Gotejjeken.1267

I thought the ET/DH pairing was weird...but DH/GoM? In the words of Onyx the Fortuitous...'I dunno'

honestly instead of new elite specs i’d rather have them put a lot of effort into revamping hot specs so they can have a purpose again instead of most specs just being kitten versions of pof. and then a new class or something idk. If we're talking about zerg builds here, HoT specs are arguably more widely used than PoF specs. You have Firebrand, Spellbreaker, and Scourge used as far as PoF goes. Whereas Chrono, Scrapper, Tempest, Herald, DH are all used quite often. What exactly do you want them to buff? Druid? Yes, buff Druid

We had Totems, they were called Spirits. They were nerfed to oblivion because people complained they could follow the ranger and also complained about the passive effects granted. If you make the totem easy to destroy or make the ranger easy to CC while using it (i.e. Druid) then it becomes meaningless, as CC is a huge problem in general. I don't love the multi-pet idea as already have to have the one I have on passive as they are awful at pathing. Can't imagine trying to find two pets in any combat situation and then attempt to micromanage them; the AI isn't nearly good enough for that. One new weapon is fine for me as I have huge doubts in the efficacy of any new e-spec.

You really have to look at it in the context of 'why would I play this'. With some of these suggestions I'd rather they not give us a new e-spec and buff pets again, but then the forums would cry they died to 'bad AI' and we'd be in the same spot. A spec literally cannot nerf pets anymore without them being useless; they are walking CC machines only at this point. So any nerf to offensive or defensive stats should be a no-go, we've had a ton of those over the games life. I'd rather 'less is more' approach. Make a sustain spec and fix spirits to work with it. Leave it dual pet like core/druid, and have some utilities or traits that make pets harder to kill in group settings.

Fern Hound is fine. It is a canine so it comes with a knockdown, and is supportive so you get spiritual reprieve. The 'meta pet' and 'meta class' discussion only matters to a point. It all depends on your skill level and how much you like the class, then meta is pretty irrelevant.

I like how a necro complaint thread about rangers turned into a physics discussion...

Interesting topic. My vote goes to nerfing boonshare, because it is lazy. I want the balance to be more like a MOBA where every class has their role and group comps require strategy to win, not mindless sharing of defensives. Most of the guild boonballs I see that roam around (5-8 players) aren't that skilled, they ball up and run but rarely ever down anything. A non-organized group can't down any one of them either, so you get my least favorite thing in WvW--the 20 minute north camp standoff that usually ends with either the defenders losing via attrition or the boonball getting bored and porting. More for the topic, if any class were to be reworked I'd say thief is a good candidate--it does need group support but a lot more things should reveal it or at least make missing on a commit harder. Basically you either get a hit out of stealth and then something to limit mobility or limit stealth / damage and keep the mobility. This way you either build for one big surprise hit or you build to be annoying, not both. For a reference, look up Team Fortress 2, the thief class there was pretty perfect on risk/reward balancing. A secondary rework candidate would be revenant, because they have the same issues of having a lot of positives for really no tradeoff. They can sustain, debuff, CC, teleport, all kinds of stuff and have little weakness outside of they're mostly melee only. They are kind of where OG warrior was, just bruiser without any real downside and in a fight a good melee is going to beat a good ranged as eventually they will close the gap. For my main, Ranger, I also do want some changes. I think entire traitlines need to be reworked so all of us aren't running WS; and if we are going to have stability, spread that out instead of making one overtuned skill in Dolyak Stance. If you look at that balancing it kind of shows you all the issues into one example case--they nerfed RaO (or SoTP if you like, but hate that name) repeatedly, but then years later come out with Dolyak Stance that is basically the same intent but not an elite. Dolyak stance also has little tell (no giant red super sayian flames or 2 sec cast time) which is crazy for a utility skill. Other wishful thinking on Rangers is have Shortbow back at 1200 range to give a solid alternative to Longbow, restore OH Dagger's evade range, and do...something with Torch.

