AoE/Range skills need a nerfening

[Straegen.2938]

AoE and Ranged skills simply output too much damage with too much defensive capability compared to melee. Melee builds have to close on a target, stay extremely close to their target and deal with a massive amount of evasion, stealth, teleports, etc. Often by the time a melee build closes the gap they have run through a couple weapon and utility skills only to see their target vanish, teleport, etc. Melee builds should be the most mobile builds in the game bar none.

Ranged players get auto-tracking and most have obscene amounts of escape/defense while being able to output similar or more damage than melee. AoE classes simply spam a rotation allowing them to pressure multiple opponents at the same time.

Range needs to choose between defense and offense. Many builds in WvW (Pew Pew Soul Beast for example) have to make no trade offs for being near glass cannon damage while still maintaining excessive amounts of mobility, teleports, stun breaks, immob removal. AoE builds shouldn't be hitting as hard as melee builds ever. There needs to be more of a tradeoff between multiple target attacks and cleaving shots.

Lastly stealth needs to trade the ability to vanish with mobility. These builds that have high stealth up time and high mobility need to be seriously adjusted.

[oOStaticOo.9467]

Just delete all classes but Warrior. I mean, that's what you really want. Right?

[rng.1024]

These are good points, very reminiscent of balance prior to the expansions.

Unfortunately, I doubt we will ever get to experience that again as the game is not getting any younger, therefore we need it more accessible for both new and casual players alike :/

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

@oOStaticOo.9467 said:Just delete all classes but Warrior. I mean, that's what you really want. Right?

Warrior too have ranged damage so delete all classes

[DemonSeed.3528]

After balance patch comes in, I might play more warrior rifle tbh lol

[DeadlySynz.3471]

Retaliation is a direct counter to any and all ranged/aoe damage. In fact, retaliation is the reason we don't tend to see a lot of Ele's or Dragonhunters anymore as their capability to output a lot of damage instantly usually means a very quick death on their part.

For example, take dragonhunter traps. You can drop your traps then move however far away you're allowed to move to still cause damage. A big group comes along with retaliation, hits the traps, and the dragonhunter is basically instantly dead. So saying ranged/aoe damage is too much isn't a correct statement, because retaliation basically deletes these players faster than you can blink. A correct statement would be, retaliation damage does too much, needs to be scaled down AND needs to work in a small aoe around the person with the buff.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:After balance patch comes in, I might play more warrior rifle tbh lol

this guy knows

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:After balance patch comes in, I might play more warrior rifle tbh lol

this guy knows

I'm wondering what kind of burst warrior builds will show up with the new tactics line, get a few rifle berserkers with the 50% extra damage to enemies with barrier and pretend you're Sharpe's chosen men.

[Abyssisis.3971]

A lot of melee classes have more than enough teleports and gap closers to get close and stick with their targets, not to mention the stealth, blocks, reflects and the invulnerability these classes can use. Perhaps they need to make the choice between their mobility skills or use defensive skills as well? Only fair imo.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Sharpe's chosen men.

wooooooow.someone actually knows what that is.tip o' the hat sir.

[Aeolus.3615]

Anet just iimproved warrior rifle by 50%damage.

Alot..really alot ifnot most players noticed it, duno how this skipped in Anet studio, one can already do 10-15k damage trough everything that is treated as block.

[Brother.1504]

Rifle warrior was meta at launch. I’d be happy to see that again.

[len.7809]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Retaliation is a direct counter to any and all ranged/aoe damage. In fact, retaliation is the reason we don't tend to see a lot of Ele's or Dragonhunters anymore as their capability to output a lot of damage instantly usually means a very quick death on their part.

For example, take dragonhunter traps. You can drop your traps then move however far away you're allowed to move to still cause damage. A big group comes along with retaliation, hits the traps, and the dragonhunter is basically instantly dead. So saying ranged/aoe damage is too much isn't a correct statement, because retaliation basically deletes these players faster than you can blink. A correct statement would be, retaliation damage does too much, needs to be scaled down AND needs to work in a small aoe around the person with the buff.

Retaliation is direct counter to multi-hit damage, not ranged/aoe damage. If a hammer revenant hits you for 11k 1 hit, he will only take around 280 damage.You don't tend to see eles is because of the nerfs. DH is not meta in blobing.

