Guild Wars 2

Gandarel.5091:

Every newbie wants to roll a necro because they’ve heard this got buffed. It’s not op, it’s just that for a few days every single newcomer plays this class, so probably the amount of fear you got was inflicted by more necs.

Or you were dumb enough to run into spectral wall multiple times in a row.

Is that even legitimately possible?

I’m 100% I got hit with the staff fear, and with all my cleanses on cooldown, the rest of wherever the fears came from took over until I died.

Jon, what a martyr you are lol.

Seriously though, good update. Hopefully the next update for the ranger brings it back into the metagame a little, as they were always performing a niche role in spvp to begin with, and while that’s still possible, people are much more aware of how rangers are lacking in competitive play now, and with the last update rangers have been placed virtually bottom tier in the eyes of the community.

So, hoping that changes, but in the meantime, thanks for forcing up my playstyle. If anything, its breathed a little life back into the game until I settle down into a new playstyle.

Chesire.9043:

Jastorm.5972:

I was seeing that from necro’s even before this patch. Now with more necros playing with them being the FOTM we will be seeing it a lot more i’m sure. I thought the fear damage was supposed to be per application not per second feared…?

Fear is a condition as well as a CC, so it ticks with the ICD that every other condition ticks with so if a necro has 1.5-1.7 seconds on Fear (ie: 50-70% duration increase) it will tick twice when timed correctly AFTER other conditions are applied.

This was happening way before the recent patch, it’s just that more people are running Terror builds now and since we’ve always been so freaking UP, people don’t know how to fight us now that we’re on even footing.

It was, probably, also a mistake to give Spectral Wall a fear proc as well so we did gain an extra fear than we had. But NO ONE asked for that, so it’s all of ANet’s doing.

Now about the pic.. 234 Bleed ticks? That was either a really long fight in which case that amount of fear damage is reasonable or you didn’t cleanse/stun break at all in the fight; rather curious.

Stability will nullify at least 10k of that damage.

I’m a ranger, I had already blown my Signet of Renewal, and the Necro had already killed the pet from AoE+Empathic Bond, since eating AoE unblockable staff marks. The only thing I can say I did wrong was experimenting with pets, and my only stability source was on cooldown.
However, I was probably getting attacked by somebody else. The bleed stacks weren’t really my concern, even though I probably wouldn’t of eaten nearly as many if I could have moved.

I was asking because the fears were back to back, and as far as I can tell they would have had to Death Shroud fear me, then staff, then while I’m feared, forced me through their wall.

I’m still not sure on the last source, maybe I proc’d it off their runes or something, but it was A LOT of fear to eat at one sitting and there wasn’t much I could have done outside of how I tried to handle it.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I swear I’m getting hit with 10x more fear with this patch than I ever have. Not sure if its a duration change or what, but I have a screen of what just happened to me:

DeadlySynz.3471:

I don’t see how you can be happy with rangers when

- Barrage damage has been cut in half
- Both the LB/SB have worse tracking issues than they did before
- Pets are dropping a lot quicker and their F2 abilities are slower to react

That is unless you use none of those..

Please stop spreading misinformation, as not a single thing you mentioned is accurate.

I’ve tried the build, played around with it for awhile, and ended up going 0/0/30/25/15, which has been a trait setup that’s been around since near launch. It still works no problem.

In PvP rangers still make excellent backpoint holders with the same exact BM builds, because of the survival and condi output not being nerfed at all (actually fixed with dagger and offhand training bugs being resolved).

Healing traps are fine, rabid traps are fine, and in PvE/WvW I’m running a power/healing mix with knights/clerics/amulets and 20/20/30/0/0 with a longbow and its the best the longbow has ever been since launch.

RyuDragnier.9476:

My problem with this patch doesn’t lie with the shortbow…it lies with the fact that they did an across the board nerf of our pets, which are 30-40% of our damage output. The nerf for some of the pets at the worst is a 50% nerf, meaning a 15-20% overall drop in damage output. In every other MMO I played, the developers would never dare nerf one of the professions THIS hard. This is especially bad since it was just to deal with the whining over the BM ranger in sPvP, which could have easily been taken care of by slightly nerfing the amount of power output increase the Beastmastery traitline gives out FOR PVP ONLY!

But that isn’t necessarily true either, if looked at in a broad scope. If I was on a small team of devs and was working on a huge mechanic rework (ranger pets and the damage value they represent) and on a deadline with a bunch of other professions to work on too, what would I do? Exactly what ANet could be doing, release only the pet nerf, and let the community work out how much DPS is missing and what is lackluster in power builds. Then, once the players collect all the data, begin working on improvements to power builds (reintroducing the damage lost from pets onto the players).

The devs specifically said this was a warrior/necro focused update, I wasn’t even expecting as many changes as we got.

Anybody who played guild wars 1 knows that ANet is basically infamous for only focusing on 1 to 2 classes at a time for major updates, and in the process creates OP builds while nerfing others. (Warriors Endurance, Dervish Avatars, Dagger Escape Rangers, bloodspike, rspike, etc etc etc etc to infinity)

Daemon.4295:

Aridia.3042:

jcbroe.4329:

Burst well enough or sustain well enough.

It definitely got buffed to say the least, with rapid firing being a half second quicker channel and arrows from the autoattack firing once per second, but the damage isn’t enough pressure with the lack of mobility that still exists on the weapon.

Still, its a good update for the longbow, it just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Another cripple outside of barrage, or an immobilize, would be all the weapon really needs now though.

I’ve been asking for a chance cripple on LB1 since the beta. Don’t think this is gonna happen though cuz it makes too much sense.

And I’ve been asking for a snare on lb3. Open with vulnerability and immobilize, follow with barrage (which would actually land in a 1v1), autoattack til gap is closed, point blank into rapid fire and then weapon swap. It would have been far more useful than the increased cripple on barrage, the problem is landing that skill in the first place.