Ah yes, Sic Em + OWP the glass meme build that only works against the unaware. I fought one of these recently, ran into a camp and let the guards do most of the work as the other ranger didn't have any self-protection. But you said it yourself, anything with protection uptime pretty much nullfies this build once you add toughness / vit stats into the mix as well. There's also reflects, barrier, etc. Once you miss that initial rapid fire, you're out. It's too one dimensional for my liking tbh. Anyway, the problem with your 'live fast die fast' meta is thieves. One shot from stealth is a lot easier to do than meme SB builds are, and can escape a lot better. Actually you explain this in your last paragraph about DE's and that's AFTER the big damage nerf patches. We've had buffed mesmer though and it was a lot, lot worse than you're currently 'OP' SB build. Stealth, clones, confusion / torment spam, teleports--they were practically unkillable and for all the wrong reasons. Condi mesmer is something I still find here and there, it just doesn't 1-shot shatter bomb me from stealth anymore. The overall problem is anet seems unsure of what they want to do. Either everything is unified and all classes can do everything or every class has a specific role and has dedicated hard counters. The game is in the middle of this, where most classes have access to pretty much every mechanic there is and also have specific intended roles / tradeoffs and soft-counters. Any change from here is going to be fundamental 'big bang' approach and I'm guessing this is why it's taken so long to do, as those typically cause waves in the community. after RF they have nothing??? my mauls routinely hit in the quintuple digits (10k or more). i have hit over 14k mauls without needing an interrupt first. soulbeast also has the ability to get 66% damage reduction for 6 or 9 seconds depending on your traits. just because you met a newbie ranger playing a build doesn’t mean the entire build is a meme. try fighting a good one.by this logic, do you think any class is OP when you meet player who’s significantly better than you?? yes ofc SA thief beats ranger, but SA thief currently beats everything, except maybe nades scrapper. Have a roaming vid? Curious to see the opponents you are facing. Boon ranger isn't new--it's been a thing since they introduced boon copying on WHaO. The 'broken' part is SB with Dolyak stance and to some extent Second Skin--if/when they nerf those, you will see SB start to take more defensive gear again. That is, those two skills do not make the build (or spec) 'good' to me--still has all of the buggy ranger mechanics and lynchpins on an overtuned skill / trait. For the Mesmer discussion I wasn't referring to a specific specialization, just mesmer in general has been toned down several times due to the tools it has. Mesmer, unlike Ranger, actually has more than a one dimensional playstyle; Ranger has been 'meta' at LB/GS for a very long time because the class as a whole is extremely one dimensional. mesmer uses nearly entire utility bar to pull off a burst, has to time everything right, and even then they have less damage than soulbeast using owp, sicem, PBS and rapidfire that requires no timing. please tell me how that makes sense? does mesmer have some kinda hidden sustain or hidden utility they can bring that makes up for their lack of damage and sustain? for the record, soulbeast pretty decent amount of depth to it as well. it may be easy to pull off high damage but playing it high level isn’t just spamming the same rotations btwI'd like to see a SB played at a high level to begin with--not that WvW has anything resembling 'high level' in it really. From my own experience, the depth options are limited due to the pet AI / selection (we have what, four viable pets) and were limited even more once pet swap was removed in combat. Now it's run a 'meta' pet and do the same standard range rotation, if it doesn't work and they aren't melee then reset. If they are melee try the GS rotation. If all fails usually dolyak stance, block with GS, swoop with GS and swoop with bird to your nearest structure.

