleanses them, it really gives them room to breathe and react accordingly. If anything gets changed at all for rangers, it would probably be how often Axe 2 can be used, or how long the bleeds last, and how long the burn on torch 4 lasts, but besides that, the ranger skillsets are probably where other classes condition builds are going to get balanced towards.

Then again, I’m not in the devs heads, I could be somehow underestimating how effective we are at applying conditions, though I’d like to think that the main problem people have with ranger in PvP isn’t the damage output, but the ability to evade tank while doing a nice, constant stream of damage to any class that can’t lock us down.

Can someone lend me a kudzu? I’ll test and see if I have the same issues haha.

But then you can just remove some of the CC effects if necessary for balance lol. I’m not asking for both, I’m asking for the balance necessary to occur for the pets to be made more controllable.

Whoever made the point about the pet being able to CC still while the ranger player is CC’d though, that’s a huge point. So I’m guessing it would have to be possible to make the CC effects disable the pet control mechanics?

It would have to be balanced, absolutely, and like, fine tooth comb balanced. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, even though it was shut down again by the devs in an SoTG now, so we’re discussing it for almost no reason lol.

As a ranger, if they were going to nerf the pet damage and give the player more control, I’d be absolutely 100% for that.

@Vena; you can immobilize into Ring of Warding/Banish. Not the perfect combination obviously, but it isn’t exactly difficult to accomplish. I wasn’t talking about counterplaying the CC though, I was talking about chaining CC. For example, the ranger pet dog winds up it’s knockdown leap for like an eternity before it executes it, so really, just watching it and dodging or being out of leap distance is all that’s needed.

The point I was attempting to make is that rangers, when compared to other classes, have much less control over the same type of mechanics that those classes have more control over. If more control is given, of course any amount of balancing is needed and by me personally would be accepted, but it only makes sense that the more control is given to the player, the tighter the balance has to be.

Also, if you read through my post history, I think you might understand just exactly how much I hate AI in a competitive environment. Of course, you can just take my word for it lol.

Mammoth.1975:

One problem is that it would be much too easy to chain CC. You can do it now, but you have to know how to get your puppy into position to leap. Make it a button press and GG everyone can do it.

Because warriors, necros, and guardians have such a hard time chaining any CC they have….

The devs are just so right though. I already have 1 button that I only have to press once to make the pet attack something, 1 button to make them do a unique function, 1 button to make them return to my side that only has to be pressed once, AND a pet swap, on top of my skill bar!!!! It’s already so hard, 1 more thing to have to do and I quit.

/sarcasm

sorrow.2364:

jcbroe.4329:

Ranger; Opening Strike, Marksmanship; 5/15 (one is for player, the next for pet).
Instinctual Bond, Beastmastery; 5

I think he meant minor traits in general.
Ranger has some great minor traits.

Also, Opening Strike is underrated.
30 in Marksmanship with a longbow means 15 stacks of vulnerability almost permanently. That’s a 15% damage boost.

I dare you to find an useful minor trait for Necromancer that isn’t Last Gasp.

That’s one Grandmaster Trait making an entire traitline almost usable by 1 weapon. Without it, with both traits, its 10 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds 1 time, in an entire fight.

Agreed, I rushed reading the topic, and it’s supposed to be the overall class, so no, ranger doesn’t have the very worst.

But reading between the lines a little, every single class can say that they have the worst minor traits, and to some degree, it’s an accurate statement for every class, which indicates maybe that minor traits in general need some reworking.

It’s just not worth arguing which class is worse lol. I have 6 different classes and they all feel like they have about an equal amount of minors that just suck kitten (generalizing, it obviously isn’t true if we draw up a spreadsheet).

Ranger; Opening Strike, Marksmanship; 5/15 (one is for player, the next for pet).
Instinctual Bond, Beastmastery; 5

Ixl Super Ixl.7258:

Hopefully the Devs are reading.

Also here is what my though about the ranger problem.

The problem actually lies with ANET mindset. They are so protective of PVE that all spvp players are suffering. Of course Pve catuals might suffer abit if my idea for rangers was implemented but again this can be worked on.

There are many things that can be done to avoid it, for example seperating these skills from pve. So that SPVP players can use these skills in pvp on their own while in pve the AI use it for them. This would avoid the problem that Jon talked about. But again the first step is definitely working on the AI so that it doesn’t run around doing nothing.

I agree with it being an ANet mindset issue, however, I have a different way of going about the problem (note that I’m not disagreeing with you lol, just getting my own opinion out there).

The devs, at some point since the game was launched, came out as saying that the ranger pet was meant to be an “always on” mechanic, which effectively splits the capabilities, including damage, of the class between the pet and the player, and that the player has to work with the pet in order to accomplish full efficiency of play.

Now, that’s fine, but it seems like it creates a hard situation to balance around, and often times when introducing new content to the game, instead of balancing the content to cater to this one design, it seems like it just.. isn’t, meaning that if it is truly that difficult to balance around then it needs a design overhaul.

Giving more control to the player is great, but unfortunately the devs are right, the skill barrier is too high (for instance, at times I still have to explain to people who have more time and more vast experience in the game than me that channel skills are a running total, and not individual hits adding up and doing 60k damage).

Suggestion: Change the philosophy behind the mechanic from “always on” to “always available.” There is a perfectly good stow option for ranger pets already implemented into the code, taking up UI space and everything, that up until this point, is eating up that chunk of UI and code to make a purely cosmetic change, possibly only useful for screen shots and jump puzzles.

