no, theyre greatly improving build diversity. this is being done by allowing 3 GM’s. as long as all GM’s are competitive, we’ll have lots of different builds. for example, the ranger will have at least 5 new and effective builds open up from the changes. will any of them become meta? impossible to say now.
that being said, id much rather we have LESS builds and more balance. if each prof has 3 viable and balanced builds, then we’re in a great shape.
im just pointing to players not testing their builds before claiming theyre the next best thing. it happens on these forums the most I would say. there is no scientific method, just ego and a lot of bad players. only the most efficient and tested builds became playable in the meta, like the glassbow and survival condi bunker.
you really have no understanding of history behind the cele meta. celestial was popularized by wvw players almost 2 years ago, mostly frontline guardians and roaming engies. in conquest its use was a response to the zerker/bunker meta, and people wanting to phase out the bunker guard. players wanted to have sustain while doing damage. there was nothing goofy or inefficient about celestial becoming a thing. it came from a year and a half of testing.
I think we’ll have a viable frontliner build with the specialization changes. and probably druid will be viable in that role (I hope).
glassbows have never been on the same level as a well played thief or Mesmer as part of a gank squad. not even close. some bad guilds tried glassbows in gvg’s but it didn’t turn out so well. unless you have some footage to prove me wrong. simply put, you don’t have enough ways to reset the fight. but right now, you can probably run whatever you want. most good players are gone from wvw, and I hope they come back for HoT.
that being said, with quickdraw and wilderness knowledge, I think LB/GS rangers are gonna be a serious force with the new patch.
melee rangers are so fun to watch. the new patch will give us so many options, and if we can fit Beastly Warden into the build, we’ll be able to land maul reliably.
if you want to improve your gameplay: I would say 60% of your dodges were completely wasted. id work on timing those better. it’s a fairly common problem, im still working on it myself. gvg’ing helps a lot with that – if you miss or waste one dodge roll, you get smoked.
Well it’s a habit mate, anywho I almost never run out of ways to escape evade or randomly waste dodges
yes but you cant take your game to the next level unless you improve this. but if youre happy with where youre at, then all the power to u.
in pve, rangers are fine and great as long as u stick with the meta.
for pvp, just wait until the new patch comes out. there’s no point in discussing this now as everything is gonna change and we should have quite a few more effective builds. for example the BM line, which is horribly broken currently, is gonna be amazing and a part of quite a few builds in the near future. spirits and traps might also be viable, and shouts may be interesting. also looks like some form of melee power ranger may be viable, which isn’t the case now. so just wait a week or two.
this is probably the best adjective. out of all the professions, id say rangers have the most players who think they have an amazing build but in fact are running something goofy and extremely inefficient. people just don’t test their builds enough, and unfortunately many don’t have the opportunity to play against excellent players.
melee rangers are so fun to watch. the new patch will give us so many options, and if we can fit Beastly Warden into the build, we’ll be able to land maul reliably.
if you want to improve your gameplay: I would say 60% of your dodges were completely wasted. id work on timing those better. it’s a fairly common problem, im still working on it myself. gvg’ing helps a lot with that – if you miss or waste one dodge roll, you get smoked.
yeah u owned pretty hard with it tonight. I had some pretty good results as well earlier in the day. and yes, I found SoS superfluous. I put my last 2 points in primal reflexes for the extra precision and vigor.
Jon Peters (developer, in charge for balance i think?) said a few weeks ago during lifestream that “People that think thief is overpowered, do not play thief.”
Too be fair, that is the same guy that said necro reanimator was fine after people said the minion was useless and unable to land a single hit before death. He changed his tune when there was hard evidence that not only were those people right, the trait was bugged.
JP has said some pretty outrageous kitten, and he plays the game at a very low level. not sure if everything is his fault, but he certainly lets too many things slide for too long.
that being said, I don’t think thieves are too OP, but they are required and in a sense all balancing revolves around them. Mesmer is a perfectly balanced assassin. to fix the thief, they just need to add a bit of counterplay. either aoe wards to spot them while stealthed, or more reveal (not on useless utilities like Sic ’Em).
after some testing, I gotta say this is such a troll build. everyone (especially thieves) overcommits thinking youre a glassbow, but you just don’t go down while still hitting like a truck. I learned something today – LB doesn’t have to be used just in an assassin role; it can be used for skirmishing quite effectively.
oh I don’t need you to sell me the build or justify yourself. youre obviously a newer player so im just trying to help you. if it works for you, have fun.