The direct counter to ranged damage is reflect in case of projectil. If its not reflectable, then theres no direct counter to it.

[Sandzibar.5134]

OP is incorrect.

[RedShark.9548]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:After balance patch comes in, I might play more warrior rifle tbh lol

this guy knows

I'm wondering what kind of burst warrior builds will show up with the new tactics line, get a few rifle berserkers with the 50% extra damage to enemies with barrier and pretend you're Sharpe's chosen men.

Honestly i dont think there will be many richards out there, in the beginning maybe for the meme, but soon will they realize that they are less effective than the bubblebots and have to give up too much for tactic

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Retaliation is a direct counter to any and all ranged/aoe damage. In fact, retaliation is the reason we don't tend to see a lot of Ele's or Dragonhunters anymore as their capability to output a lot of damage instantly usually means a very quick death on their part.

For example, take dragonhunter traps. You can drop your traps then move however far away you're allowed to move to still cause damage. A big group comes along with retaliation, hits the traps, and the dragonhunter is basically instantly dead. So saying ranged/aoe damage is too much isn't a correct statement, because retaliation basically deletes these players faster than you can blink. A correct statement would be, retaliation damage does too much, needs to be scaled down AND needs to work in a small aoe around the person with the buff.

Any and all ranged aoe dmg... Uh no, hammer rev might want to talk about that, lel.Imo reta isnt even strong enough and should do alot more dmg, the thing i would do is turning up the dmg and make it so that you can only take dmg from reta every 0.5 seconds to not punish many small hits too much

I agree with op, some of anet choices are very questionable and make not alit of sense to me.

@Sandzibar.5134 said:OP is incorrect.

You might want to elaborate and give counterarguments, instead of just making that statement

[Baldrick.8967]

@len.7809 said:

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Retaliation is a direct counter to any and all ranged/aoe damage. In fact, retaliation is the reason we don't tend to see a lot of Ele's or Dragonhunters anymore as their capability to output a lot of damage instantly usually means a very quick death on their part.

For example, take dragonhunter traps. You can drop your traps then move however far away you're allowed to move to still cause damage. A big group comes along with retaliation, hits the traps, and the dragonhunter is basically instantly dead. So saying ranged/aoe damage is too much isn't a correct statement, because retaliation basically deletes these players faster than you can blink. A correct statement would be, retaliation damage does too much, needs to be scaled down AND needs to work in a small aoe around the person with the buff.

Retaliation is direct counter to multi-hit damage, not ranged/aoe damage. If a hammer revenant hits you for 11k 1 hit, he will only take around 280 damage.You don't tend to see eles is because of the nerfs. DH is not meta in blobing.

The direct counter to ranged damage is reflect in case of projectil. If its not reflectable, then theres no direct counter to it.

Retaliation is by far the worst thing for ranged aoe damage, as it damages out of all proportion to the damage done and has no cap, so you can kill yourself using piercing arrows and one barrage if ur not careful. As a group can maintain it all the time, along with reflects, invulns, blah, blah it makes for some shitty gameplay.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'm wondering what kind of burst warrior builds will show up with the new tactics line, get a few rifle berserkers with the 50% extra damage to enemies with barrier and pretend you're Sharpe's chosen men.

Honestly i dont think there will be many richards out there

another sharpes rifles enthusiast. guise lets start a club!

[Electra.7530]

I love my berserker warrior and he uses rifle. He's gonna live his rifle a lot more. But you won't!

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'm wondering what kind of burst warrior builds will show up with the new tactics line, get a few rifle berserkers with the 50% extra damage to enemies with barrier and pretend you're Sharpe's chosen men.

Honestly i dont think there will be many richards out there

another sharpes rifles enthusiast. guise lets start a club!

It's not the Richard's, it's the Patrick's I'm worried about. Have you seen the size of that gun?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Aeolus.3615 said:Anet just iimproved warrior rifle by 50%damage.

Alot..really alot ifnot most players noticed it, duno how this skipped in Anet studio, one can already do 10-15k damage trough everything that is treated as block.

U forget the against barriers. It's also 25 against non barriers and on a traitline few will take so.Kinda seems like u wanna spread unneeded panic lol

[Aeolus.3615]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:Anet just iimproved warrior rifle by 50%damage.

