Lots of suggestions to work with here. The main issue is the rng nature of these boons and that u have to attack to proc them. I can faceroll over 50 secs of prot and 15k-ish heals if I land my dodge rolls on my guard. Ranger can give perma fury and swiftness but meh so can warriors.
Spirits are actually half decent in roams and make a difference. If you stay in the back u can keep the spirits alive well enough and u can perma fury/swiftness your group with warhorn. Give it a try next time youre in wvw. As I said, SoN + HS is godmode for the group and lasts for a whole minute.
Spirits do need serious buffs though im not denying that.
Thats true, profs with higher rof will proc it all the time whereas hammer warriors for example wont. Thats the other issue with spirit boons…theyre not always on demand especially when ure retreating and not attacking. But as I said I dont see warrior banners giving reliable aoe cripple and frost fields. Protection, when it is procced, is still the best defensive boon.
But a fun fact: with 1.2k healing, regen from HS and SoN elite give the entire group 800 hps. This is like godmode. And SoN can soak up a lot of damage.
Might on the sun spirit would solve a lot of support ranger problems.
Sun is bad for organized groups for one reason: burning stacks in duration. When the target is called to be focused the ENTIRE group affected by sun is adding only like 400dps and thats if ure full condi specced. This is pathetic. So sun doesnt scale in any way and is quite bad.
The biggest issue was that gc thieves could unload 10-14k damage on you before rendering. Culling lasts 2.5 secs and the debuff 3 secs, giving you about half a sec to burst the thief down. It’s easy killing a gc in 2-3 secs if u have a daze. This is the major nerf, and the rest is just sugar on top.
Well if this nerf makes u switch profs then u are and always have been a baddie. After the nerf you’ll just have to think and plan before diving in to unload. And u can still play attrition as p/d. This is really just a nerf to all the cnd spammers and culling abusers. Your damage is still there so enough with the tears. This was a necessary change and all the good thieves know it.
Good thieves will be fine. Baddies will quit. If u wanna play attrition u can still play p/d successfully. U were never meant to zerg surf ad infinitum with almost zero risk. Now you’ll have to think and plan like the rest of us.
If this is tough for you, maybe you should start preparing emotionally for the mug nerf. I seriously hope u guys get some buffs as well.
Well with boon duration u get about 50% protection uptime for your group with stone spirit alone. For yourself u can have perma with moa and dodging.
Frost spirit makes your ele’s 3k aoe hit for 3.3k. If he hits 3 people thats an extra 900 damage. If your hammer warrior jumps in as well, and your gs mesmer drops an izerker and a shatter, your group is doing an extra 2.5k dmg. Get my drift banners cant do this
Frost field and muddy terrain are always good when retreating
I believe thieves will be spending a lot more time out of stealth come the 26th. Theyre losing 2 secs of culling upon each unstealth (huge nerf), and they will no longer be able to zerg surf with cnd. Thats all I felt thieves needed, as I can already dispatch most skilled ones with a bit of effort.
Sun and storm spirits are dreadful. The other two are pretty decent. If we got some minor tweaks with some serious aoe resistance on the spirits, we’d be in a good shape. It’s just astounding to me why utility changes are taking so long, because solution involves number tweaking and a bit of testing nothinf more.
And yes, spirits should follow by default. Grandmaster trait should make the boons last a little longer.
I missed that in sotg…so they actually said they’re actively working on it still?
I know they mentioned shatter may be nerfed when gs and scepter piercing changes go through. And im glad xeph mentioned this because mesmers are out of hand as is.
I think aoe should require more skill to be effective, like piercing mechanic for example, for which you have to line up your targets and time things well.
The only thing that will save spvp is time. And more build variety.
I think you should just rename the thread to “petition for anet management: allocate more resources to spvp”. Most tweaks have been fine but not done quickly enough. Not by a longshot.
It’s been a few months since this was announced. It was promising because it guaranteed a healthy meta change, away from shatter, traps, d/d, wells, gs #3 (which is broken in wvw), sb spam, etc.
