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Soulbeast Needs Some Genuine Nerf Bat Love in the Next Balance Update


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And to balance it a bit out; sic 'em can be removed from the game for all I care. The game mode that would actually hurt from it is pve where the class is completely reliant on it to even compete in raids. Which is kinda funny considering how op people make SB sound.

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@Solori.6025 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even. I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

Do you have any idea how much hate and personal attacks I got here last time I mentioned Unblockable Union?

.... It's because of your forum portrait. Or everyone hates you one of the two ?

lololololol

Oh it's definitely got to be that iconic avatar. It sort of translates directly into "Mirage main spotted." Which I'm sure makes everyone want to argue with a user who is wearing a Mirage icon lol. But hey I totally understand. If I was a Mesmer player, I would wear the shit out of that icon ^^

Clarion Bond only works for the pet dmg though right? The ranger themselves wouldnt get the unblockable buff as you cant be merged and swap pets.Not suggesting that you are claiming it does - but its worth clarifying for people.

Yes, indeed it is. Especially for users such as @Lazze.9870 who aren't understanding the purpose of Clarion Bond. Ok so, Clarion Bond is used for the pets, particularly the Smokescale. The AI works in such a way that, when you swap to the Smokescale, he will always at least use either Takedown "it's 1s knockdown" or Smoke Assault "Its Rev Sword 3 attack", within that 3s of Lesser Call Of The Wild. About 50% of the time though, the AI will actually use BOTH. So the Smokescale, due to Clarion Bond, is benefitting both an unblockable knockdown and an unblockable Smoke Assault. This is actually pretty OP considering the pressure that is already coming off the Ranger. Then of course whatever it is you're using as a 2nd pet, whenever you rotate to it, it also gets that 3s of unblockable, because Clarion Bond cycles perfectly with the CD of pet swapping. So say you're using a Siamoth, he'll get a free unblockable pig knockdown as well, which due to AI, will happen almost immediately when swapping to him. Ultimately, Clarion Bond is guaranteeing that your pet's cool F2 attacks and CC skills that they like to use immediately upon swap, are always unblockable. And I do stress always, because a good Ranger doesn't camp a pet for 5 minutes or something. They purposely swap between them as frequently as possible, to make sure those pet skill CDs are being used in conjunction with unblockable attacks.

This is the problem with these threads. How am I supposed to take someone seriously when they don't even realize that Clarion Bond can't possibly work on soulbeast? It's a pet swap trait. Every pet swap trait force you to unmerge for it to be used. The effect is then applied to the pet.

No serious build is gonna run a warhorn for call of the wild, a signet that provides no other useful benefit than the unblockable active AND unstoppable union at the sime time.

You remember that old stop motion animation movie "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" that we all used to watch as kids? You remember that guy Yukon Cornelius, when he slammed his ice pick into the ground and screamed: "WAHOOOOO!! I'VE STRUCK SILVER & GOLD!!" I love that line.

  1. Talk to ROM about why Warhorn unblockables are important with the Smokescale, when you are opting to use Fresh Reinforcement over Unstoppable Union, and have no Marksmanship for Clarion Bond. We're talking about Boonbeast specs, if you didn't catch the reference.
  2. True 1HKO builds have to use Signet Of The Hunt if they want unblockables. The trait selections & skill rotations required have no room for unblockables outside of Signet Of The Hunt. You can talk to Harsh Master about that one.

Furthermore, my post was not to encourage the idea that every Ranger was using every unstoppable option that I mentioned. I assumed everyone following this thread knew better than to believe or assume that was even possible. I was pointing out how abundant unblockable options are on Ranger in general. No matter what build a Ranger chooses to run, it is always easy to fit in unblockable options. If a Ranger really wanted to, he could formulate a build that had nearly 100% uptime of incoming unblockable attacks, damage and CCs alike, between himself and his pet. I'm not saying that build would even necessarily be good, I'm just pointing out the ludicrous amount of unblockable options and their durations, that are present on Ranger.

I am a Ranger main by the way, and have been so for many years.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

To keep everyone happy? Lol... Before SB came out people complained about ranger, after SB came out people complained about ranger.

You can remove all of those unblockable skills entirely, and people will still complain about ranger.. I think the fact that only ONE person out of this entire thread highlighted the core problem you're talking about and are complaining about the ranger class for 50 other different reasons obviously shows this. People are clueless in PvP and are just bad, and will complain about everything that doesn't go their way.

Better yet, you can make it so unreliable that it could be removed from PvP metas and people will still complain about this class.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief. It will always be complained about as it always has been no matter what it has.

