I really think it’s a more simplistic issue than that guys. Yes, conditions and condition setups are successful, but they are unfortunately gauged against other successful condition builds. It doesn’t result in a lack of viability when compared to other classes, but a lack in unique role, which is truly unfortunate.
Direct damage for rangers suffers, not because of the output, but because of the lack of boon removal rangers have access to in order to push power damage through retaliation and protection. Do something as simple as make Barrage remove boons, or a trait that allows boon removal through attacks of some sort, and watch how quickly rangers jump up a few tiers.
Lastly, the one rangers struggle the most on, which comes from just overall “bad” or “boring” design; bringing something unique to the table. It isn’t an argument of effectiveness, it isn’t an argument of viability, it’s an argument of how simplistic the skills look, how simplistic they function, and how that is perceived by people. Rangers just never look like they’re doing anything useful. Skills look bland and have simple (but effective) functions.
It’s part of the reason why the PvP community is always arguing that the ranger is a low skill cap class, because everything is more or less pretty easy in function to understand. There are next to no rotations to perform, and skill are fairly easy to aim at opponents (not many ground targeted skills, slow moving projectiles, or telegraphed attacks that are dodged easily).
There are only 2 solutions the the ranger “problem” though; either the class receives changes (some trait and utility reworks would admittedly be a nice quality of life improvement), or the perception of the class changes. The community has put in a tremendous amount of effort highlighting where rangers shine, such as solo roaming, dungeon speed running, and dominating PvP and general PvE (every class dominates general PvE but still), but it’s always stayed fairly within the ranger community, and from the way it’s been looking lately, no matter what positive changes rangers receive, there is still going to be such a vocal, negative portion of the community that we won’t be able to push the positives of the class through the noise of the unsatisfied people. Ultimately, that is what the community is up against when trying to change the perception of the class to the rest of the gw2 world, but at least there are more and more ranger advocates every day.
The idea behind necromancers “pets” has always been that they are raised, undead minions, and therefore recyclable. Hence, necromancers minions end up functioning more as an additional tool for the class, and their power damage output is left unscathed because of it.
However, rangers, due to the philosophy of “pet is always out,” have a reduced base power damage that is split with the pets damage output in order to reach maximum; something that necromancers simply aren’t forced to do.
Finally, @OP and people making the ele comparison, agreed. Just because the devs don’t want to make the pet mechanic more complicated doesn’t mean that they have to leave the mechanic as the least interactive, most simple mechanic to use in the game (for the most part).
(I know I can “finish” him if I’m in close range, but that’s not the point here.)
“I want to ignore the viable option the game gives me to keep my opponent from self rezzing, but when I try, it’s too hard, so I go to the forums to cry about it.”
LOL.
Please continue, these topics get more hilarious every day.
As far as solo roaming and not grouping, I’d go with ranger all the way. Rangers are very independent of the other classes, and imo have better survival than warriors (where are warriors can be more durable), because of all the potential evades and escape mechanisms that rangers have.
The pets ARE NOT always dead when roaming. Actually, if running with 30 in beastmastery and healing power gear, the right pet, like a drake, can basically face tank an entire supply camp for at the very least an entire duration of a pet swap. Certain builds, like the BM condi healing build, are very capable of soloing supply camps, as are trap builds.
Really, rangers are one of the best solo roamers in the game.
True that anything not a nerf is good.
But come September, it could either be good, or really, really bad. Thank goodness for fixing Crippling Talon though finally, it bugged the hell out of me haha.
I almost put my fist through my keyboard trying to get my wolf to fear somebody when I needed it to the other day only to watch the wolf run around in circles badly pathing to a target that it couldn’t keep up with long enough to execute its F2.
So please, or else, when things break, ANet is getting sued for responsibility of the negligent behavior of features of their product resulting in damaged property. (joke but still)
Speaking PvP, EVERYBODY that runs with axe on condition builds runs Axe/Dagger and Sword/Torch over Axe/Torch Sword/Dagger. Mainly, its to have an evade on each weapon set, to be able to leap through torch’s fire field with the sword, and to be able to keep switching between weapons and doing DPS (as opposed to sword/dagger being a lower offense, higher defense set while axe/torch has virtually zero defense), while making Sigil of Geomancy very strong in condition builds and a worthwhile investment.
I can speak for builds with this weapon setup working in both PvP and WvW, and general PvE as long as you don’t mind playing something that a lot of the PvE crowd deems inefficient because it isn’t full berserkers.
Here are my things, in no particular order:
-Pet Status bar is a must. When that pet wonders into a crowd, you need a status bar to see what’s happening.
-Do something to the survival and shout skills. Alter them, change them, something. Most classes can run their “family” skills in a singular build with traits dedicated to making it do things better or more interesting. However, rangers lack severely when building for all shouts or all survival skills, because they are either extremely basic in function to the point where it’s hard to justify making a build out of nothing but them, and/or they don’t mesh with each others functions.
-Being able to do something with my pet besides it just being an additional source of DPS. Maybe I want my pet to rip a boon off of something, maybe I want my pet to help me get into melee range, like an adaptation of http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Strike_as_One so that you can switch position with your pet (if your pet is in melee range, you can swap places with it, or set your pet on guard away from a fight, then teleport to it in a jam).
-Entangle hits stealthed foes
-Better condition removal, especially trait wise. Rangers, even lore wise, are survival experts. There is even a traitline dedicated to survival. There are nature spirits that can be summoned and unguents being used and everything. So there is no logical reason why rangers are so incapable of handling conditions that the best way they can do it is to look at the pet and go “here buddy, sorry.”
I don’t think the AoE is “bad,” per say, but I don’t find it to be optimal. Mainly because our farthest range AoE is direct damage that is heavily punished by retaliation and we have no options outside of boon removal procs on weapons to deal with it.
Other classes direct damage options offer similar obstacles, but I will say that lately I’ve been jealous of warriors Arcing Arrow, more idealistically than anything. That is; being able to deal more damage with less arrows.
However, I would also be a fan of taking two old concepts:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ignite_Arrows
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Splinter_Shot
Dispersing the effects of Moment of Clarity across a few different existing trait locations (Attack of Opportunity on pet swap with 20 second ICD instead of Instinctual Bond, and +50% daze/stun being attached to a currently existing trait in Skirmishing), and then in the Grandmaster slot, creating Splinter Arrows. On crit, arrows have x% chance to splinter and hit adjacent/nearby foes.
That would be a more preferable option for me at this point than to change skills around. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to some simple boon removal either haha. Just don’t like that Barrage can potentially 100-0 me if a small group decides to throw on retal and stand in it.
I am truly curious though:
Aren’t most rangers in MMOs limited in AOE damage? In return, I find that they have very high direct range damage or greater range. Our problem is inherently our range is no better than anyone else’s (sure you can trait for a bit of it but it is not inherent) and we certainly don’t have the best range direct damage.
