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This class still don't have a viable WvW large scale build...AFTER 6 YEARS!


kappa.2036

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We all know, rangers always struggled to find a place inside WvW squads. This is mainly a "class design" fault. Here is why:1) PETS

  • They die fast to AoE damage;
  • They can't dodge through AoE bombs;
  • There are no skills that revives them;
  • Once dead, they have 60 seconds cooldown;
  • Most F2 have long cast times / are useless in a large scale fight;
  • 90% of pet's attacks are single target.

2) WEAPONS

  • Most ranger weapons are hard countered by reflects and projectile destruction abilities;
  • Most ranger weapons are single-target;
  • Ranger weapons lack AoE support (even Druid staff is worse than Guardian staff);
  • No useful Combo Fields and only one Blast Finisher on warhorn (2 if you run druid and use a staff).

3) SKILLS- SHOUTS -

  • Decent AoE utilities, but they really fall down when facing more than 10 opponents;
  • If the pet is dead, their effect is drastically reduced (if you are not playing soulbeast, of course).- SIGNETS -
  • Signet of Renewal is the only signet that support allies. Insta-dead for your pet;
  • They are selfish and, in most cases, mandatory (Signet of Stone);
  • Cooldowns are a bit too long if not running Brutish Seals.- SPIRITS -
  • They istantly die to everything;
  • Very long cooldowns.- TRAPS -
  • Condi based;
  • Low damage;
  • Lack of stun-breaks, condition clears, or some sort of defensive utilities.- SURVIVAL -
  • Good utilities, but super-selfish skills;
  • Outside Muddy Terrain, literally zero AoE effects.- GLYPHS -
  • They don't offer enough support to both the druid and his allies;
  • Cooldowns are a bit too long if not running Verdant Etching.- STANCES -
  • Not enough duration to allies.

Do the ranger community have some suggestions to make this class atleast viable (and most importantly not hated) in wvw zerg fights?

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@kappa.2036 said:Do the ranger community have some suggestions to make this class atleast viable (and most importantly not hated) in wvw zerg fights?

Pets :

  • Put the 95% reduction of PvE if not main target in WvW. Do the same reduction for condition damage.
  • Less punishing Pet death. If SBeast can ''rez'' a pet by merging, then buff the Pet death to 15 secs instead of 45 secs.

Traps :

  • Throwing Traps
  • Buff : Frost Trap (Damage (4x): 532 (2.0)) at more or less damage of Procession of Blades (Damage (10x): 1,460 (5.5)).

Soulbeast :

  • BMode Jacaranda : Bigger radius and higher damage. Call Lightning (133 (0.5)) is on a longer cooldown than Lava Font (Damage: 212 (0.525)) and Symbol of Punishment (Symbol Damage: 183 (0.5) + Impacts Damage: 121 (0.33)), but do less damage. Reduce casting and after cast (It's so slow and clunky), both other skills are nearly instant. What's up with that ?
  • Jacaranda pet : Lasting AoE field. How it works right now : It targets enemy, doesn't follow the target and doesn't target new ones. If the target moves away of the ''field'', the lightning doesn't hit other new targets.
  • Pack Alpha trait : Should affect BMode skills cooldown reduction. It doesn't need to reduce Archetype skill (F3).

If we could use Jacaranda and Throwing Traps as main AoEs in WvW, it would help a lot.

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I guess it depends on your definition of the word "viable."

Best advice is to play the game however the heck you want. Ignore so-called "best builds" and create a character and playstyle that works for you. Ignore crybabies who tell you that you're playing the class wrong. What business of theirs is it how YOU play your variation of a Ranger? If your playstyle works for you, and you're having fun, they can suck it. I'd say that's the more important thing.

Also... Yeah. Pets die fast when surrounded by groups of enemies or when hit by large amounts of AoE damage. It's the same in PvE. That's why you have 2 of them that you can cycle through.

WvW with my ranger is an enjoyable experience. End of story.

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@"TorontoTech.4937" said:I guess it depends on your definition of the word "viable."

