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Ranger Upcoming Balance Patch Notes


Anjo.3170

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Ranger

In this update we've made some reductions to tone down the strength of some soulbeast PvP and WvW builds. While we believe the builds and playstyles have a solid place in the game and don't want to take them out of play, certain elements are a bit too far over the edge. The skill "Sic 'Em!" is providing a damage modifier that is significantly higher than any other single persistent bonus damage increase, so we're reducing the bonus to match other similar skills in a competitive setting. This reduction only occurs while merged with your pet. We're also reducing access to the unblockable effect provided by some skills and traits in order to create more opportunities for others.

  • Long Range Shot: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.
  • Point Blank Shot: This skill now scales knockback distance dynamically between a range of 100 and 600 based on distance from the target.
  • Barrage: Reduced recharge from 30 second to 20 seconds. Lowered cripple duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Increased damage by 25%. Damage floaters for this skill now show total damage instead of damage per hit.
  • Sublime Conversion: This skill now grants 5 seconds of regeneration to allies who pass through the wall.
  • Ancestral Grace: This skill no longer evades attacks. Increased recharge from 18 seconds to 20 seconds. If at least 1 ally other than yourself is healed, the recharge is reduced by 5 seconds.
  • Call of the Wild: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 3 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 4 seconds.
  • Clarion Bond: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 2 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 3 seconds.
  • Frost Trap: Increased the number of pulses from 4 to 5. Decreased chill duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. Increased damage by 100% in PvE only. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill's ice field from lasting the full duration.
  • "Sic 'Em!": Reduced the bonus damage applied to a merged soulbeast from 40% to 25% in PvP and WvW only. Damage bonus for pets remains unchanged. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not grant the listed movement-speed bonus.
  • One Wolf Pack: Fixed a bug that could cause the second strike from this skill to fail if the player jumps.
  • Verdant Etching: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to not function with Glyph of the Stars.
  • Light on Your Feet: This trait now also grants its damage bonus when dodging using Quick Shot.
  • Twice as Vicious: Increased the duration of the damage effect granted by this trait from 4 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Second Skin: Reduced condition damage protection from 33% to 20% in PvP only.
  • Unstoppable Union: This trait no longer grants an unblockable boon. Instead, it removes movement-impairing conditions in addition to its previous effect of stunbreaking when activating beastmode.
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That Ancestral Grace nerf is ridiculous. Rest of the nerfs are mostly fair, but the unblockable changes are gonna take their toll on the ranger's role in PvP. Could be worse, though.

Light on Your Feet should just apply to any weapon evade while they were at it. Frost Trap new raid utility for power SB, I guess. Barrage finally getting some "umpf" to it.

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I love the changes to LB, the knockback from 1500 needed to be removed actually it hurt the ranger. And the massive buff to barrage just made LB ranger a mobile ArrowCart. If in soulbeast even better than an arrowcart.

The changes to unblockables traits are good, sniper still can use the signet. The hardhitting skills wont be impacted, WI, maul and Axe are untouched by this unless you abused the unstoppable union.

The nerf to sicem is good as long is it provides the 40% increased speed. That skill just become a defensive one as well as the meme it already is.I hope they dont nerf damage on LB because of the dynamic damage.

The other changes are irrelevant, increase 6 seconds twice a vicious will only impact benchmark.

Listen to me, i foresee more marksman sicem soulbeast with predators onslaught in game.

Good changes unfortunately not enough

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@anduriell.6280 said:The other changes are irrelevant, increase 6 seconds twice a vicious will only impact benchmark.

More than double the uptime of any damage modifier is never irrelevant. Helps in PvE, and it can be the difference between downing someone or not after hitting them with PBS. It should have been like that from the start. Furious Strength should also be updated with 7 % condi damage.

The fact that they're doing mostly the correct nerfs and not some kneejerk reaction to other skills or traits is also not irrelevant, in that sense. Ignoring druid obviously, those nerfs are a joke at this point.