Ah yes, Sic Em + OWP the glass meme build that only works against the unaware. I fought one of these recently, ran into a camp and let the guards do most of the work as the other ranger didn't have any self-protection. But you said it yourself, anything with protection uptime pretty much nullfies this build once you add toughness / vit stats into the mix as well. There's also reflects, barrier, etc. Once you miss that initial rapid fire, you're out. It's too one dimensional for my liking tbh. Anyway, the problem with your 'live fast die fast' meta is thieves. One shot from stealth is a lot easier to do than meme SB builds are, and can escape a lot better. Actually you explain this in your last paragraph about DE's and that's AFTER the big damage nerf patches. We've had buffed mesmer though and it was a lot, lot worse than you're currently 'OP' SB build. Stealth, clones, confusion / torment spam, teleports--they were practically unkillable and for all the wrong reasons. Condi mesmer is something I still find here and there, it just doesn't 1-shot shatter bomb me from stealth anymore. The overall problem is anet seems unsure of what they want to do. Either everything is unified and all classes can do everything or every class has a specific role and has dedicated hard counters. The game is in the middle of this, where most classes have access to pretty much every mechanic there is and also have specific intended roles / tradeoffs and soft-counters. Any change from here is going to be fundamental 'big bang' approach and I'm guessing this is why it's taken so long to do, as those typically cause waves in the community. after RF they have nothing??? my mauls routinely hit in the quintuple digits (10k or more). i have hit over 14k mauls without needing an interrupt first. soulbeast also has the ability to get 66% damage reduction for 6 or 9 seconds depending on your traits. just because you met a newbie ranger playing a build doesn’t mean the entire build is a meme. try fighting a good one.by this logic, do you think any class is OP when you meet player who’s significantly better than you?? yes ofc SA thief beats ranger, but SA thief currently beats everything, except maybe nades scrapper.Have a roaming vid? Curious to see the opponents you are facing. Boon ranger isn't new--it's been a thing since they introduced boon copying on WHaO. The 'broken' part is SB with Dolyak stance and to some extent Second Skin--if/when they nerf those, you will see SB start to take more defensive gear again. That is, those two skills do not make the build (or spec) 'good' to me--still has all of the buggy ranger mechanics and lynchpins on an overtuned skill / trait. For the Mesmer discussion I wasn't referring to a specific specialization, just mesmer in general has been toned down several times due to the tools it has. Mesmer, unlike Ranger, actually has more than a one dimensional playstyle; Ranger has been 'meta' at LB/GS for a very long time because the class as a whole is extremely one dimensional.

Ah yes, Sic Em + OWP the glass meme build that only works against the unaware. I fought one of these recently, ran into a camp and let the guards do most of the work as the other ranger didn't have any self-protection. But you said it yourself, anything with protection uptime pretty much nullfies this build once you add toughness / vit stats into the mix as well. There's also reflects, barrier, etc. Once you miss that initial rapid fire, you're out. It's too one dimensional for my liking tbh. Anyway, the problem with your 'live fast die fast' meta is thieves. One shot from stealth is a lot easier to do than meme SB builds are, and can escape a lot better. Actually you explain this in your last paragraph about DE's and that's AFTER the big damage nerf patches. We've had buffed mesmer though and it was a lot, lot worse than you're currently 'OP' SB build. Stealth, clones, confusion / torment spam, teleports--they were practically unkillable and for all the wrong reasons. Condi mesmer is something I still find here and there, it just doesn't 1-shot shatter bomb me from stealth anymore. The overall problem is anet seems unsure of what they want to do. Either everything is unified and all classes can do everything or every class has a specific role and has dedicated hard counters. The game is in the middle of this, where most classes have access to pretty much every mechanic there is and also have specific intended roles / tradeoffs and soft-counters. Any change from here is going to be fundamental 'big bang' approach and I'm guessing this is why it's taken so long to do, as those typically cause waves in the community.

Believe it is necessary now that you can't swap pets in combat; the most balance they could do is half the duration other specs have. So if pet downed reset time is 40 seconds on another spec, it'd be 20 seconds on SB regardless of if you entered / exit beastmode or not. I don't really see other classes (or even rangers) having to try hard to take out a pet though. Any AoE or concentrated condi and the pet is gone in seconds. In group fights the pet is useless, if you aren't a SB you have to have it on passive or be forced to pet swap all the time. Pets really do no damage either, the best you can hope for as a ranger is that your pet CCs successfully. If my pet goes down, I'm more upset about not being able to swap out for the swap bonus, not because the pet isn't functional.

Yeah it hasn't been touched since 2015...and 20s ICD at 300 range using the pets healing power is way, way ridiculous. I wish they'd just get rid of all beast skill related traits--as they do nothing for any spec outside of SB. If they keep them I think those are some good ideas for this one, especially using the players healing power since they've nerfed pets quite a few times in the past 6 years. Even some aegis may be fun, as it isn't on many professions and you'd have to be close to your pet for it to trigger anyway. Guess the problem there would still be boonbeast, as it gets the best of all worlds and really hinders development of the other specs with things like this, as they're borderline OP on one spec and would be interesting on the others.