Best advice is to play the game however the heck you want. Ignore so-called "best builds" and create a character and playstyle that works for you. Ignore crybabies who tell you that you're playing the class wrong. What business of theirs is it how YOU play your variation of a Ranger? If your playstyle works for you, and you're having fun, they can suck it. I'd say that's the more important thing.

Also... Yeah. Pets die fast when surrounded by groups of enemies or when hit by large amounts of AoE damage. It's the same in PvE. That's why you have 2 of them that you can cycle through.

WvW with my ranger is an enjoyable experience. End of story.

It's that for sure, but also there are multiple very effective zerg WvW builds. No we're never going to be a guardian that is the staple of rando zergs, but rangers can absolutely be a part of WvW, even in GvGs.

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There are two main problems with making Ranger Viable in Zerg Fights.

  1. You would have to change sooooo much with Ranger.

  2. Ranger has to compete against other classes for Squad space.

If you would go the Support role, you would make druide compete with:

FirebrandHeal RevMedi ScrapperHeal Tempest

Good luck on this front.

For the dmg role:ScourgeWeaverHammer Rev

Good luck with the only one „good“ Zerg Weapon being Warhorn.

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@DanAlcedo.3281 said:I agree with DanAlcedo here, that's why there are only 3 builds accepted in zergs:Hybrid scourgeSupport firebrandDps herald.

First and foremost: Anet has to remove the ability to revive downed players with the action button. While F to ress is in game there will not be any reason to change the meta as those builds are a blunt hammer which works very well with blunt mechanics.

Then Anet needs to nerf those builds i they are still overperfoming.

But without the first step here is no change in the classes it will move the toxic meta.

Anything other than that: Ranger doesn't need too much changed.

  • Spirits to follow you and ranged aoe. Increase and balance the actives effects in exchange to be released.
  • Stances to last full duration to allies.
  • Druid to transform conditions to regeneration and protection (inversed role to the scourge) .
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@anduriell.6280 said:

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:I agree with DanAlcedo here, that's why there are only 3 builds accepted in zergs:Hybrid scourgeSupport firebrandDps herald.

First and foremost: Anet has to remove the ability to revive downed players with the action button. While F to ress is in game there will not be any reason to change the meta as those builds are a blunt hammer which works very well with blunt mechanics.

Then Anet needs to nerf those builds i they are still overperfoming.

But without the first step here is no change in the classes it will move the toxic meta.

Anything other than that: Ranger doesn't need too much changed.
  • Spirits to follow you and ranged aoe. Increase and balance the actives effects in exchange to be released.
  • Stances to last full duration to allies.
  • Druid to transform conditions to regeneration and protection (inversed role to the scourge) .

You know.... i thought about Soulbeast.

Technically it is almost identical to Hammer Rev.

Both have Utility Skills with the main purpose of buffing your allies.

(And Stances are amazing)

Both only use minimal traits for support and the rest for dmg increase.

Both have an offensive Aura.Spotter/Assasins Presence

Both would run a mix of Marauder/Berzerker/Valkyrie gear.

The ONLY difference between Soulbeast and Hammer Herold are the weapons.

Rev Hammer is Amazing in zergfights.

Ranget has no usefull weapon for zerging.

Believe me. If Soulbeast had Revs Hammer.... ohhh boy would he be meta!

The only way for Ranger to become Meta would be to give Ranger an Ranged AoE Weapon thats not based on Projectiles.

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Remove downed state - as it was for that event week. It would fix so much crap in WvW and also make Ranger super viable for zergs.IMO there are 3 builds I currently use in WvW zergs (I also command on one with great success) that are viable.

  1. Axe axe + GS with commander gear - great sustain with decent damage

  2. Pure glass pew pew LB + axe/horn and eagle soulbeast with sic em - 100-0% people, with signet and #5 horn a lot of unblockable.

  3. Yolo mid enemy zerg CC soulbeast - 2x muddy, 1x entangle, un-meld with wolf/drakehound for fear/immo, with reaper runes 1s+ AOE chill.