To save you time I tried a hybrid cond/prec/power build. It pales in comparison. The main problem with ranger conditions is that you have to be too close to apply them. Sb bleeds are totally negligible.
No matter which way you go, power or condition, u gotta go all the way otherwise u just wont have enough damage
If theyre gonna be sticking with pets being our second half, pets need to be faster without f2 delay and they must have 30% aoe resistance, period. If this alone is done id be pretty happy with my ranger.
Pets are garbage. Mine are always dead in larger wvw fights and I usually attack from 1200. Some kind of base aoe resistance is essential and hopefully they figure that out soon. I feel that aoe on the other hand is fine
i havent run into a condition spec that i wasnt able to burst down quicker in smaller skirmishes. and my group hasnt yet run into a good necro who knows how to epidemic well. so far, the high HP pool has provided enough buffer. we have a guard and ele in addition to my HS that i swap to if needed, and our thief and hammer guard who spam blast finishers on the water field. this is a group-oriented spec btw.
i understand the build may raise more questions than answers to some, and it’s new to me so im testing and tweaking as i go. but the next vid will include a guide and some tougher fights for sure.
I’m sorry but.. This just can’t be viable.
Essentially you have just specced dmg + piercing arrows and then run around auto-attacking.
From 0:22 and onwards there is like a whole minute where the only spell you’re using is Crossfire. In a more competitive context this would never work.
this is a roaming open world WvW build tailored for long range dps. and i didnt just “spec damage”. it’s a tanky build. but you are correct in stating that all dps comes from crossfire. it is the SB after all. WvW isnt a competitive context by any means.
So, does SOH provide the speed boost while in combat? I should know this…
Also, I’ve been running a variant of this and have switched to 2 dogs as pets when I’m running solo or in very small groups. The CC from the dogs (knockdown, fear, chill) really makes up for being weak on healing.
im pretty sure SoH does give a movement speed advantage in combat. it’s small, but noticeable. by default, your speed drops a lot when u enter combat.
i would use dogs maybe if i was dueling, but i generally dont waste time dueling in wvw unless i have to, in which case the raw dps output from raven/jag is more useful imo. im sure there are ways to make this build more viable for duels, but this isnt my purpose because the condi tank will always be a vastly superior dueling build.
Yeah sbi has definitely broken out. We’ve taken a few larger groups on our own but we mostly run havoc for smaller engagements. I should have most of my footage by the end of next week. Got some time off work. Will include a guide this time as part of vol.1
This is actually a really good skirmishing build as well. I didnt like it initially but ive learned to maintain my distance well. The build really shines at all ranges. I went back to my condi bunker the other night and i just felt so constrained. It’s almost useless against groups larger than 10.
Changes
- gradually introducing more zerker gear. Weapons are now zerker, no noticeable effect on survivability.
- switched owl for jag. Stealthed jag does like 2-3k dps. So raven/jag is final.
- protect me switched for SoH. Speed increase is noticeable when kiting. If I manage to leave combat almost nothing can catch me
A necessary balance change, along with the upcoming culling fix. Culling fix alone is a hard nerf for p/d attrition as they wont get 2 seconds of free-casting before rendering.
Stealth nerf just forces you to think before engaging and to pay for your mistakes when messing up, like everyone else.
Good thieves never needed perma stealth and 2 seconds of culling. Bads will leave the profession as was prophesied.
Hopefully they follow through with the mug nerf and buff the prof appropriately to compensate.
Mmr to me is such a trivial issue. There just isnt any incentive to spvp. I havent played in months. In wvw I can link my pve progression to pvp effectiveness, and I can literally use any skin I want to look any way I want. Wvw fights are just so satisfying and meaningful.
Spvp has no meaning no reason. Wvw is better for vids too cuz u can kill 5 scrubs solo and look good. Sounds like a silly reason but people love to watch wvw vids. Also u can showcase many different builds due to greater build variety.
Anyway with wvw getting better soon and spvp remaining stale I dont see myself getting back into spvp any time soon. Maybe if rewards are buffed.