People just want it deleted from the PvP game mode, they don't want nerfs or buffs to the class from an effective standpoint. Just nerfing unblockables doesn't solve the underlying problem of class bias in this game with the community, never will.

It's fine anyway though for the most part because you should be multi-classing anyway, but the idea that nerfing those skills will suddenly make people love ranger is such fairy tale.

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@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

I disagree, the burst is to high especially for the range and relative safety it can be accomplished at. Theres too many instances like I've explained above that even without UU it would be constant one shots which are almost unavoidable and shouldn't exist in pvp modes. If ur engaged and get +1 by ranger at 1800+ range u prob arnt noticing ranger let alone saving a block or dodge incase one shows and if u dont UU means nothing as the burst is still so high and fast-dead.

If you get +1 and didn't save any tools to disengage (blocks, evades, blinks), then you will and should die no matter the profession that does it. Idk why people treat this one gimmick build (Sic 'em Sniper) like it's the be-all end-all of a broken build when it's really not all that strong and doesn't contribute much.
  • You can get one shot from stealth by mesmer
  • A warrior can dash in from over 2000 range and activate berserk and delete you with Arc Divider (happened a few times to me lately)
  • Rev can Phase Traversal from behind a wall and pop you with shackling wave + 25 might stacks + impossible odds
  • Ele can delete you with scepter
  • Deadeye can delete you with malicious backstab
  • Guard can blink to you and absolutely eradicate you
  • Holosmith Photon Forge

Sic 'em sniper is no more effective than these combos and in some cases less so. This really isn't a soubeast specific issue, it's a power creep issue.

One key difference though: Sic 'Em Sniper does it from 1800+ range without ever having to get close to their target. That is inherently low risk, high reward.

How is mesmer one shot from stealth high risk? How is warrior popping defiant stance, endure pain + arc divider high risk? How is deadeye rifle stealth attack from 1500 range high risk? Almost every profession has ways to cheese engagements with "low risk, high reward". I've never really had any more of a problem with soulbeast than I have the others I listed. I'm all for eliminating power creep and nerfing soulbeast but soulbeast is hardly the worst offender. I eat them them alive on my core ranger runing GS + sword/warhorn.

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@Zexanima.7851 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

I disagree, the burst is to high especially for the range and relative safety it can be accomplished at. Theres too many instances like I've explained above that even without UU it would be constant one shots which are almost unavoidable and shouldn't exist in pvp modes. If ur engaged and get +1 by ranger at 1800+ range u prob arnt noticing ranger let alone saving a block or dodge incase one shows and if u dont UU means nothing as the burst is still so high and fast-dead.

If you get +1 and didn't save any tools to disengage (blocks, evades, blinks), then you will and should die no matter the profession that does it. Idk why people treat this one gimmick build (Sic 'em Sniper) like it's the be-all end-all of a broken build when it's really not all that strong and doesn't contribute much.
  • You can get one shot from stealth by mesmer
  • A warrior can dash in from over 2000 range and activate berserk and delete you with Arc Divider (happened a few times to me lately)
  • Rev can Phase Traversal from behind a wall and pop you with shackling wave + 25 might stacks + impossible odds
  • Ele can delete you with scepter
  • Deadeye can delete you with malicious backstab
  • Guard can blink to you and absolutely eradicate you
  • Holosmith Photon Forge

Sic 'em sniper is no more effective than these combos and in some cases less so. This really isn't a soubeast specific issue, it's a power creep issue.

One key difference though: Sic 'Em Sniper does it from 1800+ range without ever having to get close to their target. That is inherently low risk, high reward.

How is mesmer one shot from stealth high risk? How is warrior popping defiant stance, endure pain + arc divider high risk? How is deadeye rifle stealth attack from 1500 range high risk?You have no clue about risk and reward, are you? Just as putting himself in melee range, waste entire utility bar while running full glass? If they dont get the kill most likely they will die themselves (not deadeye, he dont need to get melee and waste his life-saving utilities into "all in" combo,always safe with dodge-stealth)This dude... sigh
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@Crystal Paladin.3871 said:Even after boonbeast got nerfed and fallen out of meta, ppl posted boonbeast is OP for some time even after 2 months and now, the sound died down...And now, ppl feel sicem is OP(after 2 years approx)... Even though ranger didn't get any significant buff since the boonbeast nerfs and subsequent nerfs, ppl consider anything with longbow/sicem OP....

maybe it's coz of a few top ranger players posting some edited boasting videos of themselves making quick work of other players in PVP with a zerky jerk sicem sniper build variations....

Or...