  4. is my prefered and go-to build, it just does it all really, can blob, can 1v1 etc - jack of all trades hard countered by few.

  5. needs great positioning and awareness

  6. is just fun af specially if your zerg knows what you're doing - I've made so many people stand mid bomb with this build that it's silly. But you don't do much damage and it's very specific. Also works when you tag on this build as your zerg usually bombs on tag.

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@"DanAlcedo.3281" said:Rev Hammer is Amazing in zergfights.

Ranget has no usefull weapon for zerging.

Believe me. If Soulbeast had Revs Hammer.... ohhh boy would he be meta!

The only way for Ranger to become Meta would be to give Ranger an Ranged AoE Weapon thats not based on Projectiles.

Yep i fully agree with you.Stances are "better" than herald auras, if they could share the full duration. They provide significant effects in exchange shorter duration.

About the weapon, I personally i would not change longbow as it's already perfect.I would focus on the shortbow, return the range back to 1200 units and provide the weapon with an splash effect (like the harpoon gun) giving the reduced damage and condi duration in the additional targets. Conditions applied by the ranger are short duration (3 seconds bleeding base at best) so it should not impact the condition application significatively, but allowing the ranger to collaborate to the group dps.

That with ranged AoE from mobile spirits would be enough for the ranger to have a possible spot in squads.

I explained the changes in the Conditon ranger link in my signature (so it doesn't get lost like many other threads with brilliant ideas) .

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@Krispera.5087 said:Pets :

  • Put the 95% reduction of PvE if not main target in WvW. Do the same reduction for condition damage.
  • Less punishing Pet death. If SBeast can ''rez'' a pet by merging, then buff the Pet death to 15 secs instead of 45 secs.

Reducing pet cooldown on death is probably the best change, it would help a lot to improve the overall class efficiency. I think we need some ways to revive our pets, like a trait that "revives your pet when using an healing skill" or healing skills that directly revives the pet.

@Krispera.5087 said:Traps :

  • Throwing Traps
  • Buff : Frost Trap (Damage (4x): 532 (2.0)) at more or less damage of Procession of Blades (Damage (10x): 1,460 (5.5)).

Soulbeast :

  • BMode Jacaranda : Bigger radius and higher damage. Call Lightning (133 (0.5)) is on a longer cooldown than Lava Font (Damage: 212 (0.525)) and Symbol of Punishment (Symbol Damage: 183 (0.5) + Impacts Damage: 121 (0.33)), but do less damage. Reduce casting and after cast (It's so slow and clunky), both other skills are nearly instant. What's up with that ?
  • Jacaranda pet : Lasting AoE field. How it works right now : It targets enemy, doesn't follow the target and doesn't target new ones. If the target moves away of the ''field'', the lightning doesn't hit other new targets.
  • Pack Alpha trait : Should affect BMode skills cooldown reduction. It doesn't need to reduce Archetype skill (F3).

These are all nice suggestions, but i don't think these changes are enough to bring a spot in a squad.

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@"TorontoTech.4937" said:I guess it depends on your definition of the word "viable."

Best advice is to play the game however the heck you want. Ignore so-called "best builds" and create a character and playstyle that works for you. Ignore crybabies who tell you that you're playing the class wrong. What business of theirs is it how YOU play your variation of a Ranger? If your playstyle works for you, and you're having fun, they can suck it. I'd say that's the more important thing.

Also... Yeah. Pets die fast when surrounded by groups of enemies or when hit by large amounts of AoE damage. It's the same in PvE. That's why you have 2 of them that you can cycle through.

WvW with my ranger is an enjoyable experience. End of story.

For "viable" i mean "desiderable", "useful". Of course you can play the ranger the way you like...but this can also be applied to all classes. You could play...a full signet warrior, a necro minionmaster, a spirit weapons guardian, or healing thief, so? You are useless if you play like that, that's it. You can enjoy it, but you are useless. I'm not saying that YOU are playing a stupid or useless build. I'm saying that your statement does not make sense in this context. The topic is about "how to bring ranger in the meta", not "how much i enjoy pewpew-ing in wvw on my own".