Take that pet, stow it away, and make F1 an activator for it, that toggles when the pet is activated to the current “attack my target” option. Then, make the pet work like pre-patch spirits; where the pet is activated into a fight, and lasts its duration (let’s say 60 seconds), and the recharge is ticking while the pet is active, so that once those 60 seconds are up, the pet is ready to be used again (instead of just making the pet drop dead at the end of its duration, have it “return to owner to regain it’s energy” or something). Additionally, no more RNG attack rotation. Just a basic attack that changes based on the family of pet, and the F2 is some unique attack or function.

Turn F3 into a pet “dodge,” where it stops attacking, but does not receive damage (with an appropriate cooldown), and F4 becomes the new “return to me” button (yes, no more pet swap).

If the pet is killed when it’s in battle, it goes on cooldown.

Boom, now we have a system that can be balanced better versus content, that is more active and requires a higher skill floor versus players, that gives enemies a better way to counter play the pet aspect of the class, and the class overall can be given more interesting ways to build by things like giving pets better utility options (through traiting).

As beastmastery gets more trait points put into it, the better the pet becomes, sacrificing player damage in the process. Without any beastmastery investment, the ranger player, in order to be successful, would still have to use the pet, but it might not necessarily be for damage (the pet would still do damage, but not having a pet wouldn’t reduce the power output of the class by 20-30% the way it does now), but maybe to use the pet’s knockdown/immobilize to setup a burst, or buffing the player to perform better in battle.

None of those specific examples even have to implemented though, as I honestly think that the system suggested is a good replacement for the current mechanic, and all of the things suggested already exist in-game, meaning that the guild wars 2 system can handle these features.

Just my 2 cents. Regardless, a redesign that gives the player more options in general is needed. Also, thanks to anybody that takes the time to read this lol.

@Searban; No not at all, it would definitely be OP. Maul either needs to be 1) Damage and a blast finisher or 2) damage and a decent cripple. At least in the suggestion I was making.

I’d say Eurantien then. I gather that he/she has lots of experience with both the ranger class and with PvP itself, and would be a fair candidate for an SoTG.

Adding a different condition to Maul doesn’t seem to alleviate the problem at all, since the weapon isn’t a condition heavy weapon. If anything, the Vulnerability stacks need to be doubled.

If people would prefer Maul to be a blast finisher, then that alone would be the secondary effect on top of damage, and the vulnerability can be applied to Swoop.

Third suggestion; Maul inflicts a hefty cripple. Remove the cripple on the Greatsword 4 throw, and replace it with an immobilize. Now, we have a weapon much more dedicated to control, which then justifies having a semi-low damage output on the autoattack. It would also help a ranger stick to the target better when using the greatsword, which would make it even more viable.

The entire game is built around RNG, there is even a stat that is solely for increasing the effectiveness of an RNG engine (precision). The suggestion was made to put axe in line with other weapons that have bouncing effects in the game that are primarily condition weapons. The skills that apply conditions in a particular order of the bounce effect are generally more powerful, cooldown skills.

That leaves the obvious choice of modeling one weapon after another existing weapon if that weapon needs to be brought up to par.

I didn’t design the game to be so heavily reliant on RNG and passive procs, ANet did. But if the game isn’t going to be redesigned entirely to address those issues, and a weaponset needs to be brought up in order to be competitive, it has to use existing properties, and those shouldn’t be dismissed because of player preference if it would overall make the weapon more balanced.

The Axe is already an RNG heavy weapon when it comes to the autoattack anyhow, since you don’t get to pick and choose which enemies get hit by the bounce.

I think it should just get a dumbed down version of the mesmers staff autoattack. Maybe like RNG bleed/cripple/vulnerability with appropriately balanced durations?

If they are truly unwilling to give the ranger more control over their pets (thereby creating a more interactive playstyle and raising the skill ceiling), then it’s time for a rework of the way the mechanic currently functions, since at this point it’s just a mechanic that’s tacked on damage with a fairly RNG rotation that maybe has a utility function here and there every once in awhile.

It’s taking a mechanic that is despised in competitive games; AI damage sources, and not only magnifying, but forcing players into a playstyle choice while limiting the ability to do things within that forced playstyle that seem like they should be more than possible. On top of that, the current rendition of ranger pets is something that’s hard to balance around.

The pet is supposed to be always out, and always “helping” (DPS’ing and maybe using a semi useful F2 every once in awhile when the pet feels like it), and the ranger is supposed to be made to work with the pet to be as effective as possible. So now, you can’t give the ranger player better tools, because combined with the pet, it would be too strong, but you can’t give the pet better tools, because people don’t like fighting against strong AI in a competitive mode that’s supposed to be player skill vs player skill, and not player skill vs pet AI and player skill.

So, maybe I’m looking at it wrong, but when you hit the point where you can’t give the player more useful tools without making the class too strong, but you can’t give the pet more options because it would either make the pet too strong, or operating the class “too hard;” then it’s time to redesign the mechanic.

Just to break in here, but PvP players are calling the Spirit change a buff, and it was in PvP lol. While you can’t keep the passive effects on the build 100% of the time, the strong part of the build and where most of the damage comes from are the actives proc’ing each other and storm spirit doing ~3k damage on active.

So now, it rewards players for intentionally getting their spirits killed, because it’s raised the AoE DPS, especially with Natures Vengeance, by being able to use the spirits actives even more often because they are on a shorter recharge if they are killed before 25 seconds. It punishes players for counter playing the build by killing the spirits even more, which is just hilarious.

