Guild Wars 2

Zenith.7301:

It’s as if your opponents where too stupid to press dodge when they saw you closing in for a splitblade or saw a slow frosty projectile lobbed at them.

Axe is a one trick pony. If you don’t land either of those skills, its damage is nonexistent.

Well axe 3 has a tad bit of homing, the way the thief shortbow did pre-update. And splitblade is on a 6 second cooldown, so you’re going to be able to throw it more than they can dodge against most enemies. They also have to make the subconscious decision whether or not to dodge a pet’s attack (wolfs leap for instance) or a splitblade.

I haven’t had issue landing my splitblade since like, October of last year when I really got into Axe though. So I’m going to biased towards it. I love the shortbow as well, just not in a Shaman/Apothecary BM build.

In WvW I personally would probably run Shortbow on a BM build just for the 1200 damage and shortbow 4. I can’t live without the control of the shortbow in WvW. It’s the closest thing I have to a guild wars 1 cripshot/melsShot.

Zenith.7301:

He mentioned signet of the hunt not only for mobility, but for his burst, and he said it was optional.

I don’t know what you’re doing wrong, but shortbow flanking is ridiculously easy to pull off. The arc is actually pretty kitten generous and you don’t need to hit from the side so much as at a bit of an angle on the opponent, which you can do by strafing. It’s sort of how backstab makes it seem like you need to land it on the back but actually you can land it on the sides since the positional requirement in truth is very lenient.

He doesn’t need offhand training because the torch isn’t only used to pressure someone off a node. You use monarch’s leap to combo into a fire aura, which forces them to stop attacking or stack burning on themselves or give you might.

Shortbow on any build outdamages the axe in sustained condition and power damage, and has no range limitations in effectiveness to boot.

I would LOVE to see a video of a person who is able to maintain bleed stacks with the shortbow on a target who is actively engaging them, and has more than half a brain.

Yes, autoattacking with the shortbow nets higher DPS. But Axe has the ability to put more stacks of bleed up at a time than shortbow, making it able to burst damage better.

On top of that you get chill, which, on top of the movement, increased the cooldown of enemy skills by 66%, AND your pet applies weakness, so that now the enemy is glancing 50% of their attacks, which increases your survival.

Also, you can still get fire aura with axe/torch and sword/dagger. You just have to weapon swap, which isn’t a problem. Axe 5, swap, sword2→2. So that’s a non-issue, but offhand training makes it even stronger, since it has the radius of fire trap with the same cooldown. Combine this with geomancy sigils and the only damage loss between a trap build and a BM build is essentially the level of condition damage.

Activating Signet of the Hunt serves little purpose unless Birds are being taken, generally because they have the easier to control burst attack. Otherwise, activating Signet of the Hunt hurts damage over time, and taking Agility Training over Pet’s Prowess has already capped that damage lower than what it could’ve been. I wouldn’t sacrifice 10 trait points AND a utility slot just to keep pressure up after hitting 1 attack 50% harder, when my pet could hit 30% harder every time it crits, AND keep it’s pressure up through sustained mobility to catch up and attack.

We shouldn’t keep this going though, since it really is just a difference of opinions. Somebody else should either chime in, or we should just agree to disagree since we are kind of extremely derailing the topic lol.

Zenith.7301:

There is nothing wrong with his build. Some people run BM to 30 for natural regen and use signet of the hunt. He instead went for agility training, so his pet is moving 5% faster than with signet of the hunt, and he gains swiftness whenever he switches weapons, which on a BM bunker is pretty often.

That gives him room to take signet of the wild, which is KEY against classes like engineers because empathic bond won’t come close to coping with engineer condi application.

Either way, in your build you MUST have either signet of the hunt or agility training. Even with those two competent people outside necros and warriors will kite your pet most of the time, and if you don’t have either of those you might as well stow your pet because it will never hit a good opponent that knows how to move.

I mean, what other ranger build can you run traitwise besides trapper? All those traits are standard. You have some variation in either offhand training and shared anguish, or 33% extra regen duration or 5 sec prot upon taking damage greater than 10% of your HP, or between vigor from raven or bleed trait for jaguar.

But the trait allocation is pretty much as far as it goes for a BM bunker build.

One thing immediately wrong is exactly that, taking Signet of the Hunt and Agility Training. They don’t stack, so either the utility slot needs to be taken, or Pet’s Prowess needs to be taken. The optimal setup would be Pet’s Prowess with Signet of the Hunt, since that is going to net the highest damage output and shortest kill times on a moving target.
And if using canines, the difference is literally only about 2s shorter in terms of kill times, which means that Pet’s Prowess would really only be super beneficial for one of the two pet choices.

This means that unless he is flawlessly executing his setups and swaps with his pets, he’s not using the full potential of those 10 points in Skirmishing IF Pet’s Prowess was chosen. But, since it isn’t, AND signet of the hunt was chosen, the build has already lost it’s ability to reach it’s full potential, and I consider it dead in the water.

Without Offhand Training, torch no longer has the ability to cover an entire node, meaning that you can’t use it effectively to pressure them off the node. Instead, he chose Oakheart Salve, which is going to last roughly 8s, every 20s, but is only maybe going to be useful against bleeding, since poison and burning both out pressure regen if the person applying them is using condition damage.

Shortbow functions more as a utility weapon than a damage weapon, because you aren’t going to get flanking bleeds on most opponents. Without being able to splitblade 5 bleeds onto a person at once, it means that more damage has been lost than utility has been gained, since sword/dagger already provides more than enough evades, as well as 100% poison uptime. The only thing unique shortbow does for the BM build is work at 1200 and have an interrupt. Again, strong utility, but sacrificing the stronger damage/pressure that could have been attained.

Glossing over it, everything else seems to be in order. I think I’ve nitpicked it enough.

Xsorus.2507:

jcbroe.4329:

Xsorus.2507:

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

I mean, obviously. The point is, that going back to the forum post for that, apparently “that isn’t Ovi’s real build, he didn’t want to share that because he’s afraid it will get nerfed.”

As if there could be some incredibly godly variant (since the community as a whole has probably tried most of the logical BM variants there are) that warranted such a silly sentiment.

Bottom line, so what if you don’t want your build nerfed. If it’s broken, it will get fixed eventually. Until then, if that’s going to be the excuse for people so that they can compete for “Community’s Most Useless Participant,” then I don’t feel they deserve any of my attention or respect when they try to share information (without actually sharing anything of value for fear of nerf).

Anyhow, back to the OP, hopefully these prices drop sooner than later. Patience may be a virtue, but it doesn’t keep waiting from being frustrating lol.

I’m willing to bet its a BM Bunker variant or a Trap Build one…

I’m positive it is. I’d be willing to bet more than anything that the most unique thing about it is an uncommon mixture of amulet/jewel, or rune choice, that works well from the perspective of the person who “invented” it.

Xsorus.2507:

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

I mean, obviously. The point is, that going back to the forum post for that, apparently “that isn’t Ovi’s real build, he didn’t want to share that because he’s afraid it will get nerfed.”

As if there could be some incredibly godly variant (since the community as a whole has probably tried most of the logical BM variants there are) that warranted such a silly sentiment.

Bottom line, so what if you don’t want your build nerfed. If it’s broken, it will get fixed eventually. Until then, if that’s going to be the excuse for people so that they can compete for “Community’s Most Useless Participant,” then I don’t feel they deserve any of my attention or respect when they try to share information (without actually sharing anything of value for fear of nerf).