Regarding decreased aftercast, I haven’t had a chance to log in yet. Does it make up for the loss of Zephyr’s Speed in terms of DPS? I imagine the longbow is in a slightly better place despite losing that key trait, would you guys confirm?

I wouldn’t know about zephyrs speed, because I haven’t run it since they nerfed quickness to begin with (I run 20/20/30/0/0 knights/cleric/berserker mix).

However, I can confirm that the longbow autoattack now attack every second, and that rapid fire only channels for about kitten (previously 5) meaning that each shot is being fired at .kitten .

I think it does the weapon a lot of justice and it does actually feel like the clear power damage weapon now, but as I said in the OP, the mobility still feels missing, especially if a person transitions from shortbow to longbow.

Daemon.4295:

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

That’s unfair, Rangers clearly took a hit to pet damage and many rangers are running BM bunkers at the moment, so it’s only normal to see lots of complaints. There may be more options than ever before for this class now, but no one likes seeing their favorite build nerfed. I hardly think it took some particularly popular player to set off complaints regarding the changes to sb and pet damage. But I do agree with the rest of your post, I reckon it’s just a lot harder to understand the full impact of a buff than the impact of a nerf.

Some people can think for themselves, yes, agreed. But I do think that when the people who have seen the most community popularity that are playing a class turn and go full negative on it, that it immediately affects the mood of the community to begin to focus entirely on the negative.
But yes, I’m probably not giving people enough credit.

That being said, for me it’s extremely humorous and at the same time frustrating to see an entire community of players crying about the shortbow because they have to play it the way it was meant to be played, and not 1 spam mindlessly. Garethh and I debated it back at launch; shortbow has a flanking requirement autoattack, a point blank fan, an evade+distance creator, a cripple with added pressure, and an interrupt that gets better with flanking. The shortbow was never meant for people to be standing at 1200 range and just shooting mindlessly, and while technically its a nerf, it was done to force people to play the weapon with that mindset.

People haven’t even realized yet that within the channeling time for Rapid Fire, the longbow actually has a higher DPS now because it shoots the same amount of shots in a shorter amount of time (roughly 1 arrow per .kitten.

I’m enjoying the patch, I’m just extremely disappointed with the ranger community.

Aridia.3042:

jcbroe.4329:

Burst well enough or sustain well enough.

It definitely got buffed to say the least, with rapid firing being a half second quicker channel and arrows from the autoattack firing once per second, but the damage isn’t enough pressure with the lack of mobility that still exists on the weapon.

Still, its a good update for the longbow, it just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Another cripple outside of barrage, or an immobilize, would be all the weapon really needs now though.

I’ve been asking for a chance cripple on LB1 since the beta. Don’t think this is gonna happen though cuz it makes too much sense.

Yeah, it really does. Crossed fingers I guess, and all of that.

Substance E.4852:

jcbroe.4329:

Shiren.9532:

jcbroe.4329:

Substance E.4852:

jcbroe.4329:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

Anet did this awesome thing for GW1, they split the skills between pve/pvp. The only reason they don’t do that now is plain laziness. They know it, and we know it.

There is absolutely no reason to balance the skills the same. People in pvp don’t have the same abilities, or the same stats as mobs in pve. So balancing them to do more damage to someone with 17 to 20k health is going to suck when they fight something with 250k health.

I think that’s more of a dungeon argument to begin with, because I have no problem melting any mob in PvE with any build or weapon.
So if there are any changes that are going to be made, I’m sure the dev teams communicate with each other and reach these decisions.

As far as I know, pets were always dead to begin with in dungeons(thats what a lot of the community seems to think), using shortbow wasn’t an optimal way to run dungeons, and now, rangers have the option to trait to give their dungeon group perma regen and swiftness. It doesn’t sound like they hurt all that much other than peoples feelings that they can’t 1 spam at 1200 range to me.

The perma swiftness and regen is still not nearly enough to bring a ranger over a guardian as a support role.

Did I ever argue that it was taking a guardians place? All I mentioned was an additional, and potentially useful option.

From my dungeon experiences, swiftness and regeneration are two of the least useful buffs in a good group. Good groups don’t need regen and swiftness isn’t really useful against dungeon mobs because they don’t run away (not to mention there being no shortage of party wide swiftness for skipping without this trait).

That’s such a nitpicky thing though. It isn’t like there is zero benefit from being able to apply 100% regen uptime to a group.

Also, I wonder if it ever occurs to people that they are waiting to roll out all of these balance patches before any significant dungeon changes are made? Aka, re-tailoring the dungeons around the balance of the majority of the “big” ones are out of the way? Because I doubt that dungeons were meant to be played in the speedrun mentality that they are now, with skipping content and all of the current shenanigans with the mechanics alone the pigeonhole players into specific builds and setups.

Their record in GW1 on dungeons makes me think that if anything has deviated from what they envisioned, they will either not fix it, or they will only slap a band aid on it to make it look like they tried.

They probably didn’t mean for the majority of people to speed clear CoF exclusively but if they care at all they are being very silent on the matter.

But from my perspective from guild wars 1, it looks like the concentration of the amount of devs working on the game has shifted from pvp (guild wars 1) to PvE content like the living story, current dungeons, potential future dungeons, etc.

It also seems they are being very quiet on everything, so I really don’t know what to think other than what seems to be confirmed by the media, that there may be a not too distant future expansion, and that the last time Rob Hrouda spoke, he hinted at working on some sort of dungeon related content and was very secretive about it.

Shiren.9532:

jcbroe.4329:

Substance E.4852:

jcbroe.4329:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

Anet did this awesome thing for GW1, they split the skills between pve/pvp. The only reason they don’t do that now is plain laziness. They know it, and we know it.

There is absolutely no reason to balance the skills the same. People in pvp don’t have the same abilities, or the same stats as mobs in pve. So balancing them to do more damage to someone with 17 to 20k health is going to suck when they fight something with 250k health.

I think that’s more of a dungeon argument to begin with, because I have no problem melting any mob in PvE with any build or weapon.
So if there are any changes that are going to be made, I’m sure the dev teams communicate with each other and reach these decisions.

