Insanely overpowered ranger skills - Eg. Whirling Defense does more damage than hundred blades

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:The majority of rangers in WvW is the opposite of "highly skilled". And yet they tend to pose a bigger threat than players of similar skill level on other classes. Thinking that only higly skilled rangers could kill others is delusional. The class has some of the strongest builds in a completely powercreeped enviroment. Nerfs need to happen sooner or later. Not only to ranger ofc, but this is the ranger forum, so discussing other classes here doesn't make much sense.So let people talk about nerfs. If you don't agree with them, point out misconceptions and correct their false claims. Provide facts. But following a pointless "no-nerf" policy without anything to back it up aside from personal attacks, just shows a lack of actual arguments. It doesn't make you look better - i don't know a single actually good player who defends the power creep that is plagueing the game - and it won't improve the class or game, because when there is no objective discussion about what and how to nerf properly, it won't be surprising, if the wrong things get nerfed in the end (not that i actually believe the forum matters, just something to think about).

You also need to understand the history of rangers. They went through a long period of most of the last few years being useless. If knowing this, you should be able to understand the amount of hesitation that ranger mains are showing in this thread.

This’ll sound harsh, but if you are dying to these unskilled rangers, than you deserve it. Learn from your mistakes and adjust. And I would say that to the majority of any WvW player on any class, with the exception of Necros. They just don’t have the mobility means to deal with range in general.

[Zyreva.1078]

Ranger hasn't been "useless" for at least 5 years. Yes the class wasn't always welcome in organized grps, but still at least decent for roaming. And even if it was useless years ago, this shouldn't have any impact on current balance.Also my main mistakes are playing solo and often with not so op builds, and i'd rather quit the game again than correct those "mistakes".

[Dragonzhunter.8506]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:Ranger hasn't been "useless" for at least 5 years. Yes they weren't always welcome in organized grps, but still at least decent for roaming. And even if they were useless years ago, this shouldn't have any impact on current balance.Also my main mistakes are playing solo and often with not so op builds, and I'd rather quit the game again than correct those "mistakes".

Your answer proves that you don't know anything about ranger. Ranger was useless for years, in all 3 types of game, PVE, sPVP and WvW. They started to be useful with the release of Druid. Still, in PVE fractals, he wasn't preferred over other classes. In W3 (world vs world) raids, he wasn't a main healer main support or main dps dealer ... Every time Necro, Mesmer, Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist was preferred instead of him. And even now, with Soulbeast, we are not preferred to be in a wvw raid group, or pve raid group, fractals or GvG group. NO ... we are considered good only in roaming (small group or solo) and as a duelist.Even in sPVP, most of the teams who are playing, they prefer other classes instead of ranger. When I am talking of sPVP, I am talking about tournaments. The proof is how many rangers are in top 10 or top 100 in the world.Please, don't talk nonsense if you don't know about the history of ranger.Ah, I forgot to remember you about the dungeons, when NOBODY wants a ranger ... why? because he was useless.

[Zyreva.1078]

Ranger was solid, albeit not top tier, in PvE most of the time. It's main issue was prejudice, often fueled by typical "bearbow" rangers. But that's not an issue with the class per se.It was always a decent dueler and solo roamer in WvW (well, at least for the last 5-6 years, can't tell much about the time before).It was occasionally meta in PvP even before druid (spirit ranger). It was decent for soloQ since the pre HoT trait changes when the "shoutbow" build became popular. It became meta with druid (both PvP and PvE) and has been strong in both game modes since then. That's for more than half of this game's lifetime. WvW zerging is literally the only thing ranger was never shining in and the class isn't alone in this regard.Btw how about providing actual numbers? Since you obvioulsy have access to a conclusive class statistic of tournament winners and top 100 players, why not just publish it?

But even if you were right and the class was completely trash for all the past year, it has zero relevance for current balance.

[Lazze.9870]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:But even if you were right and the class was completely trash for all the past year, it has zero relevance for current balance.

It actually does, and I already made a comment about this.

Remove SB from ranger, and the core profession still hits like a noodle compared to other professions. It has lower power coefficients on its power weapons than any other class. It has been taxed from having a pet since launch. Initially, SB wasn't even enough. They had to remove restrictions on the traits when merged, buff damage-related core traits, buff core weapons, buff the stats you got from merging.