Well my dear sheep, I’m not selling anything, just answering your question by explaining how the build works, If using metabuilds and not thinking by yourself is the only thing that works for you, have fun.
I am not a sheep. youre not different or unique for running an ineffective build. I speak from 1700 hours on my ranger. a lot of us have enough experience (from testing and experimenting) to tell you straight up “it doesn’t work”. tragic elucidated in some detail why that is the case, but something tells me youre not the type who likes to learn.
not too bad. the damage output is definitely solid. never thought about running LB without RTW. will be stronger next patch.im getting excited about all the possibilities!
i find MT pretty underwhelming because of the cast-time, and you can get a better immob from the dog. double canine would make this build stronger.
guard basically needs to be baseline for all pets in the pet UI.
in general, shout effects need to matter. +dmg on a pet that cant hit a target effectively is near-useless, for example. Resounding Timbre does make shouts a little bit more appealing especially with HaO getting a lower CD. that’s Resounding Timbre being awesome. but the shouts at baseline need to be useful. without an overhaul on some shouts, they wont be competitive utilities.
so youre saying all those dismissing pets as a stupid, broken mechanic should chill out and see how their abilities interact with BW? why yes, I agree.
yep. I was also thinking we wont be tied down to canines as much…any pet will work with BW, as it’s a pbaoe cast. and yes wilting strike looks good, especially with protective ward’s weakness as well.
yessir, BM builds with birds are gonna be stronk. with 3 targets around, you can get your bird up to 25 stacks in a few seconds. engie structures and illusions help here a ton. F2 crits light armor for 6.5k.
previously, we couldn’t run a BM build too successfully. I think 0/0/6/4/4 was the best we could pull off. but soon we’ll be able to max out all 3 trait lines. tons of condi pressure, tankiness and a very scary pet.
oh I don’t need you to sell me the build or justify yourself. youre obviously a newer player so im just trying to help you. if it works for you, have fun.
we just need wards – an aoe spell that reveals all stealthed units. stealth has zero counterplay in this game. with mesmers it’s balanced because it doesn’t last very long.
also, range on shadowstep needs to get nerfed. it’s pretty stupid right now as it also has no counterplay.
if he had condi removal and no SoR, then likely he was 6/x/x/6/x for survival of the fittest. I used to run that as it’s fairly sturdy against condis. you get all the extra vit from the traits. that is another popular LB power build, and hits as hard as glassbow with the right gear. he still has no excuse for running signet of hunt though.
the main thing about killing glassbows is constant aggression while you move into them, and correct dodging of RF, pointblank shot, hunter’s shot, canine tackle, etc. do you run nightmare runes? landing one or two fears should secure the kill. you had trouble because you missed your first doom.
today I kept going up against an Apex premade + some other esports dude. probably about 4-5 games in a row. some were fun actually, others not so much. you can learn and improve a lot in these situations, but if it’s a complete stomp then you cant learn anything. like when youre always fighting 3+ people and getting instagibbed because your teammates are kissing the ground the entire match.
in short, matchmaking is still freaking terrible, and it’s still not distributing professions appropriately. for example, 3 thieves today against a balanced comp with no thieves. it’s loco man.
that doesn’t work with the current state of the ranger.
you MIGHT be able to pull it off when the new specs come out if you go 6/0/6/0/6. rangers are weak in melee (unless condi bunkers) and don’t have any spike (maul is too unreliable). damage is too low unless you go zerker stats. but with the BM tree revamp, I think cleric or cavalier stats will make the melee ranger pretty deadly. I think the cleric power BM bunker is gonna make a comeback.
other profs are indeed going to be hella strong, which is why im sticking with the reliable condi bunker to start with. im still not convinced rangers are going to have very effective power options. glassbow will be interesting with quickdraw and wilderness knowledge, but that’s about it until they reveal the druid and OH axe overhaul. sadly, GS doesn’t have any reliable damage due to its huge telegraphs so it’s stuck as a utility/defensive weapon. that being said, it might work nicely with Beastly Warden.