As far as I know, pets were always dead to begin with in dungeons(thats what a lot of the community seems to think), using shortbow wasn’t an optimal way to run dungeons, and now, rangers have the option to trait to give their dungeon group perma regen and swiftness. It doesn’t sound like they hurt all that much other than peoples feelings that they can’t 1 spam at 1200 range to me.

The perma swiftness and regen is still not nearly enough to bring a ranger over a guardian as a support role.

Did I ever argue that it was taking a guardians place? All I mentioned was an additional, and potentially useful option.

From my dungeon experiences, swiftness and regeneration are two of the least useful buffs in a good group. Good groups don’t need regen and swiftness isn’t really useful against dungeon mobs because they don’t run away (not to mention there being no shortage of party wide swiftness for skipping without this trait).

That’s such a nitpicky thing though. It isn’t like there is zero benefit from being able to apply 100% regen uptime to a group.

Also, I wonder if it ever occurs to people that they(ANet) could be waiting to roll out all of these balance patches before any significant dungeon changes are made? Aka, re-tailoring the dungeons around the balance of the majority of the “big” ones are out of the way? Because I doubt that dungeons were meant to be played in the speedrun mentality that they are now, with skipping content and all of the current shenanigans with the mechanics alone that pigeonhole players into specific builds and setups.

Substance E.4852:

jcbroe.4329:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

Anet did this awesome thing for GW1, they split the skills between pve/pvp. The only reason they don’t do that now is plain laziness. They know it, and we know it.

There is absolutely no reason to balance the skills the same. People in pvp don’t have the same abilities, or the same stats as mobs in pve. So balancing them to do more damage to someone with 17 to 20k health is going to suck when they fight something with 250k health.

I think that’s more of a dungeon argument to begin with, because I have no problem melting any mob in PvE with any build or weapon.
So if there are any changes that are going to be made, I’m sure the dev teams communicate with each other and reach these decisions.

As far as I know, pets were always dead to begin with in dungeons(thats what a lot of the community seems to think), using shortbow wasn’t an optimal way to run dungeons, and now, rangers have the option to trait to give their dungeon group perma regen and swiftness. It doesn’t sound like they hurt all that much other than peoples feelings that they can’t 1 spam at 1200 range to me.

The perma swiftness and regen is still not nearly enough to bring a ranger over a guardian as a support role.

Did I ever argue that it was taking a guardians place? All I mentioned was an additional, and potentially useful option.

Manekk.6981:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I’ve got to admit. It’s kittening annoying spamming the shout since it doesn’t autocast.

That was my first thought when I saw this idea but I didn’t want to sound more pessimistic than I already had since I’ve done nothing but complain since the leak came out, :P

Double click and F3 is what you do right? must be a way to macro that although you have to ask someone else I’ve only used macros that are ingame before, but there are programs for mouses that’ll do it I’m sure.

I just use fast-cast ground targeting. Point mouse, press skill key, then press f3. I find it much easier than regular ground targeting, but it is a playstyle preference and does take some getting used to.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

jcbroe.4329:

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

Anet did this awesome thing for GW1, they split the skills between pve/pvp. The only reason they don’t do that now is plain laziness. They know it, and we know it.

There is absolutely no reason to balance the skills the same. People in pvp don’t have the same abilities, or the same stats as mobs in pve. So balancing them to do more damage to someone with 17 to 20k health is going to suck when they fight something with 250k health.

I think that’s more of a dungeon argument to begin with, because I have no problem melting any mob in PvE with any build or weapon.
So if there are any changes that are going to be made, I’m sure the dev teams communicate with each other and reach these decisions.

As far as I know, pets were always dead to begin with in dungeons(thats what a lot of the community seems to think), using shortbow wasn’t an optimal way to run dungeons, and now, rangers have the option to trait to give their dungeon group perma regen and swiftness. It doesn’t sound like they hurt all that much other than peoples feelings that they can’t 1 spam at 1200 range to me.

whitespirit.9734:

first shout of the professions i have seen that have a 1sec cast time. Of course its to put the aoe down ,but in middle of combat 1 sec is forever and easily innteruptable. Also I have noticed a delay with the new minor adept beastmastery trait. so instead of attacking with their quickness they just wander about while I get poked. Anyone else noticing this?

That’s why nobody ever took it to begin with, it was literally never good for anything. Its actually the only thing I’m upset about with the patch, that they flip-flopped Instinctual Bond around and didn’t rework it.

I wouldn’t say that people make baseless complaints, but I do feel they blow things out of proportion, or don’t understand the concept of balance around high skill competition.

The longbow and shortbow should have never operated so similarly, and the damage should have always had its highest focus coming from the player (I’m talking like 90% player, 10% pet).

I personally think that when one person who is popular in the community expressed his justified concerns, it turned into a bunch of lemmings crying about the apocalypse.

Chopps.5047:

I also feel in trouble using longbow without swiftness. I feel vulnerable using shortbow secondary, like you said, it’s not being able to move fast.

So how do we deal with this? How about lightening reflexes to create a gap? I mean, if you dog has already burned their CC, point blank shot into lightening reflexes is very effective. Let me know if that helps.

It’s a viable strategy but I have a hard time burning the stunbreaker portion of lightning reflexes for that.

I’ve always run dual canines (even on my BM setup, because control>everything imo), so that always helps, but really the greatsword has been the best option for me personally to setup damage through stuns and the knockback.

The longbow really is lacking some sort of stun/immobilize though, I think that’s the biggest thing. It could be tacked on to knockback shot so easily, just change the name to something like (not a well thought out name incoming) Exposed Shot (you’re exposing their positional weakness) and have it knockback up to 600, and immobilize at 600+.

Just a suggestion to make the weapon within itself feel “whole.”

Burst well enough or sustain well enough.

It definitely got buffed to say the least, with rapid firing being a half second quicker channel and arrows from the autoattack firing once per second, but the damage isn’t enough pressure with the lack of mobility that still exists on the weapon.