Anyhow, back to the OP, hopefully these prices drop sooner than later. Patience may be a virtue, but it doesn’t keep waiting from being frustrating lol.

Zenith.7301:

jcbroe.4329:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Who are “most rangers?”

I’m just curious, I have only watched Battosai and Symbolic, and they’re both from the EU meta I believe. I haven’t watched Gasmask in awhile but I doubt he switched away from traps.
But most of the BM rangers I’ve come in contact with are running axe/torch and sword/dagger with offhand training, so I’m really curious if there is somebody I could observe (can’t really observe myself unless I record, and would want to watch higher tier footage than myself) running the shortbow.

Maybe Blu caught it on one of his streams, I’ll have to check since I’m behind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn3tUnkCDAk

Another guy you can follow.

I really don’t like that build lol. Especially since Ovi “didn’t share his actual build for fear of it being nerfed,” as I remember reading in the original topic that video was posted. Not that the build doesn’t have it’s strengths, I just have a general gripe with the foundation of that vid.

I mean, if the premise of the series is to feature a player with the build they use in competitive with details on why and how it’s effective, it should probably be the build the person uses, and not some vanilla build they come up with because they’re afraid of sharing information with the community on the grounds that the build they invented is so OP it might be nerfed.

There’s just such a mix of paranoia and self-serving ego behind it that I can’t take it seriously lol.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Who are “most rangers?”

I’m just curious, I have only watched Battosai and Symbolic, and they’re both from the EU meta I believe. I haven’t watched Gasmask in awhile but I doubt he switched away from traps.
But most of the BM rangers I’ve come in contact with are running axe/torch and sword/dagger with offhand training, so I’m really curious if there is somebody I could observe (can’t really observe myself unless I record, and would want to watch higher tier footage than myself) running the shortbow.

Maybe Blu caught it on one of his streams, I’ll have to check since I’m behind.

Furajir.3815:

jcbroe.4329:

I have yet to see where Apothecary is better in PVE/WvW. In tpvp, Apothecary (named shaman’s there because keeping names static makes too much sense) is one of the strongest builds rangers have available.

But in PvE, where bleeds stack to max on bosses, and without traps, rangers are a bit lacking in AoE sources against mobs.

Where as right now, I’m in a nice knights/zerker mix with ~3k toughness and power, with 50% crit chance and damage, with piercing arrows so I can strafe around mobs hitting multiple enemies, and power based so I can still be relevant against bosses.

So unless Apothecary has some use in dungeons (which I could care less about, and I doubt I’ll ever do a dungeon run), I haven’t seen any instance (outside of s/tpvp) other than maybe roaming in WvW (and personally I don’t play WvW for 1v1/small skirmishes, since I get enough of that in s/tpvp) where Apothecary outperforms my current setup.

It’s sad, because I love ranger regen builds. But I’m personally finding that it doesn’t equal out to me. Though that’s only my impression and I could be wrong, which is why I’m posting in this thread; I’ve been following it to see if it would compel me to splurge for Apothecary. But at this point, I’m still convinced I should hold off and keep piling up money, so that if something interesting gets changed next patch and a new build comes into play that’s fun/viable, I’ll have money to drop on it if I need/want to.

Obviously an apothecary build isn’t meant for zerg surfing and grouping, it’s meant for 1vx and skirmishing, which is why you prefer your sb setup, two diff builds for diff play styles.

WvW aside, does it have it’s place in PvE?

I completely go through all PvE content solo.

And to add to WvW, I only solo, and end up joining up with groups that end up being about 20 large, but I’m usually only with a few other people taking supply camps or unprotected towers.

I’m just trying to get as much information as possible before I make an ultimate decision, because in the future I might not have the money for Apothecary that I do now, so I’m trying to take the path I’ll regret the least lol.

I have yet to see where Apothecary is better in PVE/WvW. In tpvp, Apothecary (named shaman’s there because keeping names static makes too much sense) is one of the strongest builds rangers have available.

But in PvE, where bleeds stack to max on bosses, and without traps, rangers are a bit lacking in AoE sources against mobs.

Where as right now, I’m in a nice knights/zerker mix with ~3k toughness and power, with 50% crit chance and damage, with piercing arrows so I can strafe around mobs hitting multiple enemies, and power based so I can still be relevant against bosses.

So unless Apothecary has some use in dungeons (which I could care less about, and I doubt I’ll ever do a dungeon run), I haven’t seen any instance (outside of s/tpvp) other than maybe roaming in WvW (and personally I don’t play WvW for 1v1/small skirmishes, since I get enough of that in s/tpvp) where Apothecary outperforms my current setup.

It’s sad, because I love ranger regen builds. But I’m personally finding that it doesn’t equal out to me. Though that’s only my impression and I could be wrong, which is why I’m posting in this thread; I’ve been following it to see if it would compel me to splurge for Apothecary. But at this point, I’m still convinced I should hold off and keep piling up money, so that if something interesting gets changed next patch and a new build comes into play that’s fun/viable, I’ll have money to drop on it if I need/want to.

For damage, no.
For utility, yes.

Nice, constructive thread.

Almost everything has been said. I think the biggest change from guild wars 1 to guild wars 2 was team comp diversity and build diversity.

This game lacks the build diversity for classes to be able to directly hard counter other classes, which is made worse by there being only one game mode. People have already figured out the scoring process and the strategy to maintain the largest score gain possible (which is literally holding a point as long as possible, while teams attrition each other over control of the points).

If this is to remain the only game mode (it shouldn’t) the linear scoring has to go, or killing other players has to be valued at higher than 5 points, so that damage specs have more value.

I think this game still has a chance to be more competitive then, idk, Gears of War Judgement? (Similar situation; started out poorly competitive, slowly got better, but no community left for it to matter).

The first thing is balance AND build diversity. We can not approach a competitive scene without every class having at least 3 viable builds (offense, defense, balanced), and there has to be hard counters and niche roles, so that people are forced to have to make a wise decision about team comp.

Not sure how Troll Unguent is a problem for classes with access to poison. And if people don’t think they should be taking the hard counter to a healing build (33% less healing. Lingering Curse in guild wars 1 was nerfed down to 20% for being too effective, but there were also dedicated healers, etc, but still) to deal with a healing build, then I’m not sure what to tell them.

Also, all of the evades? Granted there are a lot, but the sword/dagger combo only provides 2.5 seconds of evade at a time in total, and most people don’t run shortbow, especially if they don’t have torch somewhere on the build since that would sacrifice burning; one of the highest damage sources. But if a person were to run shortbow for whatever reason, that is another 3/4s evade.
If you want to burn Lightning Reflexes (I don’t even use it personally, Signet of Renewal is better) for a dodge for whatever reason, that is another 3/4s evade.

So you would have to sacrifice quite a bit to build up to those 5s of evasion off of weapon skills. But the typical build is more like axe/torch and sword/dagger, with Signet of Renewal, and Signet of the Wild, with an open utility slot that people have been opting to take Muddy Terrain or Frost Trap in. Which this build only has 2.5s of evade total from weapon skills.

Again, an engineer can handle this because of how constant and high their pressure can be, and rangers can’t really strip boons, so an HGH can just stack up might and get stronger and stronger and become more of a threat. They can kite the pet with the access to cripple and chill. And they can consistently cleanse because of 409.

There really isn’t a better counter to the ranger in the game. Again, a good phantasm mesmer, but they have to be much more mindful of getting conditions on them since their cleansing is lacking.