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@Lazze.9870 said:

@anduriell.6280 said:The other changes are irrelevant, increase 6 seconds twice a vicious will only impact benchmark.

More than double the uptime of any damage modifier is never irrelevant. Helps in PvE, and it
can
be the difference between downing someone or not after hitting them with PBS. It should have been like that from the start. Furious Strength should also be updated with 7 % condi damage.

The fact that they're doing mostly the correct nerfs and not some kneejerk reaction to other skills or traits is also not irrelevant, in that sense.

Well I agree with you in there, but let's wait for the actual patch to check the numbers. I thought the new druid elite seemed nice until I saw the actual implementation.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:The unblockable changes were long overdue.Fair changes.I am honestly curious how PBS now functions. Maybe noob push ranger behaviour is now a thing of the past.

By the phrasing my guess is the knockback from 600 is going to be 100 instead 400.So from melee you push 600 units scale accordingly with the distance up to 600.

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I love the Druid playstyle and That evade nerf is a little too much if the idea was to tone down SoulBeast. Why the hate to druid and their staff?

I've been playing around with a good Druid build trying to find a sustainable staff/long-sword, capping points build even if it's not meta anymore. I've been quite successful finally nd I've been wondering why my disengage has been horrible with Ancestral Grace. I've been using Ancestral Grace this whole time and I had no idea it was nerfed like that because the description of the skill does not reflect this. Why the hate?

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"Second Skin: Reduced condition damage protection from 33% to 20% in PvP only."

I don't like this, it's the only nerf I didn't expect

But I think these changes will put rangers out of tournaments, every organized team has an FB or a scrapper without unlockables it will be difficult to eliminate enemies in coordinated groups.

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@"Revolution.5409" said:"Second Skin: Reduced condition damage protection from 33% to 20% in PvP only."

I don't like this, it's the only nerf I didn't expect

But I think these changes will put rangers out of tournaments, every organized team has an FB or a scrapper without unlockables it will be difficult to eliminate enemies in coordinated groups.

Ranger isn't meant to be in competitive. The only times it has been competitive viable is when the numbers were busted.Trap ranger (numbers not busted) nerfed to not throw trapsBeastmaster: nerf to pet damageSpirit Ranger (saw tournament play): nerfed into oblivionPower core ranger (seen tournament play - Numbers not busted): heart of thorns came out, terrain fixes, rev existence, damage increase pushed it out.Druid (saw tournament play): nerfed into oblivionBoonbeast: nerfed/other things power creepPower soulbeast: nerfed.

The problem is ranger is the only class whose main damage source can be hard countered by line of sight AND projectile hate. Every other class has mechanics to avoid line of sight through movement and/or ways to stay in or get out of the fight or force target drops like elixir s, teleports, rev heal, Mesmer dodge and distort, rampage, dagger storm, real blocks! Etc.

No other class suffers from projectile hate as much for the same reasons, they can get in, stay in, and force target drops. You're not going to keep spamming skills at an S-engi or distort mes' or blocking war. But a signet of stone ranger? No problem. Because ranger can only stop physical damage but not condis or CC. As addition to projectike hate, Mesmers even have a beam as their ranged attacks.

If a ranger pew pews they can't finish a fight due to LoS or projectile hate. If the ranger goes in they have no way to get out or drop target on them. (Only thing is stealth which is countered by Engi and rev - which happens as part of their natural rotation anyway).

And then there is cleave. Even if you manage to down a target with longbow, you have no cleave available to stop the rez, due to low damage and projectile hate. A holo or a rev can solo cleave and keep a body down. Even if ranger goes into melee, ranger doesn't have enough damage without interrupting the enemy.

And then there's reaction time, kits, and what not. Ranger does not have the mechanics to hang at high play. The only way it could is if all The pet skills were controllable by the Ranger. It would raise the skill floor slightly but allow for a much smoother and higher skill cieling - as well as open up synergies all over with traits.