I still wonder why we had to reduce the range of the Short bow VERSUS increasing the range of the longbow. It certainly would be something if the LB started at 1500 (longer than anyone else) and could be traited for a bit higher. Not game breaking against real players. Might be in dungeons or PvE (I tend not to focus there so let me know).
Who has better ranged direct damage? I thought that at 1200 range, rangers had one of the fastest times to kill in the game, and obviously the fastest time to kill at 1500 range.
This is my current power setup: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjYDbkoqvOwSxi1OQsesn93n2jJlJMxKYIA-jEyAYMB5knyaCUQsoWENW9CmqUQWdmUvRR0qBA-w
It’s focused on single target damage, but for a DPS loss, you can switch either Eagle Eye or Spotter for Piercing Arrows.
The reason why 30 in Wilderness is only for Empathic Bond. If rangers ever get a different source of reliable condition removal outside of wilderness, I would run a more glass trait setup, like 30/25/x/x/x or if necessary, 30/20/x/x/x, depending on where the other condi removal trait would be in the traitlines.
If you use lemongrass soup it’s perfectly enough with just signet of renewal if by any chance you were to get totally bombed by several players then empathic bond won’t save you anyway.
Good point, I’m just normally too lazy to use food. Which is sad, I know lol. I guess it’s also me being stubborn too. I figure, maybe if the usage statistics are high enough on empathic bond, it will finally click to somebody on the dev team that maybe they need to spread out condi removal a little better.
Of course using Lemongrass Soup should do the same thing, but it could also be seen with a narrow field of vision, and when the statistics are reviewed, the devs could go “lemongrass soup is being overused by a lot of classes, it must be too strong, let’s nerf it instead of giving classes the condi removal they are clearly lacking, except for guardians and eles.”
I can’t even enjoy tpvp anymore because there is always 2-4 spirit rangers in every single match now, Thief is the only class I play, I have basically no counter to them unless I A ) sit there with my SB attempting to whittle down all of their spirits (which by the time I finish one spirit their team mate usually shows up) or B ) Attempt to burst them and then have to down them twice because of freaking OP res spirit. (again which can take a while and gives them time to wait for backup). This is if I even survive their constant pressure damage. This build is most definitely OP.
Or you switch to an unconventional build that rangers have a hard time with. D/D condi thieves with a Shamans amulet are particularly good at going up against spirit rangers, especially when you drop caltrops at the right time.
What game is fun to watch? Most popular e-sport games give me eye cancer after couple min.
I can watch most of the fighting games that were at EVO 2013 this year, except Marvel vs Capcom, which is trying to kill people with and without epilepsy, as well as FPS games like Call of Duty and Halo, and third person tournys like Gears of War. Starcraft is watchable, as are MOBA’s like DOTA and LoL, and of course, Smite can be pretty entertaining to watch too.
There’s just something about Guild Wars 2 that makes my eyes bleed while I try to watch it. Especially when shoutcasters do an overview camera and try to describe whats happening, and all you see is moving figures in a sea of blobs of light and color and flashes.
This is my current power setup: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjYDbkoqvOwSxi1OQsesn93n2jJlJMxKYIA-jEyAYMB5knyaCUQsoWENW9CmqUQWdmUvRR0qBA-w
It’s focused on single target damage, but for a DPS loss, you can switch either Eagle Eye or Spotter for Piercing Arrows.
The reason why 30 in Wilderness is only for Empathic Bond. If rangers ever get a different source of reliable condition removal outside of wilderness, I would run a more glass trait setup, like 30/25/x/x/x or if necessary, 30/20/x/x/x, depending on where the other condi removal trait would be in the traitlines.
I think, that if the patch after PAX isn’t “meaningful,” then this game is going to fizzle out for most players. Investing time into PvP doesn’t feel meaningful, and playing the current metagame at times just feels like an exercise of banging ones head against a wall, while stopping every once in a while to try to roll their face on the keyboard.
More importantly though, the game just isn’t fun to watch. There are flashes and AoE circles and flames and etc all over the screen at any given time, and to a more casual viewer who you’d be trying to advertise the PvP in the game to, it’s almost impossible to follow what’s going on with most classes, especially since there are so many functions that are being passively handled by so many classes.
This game has a lot of potential, but there are many things that have sat stagnant for too long, and pushing for an “esport” tourny this early may end up receiving more negative blowback than positive results.
I feel like rapid fire needs to be reworked completely. I would much prefer having the warrior’s arcing arrow over rapid fire.
- Arcing arrow deals roughly the same damage as an entire rapid fire channel in a single shot
- Arcing arrow is AoE. Rangers need to trait piercing arrows to make rapid fire hit more than one target.
- Arcing arrow is a blast finisher.
I would like to see rapid fire become something similar to arcing arrow, but perhaps instead of a blast finisher, make it create a smoke field or blind foes on impact. Kind of fits the theme of the new hunter’s shot.
“Fire an arrow that explodes on impact, blinding nearby foes (4 sec).”
Combo field: Smoke (5 sec).Increase the cooldown to 15 seconds.
I never really made the connection that Rapid Fire and arcing shot do the same damage….
And now I’m sad about the ranger longbow again lol.
Uhh, well, +1 for making changes to the mechanic.
-1 for removing the mechanic altogether.
There are really some good ideas out there that I as well as many, many other people have suggested. I’d rather see some of them implemented (especially since it’s easier to alter than redesign) before I make a final decision on pets, because the implementation of them that I’m thinking of, and that has been alluded to being suggested in this thread, is a very good change.
If people are crying about the Storm spirits damage they’re just being a big baby, it’s a 20s CD, and is so easy to avoid by just NOT BEING NEAR THE SPIRIT it’s ridiculous, the BM pets were entirerly different because they were able to do the damage constantly and netted a large amount of constant DPS.
Even IF the storm spirit hit for 8k every time that’s only 400dps added onto the rangers damage, and if they’re a bunker… well that 400dps is kittening nothing, if you can’t outlive that + w/e they are actually bringing your build is just glass.
I would be more agreeable to this if the game mode didn’t have such a high demand on throwing yourself on a small point to contest, and if it wasn’t so hard to push through damage onto a ranger or one of the specific spirits from range because of how the ranger can kite and force the spirits to body block anything other than AoE cleave.
Which is why, as people said, any change made should really be a pvp only change (or revamp crosses fingers)
Well i play a single target Engi (rifle CC) and a Condi mesmer (mainly single target) and i’ve never had an issue against a spirit ranger, ESPECIALLY that silly little storm spirit, the things will fold under one good 4 clone Mind Wrack (especially since most spirit rangers will send the poor little devil into the grave by making it cast its skill with all that confusion =( poor guy), and then the engi i just don’t even let the ranger get close to me.
The engi has done his job of keeping range on the ranger so well i’ve had a lot of them screaming at me, and once those spirits go down, lets just say they NEVER come back up while i’m fighting them >=D
Lol
And true, I don’t personally find them to be a problem either, unless I’m actually on my ranger with no cleave weapons. Particularly, my weaponset isn’t suited for going up against spirit rangers (axe/dagger and sword/torch).