Funny thing being that even with those buffs, core ranger still doesn't do power damage particularly well at all in comparison to other professions. What we have is an elite spec with ridiculous damage modifiers, partially because it needed no restrictions on the modifiers made for pets to make up for a core class that is sorely lacking. That says something. Sic Em is somewhat disgusting in WvW, but rangers rely on it to even compete with a power build for raids.

And just for sake of it, ranger has improved massively over the years. The three "go to" core trait lines for pvp, NM, BM and WS, got great synergy among them. But one area hasn't changed, and that is its core power damage potential, and that potential was the same thing that held it back years ago along with lack of utility like portal or (greater) mobility with teleportations/blinks.

The reason all of this matters even IF SB on its own is "stupid OP", is that SB at the end of the day is just a bandaid for the ranger's damage potential. It doesn't change the core class' problems. And all these moronic complaints about it is just gonna bring about another kneejerk reaction from Anet, and ranger players are tired of those.

[Zyreva.1078]

First, nobody wants SB to be removed.Second, i think you are mixing up PvE and PvP.When i'm talking about balance i'm usually only referring to PvP and WvW. Since different game modes are split, PvE doesn't need to be affected by any suggested nerfs that are targeted at other parts of the game.And when it comes to PvP/WvW, nerfs don't have to result in trash dmg. I mean, SB isn't broken by design, just some numbers are a bit "over the top" and careful adjustments won't kill the class or specialisation. Especially if powercreep overall gets reduced (and that should happen).When it comes to core ranger's dmg you are partially right. The dmg is bad if you look at it in a vaccuum. But it is ok, when adding the pets' dmg. As long the pets are alive, core ranger is fine. And there lies the biggest issue of core - in this high dmg meta it is often impossible to keep the more useful pets - like birds, wolfs or felines - alive, even in a 1vs1 and with the enemy not focusing the pet. And you are right, SB is a bandaid for this issue. But it could be fixed easily on core. Either by increasing the pets' tankyness a lot, kinda like in PvE, or by removing the swap penalty for a dead pet.Personally i'd prefer a combination of both. Slightly better tankyness, so the pets don't get oneshot by random cleave dmg, but remain killable if focused or not called back in certain situations. Removal of the cd increase on swap - it punishes the player for something that is often out of his influence, because there are simply not enough tools to protect the pets, and no other class has to deal with a penalty of such kind. Should be easy to implement, since it's just some number changes. Could then make SB unable to merge with a dead pet, without killing the spec. But that's the only thing i'd like to see buffed about ranger, even when ignoring SB and only looking at core.Add some shaves to all meta builds and then continue with adjustments from there. Balance would already look a lot better imo.

Btw i don't think suggestions on the forum actually affect balance. The devs seem to do whatever they want and a lot of changes were never asked for, while other stuff remains unchanged despite plenty of complaints or reasonable ideas.

[Kain Francois.4328]

If Whirling Defense is overpowered, how come I never see it used in PvP?

:thinking:

[CETheLucid.3964]

@Ruufio.1496 said:overpowered ranger skills - whirling defense does more damage than hundred blades

takes two steps backwards0 damage

Very OP.

[Swagger.1459]

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@Ruufio.1496 said:overpowered ranger skills - whirling defense does more damage than hundred blades

takes two steps backwards

0 damage

Very OP.

What do you think... Should we nerf the “steps back” design or add an unbreakable immobilize to the targets caught inside of Whirling Defense?

I, personally, think doing both just to make sure we don’t run into these issues again, and we treat Rangers more fairly.

[ChartFish.1308]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:"remain killable if focused or not called back in certain situations. Removal of the cd increase on swap - it punishes the player for something that is often out of his influence, because there are simply not enough tools to protect the pets, and no other class has to deal with a penalty of such kind"

This, so much. It feels like if you bring core ranger/druid into a teamfight in spvp as it is atm it dies within seconds and youre burdened by a permadead pet.

[ChartFish.1308]

@Kain Francois.4328 said:If Whirling Defense is overpowered, how come I never see it used in PvP?