The mob(community) been manipulated to face the other way while a sneaky class/build can escape getting noticed??? :p

I don't want to list any sneaky OP classes here :p

Or maybe other classes have been nerfed and now ranger is at the top... Mhhhhhh

Seriously tho, how can anybody justify a 40% dmg modifier on a single skill?Even worse if the whole specc is said to be carried by that single skill.

You are telling me, that nerfing that single skill will make the whole class not viable? That specc must have some serious issues then, and should be reworked whole. Lel

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@praqtos.9035 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

I disagree, the burst is to high especially for the range and relative safety it can be accomplished at. Theres too many instances like I've explained above that even without UU it would be constant one shots which are almost unavoidable and shouldn't exist in pvp modes. If ur engaged and get +1 by ranger at 1800+ range u prob arnt noticing ranger let alone saving a block or dodge incase one shows and if u dont UU means nothing as the burst is still so high and fast-dead.

If you get +1 and didn't save any tools to disengage (blocks, evades, blinks), then you will and should die no matter the profession that does it. Idk why people treat this one gimmick build (Sic 'em Sniper) like it's the be-all end-all of a broken build when it's really not all that strong and doesn't contribute much.
  • You can get one shot from stealth by mesmer
  • A warrior can dash in from over 2000 range and activate berserk and delete you with Arc Divider (happened a few times to me lately)
  • Rev can Phase Traversal from behind a wall and pop you with shackling wave + 25 might stacks + impossible odds
  • Ele can delete you with scepter
  • Deadeye can delete you with malicious backstab
  • Guard can blink to you and absolutely eradicate you
  • Holosmith Photon Forge

Sic 'em sniper is no more effective than these combos and in some cases less so. This really isn't a soubeast specific issue, it's a power creep issue.

One key difference though: Sic 'Em Sniper does it from 1800+ range without ever having to get close to their target. That is inherently low risk, high reward.

How is mesmer one shot from stealth high risk? How is warrior popping defiant stance, endure pain + arc divider high risk? How is deadeye rifle stealth attack from 1500 range high risk?You have no clue about risk and reward, are you? Just as putting himself in melee range, waste entire utility bar while running full glass? If they dont get the kill most likely they will die themselves (not deadeye, he dont need to get melee and waste his life-saving utilities into "all in" combo,always safe with dodge-stealth)This dude... sigh

Oh, so we're being like that? Do you understand the basics of combat in this game? Do you practice them? Let me try to make this simple for you, dude.

1800 range is a double edged sword. Sure, theoretically they could just pew pew you all day and never take damage...if you're opponent was a rock. Some (apparently more than some) are rocks though so they have to complain about it instead of actually doing something about it. As much as it's a meme on the forums all you need to do is LoS. If you don't have the basics of LoS down then you really need not bother arguing on the PvP forums. This not only avoids their damage but forces THEM to gap close to you to continue to do damage (which most will) or just leave.

"Do you even play? How am I suppose to line of sight if I'm in an open field!?"

What the hell are you doing in an open field? There is soooo much geometry in this game to use and you choose to move/stand where there is none, why? Sure, there are short periods of time you have to be in the open but that's no excuse for not being able to kite behind geometry that's close by.

"What if I get ganked from off screenf from 10000000000 range?!"

Well, if you didn't save any disengage skills then you should die. It doesn't matter the profession. If you're outnumbered chances are you lose, that's how it should be.

"It's low risk, high reward!"

Only if you're opponent is a rock. It's pretty low reward the better players you start facing. I have fought so many soulbeast who just go h.a.m. and blow everything thinking they will get the kill no probs. You just sustain through it (evades, LoS, dodges) like any other profession pressuring you then at the end they don't have anything to follow up with and are a free kill. Ranger can be strong, but full glass cannon sic 'em soulbeast is not. It's just a cheesy burst build like every other profession has.

EDIT:For the record, I said I was perfectly fine with nerfs to sic 'em soulbeast because it doesn't really matter.

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@ZhouX.8742 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

To keep everyone happy? Lol... Before SB came out people complained about ranger, after SB came out people complained about ranger.

You can remove all of those unblockable skills entirely, and people will still complain about ranger.
. I think the fact that only ONE person out of this entire thread highlighted the core problem you're talking about and are complaining about the ranger class for 50 other different reasons obviously shows this. People are clueless in PvP and are just bad, and will complain about everything that doesn't go their way.

Better yet, you can make it so unreliable that it could be removed from PvP metas and people will still complain about this class.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief. It will always be complained about as it always has been no matter what it has.

People just want it deleted from the PvP game mode, they don't want nerfs or buffs to the class from an effective standpoint. Just nerfing unblockables doesn't solve the underlying problem of class bias in this game with the community, never will.