BUT, I would also argue that we both know the build we’re playing against really well too. I’m starting to think that there are people that go “oh no, so many enemies, ranger OP, they can summon a family to fight against me! I’ll just go in and burst him like I do everything else. Rawr, backstab hundred blades glass cannon completely obvious rush in to burst! What? Ranger killed me? So OP, all it was was 11111 spam and OP spirits. NERF!”
And… that basically described 90% of the people I beat when I’m running the spirit build lol.
You know, it was hilarious to me, but there were quite a few people in the PvP community suggesting already that the spirits should be made invulnerable, because one of the things that makes the build “OP” is the ability to absorb so much AoE cleave, or to body block damage that would otherwise hit the ranger.
I thought that the ranger community would silently ride along with that change, since apparently a lot of people were considering that to be a nerf.
As far as improvements going, maybe the frost trap should be increased a 2s default chill (that’s 4s with trap potency). And maybe with spike trap, make it a pulse effect, similar to caltrops. I would say, lasts for 3 seconds, applies 3 bleeds per pulse, pulses once per second, and after the initial immobilize, the second and third pulse apply a 1s cripple. I mean, you are walking on spikes here.
Alternatively, double the amount of bleeds on spike trap to 6 stacks. I mean, splitblades (the axe skill) is 5 bleeds on a less than 10 second cooldown, and offhand dagger can potentially be 3 bleeds on a 12s cooldown. Make spike trap worthwhile for it’s cooldown.
Rangers are a pet class if you picked this class without knowing that then you probably picked the wrong class. If ranger received a buff for not having a pet it would force players who specifically pick the class for their pets to play without pets or be kicked from groups.
Anet has already said they have not intention of adding perma stow. This may change but I would stop playing the class is they did (probably game as well).
How come necromancers aren’t a pet class? Or mesmers, since clones and phantasms are basically just summoned AI pets?
How would changing the pet mechanic make the ranger any less of a pet class, if the mechanic remained pet focused?
I’m just curious, because a lot of rangers transitioned from guild wars 1 to guild wars 2 thinking they would continue playing their ranger class, not a “pet class.” So while you look down your nose at everybody that doesn’t like something that you like, just remember that there were a lot of players that expected a lot of different things than what the class currently provides, and that the marketing used to advertise the ranger class never suggested anywhere that rangers would be forced into always using pets, which is extremely deceptive to people until they actually try the class and find out they are stuck with it.
Being a guild wars 1 veteran, I absolutely hate that rangers are forced to use the pet in this game; something that wasn’t true for the first game. It’s like a lot of really good, old ideas were trashed, in order to try to reinvent the wheel with a bunch of new, bad ideas. And, lore wise, rangers forgot how to use preparations, stances, and most of their traps and spirits, in order to gain what? The ability to always have dopey the almost as useful as it was in guild wars 1 animal always running around trying to be useful, and never really quite hitting the mark exactly where you’d want it in anything other than general PvE.
As Durz mentioned somewhere else, I’m not sure they should do away with the pet entirely. But the pet should be implemented as additional damage on top of the rangers damage output, and then the pet concept can be redesigned as the pet not being “out” until you bring it out, then it stays out and does damage for a period of time, with a cooldown. The pet will have the potential to last until it’s cooldown is over, meaning you can just resummon it to have it permanently available. You have the ability to do a unique attack with it still, and the pet swap gets replaced with a call back, which takes it’s remaining lifespan and knocks a portion of it off the cooldown, where as if the pet dies, it goes on full cooldown.
Now you have a class that can always use the pet, even if they aren’t built for it, but can have the damage come from the player. On top of that, you can still choose to play as a beastmaster, which would, in the suggested redesign, be more focused around cooldown reduction, and damage and utility increases, just like other classes mechanic traitline do for their mechanic.
This, I think, would be the best way to open up some versatility for the way the class can be played, while thematically keeping it as a “pet class.”
Shared Anguish is strong because of PvP. For 10 points, you get a free stunbreaker, and in PvP, you’re pet really isn’t dead all that often, even with 0 investment into its survival. 90s is a fair tradeoff for being able to go into fights without having to use a utility slot on any of our even more underwhelming stun breakers (especially Signet of Renewal, which is much better used as a cleanse then a stun breaker).
Obviously the bigger a fight gets, the more likely the pet is to die, so the less useful SA becomes because of the need for more stunbreakers and a dead pet. But there isn’t any other class in the game, at least I don’t think there is and I don’t feel like checking, that gets a free stun breaker for 10 points.
Is it fair that it’s only strong in PvP? Well, yes and no. Yes because it’s hard to balance it across all game types, but not because ideally, in each trait slot option, there should be strong options for every game mode, and Shared Anguish is taking up a slot that could potentially be made more useful for other game content.
Am I the only one that finds Hide in Plain Sight underwhelming? I’d much rather see it reworked than have a stealth melded into a very strong PvP option (Shared Anguish).
Hide in Plain Sight is useful in other content though, particularly WvW, but I wouldn’t be opposed to having some options reworked into more condi damage improvement or condi removal.
How about this, instead of the merge, Hide in Plain Sight becomes: Stealth when you are immobilized(30 second cooldown). Remove 2 conditions whenever you enter stealth (10 second cooldown).
If people are crying about the Storm spirits damage they’re just being a big baby, it’s a 20s CD, and is so easy to avoid by just NOT BEING NEAR THE SPIRIT it’s ridiculous, the BM pets were entirerly different because they were able to do the damage constantly and netted a large amount of constant DPS.
Even IF the storm spirit hit for 8k every time that’s only 400dps added onto the rangers damage, and if they’re a bunker… well that 400dps is kittening nothing, if you can’t outlive that + w/e they are actually bringing your build is just glass.
I would be more agreeable to this if the game mode didn’t have such a high demand on throwing yourself on a small point to contest, and if it wasn’t so hard to push through damage onto a ranger or one of the specific spirits from range because of how the ranger can kite and force the spirits to body block anything other than AoE cleave.
Which is why, as people said, any change made should really be a pvp only change (or revamp crosses fingers)
Well the biggest thing that changed for Spirit Rangers is how much Storm Spirit hits for. I switched back to BM for solo q for the last day or so, and going up against spirit rangers is just crazy at times. If they land that storm spirit immobilize, or get the wolf knockdown into it, it’s 3k damage on my 3k+ armored ranger. BM ranger still ends up winning the fight if you’re using the evasion skills correctly, because you can dodge the spam and outheal the minimal conditions the spirit build outputs.
So playing against the spirit build, it’s the actives that are doing the most work, not the passives. The best nerf therefore is either to lower the damage output of storm spirits active, or increase the recharge of it. OR, if the nerfing takes a step farther, make it so that the spirits can’t proc each others passive effects with their actives.
tl;dr: The active effects are what is making the build so tough to fight against, and there are certain things in that regard that could definitely use some toning down imo.
