Guild Wars 2

Anet, you’re rolling 1s and 20s for us, get some new dice for Dwaynas sake!

I rarely do dungeons, I mostly wvw, and when I try to find a group for dungeons there is noone to run with. But on the rare times I ran dungeons the feedback was usually, well that went smoothly. Mostly it was with people who knew the dungeon/their class well. So yeah, being a liability depends on the party as well.

The first time I ran fractals it was in a group where there was another ranger as well. There could’ve been 3 but someone changed to an alt. When 2 guys went down on the Ice elemental I kited it for a time so they can res, but then it started regenerating as it missed some cauldrons. When we were doing the one with the chained giant guy, and we reached the final boss my pizza arrived and I had to leave my ranger on its shortbow and get the pizza. I got back to see the boss die, and even so they said this was a much smoother run than they had with full ascended warriors the previous night. These are extreme examples of course, but ranger is as much of a liability as you are. Its a perception thing.

Nobody is right thought, that if you become popular or advertise yourself, expect opposing oppinions to follow as well. And I don’t think you can afford to be dismissive or condescending, but I understand that this thread should be about the podcast, and not about the balance patch. There are plent of threads about that.

Having said that I can see that you guys put in an effort, like making sure the outgoing sound is good, and are getting better with each podcast. Feedback is feedback, no matter how polite it is phrased.

What I would like to see:
- maybe opposing oppinions would make for a good discussion after the next patch,
- some class on class discussion once a month, like a cross podcast discussion with other profession podcast regulars. E.g. Ranger vs thief with Battosai and a guest ranger, and Jumper and a guest thief discussing builds and how they work against each other. I think it would be highly educational, but maybe that might be something for a different podcast, and not ATTK
- see a dev on the podcast who plays ranger

Longbow damage wasn’t buffed, barrage got nerfed even.

Saying that ranger is a “total powerhouse beast” because of frost spirits and the spotter trait… well I’m finding it hard to choose my words carefuly. Lets just say I’m speechless.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

A level 80 ranger, on the other hand, is a total powerhouse beast, while warriors end up being a sort of support/DPS hybrid.

And what game might you be playing?

If you’re still leveling you will find ranger to be greatly different in dungeons and wvw compared to pve. If you don’t like kiting I suggest you get all condition damage gear, equip sword/torch, axe/dagger and get off hand mastery as early as you can. I found it great fun to melt mobs with that setup. If you don’t like that, seeing that ranger is not that great at range maybe ranger is really not for you. Also try out a warrior in the mists with zerker amulet and longbow. Press all weapon skills and F1, and watch the heavy golem die in just a few seconds.

I must admit I don’t run a lonbow spec, but isn’t longbow autoattack the best dps on a longbow at 1000+ range? So what else do they have with the longbow apart from autoattack. They shouldn’t be using the knockback, and from what I’ve read previously rapid fire is a decrease in dps. They can pop #5 every 25 secs or so.

Which gamemode and what build are we talking about? Or is it just bears in general? I don’t get this hatred for bears.

Well, since this thread has run its course, can a Moderator please close this thread.

Thank you.

Chopps.5047:

Yeah and don’t forget that RaO might stacks quickly and increases condition damage as well as power.

Can you explain this a bit? Maybe I was doing something wrong, but the might stacking on the ranger, which are coming from pet attacks are not what I would call quick.

Well I never played bunker really. Shortbow was really great for chasing down players, but with 900 range that is one thing shortbow gets a big hit in. Also most walls in wvw are roughly 900 tall, so now with shortbow you cannot hit people so easily who get near the edge. Even with axes you usually have to stand below the walls. I don’t like it, and the reasoning ANet gave that it needed to be aligned with thief shortbow and it overshadowing longbow is just not reasons for that range reduction for me. If you put FC Barcelona into spanish leage 4 and than argue that they are too strong compared to others and rule that Barcelona will play with 6 players instead of 11, what does that make you look like? Shortbow in wvw and ove was not overpowered. The reason of people using shortbow was not that it was the best weapon of GW2, it was just better than others. As for pet damag, yeah I guess that was reasonible. But look at it this way, we get pets pushed into our play pretty aggressively i.e. no was to hide them permanently, and they are the centre of a lot of our skills/traits. People actually found a really powerful build and it got nerfed pretty quickly. Much quicker than the buffs that come in baby steps came to rangers. I can see how companions might with the old pet damage would have been even more OP, but weren’t most BM/regen build using apothecary/shaman gear? Even Paundro used cleric, which does not have much crit chance to begin with, especially not in sPvP.