It's fine anyway though for the most part because you should be multi-classing anyway, but the idea that nerfing those skills will suddenly make people love ranger is such fairy tale.

PvP really should only be necros, guardians, engineers, and renegades. everyone else is just too (_fill_inanswer)

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@ZhouX.8742 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

..... It isn't....it isn't by a mile....

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

To keep everyone happy? Lol... Before SB came out people complained about ranger, after SB came out people complained about ranger.

You can remove all of those unblockable skills entirely, and people will still complain about ranger.
. I think the fact that only ONE person out of this entire thread highlighted the core problem you're talking about and are complaining about the ranger class for 50 other different reasons obviously shows this. People are clueless in PvP and are just bad, and will complain about everything that doesn't go their way.

Better yet, you can make it so unreliable that it could be removed from PvP metas and people will still complain about this class.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief. It will always be complained about as it always has been no matter what it has.

People just want it deleted from the PvP game mode, they don't want nerfs or buffs to the class from an effective standpoint. Just nerfing unblockables doesn't solve the underlying problem of class bias in this game with the community, never will.

It's fine anyway though for the most part because you should be multi-classing anyway, but the idea that nerfing those skills will suddenly make people love ranger is such fairy tale.

PvP really should only be necros, guardians, engineers, and renegades. everyone else is just too (_fill_in
answer
)

Guardians with their teleport instant burst, necro with the second health bar, engineers with turrets and renegades with condi bombs for days. You choose all the broken professions! PvP should only be core staff Ele /s

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@"Zexanima.7851" said:I show my deep lack of understanding of the problemIt is completely fine to ray down about 30k damage from 1900 range and being killed by this like its FPS game.Open field? How about we actually do play on conquest map where the points are your win condition and you have a lot of open space between points? Damage is stupid high that you have no time to find a EL O ES and the only thing is left is "just dodge" as it comes with unblockable effect. Unblockable DJ as an example, everyone couldnt just dodge so it was made blockable again :)I'd rather die to any class,even DEADEYE with a rifle but not 2000 range bs that snipe you from another part of the map. Effortless braindead gameplay without zero risk involved into it.I dont need any more stupid "just block,just los,just dodge" posts

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@praqtos.9035 said:

@"Zexanima.7851" said:I show my deep lack of understanding of the problem

I won't snip your post, I'll actually address what you're saying because I'm not scared to assert my point.

It is completely fine to ray down about 30k damage from 1900 range and being killed by this like its FPS game.

That only happens if you're a rock. Don't be a rock kids.

Open field? How about we actually do play on conquest map where the points are your win condition and you have a lot of open space between points? Damage is stupid high that you have no time to find a EL O ES and the only thing is left is "just dodge" as it comes with unblockable effect. Unblockable DJ as an example, everyone couldnt just dodge so it was made blockable again :)

Open space between points, surrounded by geometry every where. Boxes, walls, buildings, bushes, poles, there is soooo much what maps are you playing? They even added more to the one map that was lacking it. If you are getting pressured and standing in the middle of the point then you have to -gasp- step off it to stay alive or pressure back. Contrary to common belief you don't actually have to be standing inside the point 24/7 to win and some times it's ideal to give up the point so you can kill your opponent then take it back.

I'd rather die to any class,even DEADEYE with a rifle but not 2000 range bs that snipe you from another part of the map with 5k autoattacks. Effortless braindead gameplay without zero risk involved into it.

I like how it goes from "1800 range - 1900 range - 2000 range".

I dont need any more stupid "just block,just los,just dodge" posts

Apparently you do though because you're not. I'm not having any more trouble with them than I am other burst builds.

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@Solori.6025 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

..... It isn't....it isn't by a mile....

You are simply delusional then and don't truly understand just how many guts and bounce backs this class has seen due to people not understanding how to play against one. Pew pew ranger even has it's own meme and dedicated title for a reason.

Please stop, it's easily one of the most hated classes in both PvP and WvW and is a love child in PvE because it's healbot capabilities.