Still, its a good update for the longbow, it just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Another cripple outside of barrage, or an immobilize, would be all the weapon really needs now though.

Forzani.2584:

Agree, for what ?

…and I recall Bear getting something in the patch but can’t seem to find what it was.

Weakness duration change?

Protect Me is going to be a big improvement to trap builds because it has the dual function of stun breaker and invulnerability.

Theoretically, I guess you could go with Dolyak Runes if you wanted to make up for the loss of Natural Healing, though they don’t span anywhere near the nice span of options that forge runes cover for rangers.
Still, variants are variants.

Overall, I think that even if the damage output for BM builds got reduced, the bunkering/survival potential has been increased by quite a bit more. So, good build.

Maybe the flaming shouldn’t start for another 24 hours. That’s all I’m saying. The official/unofficial drama is a waste of energy. Until the patch goes live, it isn’t affecting the game any.

Castaliea.3156:

jcbroe.4329:

thefantasticg.3984:

Jon Sharp has stated in SOTG we are not to have too much control because it’ll scare off new ranger players. So, yeah. Suck it people who want more control.

Yeah, but I guess he never realized less useful and less damaging pets would “scare off” ranger players either.

Yeah but new players don’t see that first thing…basically;
IT’S A TRAP!

The thing is, I don’t see how having more control over the pet is any scarier than how the engineer functions with its toolbelt and kits, or how the elementalist functions with attunement swapping.

Not implementing a feature with a higher skill ceiling just because “it’s too hard” for some people is just about the worst argument I’ve ever heard, because there isn’t a single thing wrong with letting skill floors and ceilings separate players by skill level within a game. That’s actually just about a literal definition of something being competitive; people being separated by skill level.

thefantasticg.3984:

Jon Sharp has stated in SOTG we are not to have too much control because it’ll scare off new ranger players. So, yeah. Suck it people who want more control.

Yeah, but I guess he never realized less useful and less damaging pets would “scare off” ranger players either.

@Xsorus;

Oh no, Guild Wars 2 is not competitive at all, but that’s the whole point; there’s no way with the current pet system, mechanic system, gametype, and leaderboard iteration that it will be anytime soon, if ever.

If the pets are supposed to be so much damage, they should have functioned exactly like heroes did in guild wars 1, where you had to micro their movement and which skills they used in order to get the highest potential use out of them.

It makes much more sense even just to have the pet do a sustained, not ignorable sustained damage output through an autoattack, but then you have to micro all of their big damage or strong utility (moas heal) skills.

No, people should not be able to ignore pets. But at the same time, rangers shouldn’t be able to just hit F1, monitor the pets health bar, and then call it back or swap it appropriately, while it does fairly hefty chunks of damage for any player who isn’t brain dead enough to allow someone to run circles around their pet.

The big damage, like most other games out there, needed to have a higher skill cap to begin with, preferably one within the control of the ranger player, so thakittens up to them to use their skills/abilities to be successful in fights.

I don’t think having to press 1 or 2 extra buttons in order to control the pets big damage or utility skills would be much of a hindrance to the players, but it would require a higher skill level in order to be made completely effective, and at the top it would be more effective for people who want to utilize the pet to its full potential, because they would get to control when the pet fires off its important skills, which would be monumental.

MementoMortis.4258:

It just seems so crazy to nerf an AI controlled, unreliable and inconsistent source of damage that can be kited or killed SO easily.

I’m so mad right now.

This opinion is where I think the line gets drawn and things need to get spelled out.

In a game with competitive game modes, you simply do not load up an AI with a large, near majority of damage output, and then try to call that competitive. Managing pets in this game is about as hard as sitting on the toilet and playing angry birds at the same time.
You do 4 things, you say go attack stuff, use this specific, mostly arbitrary for all but a few pets skill, come back, or you swap the pet.

The pet handles literally EVERYTHING ELSE. It paths itself, it autoattacks, and usually except for maybe birds, the most damaging attack is built into its attack chain that it AUTOMATICALLY executes. If this was a shooting game, the game would be aiming the gun for you, and all you would have to do is pull the trigger once, and then the game would keep firing the gun for you until what you are shooting at is dead, or you want to stop.

That type of mechanic, combined with how much of the damage the pet accounts for, is not competitive, no matter how avidly people argue it to be. It would be balanced if the player had to physically manage to execute every skill that the pet was capable of, and manage all of that, because that level of management would be worth the damage potential.

But with such a simple system, the pet should have never had so much damage potential in the first place. They should have been a sustainable 10-20% of the damage output with a higher purpose being to provide improvable utility for both the player and potentially groups of other players, and should not in any way in this system be easy to kill because of how inconsequential it would be in determining fights, AKA, you can’t just let it attack you, you have to kite, and killing it would make the ranger player lose benefits for themselves and the team.

There is no way in the world the pet system is good, but there is also no reason why the damage being on the pet in this system is even remotely okay unless it is a much more controllable feature of the rangers arsenal.

Wasn’t there an across the board AoE nerf mentioned in a SoTG about 3-5 months ago? Wouldn’t that cover the main issue people are having with the use of the nade kit?

As in; while it isn’t necessarily that it is too strong in a skirmish situation, on point in team fights, it can be absolutely devastating because of the 3 Rs it accomplishes:
Rapid Output
Repeatable (not really long cooldowns)
Radius

Granted I’m not calling it OP or anything, it would just be hard to deny how powerful of a tool it can be, and how instrumental it can be (almost apex predator/pigeonhole effectiveness) in team fights.