Levetty.1279:

Its also worth noting that if you PvE the focus is shifting to harder content which translates into more one hit kills and lots of dodging or in other words, Rangers have to do it without pets (Mesmers are also getting hurt by this too but too a much lesser degree).

It’s why I run shatters on my Mesmer instead of phantasms. Unfortunately as a ranger, I can’t shatter my pet.

@Topic;
Balancing for PvP isn’t the absolute worst thing in the world, because to some extent it also translates over into WvW, though as WvW scales up and players become masses of AoE and boons, things that work against other players in a small scale don’t always translate up to large scale.

A huge part of this is how AI functions across the different game types. In PvP, where AI can ignored by a player because the player is prioritizing targets, or because attacking the AI essentially removes that player from the rest of the fight in order to counter a tactic that in most cases (except with Spirit of Nature) isn’t going to be a make or break in a fight.

However, get into PvE, and PvE enemies don’t prioritize players over AI in all cases. They have their own aggro mechanic, and when getting into higher level content, it means that an enemy, based on its aggro algorithm, can just decide to nuke your AI mechanics.

Lastly, in WvW, your AI mechanics aren’t smart. They don’t recognize red circles. The pet will just charge into a mass of graphics and die, and its either do that, or do nothing at all, except maybe give an almost useful boon every once in awhile right next to you, while lowering your overall DPS by not being able to participate in a fight.

This is a HUGE issue when we’re talking about an always on pet mechanic, because based on design, it does not work for 2 out of 3 game modes. In PvE, it could be as simple as taking the pet out of the targeting algorithm for mechanics that will insta-kill it.

But for WvW, nothing can be done to alter mechanics without breaking the current state of the pet, which means that the pet mechanic has to be altered so that players have a choice between whether or not they want to focus on pets and have them always out, or not focus on pets without losing overall DPS and utility.

People have suggested perma-stow options, Durz and I and others have suggested a mechanic similar to the way pre-patch spirits worked, but ultimately, something needs to be done about the mechanic in order to give rangers the opportunity to be more viable across different game modes without having the pet as anchor that holds players back based on the content they’re faced with.

And don’t get me wrong, players that love their pets and hate change. Nobody wants to take your options away from you and make you play the game differently. They just want to add more options so that the class functions across a larger array of content.

Most SoTGs people have only cared about what was happening to their class when they talked to devs, and then trying to get classes they don’t like playing against nerfed. Inevitably they end up talking about features more than they should, which, while important to people that are already PvPing, isn’t going to do a thing to entice more people to go play PvP if the balance isn’t where they want it to be.

Sometimes I really wish I could get a glimpse at the code used for balancing, to see what exactly it is that is so complicated about implementing certain changes.

Hopefully they do end up working with a 25% movement speed. Cuz Travelers Runes are expensive right now, but I really want a movement speed bonus (particularly for my mesmer).

Xsorus.2507:

I’m debating getting the Traveler Runes for my BM set, I have a Speed Set but they’re not working though they said on the tracker, I’ll wait and see how they do first.

The Idea of being able to run SOTW/SoR/Lightning Reflex though makes me happy.

If you look at a skill building site (I’m looking at gw2skills), Rune of the Speeds 6th bonus lists “move 5% faster when under the affects of swiftness.”

One of the tooltips is wrong, but if 25% movement speed isn’t working in game, then it might be the skill builders tooltip effect.

I just don’t think the vulnerability should be on Maul. It hits, and then does damage I believe (as opposed to calculating the damage through the vulnerability that would be applied).

That makes sense, of course, but what the leads to is just more skill spam, to do damage. Your damage rotation for cooldown skills is now Maul → Maul → Maul. If you have Moment of Clarity, then you’re just using Greatsword 5 into Maul into Maul. Point being, you have to use Maul to make Maul better….

Why doesn’t swoop apply vulnerability? Why not an attack in the auto chain? How about the greatsword block. Just something to make the damage output a little different, and less Maul on cooldown.

Traps are already more useless than Engis and Necros options, and our own offhand dagger and torch have the same effects as our traps (except Frost trap, and it’s only better than axe 3 traited) on a lower cooldown. The only good thing about traps are their AoE, but that’s really where it ends. So it isn’t like the build could be made any less viable, since currently, it’s really only good for tagging enemies in PvE/WvW and possible niche dungeon circumstances.

Granted, it’s some of the best AoE we have, so of course it would hurt if they got worse, but really, they can’t get much worse than they already are.

Actually, we’re in the best spot we could possibly be because there’s nothing really left to hit other than nerfing spirits even further.

In that same thread, in the screenshot, its quoted as having some “big QoL changes on oct 1.” That seems pretty exciting to me, as it’s bound to affect one of my 5 classes positively.

Spirit rangers take more skill to play now and will probably still be seen on top teams because of the immense amount of support they can provide in a team fight while being a good 1v1 class.

Traps would be the next alternative, but at that point, it could be argued that taking an engi would do the job better, it would would be left more up to team comp preference than one being more viable than the other.

Spirits are now in line with every other class in the game, and the spirit build itself probably won’t fall out of popularity unless the game shifts away from a necro heavy meta.

Daecollo.9578:

jcbroe.4329:

I would agree with you, except Berserker’s Power/Heightened Focus were moved to Grandmaster traits.