Seriously. Lemme perma-stow my pet and I’d be so happy therefore busy playing you’d never see me on the forums again (except during downtime at work) complaining about any aspect of the Ranger… I guess that’s because the pet is the only aspect I don’t like.
I hear ya, and from a amount of work standpoint I don’t know which would seem like the easiest solution? Stow the pet and get a % damage buff to make up for not using it, though I am not sure how to address losing the f2 functionality, unless they just still let you somehow use the f2 with maybe a different utility depending on the pets you had selected. Or they can figure out a way to make pets negate damage so that they are not basically fire and forget weapons. All the “pet” ai suffers from this though, mesmer phantasms and necro minions (of course both of those have vastly shorter cooldowns). Maybe that should be looked at, lowering cooldowns on the ranger pet’s “downstate”. Being able to stow the pet and getting some kind of compensation for the loss of damage still seems like the ideal solution to me.
In all honesty i think they should just balance the Ranger profession around the pet being bonus damage and then make the pet not out 100% IE you summon the pet who will fight with you for X seconds or until it dies (we get command of it as we do now) and then it leaves and begins going on CD (F4 would make it so we send it back sooner than it normally would and thus start the CD earlier). Pet would still be the rangers mechanic, you’d still NEED to use it to be playing to your fullest (like a necro needs to use death shroud or a thief steal), but ignoring it, or not relying on it wont destroy your viability.
Just throw some Grandmaster Major trait in the BM tree that makes it so your pet will be out 100% of the time( or maybe make it so the CD on the pet starts when summoned so you have the potential of 100% uptime) and make Zephyrs Speed or w/e it’s called trigger on pet summon.
I’m 200% on the same page as you. +1
The biggest benefit to Shared Anguish is that it helps builds that need or benefit from 3 utility slots, by still allowing them access to a stun breaker. By combining the traits, it might shift the slot up, and it would make current builds less viable because there are already lots of useful traits in wilderness survivals second tier, and more sacrifices would have to be made than what current builds have to make.
I’d also prefer not to have Remorseless be a focus across so many skill trees. It’s nice that Marksmanship takes a heavy focus on the longbow, but making even more traits in different trees dedicated to that one mechanic is imo the wrong way to shift the class.
If anything, a nice vulnerability on crit trait in skirmishing would be nice, to help compliment other weaponsets in power builds, while buffering the ability to keep vulnerability up with remorseless even more.
But that’s just me. Sorry if I trailed off there. A smoke field would be nice too, but the first thing I’d like to see is more traits in Skirmishing being aimed at benefiting direct damage builds.
I’m still not ready to make an assessment on Whirling Defenses, mainly because I play mostly PvP game modes (including WvW), and power builds just don’t have the necessary tools to compete imo.
My initial opinion on the skill itself is that it doesn’t do enough damage to be a rooted skill.
But at the same time, ranger power builds lack important necessities, like damage coefficients, reliable condition removal, and reliable ways to counter protection, among other boons. At least from a PvP perspective. Just one of those things might make ranger builds scary strong compared to their current iterations, and Whirling Defense might have some more merit then, though the damage per hit still doesn’t seem worth it.
That pull though, that makes offhand axe worth it alone, controlling the opponent into melee range.
I would argue that in a build with flame trap and torch, you should drop flame trap before you drop torch. Torch has the ability to perma-burn AND an area denial. You can just as easily get away with running just vipers nest and spike trap, and then open up the third utility to a stun breaker or something else that suits the user’s preference.
I wouldn’t say traps aren’t viable, they just don’t have the staying power that spirits do. 3k extra hp and 30% boon uptime aren’t anything to scoff at, and if you’re running stone spirit, that’s just more protection uptime that traps don’t have.
@Lux; I’m glad that you’re finance` had the good fortune to be grouped with teammates she could succeed with in Solo Q. It’s nice to see that some people are having success with the system, so give her my regards.
As far as why I type things out on the forum, it’s because I have a better chance at contributing something useful to the improvement of the game by having a discussion on the forum than by playing the game, which is what I thought the purpose of the forums were; to have constructive conversations.
Folly, I’m not trying to call you an elitist, and I’m well aware you have to defend your position probably all the time. I’m surprised you even post on the forums as much as you do.
I wasn’t trying to directly say that the game was bad, or that it was too easy. I would love to see the game improve. What I was trying to imply was that, if the ranger build is so easy (which it is, I’ve been playing the same build for like 3 months now), what makes every other spec in the game more difficult, especially with the current meta builds right now? In my (admittedly more limited than yours but still) experience, as it stands, probably guardians are running the only meta builds that take skill, and a good guardian can carry their team when played well.
If anything, the quote that needed to be derived from my long winded post was this:
Go into detail about what makes things too good or too easy, and how it is affecting the competitive level of the game. Then, look historically at the track record of ranger builds and begin determining what needs to be changed to make the class more competitive, and stop just trying to get a single class nerfed out of all it’s competitive options.
I would LOVE to have a discussion about the mechanics behind the current “OP” or easy builds. Not just for the forums to be filled with people shouting nerf every time they don’t like something. Wouldn’t it be much more beneficial to the devs and to improving the game if we could have a joint discussion on what makes the specs easy versus the reward they provide by examining the details and mechanics of the build, and then explaining what mechanics need changing to raise the bar on the skill it takes to be successful with the build? Surely that would be the better solution than to keep making “nerf this” threads that attack builds with opinions and anecdotes that turn into arguments with no real detail or explanation.
As far as giving myself credibility, their isn’t exactly a huge community here to work with, or many tools. I have to do exactly what I did in guild wars 1; play the few hours I can a week and hope that other players recognize me as a valuable player and pick me up for their roster; something that was at least possible with GW1 RA, but doesn’t seem likely in GW2 based on how not serious the community tends to take the PvP scene in this game.
So as it ends up, all I can do is play the time I’m given, and hope my voice gets heard on the forum somewhere and hope that people are either able to overlook the experience I am incapable of gaining overnight, or that a top player takes a look at my fairly roughly formed opinion and corrects anything that’s wrong or derives an interesting or well made point out of it.
My post has already done 2 things; it’s shifted the conversation towards the possibility of it becoming a more constructive and less inflammatory thread against a single build, and it’s made people argue with me saying that it takes longer than 20 minutes to learn a class, which logically means that the aforementioned ranger build has to be a part of that grouping, since there were no notes excluding it; which means that not a single person that has disagreed with me yet has provided any reasoning whatsoever as to why the spirit build is easier than other builds; by grouping all builds together and saying that none of them are as easy as I made them out to be.
By doing that it will hopefully start to lead in a direction where people try to classify why the build is easy, and not just say its too easy and needs to be nerfed.
LOL. That’s my response. 3 days? It takes 20 minutes to learn the depth of and play skillfully any class in this game, tops. 10 minutes maximum to learn all of the different setups and weaknesses, then another 10 minutes to learn optimal roles and matchups
I’m sorry, who are you? What team were you on? What is your competitive experience with this game?