Well I usually get aoed down instead of being pulled off. Maybe its the servers we face, not sure.

Stability is awesome but I’m usually solo roaming in wvw, and don’t have much trouble with not having stability. I usually harass players on walls, or take camps, and entangle is just much better for that. I usually take RaO when I try to enter a tower under siege, and even then it doesn’t always work due to immobilize. I’m playing on a laptop and it can’t handle large zerg fights where it would be most useful.

Wow, just tarted listening to the June patch podcast, sounds like Jindrakes mike has more range than the new Shortbow

What builds did you use RaO in? I presume that it is not so common in trap builds, or other condi builds with less emphasis on pets. I mostly run entangle on my trapper, although I don’t sPvP much, in WvW its great for harassing people on walls, and can be traited to have a lowered cooldown. RaO seem to have a skill group as well being a Pet skill, but didn’t come across anything Pet skill related.

With all the whining and raging we are starting to run out of breath. Lets be realistic, more pet control will not happen, better AI will not happen, shortbow will stay at range 900 for a while now, and pet damage will stay as is for a while as well. So how about taking some deep breaths and coming up with New Ways To Buff Ranger.

First idea, tweaking Rampage as One. I must admit I didn’t try all the builds on ranger, but I’ve seen a few, and most of the time Rampage as One is used in Beastmaster builds. Even though it gives 20 secs of fury without traiting for it, the application of Might from pet attacks is not the quickest to say the least, not even on standing targets. I just tried this out and with birds having one of the quickest attacks (after they are done giving us swiftness), and having double attacks even with Quckening Zephyr the most I manged was 9-11 stacks of might.

The idea: It would help out power builds a lot if pet attacks would give 2 stacks of might per attack (such as bird auto attack would give 2+2).

Pros:
- easy to implement
- a 20 stack might spike for 10 seconds doesn’t seem OP on a 120 second cooldown
- would give more options for condition and hybrid builds as well

Cons:
- the best pets to stack might through autoattack alone via RaO are pets that deal good damage anyways i.e. felines, birds, so this might put ANet off. I would love to see devourers having their attack speed increased even with taking some more reduction on their not so awesome damage. It would compliment a lonbow build too, as they are ranged, so have better chance of hitting moving targets, and already were utilized as meatshields in some builds.
- the ranger received new ways of getting might only recently
- would compliment condition builds as well, which are already having good condition damage and a wide array of condition application options

Feel free to discuss, and add pros, cons even. And be so kind and leave your hatred for the balance team at the door, semantic arguments about what the ranger name are also not welcome.

Kichwas.7152:

Tank for your pet, rather than having it tank for you.

He’s level 40 and tries to run dungeons, don’t think tanking is a good idea, no offense.

What’s your IGN Herr? I’m really curious.

Looks nice, its sad that a ranger with 2000+ power only does ok damage though. How are the regens at 500+ish healing power? Is it worth to use Dwaynas? Also wouldn’t you be better off with shared anguish instead of martial mastery? Since your pets are ranged, they prolly won’t mind taking a cc for you.

At level 40 you can have your pet tank for you pretty well, just let him attack first by sending him against mobs with F1. Some pets to consider, cats/birds for nice damage, dogs for knockdown, bears for being tanky, drakes for aoe damage, spiders/devourers for staying at range. Depends on what you want though. At level 40 you won’t have access to much traits and stats, so I’d just go with dogs, cause their knockdown is nice, or bears to tank for you. Run full power gear with longbow and greatsword, or sword/dagger and greatsword if you want more evades. This is for open world pve btw (i.e. map exploration, leveling, farming). I don’t run dungeons much.

Thanks for some nice duels in Vabbi bl!

Azreell.1568:

1)Rangers Lack verstaility

I think Versatility is probably the one thing rangers are not lacking in. However, of all the things we can do other classes can do better. I think ranger is one of the few classes that with the recent patch can work with all their weapon choices. Some classes just don’t use certain weapons. Our axe offhand and lonbow may not be the center of many builds, but with the latest patch new builds are coming that will utilize that. Our utilities are another matter, still not many people run spirits as them being easily destroyable makes them a very situational tool to use, and not worth building into.