They used to be 10 traits, now they are 30 traits.

This cut our damage significantly.

But you still do more damage than a ranger does. I think I mentioned going x/x/20/30/x in a previous post. So you can either put that 20 towards the Power line and pick up the greatsword trait with +10% damage, you can put it towards getting might on crit on the greatsword with a mace/shield and run unsuspecting foe for a high crit chance coming off of skull crack, or you could go with 20 in tactics (for whatever reason) and get Destruction of the Empowered or something.

Personally, I’d go with 0/20/20/30/0, and as long as you build in some crit damage on the amulet/runes, then you’d have a much higher damage output than a ranger and its pet, while having the same amount of health regained per second, but with less access to boons and dodges for survival.

Um… Are you seriously considering a Warrior without at least 0/0/0/0/15?

We NEED Our discipline line to deal damage. Our burst damage is trash without Burst Mastery.

You need 30 in discipline to have that 7 second recast high damage STUN you cry about so much. Seeing as you have so much protection/evades it shouldn’t matter. Rangers are one of the hardest classes in the game to lock down, under thief.

The damage dealer is 100 blades in what I mentioned, and skull crack would be available every 9 seconds, or every weapon swap.

And I never said anything about locking down a ranger. I was comparing, showing that when built defensively, a warrior does more damage in its defensive build than a ranger in their defensive build while having an even amount of hps, and rangers are compensated for their lack of damage output by having access to evades and a little protection here and there.

I would agree with you, except Berserker’s Power/Heightened Focus were moved to Grandmaster traits.

They used to be 10 traits, now they are 30 traits.

This cut our damage significantly.

But you still do more damage than a ranger does. I think I mentioned going x/x/20/30/x in a previous post. So you can either put that 20 towards the Power line and pick up the greatsword trait with +10% damage, you can put it towards getting might on crit on the greatsword with a mace/shield and run unsuspecting foe for a high crit chance coming off of skull crack, or you could go with 20 in tactics (for whatever reason) and get Destruction of the Empowered or something.

Personally, I’d go with 0/20/20/30/0, and as long as you build in some crit damage on the amulet/runes, then you’d have a much higher damage output than a ranger and its pet, while having the same amount of health regained per second, but with less access to boons and dodges for survival.

Daecollo.9578:

jcbroe.4329:

Gotta love this 0/0/40/40/0 Builds with 2 sets of armor and rune sets.

This is why Troll heals for 684.8 hp/s, to help you and your pet survive.

Let me reiterate myself:

Okay, now I have to ask, how are you getting all of these things in one build.

List:
-Troll Unguent
-Elite Spirit
-High Protection Uptime
-High Vigor uptime
-High Amount of Evades
-Stealth
-Empathic Bond
-Evasive Purity
-Natural Healing
-Signet of the Wild
-Signet of the Beastmaster

Because we’re not going to have a theorycraft conversation about things that aren’t actually plausible. If this build exists, we’ll discuss it from there.

You can’t just like you can’t have everything for Warrior in one build. The discussion isn’t about this stuff. Its about Troll Unguent and SoN. I see you have successfully tried to move away from that however lets stick to the topic, Hmm?

You can however, have a lot of that at once without giving up much

I’m asking, because earlier, I mentioned warriors healing being equal to rangers, and balanced, while the ranger is being more defensive, the warrior is more offensive, and I said it was a fair tradeoff.

However, throughout this entire thread, you have said that the ranger has access to every single one of these things on top of troll unguent, which isn’t true. So what build are we going with?

Because on a build without 30 in nature magic, and the proper runes and traits, vigor and protection uptime are low. And then you need 30 in Wilderness for condi removal. And then 30 in Marksmanship for activating SoTW to do anything. And then 30 in Beastmastery for more healing. And then another set of runes and being able to equip the traits needed in every slot to get everything that has been mentioned that happens at once during this ranger build that is so strong.

So I’m asking, which is it, is it this crazy impossible build, or is it that you actually can’t get all of those things in one build? Because in one build, if you invest, you can maybe get high healing, regen uptime, evades/dodges, and a little protection every once in awhile. And in that plausible and existing build, the warrior has a equally fair amount of survival options, but is more offensive and capable of a higher damage output.

So, is the healing per second balanced? When compared to other classes, yes. Rangers are a more defensive variant, while Warriors are more offensive, and Eles/Engis fall somewhere on the inbetween spectrum, being more offensive than rangers but not equaling the damage output of warriors, while also being slightly more defensive than the warrior.

So again, my answer is yes, it is balanced.

Gotta love this 0/0/40/40/0 Builds with 2 sets of armor and rune sets.

This is why Troll heals for 684.8 hp/s, to help you and your pet survive.

Let me reiterate myself:

Okay, now I have to ask, how are you getting all of these things in one build.

List:
-Troll Unguent
-Elite Spirit
-High Protection Uptime
-High Vigor uptime
-High Amount of Evades
-Stealth
-Empathic Bond
-Evasive Purity
-Natural Healing
-Signet of the Wild
-Signet of the Beastmaster

Because we’re not going to have a theorycraft conversation about things that aren’t actually plausible. If this build exists, we’ll discuss it from there.

Evan Lesh.3295:

These are all great ideas! They are very much inline with our direction for the game. The one thing I have to disagree with as-stated is #1: “Remove hot join.” Removing hot join means removing all custom arenas, which we will not do as they have many benefits. I understand why the community wants this; to have the majority of the player base shift to a more structured format like an unrated solo arena. The best middle ground I can see is removing all ArenaNet custom arenas.