Still, this build has existed since basically launch, and has gotten worse over time. But it only received complaints when top teams started using them and popularizing them. So while I have my own reservations about the ranger that I doubt the devs will ever listen to (and the ranger community who enjoys their pets will remain happy), I have to say that overused != overpowered.

Instead of everybody crying nerf nerf nerf all the time, people should be going: “buff buff buff.” Buff my class so I can deal with this other class or this build. Instead people say nerf, because they feel like their class is the perfect class and everything should be on its level. When in reality there class might actually be deserving of a buff to help compete against more powerful builds/classes.
OR, the class is a complete hard counter to their class, and they lost the build wars so now they’re kitten about it and are crying nerf. Either way, nerfing everything is not helpful for development in any way. You want to add more options, not remove existing ones.

Daecollo.9578:

You can switch your pet when the 3 conditions go to it, then they are gone forever. Most rangers do this and combine with Healing Spring to be almost completely immune to conditions, doing this also gives you quickness.

I don’t think this is however intended, if you switch pets, the remaining conditions it had should effect the ranger.

Why shouldn’t it be intended? It’s like using a skill that removes 3 conditions on a 20s cooldown (15s traited). Albeit, the cooldown makes it strong, but its an issue with the cooldown, not with how the trait functions, especially with the lack of any true cleanses other than healing spring.

Eurantien.4632:

jcbroe.4329:

The overall basis is that in a competitive environment, the majority of the damage should be coming directly from a players actions, and not the actions of an AI that requires little management other than position by hitting singular keys and letting the AI handle the rest.

So yes, skill vs skill all the way.

Are you kidding? Little AI management? If I use a raven most of its damage is the F2 and I NEED that F2 to hit. So I cast F2, they dodge, I have to hit F3 then F1 to get them back on target and not use F2. If a mesmer uses disortion, ele mist form, warrior block or endure pain, guardian block, ranger dodge spam, necro DS, engi elixir s or thrown r, thief invis or evade spam, I have to do the same thing. If they are good I have to bait their dodges and blocks and whatever by casting F2 and cancelling F2. Not to mention that any burst I want to do is going to come from hitting with 1 pet, swapping pets then hitting you with whatever F2 they got. But what’s that? Oh yeah. If you pet swap and use F2 the pet will immediatley F2 whatever is in front of it. So now I have to F4, F1, and then F2. However, that has given the target enough time to do something because they know something is up (because I like to stun before a pet swap). So they do one of the many things listed above so now I have to use F3, F1 again to get my pet back on track.

Now If I am fighting a decent player they will try to hop over hedges, up and down stairs, ledges, and pretty much use whatever terrain is available to kite my pet. So if they do that then I have to call my pet off with F3 wait till they get off of whatever and F1 again.

What about the synergy with my own skills? If I knock them away then I can’t use F2 so I got to use F1 to cancel it. From there it is just responding to what they do. I use my pets 3 commands more than I use my own skills.

If you think BM is easy, on point it is. But when you are fighting 1 v 2 or off point it is not easy.

I don’t use birds.

I use wolf/jaguar. Wolf manages itself pretty well. However, it’s still hitting a singular key and then letting the pets position change, then hitting another key.

Jaguars are a bit different because the F2 is a larger part of the damage. But usually landing the chill then switching to the sword for perma cripple while the stealth jaguar hits is sufficient.

I didn’t say it was no skill. But coming from guild wars 1 heroes, where you could flag them around and micromanage their skillbar, and then playing ranger since launch, the level of any potential difficulty pet management has in this game doesn’t really phase me. Again, I’ve been playing the same class and the same build since like launch now, so maybe a new players input to the class would be less biased. But I don’t personally feel challenged by the pet system at all.

Daishi.6027:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

Condi even struggles, pet swap when it’s about to die, and the damage during TU won’t do much, and is often out healed. Also unless the c/d starts after the end of the duration (which I don’t remember if it does and I can’t play since I haven’t been home for a while) that’s up time of every 15 seconds in between of which is being healed for rather major amounts.

So unless you can kill them within 15 seconds with all their doges or can over power TU’s healing. Enjoy being pew pew pewed to death.

Poison and interrupts are two things that need to be utilized.

Trolls heals 10 times (1 per second) for ~900 each. With poison that’s only ~600. If somebody isn’t doing enough damage to make the heal trivial, then they are getting outplayed, and it’s that simple.

Yes cuz every class has a long lasting poison.

Sure everyone knows like phant mes it’s useless team fight. So yeah if someone else puts poison on for you I guess it’s gg but 2v1 against it is almost /gg anyways.

Although true it would make it easier or condi specs.

I already mentioned that engineers are strong counters though lol, so of course I’m going to make a reference to an option a class has that is a strong counter.

People have also claimed having lots of success with phantasm mesmers against rangers, but as you mentioned, that mesmer build doesn’t bring much of what a team prefers.

But hey, maybe it’s time for a metashift.

Oh happy days meta shift where we have 3 1v1 builds and 2 team fight carries. This is gonna be great!!! Can’t wait!!!

But seriously should the game not be pushing more for skill vs skill not counter build vs counter build. I get every game will have a meta but what’s the point of skill when I can close my eyes and face roll classes I’m “designed to” face roll?

I mean ineptitude aside anyone can lose if they completely dearp out and do somthing dumb like tunnel vision their mini map.

Yes it should be, and I have my own thoughts about how poor the implementation of pets are. My ideas are a bit extreme and the ranger community doesn’t like them, but I don’t feel the pet should be doing anywhere the amount of damage it does as a summary, not without traiting for it.

Instead, it should be doing a static amount of damage without the possibility of critting, and then adding points to BM increase the static amount of damage that the pet does.

To compensate, the pet should now have a much higher utility focus, by providing meaningful boons and utility options on a reasonable cooldown, that can be made extremely more useful with traits, with a new grandmaster trait that would give the pets a static crit chance and crit damage value, so that rangers speccing for BM would have to choose between healing or damage.

Of course, this is also assuming that the amount of power damage carried by the pet is added back into the damage potential of the ranger.

The overall basis is that in a competitive environment, the majority of the damage should be coming directly from a players actions, and not the actions of an AI that requires little management other than position by hitting singular keys and letting the AI handle the rest.

So yes, skill vs skill all the way.

Lopez.7369:

jcbroe.4329:

I was thinking specifically poison fields, which necros really don’t have access to (the one utility that they could take isn’t preferred). So more so that comment is aimed at an engi, and an engi does have an easier time than a necro.

Necros can do more interesting things than that, like keep the pet almost constantly chilled/crippled/weakened because it doesn’t dodge, so you can kite much easier and take relatively less damage then a person who would otherwise have to dedicate single target movement reduction to the pet.

Also, it isn’t “countered” by empathic bond, as the pet is eating all of that damage, and the ranger requires the pet to be alive to actually kill you. So you are either killing the pet and alleviating the damage you’re taking, or the ranger switches pets and puts the pet out of position, giving you more chances to kite the new pet, with a new 20s window for your AoE conditions to kill the the new pet and the player at the same time.

Pressure pressure pressure.

I admit with necromancers most of the problems could be fixed by giving the class another significant damage DOT so bleed cleansing isn’t absolutely debilitating. Engineer’s access to burning is why it fares so much better. It’s all up to the dark DOT the developers already announced for necromancer.

Either way, my point is rangers don’t have it nearly as bad against conditions as they make it seem. If you want to see classes that do have it bad, look at mesmer, warrior or even engineer.