:thinking:

Idk abt u i see it quite often actually

[Dragonzhunter.8506]

@ChartFish.1308 said:

@Kain Francois.4328 said:If Whirling Defense is overpowered, how come I never see it used in PvP?

:thinking:

Idk abt u i see it quite often actually

Yes, the Whirling Defense it is used often in sPVP, because most of the fights are on the point and ppl are trying hard to not lose any seconds of possession of the point, and they prefer to die for 5 sec more of possession than going outside of the point for 5 sec till the WD it's finished. If ppl would be smart enough to avoid WD (the main Soulbeast damage skill in sPVP), this skill will become useless and rangers would no longer use it.

[Lazze.9870]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:First, nobody wants SB to be removed.Second, i think you are mixing up PvE and PvP.

I never said that. I'm pointing it out because it means ANY OTHER ranger elite spec is gonna do similar damage to core ranger, and core ranger does not hit particularly hard at all. Don't come her with your "partially right, ranger pet damage makes up for it". It doesn't, not even against stationairy targets in PvE, and certainly not against moving targets which it has a hard time keep up with to begin with. Smokescale wasn't "OP" at HoT launch because of its damage alone, it's just better at sticking to targets and had a longer range on its attacks (and still has compared to most core pets).

Fixing pets dying to cleave damage (which I agree is a problem) isn't a fix to core ranger's damage, it's an additional problem that came along with all the powercreep. Fixing it just means the unreliable damage at least is alive to... be unreliable.

The coefficients are from a time when Anet (or certain people at Anet, cough) considered the pet to be so strong, we needed a grandmaster trait to make signets apply to the ranger on activations. It took them two years to completely abandon the idea that it was supposed to be balanced, and they replaced said GM trait with a damage modifier trait (so we went from a trait that "patched" up the pet tax, to make signets work baseline_ and _give us a damage modifier). But they have never touched on how our weapons scale with the power stat. They have just done flat % increases on the base damage.

Iron out the flaws with the core ranger damage first. That's the only actual solution that is gonna affect all game modes, across all ranger specs. Then you can look at soulbeast. Balancing pet damage would generally be easier too.

Btw, I'm not mixing PvE and PvP. I'm refering to the raid meta because it sheds light on how Sic Em on one hand can be disgusting in some scenarios, while in another it is something the class relies on to compete for damage.

[Zyreva.1078]

There is no "only buffs to base dmg" or special power scaling for ranger. The damage calculation is the same for all classes. The only differences are the skill specific coefficients and dmg modifier from traits and both things got buffed over the years (for all classes though). And as someone who plays mainly core ranger in WvW (full melee and lb/gs) i can assure you, the dmg is enough to kill almost everything. Only condi mirage and tanky boonbeasts feel sometimes unkillable and that's more an issue with those builds than core ranger's dmg. Sure, its not this "press 1-3 buttons to insta kill everything in sight" kind of dmg, but that's good. Dmg buffs would just add more unneccessary powercreep.And again, PvE has zero relevance for PvP balance. There is absolutely no correlation between dps in PvE and performance in PvP, because a lot more factors than straight dmg numbers play a role for the latter.

[CETheLucid.3964]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"Ruufio.1496" said:overpowered ranger skills - whirling defense does more damage than hundred blades

takes two steps backwards

0 damage

Very OP.

What do you think... Should we nerf the “steps back” design or add an unbreakable immobilize to the targets caught inside of Whirling Defense?

I, personally, think doing both just to make sure we don’t run into these issues again, and we treat Rangers more fairly.

You know a minor vortex effect that sucked people into it while the skill was going off wouldn't be all that unusual. But since people are on about how "OP" it is I can only hope it gets left alone. ?

[DeceiverX.8361]

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"Ruufio.1496" said:overpowered ranger skills - whirling defense does more damage than hundred blades

takes two steps backwards

0 damage

Very OP.

What do you think... Should we nerf the “steps back” design or add an unbreakable immobilize to the targets caught inside of Whirling Defense?

I, personally, think doing both just to make sure we don’t run into these issues again, and we treat Rangers more fairly.