You want to run a condi build? I suggest superior runes of earth then. For Armor I’d take rabid. Runes of the undead are cheap and give condition and having a high toughness with it sure help there too.

Einlanzer.1627:

I get tired of how vitriolic this forum is.

You sure seem to post a lot though…

I didn’t play your build yet, but wouldn’t it be better to spend the last 5 points in BM, which gives you 25 power instead in wilderness survival to get 50% endurance regen? I guess with 26k hp you’re not squishy, but still.

ilr.9675:

No we’ve already had it mentioned in a few other threads that it was nerfed as well.
No PVE split there either even though it was already pretty anemic for anything besides “yellow” Objectives that had hitboxes large enough to be hit by multiple tics.

Thank you good sir, you saved me from buying knights armor and berserker accesories!

Einlanzer.1627:

Sorry, you lose.

So this is what this thread is all about? If you want duels, get them in game.

Can we please have a post from some dev about when they plan to narrow down the rng in match making? Or at least post when you plan on visiting Vabbi this time, so we can have some duels or something. If you want to do real wvw…. well good luck with that. Either you will be farmed by an angry mob at spawn, or you will find noone to fight at all.

The above lists are pretty good. I would ask them however, if they play ranger, and what their experience with it is. What gears/builds they tried, what worked, and of course where they see the weak points of the class.

I think it would be even funnier if you do it on lvl14 with all power gear. Thats what I did on my little necro, it had 2000k power with all green mighty gear.

Thank you oh wise moderator!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

Dear Jon, I believe you still read this thread, so here is a suggestion, how about eagle eye raising the shortbow max range as well. I would also welcome if you could elaborate the reasons behind the range deduction. My best guess would be that you guys were affraid that with companion’s might one could stay at 1200 range and stack might on the pet and bleeds on the target, which I presume might be the case, but I see axe and/or warhorn much better for that. In case of sPvP and tPvP I could understand the range reduction, but for WvW it doesn’t seem needed imho.

Sandpit.3467:

Why make a new post about this? Not being listened to else where?

lol can a moderator close this thread please? Valid class discussion and build threads are being burried by threads like this.

Are you sure about that? Lets not make panic here, theres plenty of it already. What kind of damage did you deal with it pre patch? What gear did you use? Did you use it in a zerg? Maybe you need more might to make a comparison.

Warriors can use longbow and rifle. And don’t tell me rifle is not a bow, because I know it is not. Warriors have IMHO better utility on their ranged weapons than a ranger, and from what I’ve heard they deal more damage with it too.

ANet advertised the ranger as an archer. Look at the description, look at the wallpaper. People are hardly to blame if they think the ranger is good with bows. And it doesn’t matter what you think they are, and what the name does and does not suggest. See what the devs thought of the ranger in this video at 55 mins. They thought that berserker ranger was really strong with a lonbgow (I presume not in general, but damagewise). Which is funny because you would want the ranger to be at 1200 range to deal good damage, and that is where the autoattack started giving you a lot of obstructed messages. If is hopefuly better now, but back in the middle of March the devs thought that the rangers are the long range masters. People don’t want the ranger to be an archer only, but it would be a good start if they were as good at range as some of the other classes.

The aoe cripple on longbow, for which you have to stand still for almost 3 seconds can be easily dodged/interrupted, and has a long cooldown because it also deals damage. The knockback and barrage will not keep you at range. Melee classes like thief, warrior have great ways of getting in your face, where your only options for dealing damage will be auto attack which is low at close range, and rapid fire which is again a long channel, and doesn’t deal enough damage for warriors/thieves to make them disengage, or create more distance between you and them.

Paken Kai.5970:

I am one of the people who “liked a 1200 range condition weapon” and have to make do with a 900 range condition weapon that I spend the vast majority of fights within the range of anyway.

This is where we will not agree. I don’t think I’ll have to make do with this change when thieves cried so hard that the one change to stealth wasn’t even introduced (i.e. getting revealed no matter how stealth ends). The revealed buff was reduced in wvw back to 3 seconds. Mesmers got their changes separated between pvp and wvw. The devs want to make small changes and see how balance goes, but the reduction of shortbow range is not a small step. It would be logical that shortbow range is 900, but the same logic would tell me that throwing grenades should have a range of 600.