Solo queue personal best rank: 613 15-11
Team queue personal best rank: not found.I see, you’re one of those people that hasn’t actually played the game at a high level but think it’s extremely easy anyway. Just so you know, no player or team is anywhere near the “skillcap” of this game.
But you’re telling me you can go at least 50-50 in complete mirror matches with top players after playing a class for 40 minutes? We’re talking about specs that aren’t spirit ranger, necro, s/d thief, and instead builds like d/p thief, shatter Mesmer, s/d ele. Since you’re NA, I’d like to see you 1v1 people like caed, Supcutie, and phantaram on their main builds in a mirror match.
That’s not even getting into team play, which is what this game is all about. You’re telling me you’ll out bunker someone like lily or davinci after playing for 40 minutes? Good luck with that.
Folly, I didn’t once mention outplaying people in the segment you quoted me in lol. Also, you can pull rank on me all you want, I never dedicated the time to this game because I dedicated enough time to guild wars 1, and have a life and family now.
I’m not saying it takes 20 minutes to be able to outplay anybody in the game, I’m saying it takes 20 dedicated minutes of gameplay time, combined with the resources available (forums, twitch streaming, etc) to adequately learn the ins and outs of the specs and rotations in this game, especially when the gameplay has been severely dumbed down from the transition from guild wars 1 to guild wars 2.
The main component of skill in this game is teamplay. Communication, proper rotations, and trust and reliance on teammates.
I’m sorry I don’t have the time or the resources to find and play with a dedicated team in a community so small and a pvp so stagnant that it isn’t enjoyable to me, but that doesn’t invalidate any opinions I carry (yes, they are opinions), and it doesn’t immediately make things I say wrong just because I’ve spent maybe an hour in solo since its been released, and don’t have the time to play on a dedicated team.
I would love the opportunity to play against any of the people you mentioned, from my admittedly open fanboyism alone (I tell people in the ranger subforum to watch people like you to play all the time because it shows off rotations better and allows people to gain visual experience to learn the game). But I would appreciate it if in the future, you didn’t get on a high horse and try to pull rank and speak down at me, and instead, being on the high end of the leaderboards and such that you are, actually provide a counter argument from the experience I am incapable of achieving.
Until then, I will continue to stand by the fact that I believe that the classes in this game have an easy learning curve, especially after playing guild wars 1 competitively for about half a decade. The part of the game that takes skill involves learning the flow of combat, learning rotations, learning how to rotate properly, and gaining the confidence to make on the fly decisions that determine the outcome of the game.
I’d like to see the roots become “solid” IE you can’t just condi cleanse or tele out, you should be forced to kill them, although they’d have to make it so ranged attacks can hit the kittening things…
I think, in terms of PvP, that being able to cleanse them is fair. I would prefer that they make the duration of the immobilize longer than what it takes the roots to reapply it though, so that it can’t be evaded out of, and I would like it to still hit stealth players so that they can’t escape out.
So basically, if the only options were to burn a cleanse or to kill the roots, that imo would be a good balance point. I wouldn’t mind having them needed to be killed as the only escape though lol.
I still can’t believe people are trying to argue about GW2 specs like there are certain specs that stand out as a pinnacle of skill.
This game is easy. Period.
“But… But… a ranger who has played for 3 days is better than x that has played for y time cuz the build is so OP.”
LOL. That’s my response. 3 days? It takes 20 minutes to learn the depth of and play skillfully any class in this game, tops. 10 minutes maximum to learn all of the different setups and weaknesses, then another 10 minutes to learn optimal roles and matchups.
The entire game is simple, and every spec is easy. Sure, a few specs require more actions per minute to perform optimally, but that’s important in order to change the flow of gameplay from class to class in order to differentiate the “feel” of each class.
The “nerf the ranger” topic has been made for every single meta ranger build that has existed since launch. That includes traps, which never received any actual nerfs, the meta just changed so that the build became more inefficient than other specs at performing the same output.
It’s time to point out that at this point, it’s just a witch hunt perpetuated by peoples bias against rangers, simply because they just don’t like losing to the ranger class. It’s okay to be kitten though, it’s understandable. But it’s time to stop non-constructively demanding the game be changed because of it.
Now that all the angry peoples blood is flowing, here is some advice. Instead of shouting “nerf” with tears in your eyes on the forums, try making a constructive topic. Go into detail about what makes things too good or too easy, and how it is affecting the competitive level of the game. Then, look historically at the track record of ranger builds and begin determining what needs to be changed to make the class more competitive, and stop just trying to get a single class nerfed out of all it’s competitive options.
Much more useful, especially to devs reading forums that make the game, than to just scream nerf every time people don’t like something, without adding anything healthy or constructive to the games improvement or development.
Yeah I can’t remember the last time I had fun in this game. Honestly, it’s just something for me to do while I’m bored after a long days work and feel like drinking a lot. I mean, it would be different if the meta was actually competitive and the game actually required skill. But at times it just seems like the game is centered around passive play, which takes no skill, and then cleaving or AoEing in a certain area, which again, really takes no skill.
I think people (including devs) grossly overestimate the skill ceiling of this game. The mechanics and the gameplay are honestly so simplistic that I’m surprised that “esports” was ever mentioned.
Well I was thinking of it like this: it has a success rate tied to it, and an ICD. So, when not on cooldown, it has x chance to apply to an attack. So, when that person attacks, their attack goes through the games formula, and decides whether or not it’s going to crit, and then it going through another formula and decides if the proc is going to be applied, then if yes to both, applies the proc to that attack. If that attack is unsuccessful, then it “spends” the chance to proc and the proc goes on cooldown.
I mean, the current system rewards random attackers. If I had to take my choice between a person rolling their face across their keyboard and getting a proc on me, versus going up against a dodge happy person that expends all their endurance trying to make me miss something that by definition is already unreliable, so that I can then land all of my damage skills, I’d prefer the second option. It would allow at least allow for good dodgers to dodge spam heavy players and have a reward.
There should definitely be more reward for a player capable of dodging attacks than a player spamming skills on recharge. Especially if a dodge happy player expends all of their energy and will die because of it because now, the skilled opponent, who used their procs as bait, can land all of their high damage skills.
I mean, a simpler question is this, how come I loose stacks of sharpening stone on a 45 second cooldown from missing or them being dodged (at least, I think I do, correct me if I’m wrong), but I don’t loose the ability to proc Incendiary Powder or Dhuumfire. I’m not particularly interested at this point in the other proc abilities that have less than 100% proc chance on crit (because I agree with the random chance mechanic, but I don’t agree with the idea that every 10s, with precision, you’re guaranteed a burn).
I spent a good long while trying to think of what Rangers are better at.
Dodging.
This. Evasion. Build for the pet, build for condition damage (personal preference, since condition damage isn’t balanced accounting for the pet but power is, and then the 30 in wilderness survival).