Chokolata.1870:

its a huge nerf when doing the role the shortbow is intended for , CHASING PEOPLE . you wont be able to chase down people anymore . Couple it with the massive leash nerf and we lost one of the main roles rangers have in WvW

I wouldn’t necessarily call it a chasing weapon. It’s role seems much more of a control role, and it does have its best functions at mid to close range.
But look at it control wise;
-there’s an interrupt, with a stun potential with flanking, which can be used to stop a fleeing opponent, but has equal use in setting up a damaging combo from a pet/weapon swap/quickness burst/teammate.
-there’s a cripple, to use so an opponent can’t get out of range for you, but also to make it harder for a melee opponent to close in on you, and your pet bleeds on next attack for additional pressure
-there’s an evade, which is useful for kiting melee opponents and avoiding big damage, and the little quickness application can’t hurt
-there’s a poison fan, best used at close range, and can cover existing conditions and suppress healing, which is a huge control element
-lastly, the autoattack, which punishes opponents for poor positioning and for trying to run, which (imo) could be much better with not position requirement itself, but still isn’t the worst autoattack in the game (hi longbow, that’s aimed at you).

In all, I’m not saying you’re wrong, it is in fact a chasing weapon, it just sounded much too specific for me, because the options are much more skirmish, and therefore, control, oriented.

So control weapon, and sorry, I’m nitpicking, it’s just an opinion.
This thread is already heated for no reason, don’t kill me lol

RyuDragnier.9476:

I’m hoping they make it so Eagle Eye effects the shortbow and increases its range to 1200. At least then people who want that range can still spec for it.

This is actually the number 1 smartest and most amazing thing that has been said about the shortbow since these “notes” were leaked.
+1

Eagle eye only interacting with a single ranged weapon for rangers never made sense to me to begin with in the first place, and if the notes are to be believed, than everything about your suggestion with the weapon change would make complete and total sense.

Manekk.6981:

jcbroe.4329:

Aside from maybe Lotus Strike and Pistol Whip, the majority of the thief notes are either inconsequential or nerfs.

Particularly, the two biggest nerfs are the Cluster Bomb being reduced to 900 range, and Larcenous Strike getting its initiative cost increased, meaning its harder to spam their sword/dagger evasion set.

Overall, not a single thief “change” affects or adds anything to their current meta builds in a substantial way, except by maybe making pistol whip a bit more viable again.

So that actually makes the notes more believable for me.

You might be right I never played thief beyond a few casual alts that’s why I made this thread so I could hear from you guys that did more with the class, they are getting alot of pretty substantial buffs though if these are correct there’s no doubt about it, that said they might not be obtainable in current popular builds anyway.

Also you could flip it and say the most of the few nerfs (by comparison to buffs) they get are tiny and inconsequential.

True, but at the same time, it takes the updated set given to them last patch (sword/dagger) and nerfs the thing that made it viable. Shadow Trap might be taken over their utility shadowstep stun breaker now, but they have literally the same function.
I mean, they did add to a few of the condition options, but it isn’t enough to make those options more viable than a power set.

As Excalibur said, it really kind of pigeonholes thieves even farther into a d/p stealth set.

2 days though, just 2 days lol.

Battosai.5620:

HPLT.7132:

Battosai.5620:

traps are actually viable – just not the standard rabid + 3 traps + entangle + TU and sword/torch stuff.

I have quite a lot respect on your opinion but there is a difference between viable and worth to pick. I played trapper (sb+sword/dagger+3 traps+hs+entangle/spirit) when BM was already Meta…however these desperate tries to make BM less strong also affected trapper pretty heavily. First it was affected by haste nerf – Now, with the next patch it will not have any haste+ reduced shortbow range+ reduced pet damage+reduced pet range+ no save stomping capability. Tell me in which world this build is superior compared to bomb engis? Also you cant just exchange the traps…poison trap -> essentially for downed control , burning trap -> your main damage, spike trap-> Without you will have less cc and might get chased heavily (then also lightning reflexes will not help much).
They want to increase build diversity, however for rangers they killed all possibilities to do anything different from 0/0/30/X/X. And these ridiculous longbow (really projectile speed? This thing is so kittening slow and clunky….) and spirit (They bring no substantial group support which would be worth risking to bring them AND they will still die in seconds – 360 range for such a kittenty spirit sorry these things need a complete overhaul like they promised for this patch.)

first of all bm rangers had a too low skillfloor, thus not much was needed for it to be effective – same thing applies to other builds atm, its not just a ranger specific issue.
the trapper build you mentioned above is indeed not stronger than an engineer – the thing though is, that people try to force the ranger into a certain role that doesn’t really fit him, thus only making use of barely half ot the potential it has, if even.
the only thing the range nerf on sb will really hurt is chasing down fleeing targets – it never did really good pressure on maximum range in pvp anyway as it is more of a skirmishing weapon and flanking gets easier.
the ranger is a great harrasser, he can easily put pressure on a main dps like ele/mesmer/thief using control pets to help out his teammates or the traps for down pressure if you coordinate it right, thus taking a lot of pressure from your teammates as one of the opposing dps is focused on surviving.
also mobility wise the ranger is really strong – thing is with that build, that it basically can do everything decently well but it will always get outshined by a more specialized build in that specific role. the rangers greatest strength imo is adaptability and versatility, given that you could argue that a bomb engi is more versatile at the moment.
i’d like them to give the player more active control over the pets movement and their respective abilities – make it function like a kit or change f1 – f4 to pet abilities and have the control for it elsewhere, would make rangers that much more powerful while increasing the skillfloor on most of the builds.
a well played trap ranger offers quite a lot to the team, it’s not as easy to do well as it is on bm though.
i’m glad the fotm guys will vanish and bm ranger will actually still be a decent build, while not being that mandatory anymore. furthermore the ranger gets pretty much forced 30 pts into wilderness survival right now as well as it is our strongest traitline by far.

+1, agreed on everything.

Aside from maybe Lotus Strike and Pistol Whip, the majority of the thief notes are either inconsequential or nerfs.

Particularly, the two biggest nerfs are the Cluster Bomb being reduced to 900 range, and Larcenous Strike getting its initiative cost increased, meaning its harder to spam their sword/dagger evasion set.

Overall, not a single thief “change” affects or adds anything to their current meta builds in a substantial way, except by maybe making pistol whip a bit more viable again.