You know a minor vortex effect that sucked people into it while the skill was going off wouldn't be all that unusual. But since people are on about how "OP" it is I can only hope it gets left alone. ?

It's becoming more and more common in WvW.

Almost like a lot of people running WD run a pull in their kit already and then can run a pet with Prelude lash - which is functionally a > melee range AoE pull that also immobilizes and has a cancellable aftercast despite its already incredibly short .25s full animation, and that WD's damage if applied with 25 might and Sic 'Em 100-0's people without any passive immunities in less than the time it takes to leave the zone even running forward with superspeed lol.

If used with live fast, it's absurdly reliable and forces a ton of resources from your opponent as they're forced to stunbreak+cleanse and a further defense to negate the subsequent damage. You almost always come out ahead on cooldown trades and if used when they've already been denied their resources from other skill combos (RF and kiting to force mobility/defenses, PBS for stunbreak, etc.) it's an automatic kill.

[Swagger.1459]

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"Ruufio.1496" said:overpowered ranger skills - whirling defense does more damage than hundred blades

takes two steps backwards

0 damage

Very OP.

What do you think... Should we nerf the “steps back” design or add an unbreakable immobilize to the targets caught inside of Whirling Defense?

I, personally, think doing both just to make sure we don’t run into these issues again, and we treat Rangers more fairly.

You know a minor vortex effect that sucked people into it while the skill was going off wouldn't be all that unusual. But since people are on about how "OP" it is I can only hope it gets left alone. ?

That’s a pretty genius idea! I love it!

[Dreams.3128]

@Ruufio.1496 said:So let's discuss why so many ranger abilities are completely overpowered for the realm of Guild Wars 2 combat.

Whirling DefenseJuly 23, 2013 -This skill now grants 4 seconds of retaliation for the duration of the skill.April 19, 2016 - The damage per strike has been increased by 100%.November 07, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%ONLY A MONTH LATERDecember 12, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%.

In addition to being a whirl finisher and giving retaliation it also reflects projectiles and inflicts 12 stacks of vulnerability. In comparison, hundred blades does about half as much damage and only inflicts damage and nothing else. Balanced vs incredibly overpowered.

Moving on.

Winter's BiteJune 20, 2017 - The damage of this skill has been increased by 150%March 27, 2018 - Increased damage by 20% in PvP and WvW and the bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds.HONED AXES TRAITJanuary 26, 2016 - The ferocity bonus this trait grants has been increased from 150 to 250..

You also do not need to hit a target in order for your next attack to inflict weakness.

Prelude Lash5 target 300 radius AOE pull that also immobilizes. Because just having an AOE pull would be too weak.

Swoop (soulbeast)Range: 1200 Cooldown: 10 seconds.This should literally be nerfed in half. Eg 600 range and 20 second cooldown. Give them an evade if they whine about it.

Blackbear (soulbeast)Defy Pain - Immune to physical damage for 5 seconds.Unflinching Fortitude - Break stun, remove movement conditions and immunity to physical damage for 4 seconds.

Wow. 2 endure pain on 1 pet for a total of 9s immunity. OK. Throw in physical damage immunity signet here or there, maybe some permanent protection and... could you imagine if protection also reduced condition damage by 33% or ranger had access to resistance or mass condition clear? Boy that sure would be OP wouldn't it. You could go full berserker stats and be more survivable than a warrior with his mere 2 endure pains, critical hit immunity and blocks.

Second Skin33% condition damage reduction? Wow... How about nerfing it to 20%. It would still be strong as kiten.

All StancesTheir cooldowns are all WAY too low. What even is 25s cooldown on moa stance lmao. The uptime on that stance is almost 100%. 25s is practically spammable. Nerf all stances to at least 45s bare minimum.

Sick Em/Pets Prowess etc.Is this the highest damage modifier in the game? 40% is INSANE. Imagine if a superior version of hundred blades with a 7.92dmg modifier was buffed by 130% damage, had another 40% damage increase and threw a bunch of other damage modifiers on top of that. Did you know ranger has the most (and best!) damage modifiers in the game (as well as the most damage immunities)? It's not the minor damage modifiers that are the issue... but it is these INSANE ones. Honed axes 240 ferocity (WOAH), Pets Prowess 300 ferocity (HOLY KITTEN!!!!!!!) Attack of Opportunity 25% ... again... HUGE, Vicious Quarry 250 ferocity with fury... WHY SUCH HUGE FEROCITY BONUSES??????? Us engineers only get a reasonable 150 ferocity with fury.