If what I’m reading is that the only hot-joinable arenas left would be player controlled custom arenas, and players unable to enter those would be filtered into a structured solo/team, then that’s awesome. Not only would it help to unite the player base a little, but it would give owning a custom arena a much higher level of importance.

Okay, now I have to ask, how are you getting all of these things in one build.

List:
-Troll Unguent
-Elite Spirit
-High Protection Uptime
-High Vigor uptime
-High Amount of Evades
-Stealth
-Empathic Bond
-Evasive Purity
-Natural Healing
-Signet of the Wild
-Signet of the Beastmaster

Because we’re not going to have a theorycraft conversation about things that aren’t actually plausible. If this build exists, we’ll discuss it from there.

I’m just putting this out there, but if spirits are going to be redesigned so they are less visible and less distracting, it isn’t something that it just handled by the balance team. It is something a graphics team is going to have to rework, which, depending on the backlog/work schedule, may or may not see immediate attention.

So, even if it is something that is necessary, it isn’t going to be the quickest fix in the world, because it isn’t something the balance team can just do overnight.

Just for counter arguments sake:

Warrior: 20 in cleansing ire, 30 in inspired battle standard, full adrenaline, alternating banners for 100% regen uptime.

Healing Signet: 402 hps
Regen: 155 hps (5 people = 775 hps)
Adrenal Health: 390/3 = 130 hps

402 + 155 + 130 = 687 hps, sustainable indefinitely, unless you go out of action long enough to see adrenaline decay.

Seems balanced to me. Warriors have a higher damage potential, and are capable of doing more damage output while traited for survival than rangers. So risk/reward and outputs all factored in, it looks like the 2 classes are equal with each other, 1 having more survival through evades, while the other having a higher total damage output.

Also, the hps from the banners isn’t the only AoE effect granted for your party, which is a nice little bonus.

Still, everything looks pretty in line.

Durzlla.6295:

jcbroe.4329:

Durzlla.6295:

Soronthar.7236:

Durzlla.6295:

PS: the more I check this forum the more I realize the ranger community can’t adapt at all…. Oh the irony…

I have said it many times: with other classes, you lean to play and adapt to have an edge, with Rangers you learn to play and adapt to overcome the class limitations and be on an “even field” with the rest.

Ofc, this is outside sPvP, but that’s not what most people play.

I will say that rangers do have to try harder to be on par/have an edge than other profs, which sucks, but it could be worse, we could be like eles where it’s essentially spend 20-30 in arcane or die (I’m still trying to break that but am having no luck AT ALL).

I can’t wait until they kittening fix the severe trait imbalances among the profs…

Rangers and Eles are extremely on par with each other, generally being forced into heavy defensive specs in order to be viable, and having very necessary grandmaster traits in order to have any sort of defense.

Rangers and Eles are both in need of the same sort of changes, and if the thread highlighting JPs responses in a live stream is to be trusted, there are some “bigger” QoL changes coming on October 1, so hopefully things like this are addressed.

I find hit hilarious (and depressing) that my 2 favorite profs are the most kitten in the area I like most about GW2 (traits)

Exactly! And then on classes like my necro, I can have full offensive traits (Dhuumfire and Terror), and still have 20 points left over, which I invest in the toughness line so that my staff’s full AoE condi transfer recharges faster and I can remove conditions when entering death shroud. Or on my guardian I can take Altruistic Healing, Healing Symbols, and Turn condis into boons with shouts, and still have 10 points left over to reduce the recharge of the signet heal.

I see those types of incredible, additive options, and then I look at classes like Ranger and Ele and go… what were they thinking when they made these traits and/or utilities? Other classes just seem to have more useful traits, that do more for them, and can be added to almost any build and be effective.

Durzlla.6295:

Soronthar.7236:

Durzlla.6295:

PS: the more I check this forum the more I realize the ranger community can’t adapt at all…. Oh the irony…

I have said it many times: with other classes, you lean to play and adapt to have an edge, with Rangers you learn to play and adapt to overcome the class limitations and be on an “even field” with the rest.

Ofc, this is outside sPvP, but that’s not what most people play.

I will say that rangers do have to try harder to be on par/have an edge than other profs, which sucks, but it could be worse, we could be like eles where it’s essentially spend 20-30 in arcane or die (I’m still trying to break that but am having no luck AT ALL).

I can’t wait until they kittening fix the severe trait imbalances among the profs…

Rangers and Eles are extremely on par with each other, generally being forced into heavy defensive specs in order to be viable, and having very necessary grandmaster traits in order to have any sort of defense.

Rangers and Eles are both in need of the same sort of changes, and if the thread highlighting JPs responses in a live stream is to be trusted, there are some “bigger” QoL changes coming on October 1, so hopefully things like this are addressed.

Don’t quote me on this, because I haven’t tested it at all so I’m not even sure whether it’s true, but I heard that SoR makes the conditions kind of just disappear, so the pet doesn’t even take damage. It isn’t something I’ve tested though, I just heard it from other players, so I wouldn’t be sure that’s true.

kiwituatara.6053:

So I’ve been using spiders as well, but I didn’t trait BM coz spiders aren’t really worth traiting into; they don’t die often and theyre more of a CC/condition cover up pet. The traveler runes are quite nice with 30/0/30/10/0 settler gear + shaman trinkets. sword+dagger/axe+torch

I’m sitting at ~1000 condition dmg, ~2250 attack, ~800healing power, ~21000hp, ~3100armor. 25% boon duration, 40% condition duration.