So that actually makes the notes more believable for me.

roamzero.9486:

Would have been nice if they reworked remorseless and opening strike a little. Have the vuln last a little longer and instead of resetting on kill with remorseless have it regen every 10s.

Agreed 100% that the power traitline needs some reworks like that. Opening Strike is very very lackluster, and having an entire set of minor traits and a grandmaster one devoted to it is just a waste in its current state.

Verminor.7014:

jcbroe.4329:

It’s a visual issue. People already complain about how it can be difficult to interpret what Asura characters are doing in PvP because of there small size, as well as how animated the game is which makes it harder to focus on combat and figure out what is actually happening.

Larger pets would only increase the visual problems people currently experience, and it would make combat even more graphically difficult.

If anything, for tactical purposes, I would love to make the pets as tiny as possible. Give me a mosquito sized pet, so that it is hard to follow its movements and interpret its actions, so its near impossible to tell whether it is winding up for a big spike damage attack.

It’s just a difference of opinion in how it would implement into an “in practice” scenario I suppose, because I do think the mechanics behind the size of the pets was pretty cool in guild wars 1. I hated them graphically as well though, as it blocked visuals and made it harder to play against other people at times by blocking/obscuring sightlines on positioning.

Disagree in all terms, but of course everybody has your own opinion.

I still belive that wont be a problem in pvp, since everything can block a animation of an asura, and is not a bigger pet that will make diference.

I realy dont see any visual problems in scenarios, we will always have mesmer with tons of copies necros with minions, so i dont think that it’s a big diference, cause anyone can distinguish a player from a pet.

but again i see your point, just disagree.

Truth be told though, it could be a PvE/PvP split. I actually think that a player should be able to go into the pets stat menu and use a slide bar to adjust the size of the pet to where they want it to be.
Then, in pvp, the only change they would have to make would be on their side (think custom arena options) by locking in a certain size for the pets.

That would be the most ideal solution and would probably appeal to the largest audience.

Daemon.4295:

jcbroe.4329:

Daemon.4295:

Ultravalefor.5038:

Sword/Axe is already a great combo. PoS crits like a truck and Sword provides tons of mobility and makes you almost impossible to escape from—which the new pull will only make worse for your enemies.

Though I’m also looking forward to the new longbow—if these “leaked” notes are real, that is.

Think about it, this is what we’ve been asking for right? More damage on the Ranger, less on the pet? The best thing I ever did playing this class was stop trying to use the pet as anything other than a walking buff provider. Once we adapt to these new changes, I think we’re going to be a lot more dangerous.. well, maybe. We’ll see what how much Torment screws us.

Biggest thing to watch for is that PoS’s return hit is somewhat unreliable… gets obstructed quite a bit, and I bet they haven’t fixed -that-

What’s there to look forward to on the longbow? It’ll miss slightly less due to the increased projectile speed but that’s it. The longer cripple on barrage is pretty much useless, the issue with that skill is people dodging out and not getting hit at all. Anyone running a power longbow build will only be hurt by this patch due to the loss of Zephyr’s Speed, assuming these patch notes turn out to be legit.

The reduced aftercast on the long range shot means that instead firing 1 arrow every 1.25s, you fire 1 arrow per second.

Are we sure about that? I’ve never seen ‘aftercast’ mentioned before so I don’t know for sure whether aftercast reduction does in fact translate to increased attack rate. In any case, if these leaked notes are true, aftercast is pretty much getting reduced across the board. Just look at Warriors and Eles.

Yes I’m certain. There was a dev explaining aftercast on the forums a few months back, but I’m not in the mood to go forum hunting to find it. But every skill in the game has some sort of aftercast (delay in which after using the skill, another action can’t be performed).

Currently, the longbow autoattack has a .75s channel and kitten aftercast, which results in 1.25s (the longbow shoots an auto attack every 1.25s).

By reducing the aftercast, it effectively means that after one shot is fired, you’ll now be able to fire another shot sooner, .25s sooner is the leaked notes are accurate.

Which results in the 1s fire time that I mentioned.

Chopps.5047:

Holland.9351:

I hope for some undocumented changes, like:
- the family restriction removed from the master pet traits,
- the flanking restriction removed from the shortbow,
- the out-of-range pet restriction removed from the Signet of Renewal,
- the living pet restriction removed from the Signet of Renewal.
- the out-of-range pet restriction removed from Protect Me,
- Search & Rescue not going on cooldown when it’s not used,
- Search & Rescue causing the pet to instantly blink to the target,
- Pets gaining an evade on ranger dodge.
- Pets becoming immune to AoE damage in dungeons and fractals.
- Melee pets being able to attack the Elemental boss in the snow fractal.

My god, I would love these.

Just adding to the quote that is being referred to (as I agree with chopps), wouldn’t it make sense just to extend the range of all ranger shouts(and signets) to 2000 range, since the new leash range in those “notes” was adjusted to 2000 range? Just putting that out there, as it would be easier to adjust the range than remove all restrictions entirely.

Also, I have felt the need for the bleed on the shortbow to be made unconditional since day 1. Adjust the damage or do whatever needs to be done, be please do it, because I’m tired of the ranger being the only class that I build conditions on that can’t apply conditions on its autoattack without restriction.

cuasilk.6927:

I can’t remember other notes with changes to pet damage but, were they listed in percentages? I find that kind os strange.

They always list damage improvements/reductions in percentages. What they haven’t ever done that I found odd was list changes to damage coefficients (meaning that there are some notes on the list where it says increased from 0.6 to 0.8 that looked odd).

Also, the use of the term aftercast in itself seemed odd as well, as normally, when the official notes are released, the term after cast normally gets referred to as “delay,” since “aftercast” isn’t really a well known term to most people.

Daemon.4295:

Ultravalefor.5038:

Sword/Axe is already a great combo. PoS crits like a truck and Sword provides tons of mobility and makes you almost impossible to escape from—which the new pull will only make worse for your enemies.