What amazingly ridiculously insane damage modifiers those are. Meanwhile engineer had the 10% damage modiifier removed from tool kit because apparently it was OP to hit a 5k pry bar under best circumstances.

Protective WardWhy is the weakness AOE? Just to increase the random spam in combat?

LongbowFor the fivethousadnth time from the fiftyistthousandth person... the range is NOT 1500. Please fix.

The soulbeast is the most overpowered thing to ever exist in the entirety on Guild Wars 2. More overpowered than a scourge combined with preHoT cele ele combined with prePoF chronomancer. How is this allowed?

Do you ever know WHY half of that crap was buffed?

Because half of it was garbage tier?

What was axe before Boonbeast?What was half of those straight before Boonbeast?

Ranger literally could only use half of their weapons because they were THAT bad. Now fixing over performing skills, that's fine. The moa stance and dolyak stance? Sure. The permanent swiftness and beast-hopping? Sure. The constant weakness from Winter's bite? Sure.

Everything else? Now you're hitting both CORE and DRUID. Don't be stupidly blind, hit proper things that will make the SPEC more skillful. Not the whole damn class.

[Lazze.9870]

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:There is no "only buffs to base dmg" or special power scaling for ranger. The damage calculation is the same for all classes. The only differences are the skill specific coefficients and dmg modifier from traits and both things got buffed over the years (for all classes though). And as someone who plays mainly core ranger in WvW (full melee and lb/gs) i can assure you, the dmg is enough to kill almost everything. Only condi mirage and tanky boonbeasts feel sometimes unkillable and that's more an issue with those builds than core ranger's dmg. Sure, its not this "press 1-3 buttons to insta kill everything in sight" kind of dmg, but that's good. Dmg buffs would just add more unneccessary powercreep.And again, PvE has zero relevance for PvP balance. There is absolutely no correlation between dps in PvE and performance in PvP, because a lot more factors than straight dmg numbers play a role for the latter.

I thought it was obvious that coefficients are the exact ones I'm talking about. And that those coefficient numbers were chosen because of the pet way back. Like.. What? How was that not clear for you?

Oh good, you can assure me. I've played plenty of full melee ranger myself. It's fun, it's good. It doesn't change what I bring up.

And again, if you're gonna keep spewing out nonsense about how PvE is completely irrelevant, then you simply don't understand the point I was making about it. Stop dumbing it down to "a lot more factors than straight damage numbers play a role in PvP" and brush it off - as if that isn't obvious and I don't know that. The point was never to directly compare pve and pvp damage. It was to shed light on the state of the class, and one skill in particular.

[Zyreva.1078]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"UmbraNoctis.1907" said:There is no "only buffs to base dmg" or special power scaling for ranger. The damage calculation is the same for all classes. The only differences are the skill specific coefficients and dmg modifier from traits and both things got buffed over the years (for all classes though). And as someone who plays mainly core ranger in WvW (full melee and lb/gs) i can assure you, the dmg is enough to kill almost everything. Only condi mirage and tanky boonbeasts feel sometimes unkillable and that's more an issue with those builds than core ranger's dmg. Sure, its not this "press 1-3 buttons to insta kill everything in sight" kind of dmg, but that's good. Dmg buffs would just add more unneccessary powercreep.And again, PvE has zero relevance for PvP balance. There is absolutely no correlation between dps in PvE and performance in PvP, because a lot more factors than straight dmg numbers play a role for the latter.

I thought it was obvious that coefficients are the exact ones I'm talking about. And that those coefficient numbers were chosen because of the pet way back. Like.. What? How was that not clear for you?

Oh good, you can assure me. I've played plenty of full melee ranger myself. It's fun, it's good. It doesn't change what I bring up.

