A major flaw since launch

It’s called Opening Strike, and it’s striking that it hasn’t been addressed by now.

For those who aren’t aware, Opening Strike is a mechanic that consists of 3 mandatory traits in the Marksmanship line. What this does is cause you and your pet’s next attack to cause 5 vulnerability for 5s, 2s cripple, a guaranteed critical, and It only recharges once you exit combat.

This has a number of issues in a PvE setting:Vulnerability is easily and usually capped.Cripple is nearly useless in a PvE environment.Ranger’s already approach or meet 100% crit to begin with.It will only activate once per fight.

So, in essence, for 3 traits you’re causing 4 seconds of cripple once a fight…

There’s also Remorseless, a grandmaster trait that gives your opening strike a 25% damage boost and renews it upon gaining fury, but even then, it’s not worth using over the other grandmaster traits! Furthermore, players shouldn’t have to pick a 4th trait to fix the first 3.

This is one of the things holding back physical based rangers, and really needs a solution.

Remorseless should be made baseline honestly to make opening strike somewhat useful.

You just made me sad imagining how nice baseline Remorseless would be.

You've missed one cruicial part that was and still is an issue with opening strikeIt only works on the first hit. A lot of the ranger's abilities hit a target multiple times. The benefit of the entire marksman minors (and remorseless if traited) only works on the 1st hit of such a multi hit ability and is wasted on all other hits of said abilities.

Meanwhile thiefs have the lovely trait called Hidden KillerWhen they stealth they crit on the next hit. Sounds familiar right?

Just with the little difference that they had similar issues like opening strike had. To make sure that those issues were a thing of the past arenanet added a lingering 2 sec duration of the effect in the patch of august 2017 to the trait - to make sure the trait grants the full effect regardless how the thief decides to use it (single or multi hit).

Agreed. I would hope Moment of Clarity could get the same treatment.

Remorseless being adjusted in any way wouldn't make it better than condi variants in dmg potential so it's rather irrelevant although sadly I do see your point for PvE

But maybe, just maybe, it's not suited for PvE? There's many traits unto which trait lines literally are built around PvP atmospheres alone across classes in the game.

Maybe a PvE split if anything is needed to be changed because then you'd be destroying viability in ranger PvP aspects.

@ZhouX.8742 said:you'd be destroying viability in ranger PvP aspects.

Barely any rangers play Remorseless in PvP nowadays. Even more since SotP nerf, which was the easiest way to proc it. Now, you'll need to proc it with Skirmishing weapon swap, WS trait, Warhorn, random GS fury or Moa Stance.

As people said, ranger have many multi-hits skills (Rapid Fire, Hunter's Call, Whirling Defense, pew pew pew), which remove the usefulness of remorseless. Only good skills that is worth with it, since you actually need to time Remorseless with fury now, is Maul, Winter's Bite or Path of Scar. Other skills ? Not worth it.

@Krispera.5087 said:As people said, ranger have many multi-hits skills (Rapid Fire, Hunter's Call, Whirling Defense, pew pew pew), which remove the usefulness of remorseless. Only good skills that is worth with it, since you actually need to time Remorseless with fury now, is Maul, Winter's Bite or Path of Scar. Other skills ? Not worth it.

I'd say it's only good for Maul and that's it. Now with soulbeast, you could add Worldly Impact to that short list as well. The whole opening strike/remorseless is typcial ranger design from this company - putting these traits on a class that's built around many smaller hits, oh the logic...

@OGDeadHead.8326 said:

@Krispera.5087 said:As people said, ranger have many multi-hits skills (Rapid Fire, Hunter's Call, Whirling Defense, pew pew pew), which remove the usefulness of remorseless. Only good skills that is worth with it, since you actually need to time Remorseless with fury now, is Maul, Winter's Bite or Path of Scar. Other skills ? Not worth it.