Though I’m also looking forward to the new longbow—if these “leaked” notes are real, that is.

Think about it, this is what we’ve been asking for right? More damage on the Ranger, less on the pet? The best thing I ever did playing this class was stop trying to use the pet as anything other than a walking buff provider. Once we adapt to these new changes, I think we’re going to be a lot more dangerous.. well, maybe. We’ll see what how much Torment screws us.

Biggest thing to watch for is that PoS’s return hit is somewhat unreliable… gets obstructed quite a bit, and I bet they haven’t fixed -that-

What’s there to look forward to on the longbow? It’ll miss slightly less due to the increased projectile speed but that’s it. The longer cripple on barrage is pretty much useless, the issue with that skill is people dodging out and not getting hit at all. Anyone running a power longbow build will only be hurt by this patch due to the loss of Zephyr’s Speed, assuming these patch notes turn out to be legit.

The reduced aftercast on the long range shot means that instead firing 1 arrow every 1.25s, you fire 1 arrow per second.

Dardamaniac.1295:

in Rangers forum things are bad..They talk about the end of the BM Ranger and even the Ranger at all….i still believe that even with these (kinda big) nerfs BM Rangers will dominate in 1v1,as they do now.Just that youll have to put more effort and more trait help..

That’s what I’m saying. As though nerfing pet damage makes the ranger any less capable of bunkering a point. If anything, the ranger will just have to bunker better and be less reliant on the pet to kill the person trying to take the point from them, which results in more of a skill vs skill matchup, which is a positive change.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just extremely tired of all the dramatics that take place on the ranger forum. People are unwilling to accept how strong rangers can be, and then when it gets toned down a little, people start crying that something they’ve finally come to accept as strong is being nerfed, and they weep over it and call ANet names.

It’s like being stuck in a room full of children that have infinite access to candy and soda. I really wish a dev would shut them all up sometimes, and just deal with the oncoming crucifixion for posting in the ranger forum.

Boomstin.3460:

Einlanzer.1627:

Shortbow should have always been 900 yards, really.

Nope, longbow range should always been 1500 without the trait.

I disagree that it would have made a 1200 range shortbow any better. If these patch notes are to be believed, than before this patch, the shortbows direct competition has always been the longbow, and the shortbow overwrote most of the roles that were meant to be played by the longbow.

However, with these patch notes, the shortbow is now relegated to competing with the Axe, which makes more sense, as one is a pressure condition weapon (shortbow) and the other is a spike condition weapon (axe).

This ACTUALLY creates more build diversity; condition users (and power users abusing the refire rate of the shortbow) are forced into skirmishing range (all of the rangers conditions are best used within 900 range anyhow), while power users get there ranged weapon of choice, and can then choose a set for skirmishing (going Longbow/Shortbow is even more of an option now).

Also, the refire rate for the longbows autoattack has been increased by decreasing the aftercast, which as somebody mentioned earlier, is a buff to the DPS on the longbow.

And even then, these notes are by no means the official or confirmed notes.

So no matter how much people argue and disagree on this, there is the potential that it’s all just wasted energy. People need to pull it back and wait a few days.

Mada.5319:

jcbroe.4329:

It took about 2 years for the ranger to reach it’s full potential and be recognized for it in the first guild wars. Which sounds more bleak than positive, but still.

No it didn’t. Rangers were gods in pvp from day 1. Don’t you remember the cripshot build with distortion and storm chaser?

Anet failed rangers in gw2, unfortunately. Just like they did with mesmers.

I meant full potential meaning multiple builds with different roles that could be filled. Rangers were always good, but then along the lines, Burning Arrow and Melandrus Shot came along, allowing rangers to change one skill and effectively change the entire dynamic of their build, because it went from CC (cripshot) to CC pressure (melsShot) to Damage (BA) while keeping all of the same utilities that were desired on a team.

Eventually, Magebane Shot got a buff and turned it into my favorite build for rangers, since the disabling capabilities of it were so strong, and it opened up a slot for whatever else you wanted to run (Pin Down) to still support the team with CC/Pressure.

But yes, regardless of whether we agree on when exactly people realized the full potential of their classes in Guild Wars 1, I agree with you that ANet dropped the ball on the Ranger and Mesmer in the transition between the games. Though I have to say that at least the Mesmers clones are a unique and better implemented idea than just anchoring the Ranger to their pet that nobody used in serious competition in the first Guild Wars because of how poor it was versus other builds.

@Xsorus,
Yes, I do believe the notes aren’t real (or hope anyways) for the simple fact that I don’t think (or I hope again) that ANet is silly enough to nerf all of the damage and an entire weapon and not return the lost damage in any way possible.

However, the aftercast delay on the longbow does equate to a DPS increase (I’m not saying this is the end all, be all buff, just saying) because it means that shots will refire at 1s, not 1.25s. Looking at 12s (I wanted a large enough common denominator is all), it means that before that patch, you are only shooting 8 arrows in that time frame, and after the patch, you are shooting 12 arrows in that same time frame.

That’s just something that I’m finding significant. Does is justify all of the changes if the leaked notes are to be believed? No. Did the shortbow surprise me? Absolutely. But did I think that the pet damage nerf would be worse? Yes. So I was actually pleasantly surprised by those figures simply because I expected it to be worse.

Also, the new grandmaster talent is for the ability to keep regen/swiftness up on a group (it isn’t for self use). I can see it being used for people in dungeons, or maybe in a small group in WvW, but no, it does not add to the self sustain whatsoever, and will generally (just like almost every other trait in the nature magic line) serve to boost those around you. I’m definitely not saying its good without a shout rework, and it more or less seems like an “okay, lets give them this option so they can’t say they’re useless in dungeons or at team support anymore” situation, but it won’t really affect my playstyle at all, so I can’t really complain.