And again, if you're gonna keep spewing out nonsense about how PvE is completely irrelevant, then you simply don't understand the point I was making about it. Stop dumbing it down to "a lot more factors than straight damage numbers play a role in PvP" and brush it off - as

if

that isn't obvious and I don't know that. The point was never to directly compare pve and pvp damage. It was to shed light on the state of the class, and one skill in particular.

You are mentioning two things. "Base dmg" - which got "flat % increases" and "how our weapons scale with the power stat" that "they have never touched" according to you. I thought that your "base dmg" is referring to the coefficients, because a lot of them got buffed over the years and with power scaling you meant something else. If "power scaling" = coefficients in your post, then your claim, those got never changed, is simply wrong.

And yes, i don't understand your point about PvE and how it can shed light on the state of the class in PvP/WvW. But w/e ...

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@"Ruufio.1496" said:So let's discuss why so many ranger abilities are completely overpowered for the realm of Guild Wars 2 combat.

Whirling Defense

July 23, 2013 -This skill now grants 4 seconds of retaliation for the duration of the skill.April 19, 2016 - The damage

per strike

has been increased by 100%.November 07, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%

ONLY A MONTH LATER

December 12, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%.

In addition to being a whirl finisher and giving retaliation it also reflects projectiles and inflicts 12 stacks of vulnerability. In comparison, hundred blades does about half as much damage and

only inflicts damage and nothing else.

Balanced vs incredibly overpowered.

Moving on.

Winter's Bite

June 20, 2017 - The damage of this skill has been increased by 150%March 27, 2018 - Increased damage by 20% in PvP and WvW and the bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds.

HONED AXES TRAIT

January 26, 2016 - The ferocity bonus this trait grants has been increased from 150 to 250..

You also do not need to hit a target in order for your next attack to inflict weakness.

Prelude Lash

5 target 300 radius AOE pull

that also immobilizes.

Because just having an AOE pull would be too weak.

Swoop (soulbeast)

Range: 1200 Cooldown: 10 seconds.This should literally be nerfed in half. Eg 600 range and 20 second cooldown. Give them an evade if they whine about it.

Blackbear (soulbeast)

Defy Pain - Immune to physical damage for 5 seconds.Unflinching Fortitude - Break stun, remove movement conditions and immunity to physical damage for 4 seconds.

Wow. 2 endure pain on 1 pet for a total of 9s immunity. OK. Throw in physical damage immunity signet here or there, maybe some permanent protection and... could you imagine if protection also reduced condition damage by 33% or ranger had access to resistance or mass condition clear? Boy that sure would be OP wouldn't it. You could go full berserker stats and be more survivable than a warrior with his mere 2 endure pains, critical hit immunity and blocks.

Second Skin

33% condition damage reduction? Wow... How about nerfing it to 20%. It would still be strong as kiten.

All Stances

Their cooldowns are all WAY too low. What even is 25s cooldown on moa stance lmao. The uptime on that stance is almost 100%. 25s is practically spammable. Nerf all stances to at least 45s bare minimum.

Sick Em/Pets Prowess etc.

Is this the highest damage modifier in the game? 40% is

INSANE

. Imagine if a superior version of hundred blades with a 7.92dmg modifier was buffed by 130% damage, had another 40% damage increase and threw a bunch of other damage modifiers on top of that. Did you know ranger has the most (and best!) damage modifiers in the game (as well as the most damage immunities)? It's not the minor damage modifiers that are the issue... but it

is

these INSANE ones. Honed axes 240 ferocity (WOAH), Pets Prowess 300 ferocity (HOLY KITTEN!!!!!!!) Attack of Opportunity 25% ... again... HUGE, Vicious Quarry 250 ferocity with fury... WHY SUCH HUGE FEROCITY BONUSES??????? Us engineers only get a reasonable 150 ferocity with fury.

What amazingly ridiculously insane damage modifiers those are. Meanwhile engineer had the 10% damage modiifier removed from tool kit because apparently it was OP to hit a 5k pry bar under best circumstances.

Protective Ward

Why is the weakness AOE? Just to increase the random spam in combat?

Longbow

For the fivethousadnth time from the fiftyistthousandth person... the range is NOT 1500. Please fix.

The soulbeast is the most overpowered thing to ever exist in the entirety on Guild Wars 2. More overpowered than a scourge combined with preHoT cele ele combined with prePoF chronomancer. How is this allowed?