Alot..really alot ifnot most players noticed it, duno how this skipped in Anet studio, one can already do 10-15k damage trough everything that is treated as block.

U forget the against barriers. It's also 25 against non barriers and on a traitline few will take so.Kinda seems like u wanna spread unneeded panic lol

So it’s only against barrier the 50%??? Many actually think me included it’s any target with barrier will take 50% more damage, even if u have 1 health barrier u will take 50% more as while damage then it’s calculated the 25% if health is also at max... this is what I’ve interpreted.

In some warrior skills it’s a reason to panic... due how rifle can behave.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'm wondering what kind of burst warrior builds will show up with the new tactics line, get a few rifle berserkers with the 50% extra damage to enemies with barrier and pretend you're Sharpe's chosen men.

Honestly i dont think there will be many richards out there

another sharpes rifles enthusiast. guise lets start a club!

It's not the Richard's, it's the Patrick's I'm worried about. Have you seen the size of that gun?

theres only one man who can handle such a gun.

I love it man, cheers.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

The problem comes from the fact some of the harder hitting skills in the game are ranged, which I will agree should be lower in some cases. As low risk and kiting ability etc etc should also not be rewarded with high burst.

The problem comes from all the spam that PoF introduced, in a larger group, lots of ranged skills are almost useless due to the amount of shields and reflects that exist at random that are almost impossible to see. However, you then move to 1vs1 and many of those ranged builds are over tuned. So if you nerf all that range without addressing the zealous use of skill spam we have now, ranged will have even less place in large scale fights. Myself, I don't play that way, I solo roam most of the time and on a melee DH at that, however nerfing range across the board without considering all the play styles and builds will only make things worse.

As for the other suggestion of retaliation being a counter, as someone already said, it is not. It is a counter to anything that hits lots of targets at once, or hits one target many times in rapid succession.

[len.7809]

@Baldrick.8967 said:Retaliation is by far the worst thing for ranged aoe damage, as it damages out of all proportion to the damage done and has no cap, so you can kill yourself using piercing arrows and one barrage if ur not careful. As a group can maintain it all the time, along with reflects, invulns, blah, blah it makes for some kitten gameplay.

Still, its the worst thing for multi-hit damage.Necromancer's Mark of Blood(staff2) is ranged, AoE, hits 5 targets. If those 5 targets have retaliation on, then the necromancer will get 5 times retaliation damage.Elementalist's Lava Font (Fire staff2) is ranged, AoE, hits 5 targets each second for 4 seconds, total of 20 hits, takes 20 times retaliation damage.

Elementalist's Arc Lighting (Air scepter1) is ranged, 3 targets, target channeling skill, 10 total attacks x 3 targets in line. takes 30 times retaliation damage.Guardian's Symbol of Wrath(GS4) is melee, AoE, hits 5 targets each second for 4 seconds, total of 20 hits, takes 20 times retaliation damage.

You see where im going. Its not about the ranged/aoe. Is all about the numbers of total hits. Retaliation is the counter for multi-hit skills, not ranged/aoe.

[Straegen.2938]

Small scale:

• Pew Pew Rangers need to choose between high ranged kiting damage and defense. The multiple long range jumps, stealth, knockdowns, huge easy damage rotations, better ranged weapon pathing than any other class and an absurd amount of defense all at the same time is simply OP in small scale. Reduce the jumps and make them far more susceptible to immobilize particularly on high damage range builds.
• Dead Eyes with high stealth time need their mobility cut. Whoever thought stealth, big ranged damage, immobilize and mobility in one weapon-set was a good idea missed the balance class. It is difficult enough to close the gap on them then watch them stealth but add a massive spammable range jump that also removes condi in the mix and catching one is near impossible unless they screw up
• Mirage... AoE, evasion, blocks, invuln, stealth, teleports and condi spam. There is virtually nothing in their kit they don't have access to. Personally I would leave all the defensive capability in and gut the condi damage. Mirage should be power based forcing them to constantly pressure a target rather than semi-passively apply condi.

Large scale:

• My primary suggestion is to root casters of ranged AoE and ground targeted abilities. Rangers and to some extent eles already have to deal with this and so should most long range AoE casting skills. Every big hitting Scourge AoE should root their rears in place for the full cast time.