Using active signets for emergency invulnerability, stability and condition wipes. And with all those evades, I can last quite a while in wvw 8D

I was actually thinking of using a build like this (same trait setup with shamans amulet, so less hp) in PvP as a new “meta” build instead of spirits, and just sitting on point and being the ultimate point holder. Stability to stay on point and make engis waste cooldowns, invulnerability to facetank and burst, and SoR for a full clear on top of empathic bond, while just regening health the whole time and burn/bleed/poisoning them.

The only class that has enough condi removal that would actually be able to get you off a point is a guardian, and even then it would take awhile.

WvW also, but I’m more focused on my other classes lately, speaking of which:

@Traveler runes; these are going to be a must for my mesmer. I’ve heard a few people wanting them on thief too. I think in general, in class that doesn’t have access to constant swiftness or wants another utility slot option is going to go for these, and they’re probably going to be one of the most expensive rune sets in the game.

Aveneo.2068:

Chopps.5047:

Roll guardian, it’s untouchable really by the dev team and community. Necro on the other hand…

I wouldn’t say untouchable. I still remember the nerf to Symbol of Wrath (10s->20s) and the nerf to Spirit Weapons (immortal for the duration->killed in ~2 hits).

But yeah, Guardian does feel like it is finally in a decent spot.
(Unless JP is just missing the Guardian Post-It note while throwing darts randomly at the nerf-board)

Not just untouchable, but the last SoTG, they mentioned wanting to make the guardian even better, particularly at things like smiting conditions from themselves and teammates (I’m assuming they want to do this to give guardians a reliable option besides shout builds).

The one thing that bothers me is how devs still haven’t addressed empathic bond being rangers only traitable, only reliable source of condi removal, but guardians are the ones that need more options. My jaw hit the floor on that one, admittedly.

If it makes a difference, I talked to the guys that are going to be doing the SoTG and asked them if they would please take some time out of the SoTG to focus on the ranger profession, and instead of just talking about meta builds, ask some follow ups and in general, what the devs want the ranger to be accomplishing and why they make the balance changes they do in order to get the ranger to that goal.

I was told that they would do their best to work it in to the discussion. So no guarantees, but at least I got a response, so we’ll find out tomorrow I guess.

So the Ranger will be seeing some changes to the spirit build. We’re being very mindful to carefully shave it so that:

We don’t hurt other areas of the game where the build may not be a problem, as it is in PvP, and
We’ve already seen counters to this build showing up (there’s a thread talking about the Warrior countering this build, and to what degree) in the meta.

So, we will be “shaving” the build a little (we don’t want to over-correct the issue) and seeing how the meta adapts.

“Bad for the player, but good for the game”. Alright. Story time. The game dev community is a pretty small place, and a lot of devs know one another. We are lucky enough to have game nights with guys from WOTC (they make Magic:TG) and I got into a great conversation with one of their devs. I was talking about balancing an MMO vs a CCG, and we were swapping lessons/ideas back and forth on the things we’ve learned. I asked him about the mana system, mulligans, and how much I hated them as a player. I hate winning because my opponent mulligans, and I hate losing because of them. I asked him what he thought about that. His answer, in a word, was amazing. He said (paraphrasing), “Ya, that random sucks. Mulligans, mana floods (getting too much mana, but not enough “action” cards) and mana screws (not getting enough mana) all suck. But they add this element where anyone has a shot in any game. Basically, those things are bad for the player, but they’re good for the game.” I thought it was a great way of summing up what happens when we, as devs, have to balance various classes in an MMO. It may suck to have YOUR build and YOUR class slightly brought down in power, but, here’s the thing, it’s good for the game at large. So don’t think that we hate X class. We love all the classes. But sometimes we need to adjust a few things in order to protect the health of the overall game.

Atherakhia.4086:

ANet doesn’t read any forum but sPvP and, only recently, WvW. If you want change, your only hope is to post there. While they may pretend they read the class forums, it’s hard to believe when issues go unchanged for months on end without even a hint okittennowledgement to the problem.

That’s why everyone laughed at the other poster who said they had a 1 on 1 with ANet devs about the state of the Ranger class. If they’re aware of the issues and it legitimately is taking more than a year to resolve them, what hope do we have?

It could be worse. You could be an ele/mesmer and have the devs tell you they think where your class is at is perfect, once they bring the rest of the game in balance. I mean, at least they acknowledge that rangers aren’t in a good place haha. That counts for something.

jmatb.6307:

Can you blame anybody for despising a class that doesn’t have a single utility that makes you think “That might be tricky to pull off?”

I have to completely agree with this sentiment right here. I main ranger, and I just absolutely hate the utility options. Traps are the only ones that are now meaningful and at the same time a little less mindless (spirits are probably okay now, but I just don’t like the build to begin with). Rangers also kind of just lack the need for skill rotations.

For the most part, in order to do damage, the rotation of how you use the skills can be completely disregarded, and most skills aren’t even that punishing if you whiff them, especially with many short cooldowns, and ease of use to be effective requirements (no real skill shots, just “get close, get away, kite to flank a little”).

AND, the pet is just an AI controlled tacked on source of damage. Traits don’t effect functionality at all, and the class doesn’t really have much customization in what they choose to do with the pets, on top of them being an AI nuisance (AI with useful RNG skill rotations and fair damage is not good for competitive play, ever).