No, it definitely isn’t as bad as other classes. But rangers aren’t entirely alleviated of their conditions, and they can’t do it on a whim either. So condition builds could literally be effective against a ranger 10s at a time, because for 10s, a ranger will be unable to remove them, and if they are removed, they go straight to the pet, with the potential to kill the pet, or to cripple/chill/weaken them, making them ineffective.

I would never argue that the BM is a weak build. But I just don’t truly think that people understand how effective constant pressure can be against them.

For instance, phantasm mesmers can be really rough as well. Rangers lack AoE damage, so a phantasm mesmer can get 3 phantasms up and then just completely outdamage the healing rangers have, and rangers can’t do much against them as long as the mesmer doesn’t get close enough to get hit by a splitblade and can dodge slow moving torches.

But phantasm mesmers aren’t being run because they don’t provide much for a team, even though countering the back node holder and taking it could be a potential example of a phantasm mesmer contributing to a teams victory at least.

So there are options out there, people just don’t want to use them, or think there are better options. The meta for seems to have a midpoint team fight centered strategy, so countering back node holders doesn’t seem to take to priority on team comps.

Eurantien.4632:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

Condi even struggles, pet swap when it’s about to die, and the damage during TU won’t do much, and is often out healed. Also unless the c/d starts after the end of the duration (which I don’t remember if it does and I can’t play since I haven’t been home for a while) that’s up time of every 15 seconds in between of which is being healed for rather major amounts.

So unless you can kill them within 15 seconds with all their doges or can over power TU’s healing. Enjoy being pew pew pewed to death.

Poison and interrupts are two things that need to be utilized.

Trolls heals 10 times (1 per second) for ~900 each. With poison that’s only ~600. If somebody isn’t doing enough damage to make the heal trivial, then they are getting outplayed, and it’s that simple.

Yes cuz every class has a long lasting poison.

Sure everyone knows like phant mes it’s useless team fight. So yeah if someone else puts poison on for you I guess it’s gg but 2v1 against it is almost /gg anyways.

Although true it would make it easier or condi specs.

I already mentioned that engineers are strong counters though lol, so of course I’m going to make a reference to an option a class has that is a strong counter.

People have also claimed having lots of success with phantasm mesmers against rangers, but as you mentioned, that mesmer build doesn’t bring much of what a team prefers.

But hey, maybe it’s time for a metashift.

At least Iberserker will hit for AoE what does BM ranger bring to team fights?

True, and Greatsword auto attack pierces, AND has cone knockback.

BMs bring nothing to a team but the ability to sit on a node.

The biggest issue isn’t BM rangers, it’s conquest mode. If it were a more deathmatch or GvG (assault the keep) style game mode, I doubt BM’s would be considered as strong as they are right now (they of course would be strong), when a higher priority gets put on damage output for completing the objective.

Daishi.6027:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

Condi even struggles, pet swap when it’s about to die, and the damage during TU won’t do much, and is often out healed. Also unless the c/d starts after the end of the duration (which I don’t remember if it does and I can’t play since I haven’t been home for a while) that’s up time of every 15 seconds in between of which is being healed for rather major amounts.

So unless you can kill them within 15 seconds with all their doges or can over power TU’s healing. Enjoy being pew pew pewed to death.

Poison and interrupts are two things that need to be utilized.

Trolls heals 10 times (1 per second) for ~900 each. With poison that’s only ~600. If somebody isn’t doing enough damage to make the heal trivial, then they are getting outplayed, and it’s that simple.

Yes cuz every class has a long lasting poison.

Sure everyone knows like phant mes it’s useless team fight. So yeah if someone else puts poison on for you I guess it’s gg but 2v1 against it is almost /gg anyways.

Although true it would make it easier or condi specs.

I already mentioned that engineers are strong counters though lol, so of course I’m going to make a reference to an option a class has that is a strong counter.

People have also claimed having lots of success with phantasm mesmers against rangers, but as you mentioned, that mesmer build doesn’t bring much of what a team prefers.

But hey, maybe it’s time for a metashift.

Daishi.6027:

Condi even struggles, pet swap when it’s about to die, and the damage during TU won’t do much, and is often out healed. Also unless the c/d starts after the end of the duration (which I don’t remember if it does and I can’t play since I haven’t been home for a while) that’s up time of every 15 seconds in between of which is being healed for rather major amounts.

So unless you can kill them within 15 seconds with all their doges or can over power TU’s healing. Enjoy being pew pew pewed to death.

Poison and interrupts are two things that need to be utilized.

Trolls heals 10 times (1 per second) for ~900 each. With poison that’s only ~600. If somebody isn’t doing enough damage to make the heal trivial, then they are getting outplayed, and it’s that simple.

Aquin.3192:

They must realize things are out of hand… the power vs energy invested is just off balance.

Id like to see the following :

1) shorter range on pets
2) ranger responsible for all pet actions other than maybe a measly auto attack ( no auto jump/knockdown on you make them initiate it )
3) pet dmg reflect ranger specs – if the pet hits hard the ranger dies quick to compensate
4) less ability to switch out pet instantly under duress for salvation or buff/benefit maybe even one pet
What do you guys think of that?

I think the community is thankful you aren’t part of the games balancing process.

Lopez.7369:

Dropping conditions on a Healing Spring is actually the worst thing any condition build can do.

For necromancers, the heavy bleed abilities on scepter and dagger have 10-second or 25-second cooldowns. That’s countered by Emphatic Bond. Most of the bleed and all of the poison poison comes from auto-attack, which is good but not good enough to take down someone in a reasonable amount of time.

I was thinking specifically poison fields, which necros really don’t have access to (the one utility that they could take isn’t preferred). So more so that comment is aimed at an engi, and an engi does have an easier time than a necro.

Necros can do more interesting things than that, like keep the pet almost constantly chilled/crippled/weakened because it doesn’t dodge, so you can kite much easier and take relatively less damage then a person who would otherwise have to dedicate single target movement reduction to the pet.

Also, it isn’t “countered” by empathic bond, as the pet is eating all of that damage, and the ranger requires the pet to be alive to actually kill you. So you are either killing the pet and alleviating the damage you’re taking, or the ranger switches pets and puts the pet out of position, giving you more chances to kite the new pet, with a new 20s window for your AoE conditions to kill the the new pet and the player at the same time.

Pressure pressure pressure.

I’m not sure why people haven’t realized that conditions are the counter to rangers. Kind of like every other bunker build.

But anyhow, rangers main condition removal comes from Empathic Bond, which transfers the conditions to the pet. 3 conditions per 10 seconds. Now, when this trait hasn’t activated, the ranger is taking damage. When the 10s mark is hit, the pet is now taking all of the damage, which kills the rangers damage source.

Signet of Renewal passively heals 1 condition from the ranger every 10s. Every other class running a bunker spec has a similar, if not stronger, option. The active for this takes all conditions and puts them on the pet.

Healing Spring heals 1 condition per pulse, and pulses 5 times, but it is also the heal skill and on a high cooldown. Drop AoE conditions on it to cancel out the benefits of a ranger standing in it.

Basically, any necro or engineer that is good at keeping their conditions on a target is going to kill a ranger. Engineers even more so than necros because of their access to burning on top of poison (poison being the bunkers bane condition).

If a person playing either of the mentioned classes cannot kill a ranger, or at the very least make the ranger give up the node, then it is a cut and dry learn to play issue.

I don’t understand how everybody went from thinking rangers were easy kills at lauch to now calling them OP, when the build has been the same since launch but received nothing but nerfs (Empathic Bond specifically, which used to be a full cleanse and not even transfer conditions to the pet).