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@anduriell.6280 said:

Anything other than that: Ranger doesn't need too much changed.

  • Spirits to follow you and ranged aoe. Increase and balance the actives effects in exchange to be released.
  • Stances to last full duration to allies.
  • Druid to transform conditions to regeneration and protection (inversed role to the scourge) .

Spirits die by a single AoE/autoattack. They would istantly die - especially in tight spaces, and also their cast time is too long. I think they should become like post-patch gyros, untargettable. In wvw, atleast. I fully agree on stances and druid abilities.

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@"kappa.2036" said:Spirits die by a single AoE/autoattack. They would istantly die - especially in tight spaces, and also their cast time is too long.That's my idea of counter-play to all the benefits they may bring if executed this way, you can kill them easily.

  • First to reduce the visual noise to change the models to wisps, similar to the wisp from the Druid staff "Astral Wisp".
  • Being floating balls they don't need pathing, they can ignore terrain all toghether (no significative load in the server = no lag ).
  • Ranged AoE for Actives: this is very important as you very well explained. Having them close to you would kill them quite easily if you are in melee. You have that oportunity where you send them to a location to cast the active and as such being "released" ( the spirit wisp dissapear and the skill goes on CD )
  • Having them with you means better survivavility, as being as druid you may heal them. Other specs could use other means like regeneration and other boons or healing pets.
  • Having them close also means body blocking which for core ranger and soulbeast it is a mechanic we should be promoting to use, as we already have the exceptional oportunity to do it so.

I mean is not the perfect solution but i like the idea of Spirits with health pools wich can be killed.Why is that? Because having that counterplay it is supposedly to make them with impactfull passives and actives. The systems team does not see it like this but right now the actives neither the passives (remember you have an 10 seconds ICD between single applications) and consecuentaly they are dooming the skills even before the can be used. I explored the Natural Magic traitline and the changes to the spirits in my signature with some changes IMO would be good to make the ranger to have some uses in zergs.

I mean the instant teleport may be fine, but i seriously doubt it as we don't have actual means to keep them alive at 5000 units. And without the grandmaster trait:

  • Normal spirits will die in 39 seconds.
  • Elite spirit will die in 33 seconds.

This concept is important to get it ingrained in our minds. We will not be teleporting the spirits to us on CD because it means we can't use the actives when needed and the spirits will last less than a minute without constant healing.

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Passive BuffTeam mascots: the pet gets a 95% reduction in damage when the ranger is part of a group of over 20 people.Bounce: Make it to hit 3 targets (wvw only)Dolyack, Griffon and OWP all have unique and shareable effects, soulbeast solved the pet problem would not have trouble getting meta zerg builds.

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@kappa.2036 said:

Anything other than that: Ranger doesn't need too much changed.
  • Spirits to follow you and ranged aoe. Increase and balance the actives effects in exchange to be released.
  • Stances to last full duration to allies.
  • Druid to transform conditions to regeneration and protection (inversed role to the scourge) .

Spirits die by a single AoE/autoattack. They would istantly die - especially in tight spaces, and also their cast time is too long. I think they should become like post-patch gyros, untargettable. In wvw, atleast. I fully agree on stances and druid abilities.

Yes, I was seriously scratching my head on why the devs did not make spirits the same as the new gyros. The new changes to spirits will not be close to enough.

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Idk about everyone else, but when I think ranger I don't think about constantly jumping into the thick of things in a zerg fest. Personally I picked up ranger because I like hunting down my quarry and wining small fights with my own tools. I like ranging out ahead or behind the team and gathering intel and doing solo/small team missions. I would rather them improve ranger roaming play than try to hack them into the zerging meta (not that their roaming needs that much improving).

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SoulBeast would have been perfect for this, replaces the pets which are always going to be useless in Zergs, Stance sharing, and merging with your pet providing a crazy amount of versatile skills to help in several situations and a new weapon to fill our lack of ranged aoe.