I mean, I always liked Remorseless for an opening hit on LB at max range since that's always a nice chunk of damage, and it WAS great back when it would apply to the entire first wave of barrage (I.E. against all the targets hit by it).

I feel like they made Opening Strikes back when ranger LB had like a snipe skill or something, removed that skill and then just never bothered to update the minor trait and were like "eh, it still kinda works."

I don't know if making both aspects of Remorseless baseline would be balanced, but folding the +25% damage into the Grandmaster minor would be wonderful. That way, Remorseless could then be used to generate fury. This would also work well with the Skirmishing Grandmaster Vicious Quarry.

Example: RemorselessRegain Opening Strike whenever you gain fury. You have a chance to gain fury on hit.Chance on Hit: 33%Fury (3s): 20% Critical ChanceInternal Cooldown: 10s

how about "Clear Openning" 1)Critical attacks chance apply vulnerability 2)"alpha focus"if you apply vulnerability pet crits next attack3)"precise strike"increased crit chance to vulnerable targets4)"remorseless"applying vulnerability also applies criple(sure lock it behind interval w/e) Yeah now that sounds like a marksman spec

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:I don't know if making both aspects of Remorseless baseline would be balanced, but folding the +25% damage into the Grandmaster minor would be wonderful. That way, Remorseless could then be used to generate fury. This would also work well with the Skirmishing Grandmaster Vicious Quarry.

Example: RemorselessRegain Opening Strike whenever you gain fury. You have a chance to gain fury on hit.Chance on Hit: 33%Fury (3s): 20% Critical ChanceInternal Cooldown: 10s

Eh, I don't know about that. It's a mix of half of Remorseless and half of Two-Handed Training as one GM trait. Plus, I'm not a fan of RNG or ICDs. They have their place, but when there's a trait that amplifies the damage of Opening Strike and the entire class has bursts that can be counted on one hand, it's best not to leave the fury gain to RNG - only to have it wasted on an auto attack or otherwise.

@Wondrouswall.7169 said:

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:I don't know if making both aspects of Remorseless baseline would be balanced, but folding the +25% damage into the Grandmaster minor would be wonderful. That way, Remorseless could then be used to generate fury. This would also work well with the Skirmishing Grandmaster Vicious Quarry.

Example: RemorselessRegain Opening Strike whenever you gain fury. You have a chance to gain fury on hit.Chance on Hit: 33%Fury (3s): 20% Critical ChanceInternal Cooldown: 10s

I don't mind the RNG, and ICDs have their place in balance; but I see your point.

Maybe if we add 'Attacks of Opportunity grant 4 seconds of fury' or 'Disabling a foe for grants 2 seconds of fury'?' To be honest, I mostly see Opening Strike and Remorseless as traits designed for Greatsword, with it's single hit skills.

I completely agree that opening strike is a major flaw. IMO they should just remove it and create new traits. I really dislike that it only works once per fight. In some wvw fights you stay a long time in combat, making it an useless trait.

@Krispera.5087 said:

@ZhouX.8742 said:you'd be destroying viability in ranger PvP aspects.

Again, maybe it's not suited for PvE .. If might not be your definition of what PvE ranger is supposed to be , but the idea is just not viable in reality in PvE. There are builds across all classes literally that have traits that don't provide a value in specific game modes but provide massive value to them in PvP/WvW ...

I suppose you would gut every viable pvp/wvw build too and make them provide nothing in PvP/wvw at the cost of an extra 4-5k dps in PvE? That's not how this game works, some of the PoF builds specifically have no value in Pvp/WvW (renegade) but are really good in PvE for example. Remorseless would be decent, if power was decent as a spec for ranger in PvE - but condi will most likely always be on top for them in terms of dmg.

Also, again, changing remorseless will not do a thing. Trying to make power ranger work with remorseless being changed will not help it, in PvE or PvP. You'd be hurting people in PvP and especially WvW at the cost of nothing for PvE because condi will always out-shine power for ranger even with that change.