Vox Hollow.2736:

I am happy sPvP/tPvP Rangers are having such good experiences. This is a good thing for our class. But in your enthusiasm to reinforce Ranger’s good position in format, you might be overreaching a bit and glossing over some valid concerns in another.

This and so much more of this.

Rangers bring little to a group (besides Healing Spring) that other classes can’t bring. Rangers really lack in group utility options. As far as damage goes from a power perspective, with the rangers lack of strong self boon support, group boon support, or group utility, logical design would dictate rangers to be the groups DPS. But the game offers better/more preferred classes than rangers at that as well, kind of leaving rangers without a niche in a group.

As a matter of fact, the same is true, to a degree, for tpvp, where typically the ranger is the back node holder (playing alone on the point) while the rest of the team fights up on mid, unless your team specifically asks you to go help in a team fight, or you back cap the enemy team (usually done alone as well).

And if your team asks you to go to assist in a team fight, its usually more so for a numbers advantage and to catch and rez people, and not what you can do (like mesmers dropping a time warp, or even moa’ing the bunker, or a nade engi spamming nades, or an ele AoEing, etc).

Spirits should offer that missing group utility, but their benefits aren’t strong enough and they die too easily. If their function is to remain in its current iteration, the least that should be done is increasing the range to 900 or even 1200. That way they can be dropped out of harms way and still provide their functions.

Anyhow, I’ve rambled enough now.

Drop a blind field or use stability.

Or if you don’t have either of those options, just DPS the ranger down.

/end thread

Puandro.3245:

jcbroe.4329:

I’m not sure what you mean by not having viability in pvp before, since the builds being used are the same builds that have been used in pvp since around launch.

In pvp, the class really hasn’t changed at all. It’s other classes changes coupled with top players popularizing certain builds (which is even more prevalent with spectator mode and shoutcasted tournaments).

I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m just really not sure where the idea that rangers weren’t viable in pvp came from, since they’ve always been viable.

Rangers werent viable when SB could be side strafed for 0 damage, pets couldnt hit moving targets. Also some other classes have been toned down. GS used to suck also. Really it doesnt seem like much but in the grand scheme of things a lot has changed to make rangers what they are today.

Specifically, the BM build hasn’t changed at all except maybe the pets being a tad more reliable. But 0/0/30/10/30 was always strong on the node.

I would actually go as far as to say we’ve been weakened since the Empathic Bond nerf. No more free full cleanses every 10s (that weren’t transferred to the pet).

It just depends on the definition of strong. But rangers have always made for good point holders.

The shortbow change definitely had more of a significant impact on the trap build (I’m only mentioning the two current preferred meta setups in tpvp), but again, Rangers are much more susceptible (and therefore weaker against) condition builds than they used to be.

I’m not sure what you mean by not having viability in pvp before, since the builds being used are the same builds that have been used in pvp since around launch.

In pvp, the class really hasn’t changed at all. It’s other classes changes coupled with top players popularizing certain builds (which is even more prevalent with spectator mode and shoutcasted tournaments).

I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m just really not sure where the idea that rangers weren’t viable in pvp came from, since they’ve always been viable.

Manekk.6981:

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

Not even going to comment on the accuracy of prior posts.

But any who, the OP idea is a welcome change. It would mesh much better with the idea of having to trait to focus, and would allow the potential for much more build diversity.

This was just a quick thought on making the ranger into a ranger that can choose to be a beastmaster

I would welcome having some percentage of the damage taken from my pet and given to me in a heartbeat, however I wouldn’t want a flat pet stat nerf making all non BM pets have even more terrible survival than now just a reduction in their damage.

I didn’t mean all prior posts lol. I meant a single particular one, but wasn’t saying that as to not single a person out and get infracted because I can’t be nice about things.

The liking of the concept still remains though that if damage was split between the player and the pet differently (favoring the player more) and then speccing into Beastmastery provided a higher benefit to the pet, it would help make power specs more viable without being so dependent on the pet.

Not everybody wants to play a pet damage focused build, I personally would love a player damage/pet support build. Traits like compassionate training shows that they have the potential to exist but in practice the pets RNG and lack of meaningful F2 skills on most pets from a utility standpoint (as in, most f2 skills are damage based, and certain support based ones have extremely low durations on boons).

What I can add to the idea, since your right that pet survival would be affected too much, would be to have the pets base toughness and vitality remain high, but reduce their base power/precision. Then, the trait points add 20 points to power/precision (and please for the love of god condition damage as well, so we can get some stronger condition pressure from our pets), but only add 10 to toughness and vitality.

I think that might work.

There are 8 classes in the game, and 5 slots in a party. Somebody is getting left out.

Just throwing that out there for general information.

Rangers are considered top tier at pvp, and the game isn’t at the point where all classes excel evenly at everything. Give it time (yes, I know, more time, but it’s the only real option).

Yes, it’s always been AoE.

Yes, thieves offhand pistol blind field is the safest way to stomp a ranger for a thief (assuming no other environment factors).

Interesting. Kind of shows that my SotH on my BM build isn’t necessary if I’m running dogs, opening up that slot for another utility.

Not even going to comment on the accuracy of prior posts.

But any who, the OP idea is a welcome change. It would mesh much better with the idea of having to trait to focus, and would allow the potential for much more build diversity.

I wasn’t commenting on how people chose to play the game. It is an undeniable fact that the rangers primary choice of weapon in guild wars 1 was a bow, and that in order to be proficient with another weapon, you had to pick up a secondary class in order to do so.

Just because you didn’t like it or didn’t choose to play it that way, it doesn’t mean that the bow is any less the primary weapon. If you chose to use another weapon or chose not to take any bow skills on the bar, it didn’t make the rangers natural primary weapon magically change from something other than a bow.

Also, PvE wasn’t the only content in the game. Interupt rangers were a huge part of the meta for the majority of the life cycle of guild wars 1 competitive play. The game was balanced primarily around PvP, just like it is now. Which is why every state of the game has a pvp focus, and why all of the livestreams are done between the pvp devs and high level pvp players.

Bob.8456:

I love 1 handed sword, with either dagger or warhorn depending on the situation (whether or not I need to buff myself/others), and shortbow.

I just disable the autoattack on the sword and it’s just fine. I know a lot of people complain about having to do this to get around the dodge issues, but it’s never been much of a problem for me since I play a lot of Street Fighter so I am comfortable with accurately timed button presses. The trick is to not spam the key more than you need so you can always pull off a dodge when you must and not get stuck in the startup for the next attack. It does no good to disable auto attack if you are spamming the key.

Finally, as for the Aragorn business it is really quite simple. When designing Dungeons and Dragons (of course the granddaddy of all RPGs) the Ranger class was admittedly a direct rip off of Aragorn in LotR. They literally based the archetype and abilities off of Aragorn, and called it a Ranger just because that’s what he was. Since it can be argued that every RPG since is derivative of DnD, all Ranger classes are derived in some way from Aragorn. The notion of an all ranged Ranger class is in fact non-traditional and not the other way around. Aragorn is the prototype.

A close second that is always mentioned is the legendary Ranger who is also not known for using bows(but is known for his pet): Drizzt Do’Urden.

Guild Wars 2 is a derivative of Guild Wars 1 in which rangers primary weapons were bows, and the use of another weapon required a secondary profession to be picked up and specced into.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Can anybody really be mad at guild wars 1 ranger veterans who used a bow for almost a decade as a primary weapon to expect the same level of efficiency with a bow as the class with the same name?