Pet will hit hard, you can evade like crazy and put out DoT on top of it. I’ve left fights with 100% health before without having to use my heal. That, or I run Troll Unguent and precast it, and watch as between my evasion and healing, they are unable to put a dent in my hp, while theirs slowly trickles away.
I don’t think that at all about spirits. I think that they deserve to be targeted and focused. My only issue is that they punish players for playing against the build properly at times, which is honestly an unfair mechanic (no matter how much I love watching them melt). So I guess Nature’s Vengeance is what I have the problem with.
You’re completely right though, the shoutcasters could remedy the problem for spectators entirely with a general build setup rundown, which they always seem to just skip over.
I’m personally extremely biased against passive mechanics though. That really isn’t going to change. Damage bonuses don’t bug me, but being able to every 10s just go “hey, you built for precision, here’s a free burn” just adds to the crazy amounts of spam, and there’s no way to counter that.
I’m not sure if it already works like this, but if the trait was set to proc for a certain attack, and that attack misses or is evaded, do the procs still go on cooldown? I don’t think they do, which is why I don’t like it, but if they do go on cooldown even if they miss (like Sharpening Edges, etc), then that’s fine. If they don’t however, that would be the change I push for after this conversation.
They do not go on CD (at least the engi burn crit one doesn’t), and one thing they said when they made the game was they wanted crits to do less damage per hit than power stuff, but they wanted crits builds to have a bunch of added effects to compensate, the 2 they used regularly as examples was applying bleeding and blinds, only bleeding is common…
That being said I’d love to see more traits that are essentially X Y and Z moves now also do W. would be more interesting than “all crits burn people!”
And I’d rather then just make spirits work like minions, drop the CD down to like, what? 30s? But make the duration last until they die and make it so your spirit CD only starts when they die. This is when the spirits unbound trait is active btw, otherwise leave them as is.
That was a suggestion I saw over on the spvp forums that I wouldn’t mind, for the spirits.
I understand what they want crits to do and all, but I think that if a player dodged or avoided damage, especially damage that had a crit proc attached to it, that it should still go on cooldown, especially with the 100% on crit skills. You shouldn’t get an infinite amount of tries to land your crit proc til it finally activates, if you got dodged and your stuff activated, it should go on cooldown.
I don’t see that as being a bad global change, but I could be wrong. It would really only punish spammers more than anything, since they would just keep throwing stuff out there and losing their procs for being reckless with their abilities.
I don’t think that at all about spirits. I think that they deserve to be targeted and focused. My only issue is that they punish players for playing against the build properly at times, which is honestly an unfair mechanic (no matter how much I love watching them melt). So I guess Nature’s Vengeance is what I have the problem with.
You’re completely right though, the shoutcasters could remedy the problem for spectators entirely with a general build setup rundown, which they always seem to just skip over.
I’m personally extremely biased against passive mechanics though. That really isn’t going to change. Damage bonuses don’t bug me, but being able to every 10s just go “hey, you built for precision, here’s a free burn” just adds to the crazy amounts of spam, and there’s no way to counter that.
I’m not sure if it already works like this, but if the trait was set to proc for a certain attack, and that attack misses or is evaded, do the procs still go on cooldown? I don’t think they do, which is why I don’t like it, but if they do go on cooldown even if they miss (like Sharpening Edges, etc), then that’s fine. If they don’t however, that would be the change I push for after this conversation.
Okay, from a ranger player standpoint, no, I personally would prefer to have my opponents not see the lifespan of my spirits. But I also don’t agree with their potential to have 100% uptime in PvP (it can stay how it is in other content, and actually needs to for dungeons). I’ve been playing the build for awhile now, and I can say that it just requires zero tactics. You are a walking, persistent banner.
Is there counterplay that allows opponents to kill the spirits? yes. But if they are unlucky with cooldowns, they will waste all that energy and still not have anything to show for it. Which is why I’ve been advocating for spirits only having a 45 second lifespan in pvp.
But besides the point, for passive procs, I’ll go 50/50. Maybe the opponent shouldn’t be able to see when dhuumfire or something else is going to proc. But why can’t it be visible the same way spotter is? I mean, it is persistent when in combat, it is something that is always active. I’m not saying for every persistent proc, but on things that raise stats or increase damage and give additional effects, I don’t see why there can’t be a UI indicator there.
I hate trying to watch LoL by the way. I honestly know nothing about the game, and when I watch I really can’t follow whats going on other than when somebody burns a cooldown. It’s an extremely dissatisfying experience, that makes me shy away from even trying the game, especially since I generally try to watch top player footage to learn and progress into a game and get better.
So that’s my compromise on the subject. If dhuumfire or spotter or whatever is active, then it should have a UI indicator that it is active (this is actually EXACTLY what the spirit buff is, which is a good feature already imo). It doesn’t have to disappear when it goes off, but there should definitely be some indicator. Especially since it’s kind of nice to KNOW what’s doing the damage to you.
I don’t really feel like I’m asking for much. Just to be able to use a little bit more of my UI for some effects that should make some features of combat more visible, like how my opponent has the potential to passively damage me.
Well dhuumfire is on crits, and I think rock paper scissor balancing is 100% ok so long as its not X class will beat Y class which beats Z class, as long as its builds/roles and not classes I think it’s fine.
With the dhuumfire, I know, but just the passive stuff in general (I think he said similar to how sigil of doom gets an indicator that the next hit will poison). It already exists with the passive procs that are visible when people are affected by spirits. Right now though, the only visible “countdown” skill I think is the updated mesmer portal (they get some sort of UI indicator when they use portal now).
If things like that were applied to summons in general (not just spirits), there would be nothing to complain about. The build would still function, but there would be counterplay ability by having that much more transparency. Things like “oh, their Elite spirit is about to go down, hold off downing him, save your burst” or “look, that spirit ranger just summoned his spirits, lets focus him down first.” As it stands now, it’s guesswork. “Well, I could kill his spirits now, but what if they are close to being off cooldown. Then I’ve wasted time and probably won’t get the kill because he’ll get his procs on me then summon the spirits again.”
That wouldn’t nerf the build at all, it would just add a tool to be able to play against it.
I don’t think you -should- know when their stuff is about to come off CD, I mean why would you? Next people will be asking to know when my PBR is off CD so they know when it’s safe to stand near a cliff or when they can close the gap on me in a team fight without it being the last thing they do. Or when my Mesmer can CoF + MW for massive AoE confusion so they can prepare for it.
And spirits aren’t exactly difficult to take out, especially if you’re AoE based or in a team fight, those things will be gone in a matter of seconds, try fighting an ele (any ele really), or most engi builds, or a condi necro, or a shatter mes, or a condi thief(they do exist and they hard counter silly pet builds by making Leaping Death Blossom into infinite life steal via malice sig), etc etc. even with their doubled health it just makes it so they can not be slaughtered mercilessly by a stiff breeze, it doesn’t save them from anything really apart from maybe Melee cleaves.