Pets should also scale with ranger stats... which would have substantially changed the game from the start and imo would have substantially changed the numbers that made ranger busted. Rangers lacks damage when building for damage. But ranger has always had over the top numbers with tanky builds because of pet damage. Changing pet stats to scale off of the ranger's stats fixes both of these problems.

As for sustain and traits and anets trait philosophy and how that fits in... that's a topic for another day

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So, Frost Trap may see some use in PvETwice as Vicions is a little better for sustained damageBarrage has gone from filler trash when LoS is used to meh.And the other LB skills scale dynamically instead of threshold scaling as they always should have.

Everything else is just varying degrees of nerf, as expected, including another kick in Druid's balls for good measure.I guess crying on the forums really does "fix" everything.RIP.

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Overall the changes make sense to me. Thematically, I wouldn’t have minded if shouts/commands were disabled for SB as it seems odd to yell “sic ‘em!” etc. while merged with your pet.

However, I don’t understand why Ancestoral Grace was nerfed, not that it matters to me since Druid is dead to me unless and until the pet nerf is revoked or gets a major overhaul.

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Please adjust the range of Shortbows soon, too, please. 900 Range, especially in WvW, is just god awful for a Bow. It's the same range we throw our Axes and just feels bad. 1000-1100 Range for SB's while Longbows continue to have 1200-1500 should be fine. Give us Condi Rangers/Druids/Soulbeasts some ruvvin'.

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@anduriell.6280 said:I love the changes to LB, the knockback from 1500 needed to be removed actually it hurt the ranger. And the massive buff to barrage just made LB ranger a mobile ArrowCart. If in soulbeast even better than an arrowcart.

The changes to unblockables traits are good, sniper still can use the signet. The hardhitting skills wont be impacted, WI, maul and Axe are untouched by this unless you abused the unstoppable union.

The nerf to sicem is good as long is it provides the 40% increased speed. That skill just become a defensive one as well as the meme it already is.I hope they dont nerf damage on LB because of the dynamic damage.

The other changes are irrelevant, increase 6 seconds twice a vicious will only impact benchmark.

Listen to me, i foresee more marksman sicem soulbeast with predators onslaught in game.

Good changes unfortunately not enough

is good? is fucking good? on which side are you?

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I could be wrong but think "anduriell.6280" listed the nerfs saying its a good change(?).

Will need verification and test but from my first impression:

  • Long Range Shot: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Nothing changed aside from dynamic scaling to damage/range, unless theres a stealth nerf to the damage/range.

  • Point Blank Shot: This skill now scales knockback distance dynamically between a range of 100 and 600 based on distance from the target.Same as above, nothing changed aside from dynamic knockback scaling.

  • Barrage: Reduced recharge from 30 second to 20 seconds. Lowered cripple duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Increased damage by 25%. Damage floaters for this skill now show total damage instead of damage per hit.Interesting change, more frequent use to clear sieges in WvW but no improvement to longbow for end game PvE.

  • Sublime Conversion: This skill now grants 5 seconds of regeneration to allies who pass through the wall.Does this still retain the previous anti projectile feature?

  • Ancestral Grace: This skill no longer evades attacks. Increased recharge from 18 seconds to 20 seconds. If at least 1 ally other than yourself is healed, the recharge is reduced by 5 seconds.More frequent healing, trade off with evade. Lost an evade time frame but with cd reduction, easier to outrun.

  • Call of the Wild: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 3 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 4 seconds.

  • Clarion Bond: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 2 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 3 seconds.Nerf, with high chance multiple target hits consumes all the charges (bouncing/penetrating projectiles)

  • Frost Trap: Increased the number of pulses from 4 to 5. Decreased chill duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. Increased damage by 100% in PvE only. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill's ice field from lasting the full duration.Trap pulse longer with condi duration shorten.