Not to mention that there is lore connecting the games, and the professions are based of the lore from the first game and the 250 years in between. Meaning that rangers, for 250 years, forgot how to use the bow well, forgot how to work with their pet as efficiently, forgot how to summon their strong spirits, and forgot how to actively remedy conditions from themselves. On top of that, they gained no real proficiency at anything.

So now things are screwed up from an expectation AND a lore perspective. So as much as people want to get on here and tell people they are wrong for wanting a ranger to be ranged base, those people have every reason and right to be disappointed with how the class has turned out versus where the lore shows it came from.

If there was something worthwhile to do with all that glory, it wouldn’t be so bad. Heck, make level 80 only armor with the same stats (but different appearances) as karma vendors for a total of 600,000 a set (100,000 per piece). That’s still an overkill amount but the point remains, especially after seeing this curve, that this glory grind needs to be given an incentive beyond mere rank.

OGDeadHead.8326:

@jcbroe,

That wasn’t an excuse, I have no need to toss out an excuse for anything – it wasn’t I that designed or programmed this game, lol! Just pointing at how the game works currently.

I get other rangers pets send after me all the time – I deal with it, one way or another.

*

The thing is, ever since the last patch came out, a minor crowd of ppl have been going wild on the forums about how OP the ranger is, which is funny since nothing of real importance changed with this patch for us, so I can’t really tell why the hell there’s been this major focus on rangers all of a sudden. A few ppl start being very vocal about this, and all of a sudden a lot of other players follow suit in ‘trakittenalk of the month’, without even knowing what they’re talking about. It’s pathetic.

Tell me, what really changed for us rangers in pvp prior to april 30:th patch? So far noone has been able to actually point to anything that changed us to the “gods” some claim us to be.

The only thing that happened was that we had a looong list of changes (most of which were changes to our pets), and ppl go by the quantity of changes, and doesn’t even read or understand exactly what those changes means in practice.

No I agree. I was vocal about this stuff on guru back in around October, but nothing changed, and nothing has changed. The same build has been used since launch lol.

There is lots of rage going on about it, and my assumption is that the change took eles out of focus, so people went to the next thing that bugged them.

I just wanted to share my opinion because I’ve said everything I’ve said before, but it’s getting attention again and I wanted to reassert my opinion.

Also, I know you aren’t making excuses lol it was more of a general comment towards ANet.

But alas, I’m going to circle around to the point that the pet leash range was already acknowledged by the devs, so regardless of what goes on in this thread, they’ve already said they know and they’re looking into it. So we just have to rely on the fact that they made the game and they’re in charge.

As for the rest of this thread, it was nice that the debate at least went constructively. Ultimately we’re all just defending our opinions, but it was better than it turning into a rage fest.

Also, if I even have to reply to the person who thinks that you have to kill somebody(since node holding builds are designed to hold nodes and not die, instead of killing things) to hold a node, I’m going to get infracted.

OGDeadHead.8326:

If our pets aren’t supposed to be a force to be reckoned with, you might just as well get rid of them, and rebuild the ranger class completely. They don’t hit nearly often enough vs a good player that knows the flaws in their ai.

Is it annoying to have a pet constantly chase you and try and take a bite out of your kitten For sure, and it kitten well should be!
Stealth is annoying as hell also, so are the illusions/clones/phantasms of mesmers, and guardians sanctuary skill and so on so forth.

That’s flawed logic. If a pet is poorly programmed with its ai and is only expected to hit 1/10 times, and the programmer intended its DPS to be 1000, they wouldn’t go about fixing the problem by making the pet hit for 10k damage because it rarely ever hits, they would fix it by fixing the ai so that it works as intended.

Bad AI shouldn’t create excuses, and there are no excuses for bad AI.

Writetyper.1985:

jcbroe.4329:

If I see one more Aragorn reference I swear I’m going to burn those books.

That ONE reference does not equate to a strong argument. I mean, you could reference the military, even ranger Smith from Yogi Bear. But always always ALWAYS people want to use the defense of Aragorn for this game.

That is only the basis step in an inductive argument. It does not account for every other MMO ever that ensured that rangers were top performers at ranged weaponry.

Fact: If ANet calls a class rangers and markets them with the description that has already been quoted in this thread, then that class should not have a lackluster feel to any aspect of its ranged gameplay when compared to any other class. Due to the design of the game, yes, it’s melee should outdamage it’s ranged.

Stop with the Aragorn though. If Aragorn is the ONLY “ranger” people continue to use as an argument, then maybe, amongst the sea of other ranger examples, Aragorn was doing it wrong. Variety (large sample size) is the key to a sound argument.

It doesn’t matter whether you hate the aragorn or not, ranged combatant is not what “Ranger” means. I mean let’s go to the most base level here, a kittening dictionary.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ranger

1, 4, 5 and maybe even 3 by a stretch of the imagination support that defenition of ranger. Not a single defenition anywhere supports “Ranged combatant”, because that’s not what a kittening Ranger is. The Aragorn thing is just an analogy to explain it.

Manekk.6981:

I think it’s way simpler than that, it’s in the name people don’t understand what it means and they repeatedly show it.

epic xddddd i cant into english either xd

No, that was actually the entire point I was getting at, as it’s been a circular argument since release, of people going:
“wiki definition”
“Aragorn”
“WIKI DEFINITION”
“ARAGORN”
“GRRRR”
“RAWR”

It just really needs to stop. I wasn’t going for any hidden intention, I was literally saying that it’s time to use a different reference besides Aragorn. I’m fond of the ranger Smith from Yogi Bear one. He’s a ranger too, and he shouts, just like us, at an animal, just like us.
Strong correlation lol.

OGDeadHead.8326:

So leash is too long in pvp. Well, it might be. What if you were to use “Guard” on one node, and you yourself were to head to another node, that wouldn’t be ok either? Is mesmer portal ok?

(Speaking of mesmers, what’s the leash ranger on their phantasm and illusions? Just curious, since I’ve had them follow me a great distance while the mesmer himself sets off in another direction.)

If splitting up pet on one location, and ranger on one location, that’s basically half a character on each location. Or are people honestly claiming that ranger without pet is as strong as other classes? Or that the pet alone without the ranger is as strong as a real class?

And again about the pet being able to attack stuff while you are out of combat. I honestly never thought of this, but if this is indeed how it works, it’s a bug and should be fixed asap – simple as that. Can’t say I’ve seen it though, will have to check more carefully.

There’s nothing wrong with using guard to do this in my opinion. You’re burning a cooldown to create the function and sacrificing a utility slot you could’ve used for something else. Same opinion on mesmer portal. Sure, it’s a powerful utility, but it has to be utilized properly and shares a cooldown with some of the elites in the game, and mesmers are sacrificing a slot to take this skill over something else.

I wouldn’t be able to comment on the clone/phantasm range until I test it myself. But I can get an answer on that, and if there is a correlation, then I see where you’re going with it (not being a unique design for the ranger, and it being a balancing factor, which I would be obligated to agree if phantasms have a crazy leash range as well).

And no, I don’t think I’m claiming the pet is as strong as a class. But I do find the ability to do 2 different things on 2 different nodes at one time a little too efficient considering that if utilized appropriately it requires no cooldown and minimum micromanagement.

But getting past that a little, in the last SoTG, the devs acknowledged (in their own way) that it is a potential problem, and was on their list of things to keep on eye on (I’m probably paraphrasing).

So no matter how loud we are all with our opinions, it won’t matter much in the long run lol.