Instead stances sharing is a tiny duration of kind of meh effects, pet skills are almost all terrible apart from a few melee damage focused skills, the new weapon is the clunkiest melee weapon in the game and the entire spec is designed just to replace the much more fun Core Ranger condi dps build from pre PoF.

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@DanAlcedo.3281 Chrono is one of the top utility builds in WvW. It is also an increasingly popular driver build. Mesmer is also one of two pick classes capable of zerg diving effectively and safely in nearly full glass (the other being staff daredevil which you see alot in gvgs).

Yeah you don't have random people running it. But a skilled chrono is ABSOLUTELY desirable. Even if its just 1.

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@"Zexanima.7851" said:Idk about everyone else, but when I think ranger I don't think about constantly jumping into the thick of things in a zerg fest. Personally I picked up ranger because I like hunting down my quarry and wining small fights with my own tools. I like ranging out ahead or behind the team and gathering intel and doing solo/small team missions. I would rather them improve ranger roaming play than try to hack them into the zerging meta (not that their roaming needs that much improving).

You like to hunt people down? Good. You like small fights? Good. But what will happen if someday you decide to go for big fights? You know what? You become useless. You become the one that people don't want in their squad. You become the one that people blame cause "There are too many rangers in this squad, we need firebrands!" or "Play something useful pls". You can try to be useful. You can also become very good at ranger. In reality, we all know the class is really sub-par to other classes in terms of Large Scale Fights. That's it. Even thieves and mesmers (which are generally roaming classes) have viable large-scale builds: staff daredevil - and chrono (like mentioned above). Those builds are maybe not meta, but can be useful and perform quite well in gvg or large-scale encounters.

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@Revolution.5409 said:Passive BuffTeam mascots: the pet gets a 95% reduction in damage when the ranger is part of a group of over 20 people.Bounce: Make it to hit 3 targets (wvw only)Dolyack, Griffon and OWP all have unique and shareable effects, soulbeast solved the pet problem would not have trouble getting meta zerg builds.

Stances are good, indeed. But even if we shared them with 100% duration to allies, the spec will still be not meta. Why? Because soulbeast does not have proper AoE weapons to fight.

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@kappa.2036 said:

@"Zexanima.7851" said:Idk about everyone else, but when I think ranger I don't think about constantly jumping into the thick of things in a zerg fest. Personally I picked up ranger because I like hunting down my quarry and wining small fights with my own tools. I like
ranging
out ahead or behind the team and gathering intel and doing solo/small team missions. I would rather them improve ranger roaming play than try to hack them into the zerging meta (not that their roaming needs that much improving).

You like to hunt people down? Good. You like small fights? Good. But what will happen if someday you decide to go for big fights? You know what? You become useless. You become the one that people don't want in their squad. You become the one that people blame cause "There are too many rangers in this squad, we need firebrands!" or "Play something useful pls". You can try to be useful. You can also become very good at ranger. In reality, we all know the class is really sub-par to other classes in terms of Large Scale Fights. That's it. Even thieves and mesmers (which are generally roaming classes) have viable large-scale builds: staff daredevil - and chrono (like mentioned above). Those builds are maybe not meta, but can be useful and perform quite well in gvg or large-scale encounters.

Um, that's not a problem at all. In fact, different classes have always been good at specific things and maybe not good at others; that's just a consequence of the concept of the class. The GOOD thing is that Anet recognizes this and hence, elite specs to fill the gaps.

Now, I find it hard for anyone to seriously say they don't have a good way to contribute to zerg WvW on a given class at THIS stage of the game. I can imagine just from the concepts, that Ranger isn't OPTIMAL for that role, well just because like someone said ... ranger class isn't exactly a 'jump into the fray' kind of fighter, but to say you don't have a viable way to contribute? That's just sensational.

It does go to the mentality of a player choosing a class. I mean, I didn't even have to play ranger to know it's probably one of those 'hunt down your prey' kind of classes ... so does seem a little unreasonable to complain it's not good at the other things you want it to be. You have class envy.

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