And yes, soulbeast can run remorseless for damage in wvw.

@xDudisx.5914 said:I completely agree that opening strike is a major flaw. IMO they should just remove it and create new traits. I really dislike that it only works once per fight. In some wvw fights you stay a long time in combat, making it an useless trait.

Huh, remorseless gives you opening strike back every time you apply fury .. 25% extra dmg for you and your pet on each application of fury is useless? Aight.

Do rangers in this forum actually play ranger?

I mean I get that he's referring to opening strike, but if you remove this trait. What happens to Remorseless? does it just give a 25% dmg bonus per fury application and then replace opening strike as something else? I'd be for that, but it wouldn't be much of a bonus considering it's a minor trait.

@OGDeadHead.8326 said:

@Krispera.5087 said:As people said, ranger have many multi-hits skills (Rapid Fire, Hunter's Call, Whirling Defense, pew pew pew), which remove the usefulness of remorseless. Only good skills that is worth with it, since you actually need to time Remorseless with fury now, is Maul, Winter's Bite or Path of Scar. Other skills ? Not worth it.

Right, my point isn't so much that remorseless is godlike .. It's a dumb design, but changing it will not provide any PvE value is my point... Now if you're trying to adjust it for PvP , it would have to be something to actually assist melee, but then again, it's in marksmanship's trait line , which means if it is something good , you'd need to waste an entire trait line yet again for something at the end , which would leave you with even less ability to have defensive traits which is something most classes don't get to suffer from. You would essentially be forced into WK no matter what from a PvP perspective or be forced to use trooper runes w/ BM. Does it really matter? why change it , knowing this?

There are much bigger trait issues for PvP/WvW LIKE THE LACK OF TRAIT SYNERGY FOR DEFENSIVES i just mentioned than changing up remorseless for PvP/WvW.

But the OP doesn't care so much about defensives, it's only damage because the OP literally wants to remove it entirely for PvE when it already has value in WvW to give power melee a better chance in PvE... what I was saying is it doesn't matter what you put in place of remorseless unless it's like a permanent 100% dmg increase to melee weapons power will never be a better option for ranger than condi in raids/pve.

@ZhouX.8742 said:

@xDudisx.5914 said:I completely agree that opening strike is a major flaw. IMO they should just remove it and create new traits. I really dislike that it only works once per fight. In some wvw fights you stay a long time in combat, making it an useless trait.

It depends on what you use it for. If you get it while on longbow, what's the point? A Rapid Fire that does 3.125% more damage than usual? A barrage, where the damage boost is even less? An auto attack?

Actually they only need to make the fury part of remorseless baseline and could design new grandmasters arround that. Alpha focus should be the trait that always let you crit with OS.

Predators Onslaught: Apply criple when hitting with OS. Do more dmg against impaired foes.Remorseless: Do more dmg with OS. Gain stacks of Might when hitting with OS.Lead the Wind: Gain quicknesd when hitting with OS. Longbow skills have reduced recharge. (i would put the piercing on some skills as baseline, mainly AA and rapid fire)

@Unholy Pillager.3791 said:

@ZhouX.8742 said:

@xDudisx.5914 said:I completely agree that opening strike is a major flaw. IMO they should just remove it and create new traits. I really dislike that it only works once per fight. In some wvw fights you stay a long time in combat, making it an useless trait.

More than that considering you apply 5 extra stacks of vuln. And yes, that's negligible, I know.

But at this point marksmanship would probably be better of if it was normalised to look like any other power related traitline, as boring as that may be. Something along the line of vuln on crit, % damage against foes that have vuln. Cripple on vulnerable targets with an icd as the third, maybe.

The other option is to make the minor refresh it, and perhaps add bonuses to all the grandmasters. Something akin to what's suggested above me. The thing is, people have talked about that since before they added a useful version of Remorseless (the current one). As if Anet is gonna bother.