I think all pvp resources should go into wvw because it has been a success, and into creating more build variety. Spvp could somehow be integrated into wvw.
You can’t move side to side… I had soooooooo many bunkers/other rangers try this in tPvP as I was harassing from 2k (out of short bow range) and the just kept eating my arrows, that bug was fixed a while ago!
Lick wounds works 100% of the time until you die on a slope (needs fixing)
Can’t perma stow cause we are THE PET PROF anet doesn’t want us to perma stow they’ve said so A LOT now.
No issue w/ the rest of your post Ryan
Strafing still works for me against lb autoattack at 900 maybe even less. It’s how I melt lb rangers without taking much damage (rf might land a third of its dps at most). For lb to be viable at 1200 projectile speed needs another 30% increase. Unless they plan on changing the way the weapon works.
Anyway there’s no point trolling any more about how lb is fine, as even the devs acknowledge it’s kitten
Ranger is tanky dps that generally cannot be played as glass cannon. Ranger can bring perma fury to the team but all other boons are in shambles until spirits are properly addressed. Healing spring. Traps. Ranger can chain aoe immobilize people. Ranger offers the highest single target dps in the game. Ranged dps and burst are average. Ranger is one of the best bunkers. Thats all I can think of.
In summary rangers dont have a role that others cant do better.
So they are gonna make gs and confusing images piercing, Weak auto attack for one, obvious animation for the other… AND they are nerfing shatters….. While the GS #4 is still bugged and they have made 0 acknowledgement of that fudge up…. Someone on my guild that never plays Mesmer went and tested the GS phantasm her quote “its buggy…. Its wayyyyy buggy….” And yet here mesmers are still called OP and can’t play and blah blah blah…
Youre insane to cry about mesmers. Or just really really bad in which case no amount of buffs will help you.
Yeah ive been busy grinding for my sylvari t3. Dont u want me to look pretty? Ive also been testing my trap bomber build for zerg warfare, switching between that and the sb build. My mission is to make my ranger a worthy contributor to zerg warfare which is a very difficult task.
The other problem is that mag and cd roll in groups of 20-50 at all times so ive had to adapt my builds to that.
Way too much crying in this thread. Look at what they said:
- gc rangers are weak due to bad utilities (true ranger utilities are the worst among all profs)
- maul is getting cond and instant dmg buff; more cd reductions (we all said gs is great just needs more damage)
- lb needs buffs (true)
- pet agony resistance (why not)
The only point that needed specific addressing is spirits. Im hoping this will fall under utility fixes. Overall they have a decent grasp of ranger issues. Could always be better.
Really happy it works for you. All I know is that my sb hits more often and autoattack does more dps than rf. Piercing cripple and piercing daze on a low cd bring more utility than barrage ever could.
Also, staff eles, gs shatter mesmers and rifle zerker warriors are kings of 1200 damage. Ranger gets 4th place but even thats debatable as thief sb could be better.
There are lots of issues with sb/lb combo mostly that u die when anything looks at you funny. I tried playing a ranger with no evades and felt extremely kitten maybe thats just me. You bring nothing to skirmishes which is most of wvw/spvp. Lb rangers get rolled in wvw by any prof because u have no way of mitigating damage. They’re my first target because they cant even live through my qz burst. And when u get focused u pretty much have to sit there and take it after burning through your endurance.
LB based builds are laughable at this point. LB rangers are crushed when tunnel-visioned in WvW. devs know this and hopefully we’ll be seeing some good LB buffs soon.
So much hot air in this thread. Every ranger thinks hes the best. For every gosu ranger there are 20 scrub mesmers, thieves, warriors and eles who are vastly more effective in wvw.
In the long term the lack of the trinity makes instances and any other group play boring and shallow to say the least.
People aren’t forced to co operate and work together or strategize like in other mmo’s that we’ve all played in the past.
If you want people to continue playing this game for any length of time you need to bring back the trinity Anet.
trinity is the dumbest thing ive ever played in a game. it shows an overall lack of imagination and laziness. gw2 is great in this sense. the only issue is they havent been doing enough to balance the game.
banners cant do this