Protective Ward is gonna be amazeballs on 0/0/6/6/6 condi BM bunker, and we can also go with the weakness on pet f2 trait in BM.
shortbow might be interesting with the buffs, poison stacking, and traps. something like 0/6/6/6/0 or 0/6/6/0/6 for Beastly Warden.
ive never been more nervous and excited about a balance patch. and we still dont know what’s happening with spirits, shouts and traps. we’ll see on Monday.
Path of Scars can be sweet, but OH axe is way too situational with WD being so bad.
Can you explain why you think it is so bad? I don’t get why.
because it roots you. good players will explode you if you stand still. the reflect is extremely situational, it’s easier to just evade the rapid fire, otherwise there’s nothing else in the game to reflect. it was also NERFED to be just a cleave, so it doesn’t hit more than 3 targets. the damage is pathetic. the debuff is pathetic. ultimately, too situational and no one will let you cast it without punishing u severely.
futher, path of scars is horrible in small skirmishes/1v1’s because people move. a lot. it’s situational for people rezzing each other, for bads who stand still, or clumped up zergs. it’s not too bad in zerg warfare.
overall, OH axe needs a complete revamp more or less. id much rather have an extra evade from dagger. WH is just as bad.
for me to equip OH axe, I would need them to redesign whirling defense to be more like serpent strike – a 1 second evade, can be cast while moving, reflects projectiles and crits for at least 3.5-4k on zerker gear. standing still is instant death in this game.
how come you didn’t mention immobilize for countering Rampage? on my bunker ranger, I stagger intimidating howl and entangle, evade 3-5 times and let the condis finish the job. like any other elite, if used at the right time, it can be devastating on point, and yes you may have to leave. but I generally don’t. depends on what im running.
stale meta and 3 year old maps are my main reasons. got bored to tears of playing my necro and guard. im coming back at least for a while once the spec revamp hits, and definitely coming back for HoT’s new BL’s.
I loved the zergs, I loved the roaming, the gvg’s, gvz’s, all that stuff. im just afraid not enough good players will come back.
This is the only game I have played where zerging is cool.
yes, combo fields and boons mechanic makes it that way. GW2 did large scale combat very, very well. it’s actually somewhat intuitive. way ahead of disasters like ESO, Wildstar, Archeage, etc.
if youre thinking Remorseless GS, im skeptical but cautiously optimistic. just because GS is such a clumsy, slow weapon that has no multi-target CC. in my eyes, LB/GS is still the only power build. if however OH axe gets reworked and massively buffed, I can see s/a/GS working on a frontline build. it also depends what happens to shouts.
I support it, and in fact I feel the game needs picks and counter picks like dota 2. some comps stomp others, no denying that. the ridiculous matchmaker often does crap like matching 3 glassbow rangers and 2 necros against a balanced team. people switch for a reason – because the matchmaker doesn’t work.
^birds track well and hit hard. with added stats, you might wanna keep the birds. baseline, their f2 crits about 4k on light armor and, 6.5k with 25 stacks of might and +30% crit damage. this is how hard the new condi BM bunkers will be hitting, in addition to their massive condi damage.
we’re basically stuck with whatever they’ve come up with. for a while. the patch is likely going through a bit more QA a this point and then release. a whole bunch of us gave many, many amazing suggestions in all prof subforums when they were first doing the reveals, and we can only hope they took some of this advice (unlikely). there were some really bad ideas seen during the reveals, and some good ones.
for example, rangers are completely in the dark regarding trap, spirit and shout reworks. we literally have no idea what awaits and with their track record, im worried.
you should always win this fight, no matter what. currently glassbow is a bad spec against anyone who’s not afk, and it’s hardcountered by a lot of things (good shatter mesmers, basically any good d/p thief, condi necros like yourself and condi rangers, Nike warriors if theyre good, etc.). only the bads complain. I have hundreds of hours on my glassbow btw.