And the counter play to the elite spirit is killing it and denying them that passive, I have no idea why you’d allow that thing to live for an entire minute unless you were disengaging from the fight. Or better yet, launching it away from the spirit ranger when he’s downed guaranteeing that under NO circumstances it’ll be picking him up.
What harm would it do though? Just as much as it is an assistant for opponents, it can be a boon for the player using them. It can indicate things to you like “oh, if I use the active now, I’ll be able to use it again before the spirit dies” or even better, you’ll be able to see the lifespan of your own spirit instead of guesstimating. Instead of hopping into the teamfight right as your spirits randomly die, then hope you don’t get focused as you resummon them, you’d be able to go “oh look, my spirits are going to die, let me hold off so I can get fresh spirits before jumping in.”
Also, a passive proc indicator for things like Dhuumfire, etc, isn’t just for players. As crazy as it sounds for the low population; it’s also for spectators. Let’s say the game is being displayed on a mainstage somewhere, and a guy is autoattacking, and all of a sudden the target catches on fire randomly. People with a lack of knowledge on the game are going to be completely lost, and they may shy away from continuing to watch because they can’t follow the action.
The thing is, with the short cooldowns that passive procs have in this game, especially the 100% on crit ones, or the spirit ones, it really would just clean up the spam fest a little, make the game more watchable, and slow down the action just ever so slightly enough to make people consider there next move, instead of rolling their face on the keyboard, then weapon swapping and rolling their face on the keyboard, trying to just land a bunch of crap and hope a passive proc goes off for even more damage (I’m describing the necro spec lol).
I’m not saying you have to agree, it is just an opinion. But games tend to not succeed on a competitive level when they are frontloaded with RNG based procs that are invisible to spectators.
Let’s try learning how to stop using anecdotal, and therefore biased, references. Scoreboards in games also show nothing. No k/d, no defends, no captures. The ranger could have sat at the enemies spawn tagging enemy team players while their team finished them off and got that score.
Again, no indicator.
There are extremely good quotes all over the place that ACTUALLY explain what’s wrong (hint: even in the topic that I posted, there are good quotes for the case against spirit rangers).
I’m pointing out that
1) telling stories that are basically just “one time, at band camp…” aren’t indicative of balance as standalone cases. It takes a larger sample size than just one guy saying something is too strong.
and that
2) you’re on the wrong forum. You’re shouting at rangers that their build is annoying and they deserve to be nerfed, knowing full well that every single profession subforum is a place filled with negativity and discussion of if that class can get better, not worse. So coming to the ranger forum and saying nerf a ranger build is like shouting at a black guy that he shouldn’t be black; it is just a complete and total waste of energy and completely and totally inefficient.
And, when I say it’s a L2P issue, it’s because of the comment that there is no hard counter, when in fact, there are multiple hard counters to the build, but they aren’t necessarily part of the meta team comp so those options are opted out of (like sending your necro to a sidepoint to 1v1 a ranger because they have the advantage, even though the necro is more needed on home point).
And that is truly the end of this topic. The point has been made, there are truths, there are exaggerations, and there are agreeing and dissenting opinions. However, ultimately, a specific professions subforum is not the place to be discussing overall class balance.
Well dhuumfire is on crits, and I think rock paper scissor balancing is 100% ok so long as its not X class will beat Y class which beats Z class, as long as its builds/roles and not classes I think it’s fine.
With the dhuumfire, I know, but just the passive stuff in general (I think he said similar to how sigil of doom gets an indicator that the next hit will poison). It already exists with the passive procs that are visible when people are affected by spirits. Right now though, the only visible “countdown” skill I think is the updated mesmer portal (they get some sort of UI indicator when they use portal now).
If things like that were applied to summons in general (not just spirits), there would be nothing to complain about. The build would still function, but there would be counterplay ability by having that much more transparency. Things like “oh, their Elite spirit is about to go down, hold off downing him, save your burst” or “look, that spirit ranger just summoned his spirits, lets focus him down first.” As it stands now, it’s guesswork. “Well, I could kill his spirits now, but what if they are close to being off cooldown. Then I’ve wasted time and probably won’t get the kill because he’ll get his procs on me then summon the spirits again.”
That wouldn’t nerf the build at all, it would just add a tool to be able to play against it.
This topic is really making me miss the old guild wars 1 build database, with builds, guides, and team comps, with builds being voted into a meta category, explanations, and counters. It’s very reminiscent of that, and something that guild wars 2 has been missing (probably due to the lack of size of the community and lack of ability to reliably spectator matches for the common player).
I wish they’d just let builds get countered like in GW1, EX: my ranger had a build that absolute DEMOLISHED casters, did it stand a chance against sins and warriors? kitten no, but the casters (mostly monks and eles) would be destroyed unless something happened.
There’s scenarios like this in GW2, condi necro vs Low vit condi builds for example, but god forbid those stay as is…
And I’m not saying “Anet better not nerf ranger at all!!” I’m more saying “overall it better not be negative.” Because in all honesty I’d say rangers need more buffs than nerfs. Especially outside of PvP, and what “cheese build” does a ranger have that’s “OP”? Is it the spirit builds? Because those things are kitten against any heavy AoE build and the only thing they counter is a turret build and bad players.
I feel like my ranger was pretty much a monster in GW1. The only thing that could shut me down was a blindspamele, and short of a coordinated spike, it took a stance removal class to finish me off. Both of those things were direct counters though, and I agree that there needs to just be flat out pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses to every class.
If rock-paper-scissors balancing is so bad, how come nothing else is working is my question.
As far as the spirit build, I don’t think its OP, but I do think that storm spirit hits for a little too much damage, and that it really sucks being on the receiving end of all of the active procs when you make the right play and kill the spirits, then they proc on death, then the ranger can resummon them again at times almost immediately because of the running cooldown timer.
My first option though is what I think Battosai suggested; don’t necessarily change mechanics, but add passive proc indicators to the UI. If somebody is about to proc dhuumfire on you, there should be a UI indicator that their next attack is going to proc it. Similarly, the spirits could get a lifespan timer on them when they are targeted. That way, people know how “fresh” the spirits are to know whether or not there would be any value to killing them, or if doing so will cause more damage than just waiting/going right for the ranger.
And I’m here to say “why can’t we have both, and let the builds dictate which way people decide to play?”
Because ANet took that choice away.
I never even felt like we had that choice. I feel like (but cba to crunch the numbers atm) rangers have just about the lowest count of direct damage increasing sources in the game. Little to no might stacking, 5 % damage increasing traits, and then nothing else besides Spotter. No boon rips, relatively low burst damage potential, and only a single trait for condition builds that even increases procs, and it’s one of the worst crit procs in the game comparatively.
Rangers only have 1 thing going for them besides their now middle of the pack constant health regen; dodges and evades. Thieves may do that better, but that’s only one class, and if this makes it better for anybody else; rangers look cooler when they evade imo.