So yeah, definitely. The only thing I think I ever get irritated with the community with is when they blame ranger players, like those players really have a choice, other than to switch classes (which is asking a little too much, because you never know if there is any sentimental attachment to that character or anything, there are other factors).

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, If players took the time to look back in our posting history, they would see that in the course of this past year, we have announced and talked about every major feature we have shipped, or are working on, as well as the many QoL features. If that is not transparency, there must be some definition on Urban Dictionary that I am missing.

I don’t think it has anything to do with transparency. After patches that change how classes or builds work in particular, what the game seems to be lacking at this point is the blog post attached to the balance changes explaining why certain changes were made. The two biggest questions I’ve observed (just as an active community member) are, summarized (and removing negativity): 1) Why is this change being made? 2) Why are builds being changed or made worse (perceived to be made worse) in other game modes, because of PvP?

Something that I personally (just my opinion) thought worked really well, again, were the write-ups that went along with the balance changes for guild wars 1. They would address why the change was made, and the ultimate direction they wanted to to take the class in with the changes being made. (an example: http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/september_2012_skill_balances.php)

Now, it’s completely understandable if there aren’t enough resources to allocate towards doing something like that, and of course the SoTGs kind of address that to an extent, but the thing that SoTG really lacks is being scripted in that regard, as well as the time frame element, and being community directed. Sometimes, changes get explained with depth, and at others, people don’t ask follow up questions for every class or every change, and being community driven, part of the responsibility lies with hosts and guests because either they understood it and aren’t aware that the audience might need more detail, or they are genuinely uninterested in the change and don’t bother asking a follow up.

With a nice, rehearsed, thought out text write up, it gives the writer a chance to get the necessary details out of their head in order to explain them (as opposed to an on the spot questioning), while not necessarily needing to worry about the time constraints that the SoTGs provide. Additionally, some people would just prefer a text format to a dialogue, because text might be easier to understand and provide a better clarity than what the dialogue on the SoTGs provides.

tl;dr: It would be really nice to see the type of dev blog type posts accompany balance changes, similar to how they were in guild wars 1 (again, for emphasis: http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/september_2012_skill_balances.php)

Great job at PAX by the way. Personally, I’m happy with what the devs have said the intentions are for the game, even if the time frames aren’t always the most satisfying. Still, the only game I can use to hold a candle up to guild wars 2 is guild wars 1, and I think that really says something positive if the life cycle of guild wars 1 is indicative of whats to come for guild wars 2. Keep it up.

GUFF.5692:

Is it me or did they “take away” stats from us since ascended weapons were coming out?

I’m about 60 power/precision/toughness lower than pre patch. I haven’t checked yet to see if the new ascended weapons will be 60 higher or not. Maybe I’m wrong since I didn’t spend a lot of time checking since I noticed it right before I logged tonight. Can anyone else confirm?

Still 179/128/128 on my exotics, and nothing on my builds changed values.

It actually makes sense, since from a technical standpoint, the cooldown on spirits was the only cooldown in the game that recharged while the summon was active. Now the summons are all in line with each other.

That being said, I’ll be staying off the ranger forums until the community gets its kitten together.

We have an entire Skirmishing Traitline the does absolutely nothing for power builds besides the precision/crit damage and the 10% damage while flanking tree.

I say, go ahead, reworks ahoy.

Here’s an on the fly thought. Maybe what pets need, without traits but inherent to their pet family, is a straight up family special feature.

For instance,
Pigs: Thick Fat; incoming durations (including ones that are taken with empathic bond) are reduced by 25%.

Drakes: Scale Armor; incoming damage is reduced by 10%

Felines: Felines Grace: 30% faster movement speed (get rid of the trait for this in skirmishing entirely for option the improves power builds)

Dogs: Companions Fury; chance to recharge the Knockdown skill instantly when taking 10% or more damage, with an ICD.

Spiders: Arachnophobia: when taking 10% or more damage, cripple foes for 5 seconds in an AoE radius, with an ICD.

etc etc.

Boom. New, cool effects. Heck, these could all be master trait replacement if not inherent effects. Why not haha.

Akimbo.4835:

jcbroe.4329:

Akimbo.4835:

jcbroe.4329:

I really am tired of hearing stuff like this though “nerfing the weakest profession in the game.” If it was the weakest in the game, why would it be getting nerfed?

Because the Ranger is worthless outside of a single spvp build which is about to get nerfed and leave the Ranger with nothing again?

autoattack people for 2k damage every 1 second at 1500 range doesn’t really sound that weak to me, especially since the player is at virtually zero risk and able to dish out one of the highest damage outputs at range, without the need to even use cooldowns.

The class has a multitude of problems, but being weak isn’t one of them.

(@ everyone) If you hate the game and the class so much that you can’t even see the positives or at least try to be constructive, why post? Why continue to complain? It isn’t helping you, or anybody else. It’s just a waste of energy.

Except the auto-attack will miss at 1500 range if the enemy is moving at all.

For the rest of PvE, Rangers do nothing that everyone else can’t do much better than them. Rangers have a multitude of problems but being weak in general compounds them all.

The people who “hate the game and class” are usually players who really want to play a ranger, but have played another class and realise Rangers are just “meh”.

The whole reason I’m here is because I wanted to come back to playing my Ranger, which was my first 80. However all I see are nerfs based on PvP/WvW.