Leo G.4501:

I’d have to ask then, what good is an AI NPC that can be easily outsmarted? They currently are pretty easy to outsmart, you just run around in a manner so they can’t hit you, outrun them or kill them. It’s hardly ‘having a bot play for you’ since relying on it will basically get your slower results than any other method in the game and said bot cannot be precisely controlled at all even within 1200 range.

If a change should be made, it probably should be to keep both Ranger and Pet in combat when when either is in combat. The main advantage of Ranger is that they can do 2 things at once (one of those things at less efficiency though) and I’d hate for that to change.

But I feel this issue is more a concern with the whole ‘out of combat’ mechanic to begin with. It feels tacky that players can just exit combat and refill an infinite amount of times with no limit. A good balance for WvW would likely be to just nerf all instances of ‘out of combat’ recovery by putting a timer on how often you can do so. That’d automatically fix the pet issue, as it’d be impossible to constantly shift in and out of combat, but also cull other annoying issues like how long-distance jumps + cleanse is pretty much a full heal.

The point is that it is a node capture system. You can sit on a point, tell the pet to attack something, then literally just dodge around and not die. It doesn’t have to kill them, you just have to not die, and the pet the entire time is pressuring the person without you having to really do anything.

You can literally push F1, then dodge around, use our weapon evades, swap with energy sigil, use more evades and dodges, and repeat, while sitting on a node wracking up points, while the pet when it hits is capable of doing up to about 2k damage.

Granted it isn’t the only bunker in the game, and there are other bunker classes (particularly guardians) that have other means of just sitting on a node and keeping it from being neutralized, but if those guardians were to attempt to do damage, it would be another ability they would have to juggle along with staying alive.

Rangers on the other hand can sic a pet on the target that does consistently strong damage, while the player can just keep themselves alive without even having the necessity to worry about a target, because the pet will eventually pressure them enough to make them leave the node, and the entire time you sit on it defending, you’re earning score towards winning the game.

YES, this is an inherent flaw with focusing the game 100% around node capturing, and yes, I’ve already said this is the only place where this is a broken mechanic.

However, a very simple fix would be to simply scale down the damage on the pets significantly, but scale up some their survival and the utility they’re capable of, then rework the traits in the line towards making them significantly buff the utility or capabilities of the redesigned pet mechanic.
The damage lost gets put back in to the ranger skillset. Now, when there is a faceoff, the pet is still a target worth focusing, because the utility it provides while still being able to pressure should be a significant boon towards the ranger. While at the same time, the ranger, in order to effectively fight somebody, now has to use the pet in a different manner other than a damage crutch while the player survives.

Instead, they now have to actively work with their pets to use the utility options in a fight, and in order to kill somebody or force somebody away from the point, the player is going to have to contribute more towards the damage output, which would involve more player skill, and make it more of a skill vs skill matchup than a survival+AI vs Skill matchup.

At this point in the theoretical pet design, it is also worth mentioning that there should be damage pets. But as such, these pets should perform like glass cannons in that sense, and should be sacrificing any redesigned utility function in order to achieve the damage they are capable of.

People can disagree all they want, but this is simply my opinion. I’ve had this opinion on pets since the month after the launch of the game when I started running the pet build in pvp, and there isn’t anything that can change that opinion. I will continue to play the class towards the strengths, I will continue to main ranger, and I will continue to love it.
But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve made my point, and I don’t feel the need to discuss it anymore, as it’s just opinion versus opinion. Ultimately, the majority of people should be agreeing at a basic sense that there is something going on with the pet leash thing right now that is a little off, or not working as intended, and it needs to be looked into, more from a pvp aspect of the game than anything else.

Besides that, the future of the class is ANets decision.

OGDeadHead.8326:

The mindset that there is no counter play is a faulty one. Players wants to ignore our pets, that’s the core of the issue, they don’t want to “waste time” on fighting the pet. Well, I would like to ignore mesmer phantasms as well, but that can prove to be a fatal mistake.

You can send your pet to attack targets at far greater distance than 1500, not sure where you got that information from? Just go to the mists and see for yourself. A pet is not a weapon like a sword or a bow, and should therefore not be bound by the same limitations, that’s rather logical imho. It’s our core mechanic, don’t try to dumb it down to the status of yet another weapon, because it’s not.
Of course we should be able to perform things with our class mechanic that are unique to us, just as all the other classes can perform things that are unique to them through their class mechanics.

There also needs to be an area that extends over the maximum distance that you can send your pet, where the pet can move around in, otherwise one small step back by your enemy would instantly send our pets back to us, and that would be a bad, bad mechanic.

In other words – as it works today, more or less.

I was testing it from an arbitrary guess-timation standpoint. But if I had to actually measure (since I don’t have a measuring tape) the F1 range seems to be around 2500-3000 in the mists.
But I also tested the leash range, and it’s somewhere between 6000-7000 range. Meaning I can do things like cap on mid point(or at least contribute to the midpoint fight) while my pet attacks a treb on khylo, or again, get the pet on mid while defending a different node.

So basically, we have a bot tethered to ourselves, and we tell that bot to go and attack something while we go and do something else (in a general metaphorical sense). Some people might enjoy that something is playing the game for them, but again, it is not a competitive concept. It is a mind-numbingly easy build to play in pvp (that or I’ve been playing ranger way too long) and the ability to basically send a bot to attack something then dodge around until that something dies is not competitive because it lacks any sort of intuitive design.

And counter play? Okay. You’re defending mid, I ranger runs up to where they can sic the pet on you, then leaves back to their node. There are really 3 options:
-let the pet attack you, try to ignore it, and continue to defend the point
okay great, if the pet wasn’t able to hit upwards of 2k damage at times, weakening you significantly so that you are at a disadvantage in any fight.
-leave the node the opposite direction until the pet leash is hit and it disappears.
okay, now you’re probably at least 1000 range off of any node you were on, and a team could be on it, neutralize it, and capture it because you left to mitigate damage
-kill the pet
okay, except pets are fairly durable with the right build, and you will probably have to burn some cooldowns to kill it, putting you at a disadvantage if they come to take the node from you

The only other option is to go after the ranger, which is the same as the second scenario, you leave the current node unprotected to be captured.
Not a single option there is presents a counter play option that isn’t detrimental to you or the progress of your team.

In PvE, pets are fine. In WvW, pets are probably fine too. But in spvp, with the node system currently being the only game mode, the leash is much too far with what the pet is capable of accomplishing.

I don’t see why I have to take flak just because I’m a ranger player admitting that there is an exploitable mechanic. I can go out of combat while my pet attacks something. That is the icing on the cake right there.

If I see one more Aragorn reference I swear I’m going to burn those books.

That ONE reference does not equate to a strong argument. I mean, you could reference the military, even ranger Smith from Yogi Bear. But always always ALWAYS people want to use the defense of Aragorn for this game.

That is only the basis step in an inductive argument. It does not account for every other MMO ever that ensured that rangers were top performers at ranged weaponry.

Fact: If ANet calls a class rangers and markets them with the description that has already been quoted in this thread, then that class should not have a lackluster feel to any aspect of its ranged gameplay when compared to any other class. Due to the design of the game, yes, it’s melee should outdamage it’s ranged.

Stop with the Aragorn though. If Aragorn is the ONLY “ranger” people continue to use as an argument, then maybe, amongst the sea of other ranger examples, Aragorn was doing it wrong. Variety (large sample size) is the key to a sound argument.

stale.9785:

jcbroe.4329:

He quoted me by the way, and yes, I can confirm that there is something going on with ranger pets where if you have engaged your pet but then reach a certain distance away from it (without attacking), the pet will continue to attack even though it is out of combat.