Do you ever know WHY half of that kitten was buffed?

Because half of it was garbage tier?

What was axe before Boonbeast?What was half of those straight before Boonbeast?

Ranger literally could only use half of their weapons because they were THAT bad. Now fixing over performing skills, that's fine. The moa stance and dolyak stance? Sure. The permanent swiftness and beast-hopping? Sure. The constant weakness from Winter's bite? Sure.

Everything else? Now you're hitting both CORE and DRUID. Don't be stupidly blind, hit proper things that will make the SPEC more skillful. Not the whole kitten class.

The issue at hand is nobody is willing to understand that increased utility and reliability must come at the cost of damage or defense in order to make a fun, interactive, and fair game.

You look at other classes and to get these kinds of benefits they need to make major sacrifices in some significant areas. This doesn't matter in PvE because the only thing that matters is damage and the utility and sustain is offloaded to someone else. So things "work" in a "balanced" state. This however isn't the case in the PvP modes, and stuff like mobility utility and range has a way bigger impact on how successful a class is.

In the PvP modes, utility is incredibly valuable and sustain defines whether or not a build or class is playable, especially now with such inflated damage numbers. D/D thief for example has been the single worst PvP/WvW build since a few months after launch despite its near-continuous DPS supremacy for years. All of it comes down to Cloak and Dagger being recastable, yet is considered to be the worst PvP stealth skills in the game due to its lack of reliability against AI targets, higher initiative cost, and relatively useless skills on 2/3/4. It's these reasons why PvE viability means for nothing in respects to PvP balance; the design-level needs for managing utility and damage PvP are much more significant, while in PvE it's mostly numerical tweaks, assuming people care about the numbers (which traditionally before raids, nobody did, and most people won't dream of maxing out their class realistically).

If anything comes free, it makes the class easier and/or stronger. Soulbeast, mirage, and Deadeye for example all gain a ton of free damage and utility/sustain in their respective specs, and a lot of it is through self-propelled agency in a fight which their opponents have no control over (evade during CC and incredible mobility on mirage, permanent stealth uptime and big damage with hard-to-negate tells or lack thereof (DE), high landspeed and the best damage numbers in the game (objectively) and safe ranged engages with unblockable damage and chained damage immunity effects (SB), which is why these specs are considered overpowered and oppressive to play against.

Even in the CDI years ago, I said that in an ideal world, the ranger would have the option to stow its pet for 30% increased outgoing damage to help fulfill the archer gameplay a lot of people want, which in the current game-state is roughly what soulbeast without Sic 'EM provides. But I immediately followed up in saying that this damage increase should come at the expense of all and any utility the pet provides, because you can't and shouldn't have both at once, per how every other class needs to invest. Subsequently, BM/Pet builds should find themselves with increased utility and lowered personal damage since the pet is supposed to be the threat. These kinds of decisions need to be made with the risk of commitment towards one style, however.

It's also this logic which dictates that having pet swap access while in beast mode is too overtuned. It creates a lower-risk/higher-reward dynamic and directly bolsters the overall utility available at any given point in time, on a spec that already breaks a lot of risk/reward fairness.

[pcgamefreak.5208]

The developers do not know what they're doing.  Rangers are doing 10K damage an arrow and they got rapid fire.  Why in all stupidity would you give them a tangle that roots a player for 10 seconds and does high damage?

 

You just made it impossible for a player to ever kill a ranger!

 

This is fact, because every time I get hit with rapid fire on my Necro, I only have a shred of health left from just that one shot and my Necro is high vit and toughness.  You have no chance even if you don't get rooted because of the high ranged DPS....and don't forget the pet!

 

I said it before and I'll say it again....  It makes zero sense to allow range players to do that kind of DPS from a far!  They should only be doing small DOTs from distance!  You have to force them to come up at close range and put up a fight!  Rangers even have a pet that will go get'um....  Why 10 second tangles and super high ranged attacks!?

 

Absolute garbage to get killed by a ranger in one rapid shot and the "Devs" have the nerve to be "nerfing" the Necro (condi) !?