Haha haha no. You simply haven't been playing this game.When I think most hated next to thief it is immediately mesmer. Followed very VERY closely by warrior. As the history of ups and downs are especially severe for those two classes. I don't think Rangers would even survive if they had a FULL YEAR of nerfs, and those nerfs hit in mostly wrong places. Like come back and talk about moat hated when your class has suffered a nerf to 50% or more of their kit starting from core. Come back when you have a skill nerfed repeatedly by 80% .Most hated LMAO
  1. Celestial Avatar went from a 10s cd to 20s cd. (100% total)
  2. Ray of Light had a 50% base healing power reduction + 30% flat healing reduction. (80% total)
  3. Seed of Life had it's condition removal halved (50%), 20% base healing power reduction, 18.5% base heal value reduction, and a 35% healing reduction. (123.5% total)
  4. Lunar Impact had a 25% daze duration reduction, 30% cooldown increase, 34% base healing power reduction, and a 40% healing power scaling reduction. (129% total)
  5. Rejuvenating Tides had a 75% base healing reduction. (75% total)
  6. Ancestral Grace went from a 12s cd to 18s cd (50% increase) and a 10% healing power reduction. (60% total)
  7. Smokescale received a 65% damage reduction on Smoke Assault.
  8. Bristleback had a 234% damage reduction on Spike Barrage.
  9. Ancient Seeds had a 100% cooldown increase.
  10. All pets receive a 20% stat reduction when slotting Druid.
  11. etc. etc.

It's not even a contest. I'm pretty sure Druid has been nerfed harder than any other spec in the game. It went from meta, to barely playable, to one of the WORST things you could ever run in PvP. I'd play Renegade before I touch Druid again.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

..... It isn't....it isn't by a mile....

You are simply delusional then and don't truly understand just how many guts and bounce backs this class has seen due to people not understanding how to play against one. Pew pew ranger even has it's own meme and dedicated title for a reason.

Please stop, it's easily one of the most hated classes in both PvP and WvW and is a love child in PvE because it's healbot capabilities.

Haha haha no. You simply haven't been playing this game.When I think most hated next to thief it is immediately mesmer. Followed very VERY closely by warrior. As the history of ups and downs are especially severe for those two classes. I don't think Rangers would even survive if they had a FULL YEAR of nerfs, and those nerfs hit in mostly wrong places. Like come back and talk about moat hated when your class has suffered a nerf to 50% or more of their kit starting from core. Come back when you have a skill nerfed repeatedly by 80% .Most hated LMAO
  1. Celestial Avatar went from a 10s cd to 20s cd. (100% total)
  2. Ray of Light had a 50% base healing power reduction + 30% flat healing reduction. (80% total)
  3. Seed of Life had it's condition removal halved (50%), 20% base healing power reduction, 18.5% base heal value reduction, and a 35% healing reduction. (123.5% total)
  4. Lunar Impact had a 25% daze duration reduction, 30% cooldown increase, 34% base healing power reduction, and a 40% healing power scaling reduction. (129% total)
  5. Rejuvenating Tides had a 75% base healing reduction. (75% total)
  6. Ancestral Grace went from a 12s cd to 18s cd (50% increase) and a 10% healing power reduction. (60% total)
  7. Smokescale received a 65% damage reduction on Smoke Assault.
  8. Bristleback had a 234% damage reduction on Spike Barrage.
  9. Ancient Seeds had a 100% cooldown increase.
  10. All pets receive a 20% stat reduction when slotting Druid.
  11. etc. etc.

It's not even a contest. I'm pretty sure Druid has been nerfed harder than any other spec in the game. It went from meta, to barely playable, to one of the WORST things you could ever run in PvP. I'd play Renegade before I touch Druid again.

It is a shame about druid as it coulda been a awsome spec,really cool concept but alas anet doing their thing unfortunately lol. Not only is it just bad it's boring to play,especially now.

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unblockable uptime for 5k autos at 2k range aren't the biggest issue imo.

fresh reinforcement (all meme builds use this) doubling might, marksmanship stackable traits, and beastmastery traits + ferocious pet bonus all add up to some insane damage. maul bonus in beastmode is dumb and should be removed. sicem could use a nerf but really its all of these things used together that provides the user with some ridiculous cancer laser action.

I have no issue with soulbeasts that don't use what I stated above.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

..... It isn't....it isn't by a mile....

You are simply delusional then and don't truly understand just how many guts and bounce backs this class has seen due to people not understanding how to play against one. Pew pew ranger even has it's own meme and dedicated title for a reason.

Please stop, it's easily one of the most hated classes in both PvP and WvW and is a love child in PvE because it's healbot capabilities.