I do this frequently in WvW, I’ll tell my pet to attack a door, then I’ll back out of combat and switch utilities (if I want to switch in a spirit for the heck of it, or switch to my longbow).

The only thing I can’t confirm is whether or not the pet also acts as if it’s in combat as well.

I haven’t even been WvWing that long (only a week or so) and I’ve noticed and abuse it to this degree, but in s/tpvp, I’ll get my pet to attack whoever is holding mid, then I go back and bunker the side point. Now I’m essentially at two entirely different parts of the map, pressuring a target at one point, while holding a point at the other.

I mean, I know we all have a lot of ranger pride, but there has to be a point where we acknowledge that a mechanic like that is a little broken, especially since you can’t even sic your pet on a target outside of the 1200-1500(guess-timated, but still a limited range) range I mentioned. So why should it be attacking something 4000 range away, even though I can’t make it go that far with the F1 key.

I know there are people in the ranger community that will probably rage at me on this, but I don’t care, because I’m actually able to acknowledge that this current implementation has some exploitable behavior, as well as it having a quirky feel.

If that’s how it’s working then it is indeed broken – I suppose I’ve never left my pet attacking something in WvWvW and myself moved onto something else.

Needs a fix – the obvious one being making sure the ranger remains in combat as long as the pet is engaged. That should result in normal combat situations for HP regen, which is the root of the complaint.

Well the other part of the complaint comes from the esport/competitive thought process part of the game.

In sPvP/tPvP, you can run to mid, sic the pet on a target, then run back and hold home node. This is basically hitting somebody with like a 4000 range DPS, but worse than that, it is AI controlled. Meaning that you have essentially used a homing damage source on somebody while you go off and do something else.

It requires little to no management (other than calling back/switching pets if it gets close to death), and with how high the passive regen is, it is almost impractical to attack the pet, especially since the ranger will in general use this tactic during a team fight so that the pet isn’t the only target.
The mindset is that there is no counter play for this, and the playstyle itself isn’t engaging for the player. It isn’t like the player has to control where the pet moves or what attack the pet uses; they can literally just sic the pet on somebody then go and support/contest and entirely different area of the map.

If you read through the spvp threads about this, it is not considered something that is healthy for the metagame. Personally, I accept how powerful it is and I will use it until it gets fixed or there is a stronger build available to rangers.

I’m not going to be one to say who is wrong or right, because we all have our own opinions on this. All I’m saying for myself is that it doesn’t make logical sense that I can only sic my pet on a target that is 1200-1500 range away, but it will continue to attack that target even when I’m 4000 range away.

Regardless of what change gets made in the end, if that is the way pets function, F1 should function at the entire length of the leash range, regardless of what the final range is. (basically, I’m saying why can’t I sic my pet on a target that is far away, but it will attack a target that is far away?).

I can’t do thursday, and I would only be able to say maybe for saturday until I know for sure on friday :/

Ryuujin.8236:

I feel I should point out that ranger isn’t the only class constrained by working with AI controlled pets and having no other option but to build their class around them.

Mesmer’s likewise rely upon AI controlled clones and phantasms for their core mechanic, which also suffer from kitten behaviour and pathfinding issues, except unlike rangers mesmer’s cannot directly control their clones so if they do something undesirable they can’t tell them to “heel” or “change target”

I’m not trolling you at all, but let me know when I can shatter my pet for damage or invincibility and make a new one.

I’m not saying that mesmer clones/phantasms don’t suffer from buggy AI, but mesmers do have the option to build around shattering or letting the clones do damage, both of which can have competitive damage with the other.

If a ranger pet dies or isn’t used, the DPS isn’t made up anywhere. There is no other option, there is no “put all damage on the ranger and have the pet be pure utility.” It’s just dead (or not doing anything), and the damage is lost entirely.

He quoted me by the way, and yes, I can confirm that there is something going on with ranger pets where if you have engaged your pet but then reach a certain distance away from it (without attacking), the pet will continue to attack even though it is out of combat.

I do this frequently in WvW, I’ll tell my pet to attack a door, then I’ll back out of combat and switch utilities (if I want to switch in a spirit for the heck of it, or switch to my longbow).

The only thing I can’t confirm is whether or not the pet also acts as if it’s in combat as well.

I haven’t even been WvWing that long (only a week or so) and I’ve noticed and abuse it to this degree, but in s/tpvp, I’ll get my pet to attack whoever is holding mid, then I go back and bunker the side point. Now I’m essentially at two entirely different parts of the map, pressuring a target at one point, while holding a point at the other.

I mean, I know we all have a lot of ranger pride, but there has to be a point where we acknowledge that a mechanic like that is a little broken, especially since you can’t even sic your pet on a target outside of the 1200-1500(guess-timated, but still a limited range) range I mentioned. So why should it be attacking something 4000 range away, even though I can’t make it go that far with the F1 key.

I know there are people in the ranger community that will probably rage at me on this, but I don’t care, because I’m actually able to acknowledge that this current implementation has some exploitable behavior, as well as it having a quirky feel.

Killsmith.8169:

If they could figure out a way to do it, I would love to have preparations built into the longbow auto attack. Augmenting the auto attack with read the wind, kindle arrows, ignite arrows, or something else would be pretty cool.

Nice to see that there are still people from guild wars 1 around.

Yes, I’m not sure why they scrapped this idea. Preparations were great augmentations (and consequently, one of the ways to build when a person desired to play something other than a pet build).

Lore wise, rangers feel like the only class in the game that forgot how to do stuff as time progressed, seemingly becoming worse (can no longer interact with the pet as well, can no longer get the bow to function as well, can no longer augment the bow, forgot how to summon the strong spirits, forgot how to go into defensive stances, AND forgot how to remove conditions on command).

stale.9785:

I hate that we have no option but to roll a BM based build – it can’t be escaped. 40% of our damage is attached to our pets. No other class in game has a handicap wherein if they don’t trait into their mechanic, they’re 40% less effective than anyone else.

That’s exactly the point I feel like I was trying to make, but much more concise and clear lol.
+1

Manekk.6981:

I just came to mention one skill I had on an archer in a diffrent but somewhat similar game, it was a charged up shot that always pierced and it did more damage the closer to your target you got, that’s logical to me you take slightly more risk you get a benefit for it our longbow is just stupid as kitten ! that is all

:-)

ps. I want to kittening swear when I talk is this a kittening daycare center or what?

Yeah I’m not sure what the obsession with the word “kitten” is and why it couldn’t at the very least be asterisks.

Anyhow, yeah, most games with a bow archetype class have some sort of rapid firing weapon for DPS, and slow firing weapon with some sort of charge skill for big damage (or a combination if it was a game that didn’t have separate ranged weapon types, at least in my experience).

If rapid fire outdamaged crossfire, that would be the first step towards things making sense lol.

waka.9826:

They really need to put a limit on pet leash

Didn’t they note that they were aware of this last state of the game?

Also, the leash range seems more like a bug than anything else (maybe not a bug but an unintended function).

Since rangers can only tell the pet to attack a target within ~1200 range (might be 1500 but still), yet the pet can travel up to I believe ~4000 range (could be less or more, just guess-timating) to the point where the ranger is no longer even considered in combat, it doesn’t seem like an intended function.

1800-2000 should probably be the maximum range (slightly outside of bow range). Current F1 range should be the minimum (about ~1200-1500).