HOWEVER, 6/6/6/0/0 will be very strong with Quickdraw and Wilderness Knowledge when the new specs come out. watch out for that one. if you think glassbow is difficult now, just wait.
viable in what aspect of the game? a/d has always been the most powerful combo for valk/zerker necros in wvw, small scale and gvg’s. axe is very very good and generates LF like crazy. not the best for 1v1’s though.
the thing that bothers people about celestial is that it favours certain professions and gives them everything: mobility, tankiness, CC, damage, sustain, 1v1 capabilities, etc., while excluding others (ranger, thief, Mesmer, necro for example)
for cele to stand out, first of all it must be viable across all profs and secondly, it cant overshadow specialized bunker, support, or dps builds. with the upcoming change, at the very least its condi output will greatly decrease virtually fixing the whole thing.
Sic’em isn’t used to respond to anything the thief is doing. It’s used pre-emptively to completely shut down the stealth mechanic.
sic ‘em isn’t used. I like reveal though. it shuts down the stealth mechanic temporarily forcing the thief to use mobility to get out. if mobility skills are on CD or no initiative, then tough cookie, he’s done. no thief should have mobility AND stealth up at all times, which is the situation now. im not saying that makes thieves horribly OP, but simply that good ones cant be counterplayed, period.
stealth is fine, we just need more reveal abilities like sic ’em, which needs a massive buff btw. wards would be interesting. these would add counterplay.
well they definitely have some ‘splaining to do. not sure what the reasoning is behind this. I think if the change goes through, they need to massively nerf warrior’s GS #3 and #5 because these guys are the main culprits. also, the engie SS RB combo wasn’t fair either imo so speed buff not affecting distance traveled works. that part of the standardization makes sense.
there are also dashes on certain specs that wouldn’t be OP with this change, ranger GS #3 for example as it’s the only true mobility skill they have. and no viable spec uses sword + GS, so it’s balanced.
If burning is being reduced in damage because it is stacking, I really hope they add in more stacks to the Torch or extend the durations, else, it is taking a massive nerf.
I think this will be the case. they wont be nerfing the dps, but to compensate for lower damage per stack we’ll likely get 3 stacks on throw torch for example. and maybe even get a small buff from it.
for power, 6/6/6/0/0 will probably be more effective due to the huge survivability potential. but I definitely thought about 6/6/0/0/6 for that on-demand burst. I don’t think it will do well in comparison to the former.
theyre nerfing celestial with this change. that’s the main intent. if some pointless, ineffective build that 5 people play is collateral damage, myself and the rest of the community is probably okay with that.
The only good thing is now the trait changes Power ranger can have a little more condition cleanse and more defensive traits. However with the new change everyone will be running conditions so it wont be enough.
I hope there will be a lot of access to the new boon that stop condition from ticking. I forgot the name of it.
I am not concerned about the LB power ranger at all. 6/6/6/0/0 will be so incredibly strong with Quickdraw. we’ll still have the range and mobility. remember that all condi builds are 0-600 range or so. with 2-3 wilderness utilities, entangle, and TU that’s virtually limitless on-demand condi cleansing and perma fury.
Be wary that they add numerous more reflection/projectile blocks on many classes.
Revenant will get 100% upkeep projectile block too.
while they totally went overkill on projectile deflection/absorption, im not too worried about it when our AA and RF are spammable nukes.
I wish they ran the changes by us before implementing on live. we’re completely in the dark regarding trap, shout and spirit reworks. and knowing ANet’s capabilities, im very concerned.
The only good thing is now the trait changes Power ranger can have a little more condition cleanse and more defensive traits. However with the new change everyone will be running conditions so it wont be enough.
I hope there will be a lot of access to the new boon that stop condition from ticking. I forgot the name of it.
I am not concerned about the LB power ranger at all. 6/6/6/0/0 will be so incredibly strong with Quickdraw. we’ll still have the range and mobility. remember that all condi builds are 0-600 range or so. with 2-3 wilderness utilities, entangle, and TU that’s virtually limitless on-demand condi cleansing and perma fury.
the purpose of poison with the new changes will be damage AND -healing. that’s the point. you should still be able to keep perma poison up, and the you get the -healing effect from only one stack, that’s not being changed.