Haha haha no. You simply haven't been playing this game.When I think most hated next to thief it is immediately mesmer. Followed very VERY closely by warrior. As the history of ups and downs are especially severe for those two classes. I don't think Rangers would even survive if they had a FULL YEAR of nerfs, and those nerfs hit in mostly wrong places. Like come back and talk about moat hated when your class has suffered a nerf to 50% or more of their kit starting from core. Come back when you have a skill nerfed repeatedly by 80% .Most hated LMAO
  1. Celestial Avatar went from a 10s cd to 20s cd. (100% total)
  2. Ray of Light had a 50% base healing power reduction + 30% flat healing reduction. (80% total)
  3. Seed of Life had it's condition removal halved (50%), 20% base healing power reduction, 18.5% base heal value reduction, and a 35% healing reduction. (123.5% total)
  4. Lunar Impact had a 25% daze duration reduction, 30% cooldown increase, 34% base healing power reduction, and a 40% healing power scaling reduction. (129% total)
  5. Rejuvenating Tides had a 75% base healing reduction. (75% total)
  6. Ancestral Grace went from a 12s cd to 18s cd (50% increase) and a 10% healing power reduction. (60% total)
  7. Smokescale received a 65% damage reduction on Smoke Assault.
  8. Bristleback had a 234% damage reduction on Spike Barrage.
  9. Ancient Seeds had a 100% cooldown increase.
  10. All pets receive a 20% stat reduction when slotting Druid.
  11. etc. etc.

It's not even a contest. I'm pretty sure Druid has been nerfed harder than any other spec in the game. It went from meta, to barely playable, to one of the WORST things you could ever run in PvP. I'd play Renegade before I touch Druid again.

I'm still sour how they completely gutted and destroyed Druid pretty much everywhere outside of raids. It used to be a fun support spec in pvp, fun for roaming in wvw with an interesting rotation that melded well until the CA cooldown nerf.

Alas, boon up, merge, sic 'em, pew pew, smoke assault, takedown, WI, maul it is....

~ Kovu

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

To keep everyone happy? Lol... Before SB came out people complained about ranger, after SB came out people complained about ranger.

You can remove all of those unblockable skills entirely, and people will still complain about ranger.
. I think the fact that only ONE person out of this entire thread highlighted the core problem you're talking about and are complaining about the ranger class for 50 other different reasons obviously shows this. People are clueless in PvP and are just bad, and will complain about everything that doesn't go their way.

Better yet, you can make it so unreliable that it could be removed from PvP metas and people will still complain about this class.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief. It will always be complained about as it always has been no matter what it has.

People just want it deleted from the PvP game mode, they don't want nerfs or buffs to the class from an effective standpoint. Just nerfing unblockables doesn't solve the underlying problem of class bias in this game with the community, never will.

It's fine anyway though for the most part because you should be multi-classing anyway, but the idea that nerfing those skills will suddenly make people love ranger is such fairy tale.

PvP really should only be necros, guardians, engineers, and renegades. everyone else is just too (_fill_in
answer
)

Arenanet should just relaunch PvP as a new game with a new title: Warriors vs. Engineers. Only there's only warriors and engineers to play. Think of the 10/10 marketing you could do with it. I'd bet it'd be overwatch tier in population in less than a month.

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@Kovu.7560 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:There's really only two issues I have seen with soulbeast and one is similar to the issue with holosmith.
  1. SBeast and Holo have way too much on demand stability. This allows them to enact the mindless playstyle of "pop stab, spam rotation without fear of being interrupted".
  2. Unstoppable union is busted. It's like a turbocharged version of Revs trait that gives them 2 unblockable skills except it affects ALL your skills for 4s as many as you can spam, is on half the CD ( 10s instead of 20s ) and breaks stuns because why not? So now you have "pop stab spam unblockable skills without being interrupted" and the only counterplay left is to evade. This is one of the most overtuned adept traits in the game.

Notice how I didn't mention Sicem? Sicem gives a good damage boost but it's honestly carried by the above two problems. If you could just CC the ranger or block as soon as you see/hear sicem it would be a l2p problem rather than a balance problem.

And finally someone pointed out the real problem. I had pointed this out in several threads but chose not to bring it up in this thread because I was tired of repeating myself. Regardless, the actual problem here isn't the raw damage output, it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