  • "Sic 'Em!": Reduced the bonus damage applied to a merged soulbeast from 40% to 25% in PvP and WvW only. Damage bonus for pets remains unchanged. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not grant the listed movement-speed bonus.Nerf for PvP/WvW.

  • One Wolf Pack: Fixed a bug that could cause the second strike from this skill to fail if the player jumps.

  • Verdant Etching: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to not function with Glyph of the Stars.Bug fixed.

  • Light on Your Feet: This trait now also grants its damage bonus when dodging using Quick Shot.

  • Twice as Vicious: Increased the duration of the damage effect granted by this trait from 4 seconds to 10 seconds.Buff.

  • Second Skin: Reduced condition damage protection from 33% to 20% in PvP only.Nerf for PvP. Questionable for WvW.

  • Unstoppable Union: This trait no longer grants an unblockable boon. Instead, it removes movement-impairing conditions in addition to its previous effect of stunbreaking when activating beastmode.Nerf.

Overall, a minor buff for condi soulbeast. Nerf to power builds in PvP/WvW.

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@"Shin Skysinger.1570" said:I love the Druid playstyle and That evade nerf is a little too much if the idea was to tone down SoulBeast. Why the hate to druid and their staff?

I've been playing around with a good Druid build trying to find a sustainable staff/long-sword, capping points build even if it's not meta anymore. I've been quite successful finally nd I've been wondering why my disengage has been horrible with Ancestral Grace. I've been using Ancestral Grace this whole time and I had no idea it was nerfed like that because the description of the skill does not reflect this. Why the hate?

a little too much? Druid is already unplayable and they had to nerf something else.

The rest of you that jumped on the fucking bandwagon hate with Sicem and unblockables...you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.You wanna complain about WvW, go for it. But PvP? HA AH HAHAHAHA.

@anduriell.6280 how often do you play?Did you read the same notes I did?

@""Eramonster.2718" thanks for breaking that down

@Eurantien.4632As always, the best and most concise commentary of the thread.I am really surprised with anet...and then I guess I am not. They never fail to disappoint.There is so much projectile hate already in the game, taking away unblockables, nerfing second skin and sicem.Then they had to get in one more dig on the druid...lol vurt De Furk anet.

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I'm happy with the changes, that Sic-em Soulbeast combo was utterly ridiculous in PvP WvW.I never used it myself despite running a LB Ranger in WvW just because I thought it was a cheap, broken tactic and borderline cheating in all honesty.Glad it's been nerfed but more so, glad it's only been nerfed in PvP and WvW.I'm very happy that Anet didn't diminish a huge chunk of Rangers DPS potential in PvE to fix a broken mess in competitive gamemodes, thanks Anet ^^

I like the Longbow changes too, Long Range Shot is going to feel more fun to play with now and add to the enjoyment I already get from playing to position.

Point Blank Shot changes are going to be great as well :D God knows how many times Rangers have been smeared for this single skill because of it's knockback.I'm hoping that at max range the knockback will be more of a knockdown and people can finally stop complaining about the skill since it it the only interupt we have on LB.

Barrage lovely upgrade on CB and damage ^^ happy happy longbow chappy here :D

Frost Trap, Got another Ranger that runs this for damage over chill so he's getting an extra pulse and a 100% damage increase on the skill, yeah happy bout that :D

Overall my favourite main build is coming out of this balance patch buffed and upgraded so I for one am very pleased.

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@EnderzShadow.2506 said:@anduriell.6280 how often do you play?Did you read the same notes I did?

Yes i do, every week although less lately because of the stale balance.I do play WvW almost exclusively with ranger only, so mostly roaming or flying around the zerg.So my point of view is obviously biased towards WvW gameplay, and believe me all this changes are strong buffs with minor nerfs.

You'll see some weeks after the patch how will come back the cry threads about sicem snipers and AC rangers in WvW

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