Rangers die really quickly vs other players, so everyone started playing a beastmaster-bunker, you know, playing to the strength of the prof. Guess what? Nerfed. Rangers find a new build that makes them useful in a single aspect of PvP. Guess what? Nerf incoming.

That’s called power creep, as far as PvE goes. You can complete the content easily. Just because another class has bigger numbers doesn’t make the class “bad” or “weak.” It makes the class balanced in comparison to the content, while agreeably being weak on the spectrum of output compared to other classes. But, for PvE, you don’t balance classes against each other, because it will never be truly even, and will just keep making things more and more powerful over time. Which, then again, power creep.

I don’t see how people are missing at 1500 range with the way I described playing at 1500 range. Sitting at the back of a group/zerg and auto’ing the other teams front line that most of the time is completely oblivious to you, how does that miss? I’ve never seen my auto attacks miss unless an opponent is actively engaged in my actions and kiting me, and I can do the same to any other ranged class in the game except for mesmers greatsword because of the beam effect, so I’d say it’s a pretty fair trade off. Especially in terms of risk/reward. So what if warriors greatsword hits for 3k autos, they have to be point blank to do it.

I’ve also never died quickly against anybody. Rangers can dodge SO much, and I’m not talking about my bunker either, but my knight/zerker setup. I hit people at range for damage, and if they even get close, I have either a sword/warhorn or sword/dagger with evades, distance creators, and a fair amount of damage to put out.

That being said, rangers do have middle tier survivability, coming in like 4th/5th place when ranked against other classes.

I’m upset that a viable PvP option is potentially not going to be viable anymore too. But if this game ends up getting away from pet play and AI functions and eventually puts the damage potential on the player, then I’ll take any needed changes along the way to get there.

I’m also really not disagreeing with you at all, I just don’t think rangers are weak. I think rangers are suffering from power creep right now because a lot of classes have received updates to make them viable, and rangers haven’t had their options touched in a long time. And I already listed all the options I think need improvement for the class too.

I just get irritated because some people (maybe not you) just throw negativity at the class and refuse to accept anything positive that we can do. Admittedly, I’m not arguing that other classes don’t compete with rangers, I’m arguing that rangers aren’t useless, and that they are capable than much more than “nothing,” and I think that’s fair.

Chromosome.7498:

JCbroe, are you living on the same planet than us ?

If community QQ, It because sPvP actually is useless, and not funny. All of updates since right now in sPvP does not provide more fun.
A part of best players in sPvP leaved this game, because they think that conquest mode is not fun. And since one years, sPvP players ask more than new map.

Well, I enjoy that devs go back in this part of forum. But I appreciate that PvE boy stay on the other part of forum.
Because here ! Nobody is happy (And we don’t deserv it) !

Can you do it better? Make your own game then. And please don’t try to use PvE as an insult, as though you have any idea how much time I’ve logged into PvP in this game (r40 by the by).

And I never said I was happy with the state of the game. I said I appreciated the time and effort the devs put into the game, and when they happen to respond to the forums. I also said that I respect the balance philosophies and that I have optimism that the game will end up in a good place if those philosophies are delivered on.

You’d rather be ungrateful, toxic, and attack others that show any sort of positivity though. It’s okay, I get it, whatever makes you feel better, and if it lets you sleep at night.

Akimbo.4835:

jcbroe.4329:

I really am tired of hearing stuff like this though “nerfing the weakest profession in the game.” If it was the weakest in the game, why would it be getting nerfed?

Because the Ranger is worthless outside of a single spvp build which is about to get nerfed and leave the Ranger with nothing again?

Where do rangers fail to perform in PvE? In WvW, the lack of group support for rangers is abundantly clear, but that doesn’t make them terrible. Being able to sit in the back line with a build that has 3k armor and autoattack people for 2k damage every 1 second at 1500 range doesn’t really sound that weak to me, especially since the player is at virtually zero risk and able to dish out one of the highest damage outputs at range, without the need to even use cooldowns.

The class has a multitude of problems, but being weak isn’t one of them. Lack of utility options, lack of trait options, lack of build versatility stemming from aforementioned trait options and coupled with simplistic weapon design, a clunky mechanic that isn’t always functional, and a lack of mold-able functions for the mechanic, but weak? No. At 1200 range on a necromancer, I have to try to see through the nightmare spam of effects and bodies to place a mark that’s effects have the potential to be cleansed, essentially making me useless outside of a purely support role at 1200 range, where as on my ranger, as I said, I can kite around hitting entire bundles of people with 2k auto attacks.

Oh, and I can choose to roam, get across the map faster than any other class except thief, and then solo cap supply camps faster than that thief, essentially making the ranger one of the best solo roamers in the game. But that isn’t strong or doesn’t matter either I guess.

(@ everyone) If you hate the game and the class so much that you can’t even see the positives or at least try to be constructive, why post? Why continue to complain? It isn’t helping you, or anybody else. It’s just a waste of energy.

I only really use Healing Spring in organized groups, or in PvP where its node fighting and I’ll be sitting on a point and Spring will myself (and others) more.

However, out in open world, Troll Unguent. It has rangers highest on the go healing, it is the least punishing healing skill, meaning that using it preemptively has a better opportunity cost than if you use HaO or Spring early, potentially wasting some of the spike heal because it tries to heal more than the HP you have, and lastly, because with the amount of evades rangers have access to, with the fact that Unguent can’t be stripped, and the above reasoning, it makes for one of the best heals in terms of potency in the game.