^ That's a ridiculous amount of unblockable duration, that has no real CD cycle even.
I've been saying it for months now, these are the compromising changes that Arenanet should give us in the next patch, to keep everyone happy:
  • Either halve the durations of the unblockable skills, or significantly increase the CDs, maybe both.
  • Keep Sic Em the way it is now, but it should have it's range halved. This would make the Ranger have to get closer to its target, allowing the target more counter-play gap closing options vs. the ranged. This change will nerf the hell out of mid to low tier Ranger pew, which is what everyone is complaining about. On the other hand, it won't effect higher tiered Ranger play very much at all, so it won't be a nerf really within the tiers where Rangers struggle vs. other classes to begin with.
  • Additionally, there needs to be damage redistribution amongst Ranger weapon skills concerning Longbow & Greatsword. Right now all of the damage is front loaded into 3 skills: Rapid Fire, Maul, Worldly Impact. This creates an effect where the build structures can easily nub stomp around with 1HKO or 2HKO or at least 3HKO, because nubs don't dodge roll or LOS. But at higher tiers, this is why Rangers struggle. Veteran players can dodge those 3 very telegraphed skills very easily, and then just face tank all of the other lower damage attacks while their defensive CDs come back in preparation to dodge the important 3 skill damage chain again and again. If the damage as redistributed more evenly amongst all the skills on LB/GS, Rangers could actually brawl with other classes instead of having play like a bursty ranged Thief, which would make them more viable at higher tiers. It would also serve to satisfy those who believe that Ranger has to much damage, because the 3 attack chain would have a bit of damage shaved off from it.

Anyway, here's to hoping this post doesn't get scrolled off and forgotten too quickly. People need to be reading this one.

I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

..... It isn't....it isn't by a mile....

You are simply delusional then and don't truly understand just how many guts and bounce backs this class has seen due to people not understanding how to play against one. Pew pew ranger even has it's own meme and dedicated title for a reason.

Please stop, it's easily one of the most hated classes in both PvP and WvW and is a love child in PvE because it's healbot capabilities.

Haha haha no. You simply haven't been playing this game.When I think most hated next to thief it is immediately mesmer. Followed very VERY closely by warrior. As the history of ups and downs are especially severe for those two classes. I don't think Rangers would even survive if they had a FULL YEAR of nerfs, and those nerfs hit in mostly wrong places. Like come back and talk about moat hated when your class has suffered a nerf to 50% or more of their kit starting from core. Come back when you have a skill nerfed repeatedly by 80% .Most hated LMAO
  1. Celestial Avatar went from a 10s cd to 20s cd. (100% total)
  2. Ray of Light had a 50% base healing power reduction + 30% flat healing reduction. (80% total)
  3. Seed of Life had it's condition removal halved (50%), 20% base healing power reduction, 18.5% base heal value reduction, and a 35% healing reduction. (123.5% total)
  4. Lunar Impact had a 25% daze duration reduction, 30% cooldown increase, 34% base healing power reduction, and a 40% healing power scaling reduction. (129% total)
  5. Rejuvenating Tides had a 75% base healing reduction. (75% total)
  6. Ancestral Grace went from a 12s cd to 18s cd (50% increase) and a 10% healing power reduction. (60% total)
  7. Smokescale received a 65% damage reduction on Smoke Assault.
  8. Bristleback had a 234% damage reduction on Spike Barrage.
  9. Ancient Seeds had a 100% cooldown increase.
  10. All pets receive a 20% stat reduction when slotting Druid.
  11. etc. etc.

It's not even a contest. I'm pretty sure Druid has been nerfed harder than any other spec in the game. It went from meta, to barely playable, to one of the WORST things you could ever run in PvP. I'd play Renegade before I touch Druid again.

I'm
still
sour how they completely gutted and destroyed Druid pretty much everywhere outside of raids. It used to be a fun support spec in pvp, fun for roaming in wvw with an interesting rotation that melded well until the CA cooldown nerf.

Alas, boon up, merge, sic 'em, pew pew, smoke assault, takedown, WI, maul it is....

~ Kovu

The problem is that no one was using it as a support in PvP when they really took the blowtorch and pliers to it. It was a side noder almost exclusively. It was harder to put down than Scrapper and had decent ability to grind down enemies with it buffing itself and it's pet with permanent 25 might.

I'd love to see Druid and Tempest be amazing supports alongside Firebrand but one of the problems like we saw with Scrapper which is supposed to be a more supportive teamfight bruiser is that whenever they make anything that is supportive they've also made something extremely hard to put down on its own and it's just better to use them as side point 1vXers.

I think that's why Firebrand gets the pass it's gotten as a teamfight support because it's one of the few times they've designed a build to do that, that is doing exactly that.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Yes, indeed it is. Especially for users such as @Lazze.9870 who aren't understanding the purpose of Clarion Bond. Ok so, Clarion Bond is used for the pets, particularly the Smokescale. The AI works in such a way that, when you swap to the Smokescale, he will always at least use either Takedown "it's 1s knockdown" or Smoke Assault "Its Rev Sword 3 attack", within that 3s of Lesser Call Of The Wild. About 50% of the time though, the AI will actually use BOTH. So the Smokescale, due to Clarion Bond, is benefitting both an unblockable knockdown and an unblockable Smoke Assault. This is actually pretty OP considering the pressure that is already coming off the Ranger. Then of course whatever it is you're using as a 2nd pet, whenever you rotate to it, it also gets that 3s of unblockable, because Clarion Bond cycles perfectly with the CD of pet swapping. So say you're using a Siamoth, he'll get a free unblockable pig knockdown as well, which due to AI, will happen almost immediately when swapping to him. Ultimately, Clarion Bond is guaranteeing that your pet's cool F2 attacks and CC skills that they like to use immediately upon swap, are always unblockable. And I do stress always, because a good Ranger doesn't camp a pet for 5 minutes or something. They purposely swap between them as frequently as possible, to make sure those pet skill CDs are being used in conjunction with unblockable attacks.