As far as tpvp goes, the meta will just shift rangers into being healing trappers, and we’ll get complained about again, just like they tried to get traps nerfed back when Java was on the SoTG.

jdmThor.3806:

jubskie.3152:

jdmThor.3806:

jubskie.3152:

jdmThor.3806:

sigh. just when i’m about to get my ranger to 80, they’ll do this to the short bow. i hope this is all false information but it doesn’t look like it.

It still does the same damage, and the SB3-5 got slight damage boosts. Tell me why losing 300 range makes you sigh.

because it will lessen my effectivity in wvw a lot. don’t ask me why, it’s just related to one of the things i do in wvw.

I actually responded to that.

jubskie.3152:

Also, to be on topic, losing 300 range on a shortbow suddenly made it’s DPS lower? It’s still the same weapon, but you have to more mindful of positioning. In dungeons and PvE, it’s not that hard to adjust. In PvP, players rarely have opportunities to stand 1200 range away and pewpew indefinitely. In WvW, the only time i see this as a problem is when zerging (but longbow is superior to shortbow when zerging anyway due to barrage). Most solo roamers are within 900 range of their enemies already.

jdmThor.3806:

about the dmg buffs to other sb skills, tell me why you didn’t read the posts explaining how that doesn’t make a bit of difference.

Wa-wa-wait. So you mean to tell me you don’t want the damage boost on shortbow 3-5? Oh the irony. Months of asking for weapon skill damage boosts and then you say that when rangers finally get one?

now you’re making things up. i never said that lol. but these buffs are next to nothing considering sb dps mainly comes from 1 skill. they’re nowhere near high enough for me to consider using those skills as a source of damage and not just for utility.

Well that’s because the entire function of those skills, regardless of the damage they do, is a utility function. Even shortbow 2 is pretty lackluster on the damage and really only useful for the utility.

Unfortunately, if these notes are true, I personally see the shortbow as becoming one of the least useful weapons a ranger has access to. I would much rather see the autoattack get turned to an unconditional bleed and have the damage/current duration nerfed accordingly if we are going to go through with the change to 900 range.

jubskie.3152:

jcbroe.4329:

Bryzy.2719:

Jcbroe – your last sentence is the core of what is wrong with these updates. It seems that most players agree that pet damage, depending on build, is certainly at least 30% of a ranger’s output. Assuming these nerfs are true then Anet probably just made ranger the weakest profession in the game. They’re clearly paying little attention to the profession since they’ve just cut our total damage output by (assuming pet counts as at least 30%, and jaguar had its damage nerfed by half PLUS crit rate) at least 15%.

I know, that’s why I said it. BUT, that is only power based DPS. The pet really doesn’t account for much of, if any, of our condition based DPS.

I’ll just switch back to traps until somebody in the next SoTG complains our trap build is overpowered. At that point, I hope reality smacks ANet in the face; that maybe, they need to get some players on the SoTG that aren’t biased against rangers, because Traps are really going to be our last most viable option that haven’t been touched by a nerf yet, and if they nerf them without any improvements, then its like secretly admitting that they are trying to get rid of classes viability so that there are only 5 choices to pick from in PvP, and people don’t have to think anymore.

So yeah, normally I’m pretty easygoing until I focus my attention on those top players and the SoTGs, and then my allergies start acting up (I’m allergic to arrogance and BS).

START A PETITION TO GET BATTOUSAI ON SOTG!!!

+1

Definitely!
/signed lol
For real though, I would love to see Battosai on SOTGs.

As a matter of fact, with these “tournaments” coming up, I think top spots prize should also include being on the next SOTG. Since Guru hosts the SOTGs, maybe we should get in contact with Grouch about this

Sarision.6347:

BenGrech.3912:

Zenith.7301:

Longbow’s not a lot better. The issue with it is it’s got no defense whatsoever and people can easily get in your face, gutting the damage. Firing a half damage projectile faster won’t fix anything. Rapidfire will still do terrible damage.

Not sure about you… but even now Rapid Fire does 10k damage on its last hit usually for me….. sometimes more.

I’m pretty sure that 10k is the sum of all arrows of Rapid Fire.

I’m 200% sure that every channeled attack in this game, including rapid fire, has an additive, and not exponential, property. Meaning yes, it is the sum being displayed, but the actual damage can be seen in the battle log.

Varani.9207:

On the other hand cluster bomb´s range on shortbow has been increased to 1200. Isn´t that skill strong enough already?

You have it backwards; the current range of cluster bomb is 1200, and they’re decreasing it to 900.

They never communicate at all about upcoming patches and rumors about them in detail, why would they start now?

More over, regardless of authenticity, they might just stay out of the ongoing conversations about the leaked notes, document reactions, and let people calm down first, before making anything official (I mean, the patch is going to be official lol, but still, if they do respond on the forums before then).

But I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if they released the actual patch notes on Monday, before the patch on Tuesday, as a response to these leaked notes, with an explanation?

One can dream.

Bryzy.2719:

Jcbroe – your last sentence is the core of what is wrong with these updates. It seems that most players agree that pet damage, depending on build, is certainly at least 30% of a ranger’s output. Assuming these nerfs are true then Anet probably just made ranger the weakest profession in the game. They’re clearly paying little attention to the profession since they’ve just cut our total damage output by (assuming pet counts as at least 30%, and jaguar had its damage nerfed by half PLUS crit rate) at least 15%.

I know, that’s why I said it. BUT, that is only power based DPS. The pet really doesn’t account for much of, if any, of our condition based DPS.

I’ll just switch back to traps until somebody in the next SoTG complains our trap build is overpowered. At that point, I hope reality smacks ANet in the face; that maybe, they need to get some players on the SoTG that aren’t biased against rangers, because Traps are really going to be our last most viable option that haven’t been touched by a nerf yet, and if they nerf them without any improvements, then its like secretly admitting that they are trying to get rid of classes viability so that there are only 5 choices to pick from in PvP, and people don’t have to think anymore.

So yeah, normally I’m pretty easygoing until I focus my attention on those top players and the SoTGs, and then my allergies start acting up (I’m allergic to arrogance and BS).