90% of the traits still feel like they are in beta compared to the other classes I play (warrior and necro), which I guess makes sense, since those 2 classes have received the most work to date, but ANet is basically one balance patch away from either keeping their audience or loosing another portion of their gaming community because things are just stagnant, and not changing for the better quick enough to maintain player interest, from ANY aspect of the game (PvE, PvP, WvW).
Mesmers with high crit (read any viable Mesmer build) have perma vigor in combat, engi kit swap builds have perma vigor and swiftness, scepter has equal regen to a ranger, probably better if they can crit cause I think they get perma vigor like mes via crits.
The only thing that keeps rangers above sub par in dodging is their Evades on several attack skills, but even then it’s an “iffy” advantage at best…
If by “iffy” you mean stronger on point in spvp than in other content in the game then yes lol. Dagger 4 is pretty amazing utility though. Nice long poison that lasts the entire cooldown of the skill with a nice long evade time. Good stuff.
Warriors and necros got a big focus last time around though, let’s hope that this time around rangers will see some love (after PAX that is). Statistically, 25% chance of it being a ranger heavy patch? fingers crossed
Yeah I was using “iffy” more because I’m not sure if those dodges make them on par/ahead of the profs with perma vigor (there’s a lot) I think mesmers with a sword may be better off, but they’re supposed to be elusive so w/e.
I swear to god though, if ranger gets nerfed this upcoming patch I’m done holding out… ESPECIALLY our spirits…
Well the one thing that makes a difference is that ranger evade skills don’t decap points, which is something only shared by thieves I think. Though you’re right that there are equally elusive classes, like mesmer, than can do it just as well, if not better, and can be considered less situational.
Ranger is going to get nerfed. I’m not sure how they’ll do it, but even the top ranger players like Follidus keep saying it’s too strong on the forums right now. I mean, I really wouldn’t mind the outcome, but for the fact that nothing will probably improve to a high enough point to compensate for what was lost.
I just wish that these “top players” would stop complaining for one moment about classes even they play just because they have a cheese build, so said player goes “nerf this cheese build” enough times til other people agree and it happens. What should be happening is that these players should actually have a constructive conversation about the classes that could be problematic, see why that spec is strong, and what other specs are available, then discuss what needs to be done to that class so it can be viable at a competitive level without being a cheese build.
That’s what I thought the SoTGs were supposed to be, but apparently they’re just another outlet for “top players” to get on with ANet employees and cry that other classes can beat the specs they like so those things need nerfing.
I mean, I’ve been playing a guild wars titled game now for between 8-9 years now, and I’m just left mouth open by ANet at times going “what the kitten is that?” I sure didn’t use to feel like their patches were this nonsensical.
Honestly GW2 is pulling a Gears of War: Judgement. If the devs keep making “their” game, then they will be the only ones left to play it besides the people who payed to autoattack their way through just about the easiest PvE content imaginable.
And I’m here to say “why can’t we have both, and let the builds dictate which way people decide to play?”
Because ANet took that choice away.
I never even felt like we had that choice. I feel like (but cba to crunch the numbers atm) rangers have just about the lowest count of direct damage increasing sources in the game. Little to no might stacking, 5 % damage increasing traits, and then nothing else besides Spotter. No boon rips, relatively low burst damage potential, and only a single trait for condition builds that even increases procs, and it’s one of the worst crit procs in the game comparatively.
Rangers only have 1 thing going for them besides their now middle of the pack constant health regen; dodges and evades. Thieves may do that better, but that’s only one class, and if this makes it better for anybody else; rangers look cooler when they evade imo.
90% of the traits still feel like they are in beta compared to the other classes I play (warrior and necro), which I guess makes sense, since those 2 classes have received the most work to date, but ANet is basically one balance patch away from either keeping their audience or loosing another portion of their gaming community because things are just stagnant, and not changing for the better quick enough to maintain player interest, from ANY aspect of the game (PvE, PvP, WvW).
Mesmers with high crit (read any viable Mesmer build) have perma vigor in combat, engi kit swap builds have perma vigor and swiftness, scepter has equal regen to a ranger, probably better if they can crit cause I think they get perma vigor like mes via crits.
The only thing that keeps rangers above sub par in dodging is their Evades on several attack skills, but even then it’s an “iffy” advantage at best…
If by “iffy” you mean stronger on point in spvp than in other content in the game then yes lol. Dagger 4 is pretty amazing utility though. Nice long poison that lasts the entire cooldown of the skill with a nice long evade time. Good stuff.
Warriors and necros got a big focus last time around though, let’s hope that this time around rangers will see some love (after PAX that is). Statistically, 25% chance of it being a ranger heavy patch? fingers crossed
I don’t think referencing a post to a guy that cries every time a different spec beats his own is a good place to start lol. That’s not fact, that’s anecdote, and because he has a position on the leaderboards he thinks he’s an expert. Playing a lot != playing well, and everybody has their own bias, especially when every build has a bad matchup against something else out there.
@Mods, am I allowed to say L2P without being infracted yet? Sometimes it really is the only answer to a persons problem, and I’m legitimately not flaming anybody.
And I’m here to say “why can’t we have both, and let the builds dictate which way people decide to play?”
Because ANet took that choice away.
I never even felt like we had that choice. I feel like (but cba to crunch the numbers atm) rangers have just about the lowest count of direct damage increasing sources in the game. Little to no might stacking, 5 % damage increasing traits, and then nothing else besides Spotter. No boon rips, relatively low burst damage potential, and only a single trait for condition builds that even increases procs, and it’s one of the worst crit procs in the game comparatively.
Rangers only have 1 thing going for them besides their now middle of the pack constant health regen; dodges and evades. Thieves may do that better, but that’s only one class, and if this makes it better for anybody else; rangers look cooler when they evade imo.
90% of the traits still feel like they are in beta compared to the other classes I play (warrior and necro), which I guess makes sense, since those 2 classes have received the most work to date, but ANet is basically one balance patch away from either keeping their audience or loosing another portion of their gaming community because things are just stagnant, and not changing for the better quick enough to maintain player interest, from ANY aspect of the game (PvE, PvP, WvW).
Yeah… I made my own opinion heard on that topic already as well.
Having had discussed it with some other rangers, I think people would prefer to see the options of the capabilities expanded on pets before a basic “use or stow” option, although having the option to do that on top of being able to give the pet more options/capabilities would be the MOST ideal way to handle it in order for the most amount of people to enjoy a change.
We have always been a split community, because the ranger class doesn’t just have one attractive mechanic like other classes do (thief is stealth/evade, mesmer clones, etc). Rangers attract both players that want to use a ranged, or bow class (and ranger is the most proficient/versatile bow user in the game by sheer number of options), and players that want to use a pet class.
So now, we have a pretty even split of people that want the abilities and damage of the ranger player improved, while other people want the capabilities of the pets to be improved and the limitations of the class to be a little less strict than they are now.
And I’m here to say “why can’t we have both, and let the builds dictate which way people decide to play?”
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