Paken Kai.5970:

Damage improvement on the skills == damage improvement on the weapon. Unless,of course, you’re just standing there autoattacking. In which case you have to stand slightly closer and may actually benefit from your group’s boons they’re passing around, instead of relying on yours alone.

You ever used shortbow? You use skills 2-5 for damage? Are you serious? You think the 14% damage increase on skills 2-5 on shortbow was a buff for shortbow? I’m baffled you try to defend these changes. You think shortbow should be a mid range weapon? How about making the range of the greatsword on mesmer 130. Cause thats a melee weapon right? They reduced the range so people use LB instead. But its not gonna happen cause the utility of shortbow is much better. 900 on a shortbow is a joke considering engineers can throw grenades at a distance of 1500.

I run a trapper build, which is low on power, but I used to be able to hit cannons in wvw for 30 with each hit on poison volley. With 14% increased damage thats 34 each. But I dunno, maybe with full zerker it would be as high as 80 each thats 400 from short range. Would you consider that a buff to shortbow? What class do you really play?

I agree, good skills, but some of these guys you probably would’ve killed with 1 utility slot.

Well I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to try it out on a mesmer, I was busy reading the qq in the ranger forums.

Rangers have access to a lot of conditions already, thieves had access to bleed and posion, mesmers applied mostly random conditions apart from bleeding and confusion. I can see how that might give them more build variety, or at least something to play with. Having said that, they are 2 of the more mobile classes, utitilizing Torment the best probably, and 2 of the classes that can give Rangers a ton of trouble. As Morpheus put it “Faith it seems, is not without a sense of Irony”. But I can see fear necro being very powerful with burn and torment added. They also gained 50% crit in deathshroud, so life blast power builds will come up as well.

I’m surprised noone came up with this yet, but why not put that 30 from BM into skirmishing, and run a regen trap build? Or put 20 in skirmishing and 10 into marksmanship with increased condi duration from pets. Then run chill pets with it. Something like this. You can use two bears (black/brown/polar) and protect me for more tankiness instead of Frost trap if you want.

Tested this on my Thief in the mists. Could stack only 4, at 1200 condition damage it ticks for 80 compared to 100 of a bleed. However, if the target is moving, it ticks twice, while bleed ticks once. That is roughly 6 stacks of bleeds worth damage on moving targets with 4 stacks. Dancing dagger only gives 1 stack for each use, not 1 for each bounce.

I stacked 20 might on my dog in wvw a few minutes ago, with 20 in BM it hit for 850-900 with a crit. It hit so much without 20 might before. Or are Dolyaks just super tough?

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Chopps.5047:

… we wonder why tpvp’ers make fun of us pve’ers…

Translated: “I play tPvP, so I don’t care about the rest of you WvW/PvE ’ers. Patch works for me, so you should be happy with your nerfs in WvW/PvE.”

/scratches head

Nugget.8031:

longbow auto attack feels soooooooo much faster now.

This! I was surprised as well. Its interesting that .2 second aftercast reduction and 15% projectile speed make so much difference. Anyone running LB in WvW please post some experience with LB. Do the changes result in less out of range/obstructed issues? If yes, I can see a lot of power LB builds coming up. Too bad for Shortbow though, I hope they will put shortbow range increase into Eagle eye, so you can have 1200 range with it. 900 is just not enough for chasing people down, and thats one of the things I used shortbow for. If they were running away #4, #5, and autoattack. Did wonders with a condi build, sup earth signets, sharpened edges.

MiLkZz.4789:

At that WN ranger I fought around SM, not even in a 100 years you would have won from me so that /bow was bit misplaced ^^. Still nice fight, but you got more skills than auto attack you know. I would like to duel you at windmill and show you you’ll be dead without all that retreating to dredge canons and guards. Shame that warrior showed up, he sucked tho, don’t even bother to duel him, to easy.

Keep it up recruit.

I’m a different ranger but I am interested in some duels. Drop me a PM or mail ingame if you are up for it. I will be on in the evenings. I usually don’t have problem with warriors, but there is allways something to learn.