This is the problem with these threads. How am I supposed to take someone seriously when they don't even realize that Clarion Bond can't possibly work on soulbeast? It's a pet swap trait. Every pet swap trait force you to unmerge for it to be used. The effect is then applied to the pet.

No serious build is gonna run a warhorn for call of the wild, a signet that provides no other useful benefit than the unblockable active AND unstoppable union at the sime time.

You remember that old stop motion animation movie "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" that we all used to watch as kids? You remember that guy Yukon Cornelius, when he slammed his ice pick into the ground and screamed: "WAHOOOOO!! I'VE STRUCK SILVER & GOLD!!" I love that line.
  1. Talk to ROM about why Warhorn unblockables are important with the Smokescale, when you are opting to use Fresh Reinforcement over Unstoppable Union, and have no Marksmanship for Clarion Bond. We're talking about Boonbeast specs, if you didn't catch the reference.
  2. True 1HKO builds have to use Signet Of The Hunt if they want unblockables. The trait selections & skill rotations required have no room for unblockables outside of Signet Of The Hunt. You can talk to Harsh Master about that one.

Furthermore, my post was not to encourage the idea that every Ranger was using every unstoppable option that I mentioned. I assumed everyone following this thread knew better than to believe or assume that was even possible. I was pointing out how abundant unblockable options are on Ranger in general. No matter what build a Ranger chooses to run, it is always easy to fit in unblockable options. If a Ranger really wanted to, he could formulate a build that had nearly 100% uptime of incoming unblockable attacks, damage and CCs alike, between himself and his pet. I'm not saying that build would even necessarily be good, I'm just pointing out the ludicrous amount of unblockable options and their durations, that are present on Ranger.

I am a Ranger main by the way, and have been so for many years.

Wow. You're stuck on that high horse, or what? Of course I understand the purpose of Clarion Bond, of course I know how good warhorn is, of course I know a smokescale or any other pets' basic rotation. Cute, but you can shove that condescending story somewhere.

I quoted a comment where you simply summarized unblockable skills and summed it up in the usual fashion of "look at all the unblocks". And YES, what people usualy do in that context would actually be to summarize all the skills and make a point out of potential unblockable uptime. Have you seen the ranger sub forums? Turns out you're not one of those guys. Good.

Ranger main since gw1. Btw. As if it means anything.

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@ZhouX.8742 said:I get your points, but ranger is probably the most hated class next to thief.

Nah, it's mes. Let's not deny the obvious there. It is definitely mes, followed by any thief that makes a mistake.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:-=it's the unholy duration of unblockable that Soulbeasts have access to:

Yes.

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

it's not being cried about simply because it's more popular. It is being whined about because, slowly, the weaknesses of that build are being patched out with minor changes.

For example, the recent change to unstoppable union and unblockables in general make it so that the only projectile hate that worked actively, projectile destruction, now longer works against that damage. Add that to the fact that ranger longbow skills are markedly longer ranged than their tooltip claims, and you have classes that can open on you from outside of 1500 range and force you to burn dodges if you do not happen to be near a pillar or some obfuscating terrain.

Add stacked unblockable to "projectile destruction now counts as block" and you have a huge problem on your hands. Sanctuary wont work, poison cloud wont work, smoke screen wont work- How does that bode for anyone that needs to get a critical res in a firefight? It's too free,

I still think that the damage bonus stacking needs to be looked at as well, but this is the core issue. Spreading damage out across the rotation would be better, because obviously maul can be stealthed, obfuscating the telegraph

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@Bazooka.3590 said:Anet doesn't give a kitten about anything now because they will bankrupt soon. They don't have the resources.

If a quick look in PVE has taught me anything, it is that they make so much money from PVE players through shiny sales that they will probably have a steady stream of income for a while yet.

Also the last few patches have been brutal, but fair in terms of balancing. It seems like the recent focus shift has brought new eyes to pvp balancing, so these threads are still necessary to shed light on -why- things are broken/overpowered.

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