 

This is the kind of unbalance that make players give up on a game and the reason why a game isn't more popular like it should be!  I never hear anyone talking about GW2 when it comes to mmorpgs and rightfully so!

 

As it currently stands, there's no point in fighting a ranger, just run!  They are completely OP'ed!  Probably even more so than the thief!

 

All this "bullet proofing" and super high DPS range attacks is what makes PvP/WvW garbage!  It's not PvP if one player can never even get close enough to scratch the other player!

 

It doesn't even take rocket science to fix it....  Completely brain dead development/logic!  No point in sinking anymore money in this game!

 

 

 

 

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Horace.3184 said:

The developers do not know what they're doing.  Rangers are doing 10K damage an arrow and they got rapid fire.  Why in all stupidity would you give them a tangle that roots a player for 10 seconds and does high damage?

 

You just made it impossible for a player to ever kill a ranger!

 

This is fact, because every time I get hit with rapid fire on my Necro, I only have a shred of health left from just that one shot and my Necro is high vit and toughness.  You have no chance even if you don't get rooted because of the high ranged DPS....and don't forget the pet!

 

I said it before and I'll say it again....  It makes zero sense to allow range players to do that kind of DPS from a far!  They should only be doing small DOTs from distance!  You have to force them to come up at close range and put up a fight!  Rangers even have a pet that will go get'um....  Why 10 second tangles and super high ranged attacks!?

 

Absolute garbage to get killed by a ranger in one rapid shot and the "Devs" have the nerve to be "nerfing" the Necro (condi) !?

 

This is the kind of unbalance that make players give up on a game and the reason why a game isn't more popular like it should be!  I never hear anyone talking about GW2 when it comes to mmorpgs and rightfully so!

 

As it currently stands, there's no point in fighting a ranger, just run!  They are completely OP'ed!  Probably even more so than the thief!

 

All this "bullet proofing" and super high DPS range attacks is what makes PvP/WvW garbage!  It's not PvP if one player can never even get close enough to scratch the other player!

 

It doesn't even take rocket science to fix it....  Completely brain dead development/logic!  No point in sinking anymore money in this game!

 

 

 

 

Okay but that burst is short lived. Normally a ranger has to be fully set up to that sort of damage and use all there utility slots for more damage. 

If you avoid that damage in anyway the ranger is a paper tiger. I know since I counterplay power rangers with my condition dagger ranger in sPvP and WvW. 

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

8 hours ago, Horace.3184 said:

The developers do not know what they're doing.  Rangers are doing 10K damage an arrow and they got rapid fire.  Why in all stupidity would you give them a tangle that roots a player for 10 seconds and does high damage?

 

You just made it impossible for a player to ever kill a ranger!

 

This is fact, because every time I get hit with rapid fire on my Necro, I only have a shred of health left from just that one shot and my Necro is high vit and toughness.  You have no chance even if you don't get rooted because of the high ranged DPS....and don't forget the pet!

 

I said it before and I'll say it again....  It makes zero sense to allow range players to do that kind of DPS from a far!  They should only be doing small DOTs from distance!  You have to force them to come up at close range and put up a fight!  Rangers even have a pet that will go get'um....  Why 10 second tangles and super high ranged attacks!?

 

Absolute garbage to get killed by a ranger in one rapid shot and the "Devs" have the nerve to be "nerfing" the Necro (condi) !?

 

This is the kind of unbalance that make players give up on a game and the reason why a game isn't more popular like it should be!  I never hear anyone talking about GW2 when it comes to mmorpgs and rightfully so!

 

As it currently stands, there's no point in fighting a ranger, just run!  They are completely OP'ed!  Probably even more so than the thief!

 

All this "bullet proofing" and super high DPS range attacks is what makes PvP/WvW garbage!  It's not PvP if one player can never even get close enough to scratch the other player!

 

It doesn't even take rocket science to fix it....  Completely brain dead development/logic!  No point in sinking anymore money in this game!

 

 

 

 

Ranger LB hard counters core necro when in a large arena, Reaper Shroud hard counters Ranger LB when in a small arena.

You can't expect everything to compete with everything else.

A Necro, necroing a thread from two years ago... *Emperor Palpatine voice* Ironic.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582