So to answer some of that in my opinion... The unkillable builds are essentially just built to run, they have massive uptime of things like barrier, reflect, protection, and also teleports. Or you get the unkillible thieves that can use stealth uptime / cleanses + mount to just run forever. Your damage is probably weak due to the protection mostly, if it is SB it'd be weak no matter what you run because of dolyak stance + protection (covers everything). The gankers are just that, I too have always seen thieve pairs and to this day I can't find a solution for that. I play Druid so I do have some stealth and protection / cleanses, but its the mobility of thief that doesn't allow a successful escape unless very close to a structure. Think the night players are due to the mode being pretty stagnant so most people come around reset time no matter what day of week and play for a few hours. The chat thing is interesting...you wouldn't happen to be on ET or DH would you? I ask as I am on DH and have this same experience but with three players, one of which is a very well known 'quick automobile' (so as not to call out by name on forum and give an idea of who it is). I'd try to find a friendly guild tag to get the rest of your mount--I know that in itself is pretty hard as most guilds are either obnoxious fight guilds or non-welcoming of new players (private tag). After that, the rest is up to you--you're staying or leaving will fully depend on the unique nuances of WvW and if you can tolerate them.

Please run ranger. In a zerg.

you’re wrong about the reason. it was because the sustain you had from smokescale + siamoth was absolutely insane and couple that with perma boons from plasma + moa stance made NM a viable traitline, which meant perma stab, perma 25 might, nearly perma quickness, perma prot, 40-50% alacrity uptime, list goes on, and that’s on top of having stealth from snokescale. that’s why when trade off patch hit along with dmg nerfs, moa stance got gutted. it was siamoth + smokescale that was the deadliest pet combo. We can argue the reasons all day but everything got hit that patch. If the reasons they nerfed SB is because of simaoth / smokescale then Druid would still be broken as can pet swap and has much greater sustain potential through celestial shadow + those pets. Even pre-patch I hardly ran into another ranger running Siamoth, as the plasma is a gamble and you have to pick it up, not something you can do easily in a fight above a 1v1. Boon Beast is also something people still routinely complain about on here, so if the tradeoff was to mitigate that, it didn't do a very good job. Bird on the other hand was used (and in some cases still is) ALL the time. You could run a pet like Smokescale and run Bird, and not have to commit to the fight. Players, and Anet didn't like that. This is also why the patch mentions you have to choose your pet carefully before entering combat, because they didn't want both sustain ability and escape ability for SB.

I've never been told this. Is this a server specific thing? Or is this a map thing, like are you on EB (I never go to EB).

The 'tradeoff' was because people complained rangers were using bird as another kiting option--ridiculous, but that's what did it. It's bad enough you have to take BM to even have a remotely usable pet, and BM is only really critical on SB because of the buffs it gives while merged. Thus why I don't run SB and just put my pet on passive all the time so I can choose when it engages. Can get some nice desync play that way, and the pet is close for things like smoke field and such. Though, still trying to fit BM into my build somehow as currently the pets are too slow to hit anything usually lol...

We had the double boon copy once, when they changed WHaO...it didn't last long.

I think it's this, if you pay attention to the combat log. The only exception I've seen here are yaks--hitting them once is usually enough to count for participation. The rest seems to be damage based which favors spike over anything, as I found myself lacking in rewards in most fight when I'm pinning everyone down, but they die before my bleeds can ramp up.

For every ele downstate topic I swear there is a ranger underwater 'unkillable' topic. Both have limited uses and should be pretty low on the change list.

As a roaming Druid, no to all of that. Any further reductions to healing are a no go, especially since you have to invest so heavily into healing power in the first place just to be able to support. Which in turn makes it hard to be self-sufficient, and being a heal bot is about as boring as it gets. Also, There's no reason to shift the full clear to allies so you are useless when you are alone, and no reason to take the stealth away from celestial shadow. Part of that stealth isn't just so the Druid can escape, it's so allies can, and also so you can rez an ally in stealth. The only really awful skills are astral wisp and cosmic ray. Radius increases are fine as some are laughably small--looking at you verdant etching--but what druid really needs is some sustain. Something like stability on Glyph of Stars would be a good start.

As long as you revert all the pet damage nerfs over the years for WvW. At least us Rangers will have one more way to get siege off walls =D.

OP definitely plays thief, they didn't mention stealth.

Yes, nothing favors defenders which is why smallscale died. If you put down 6 catas of course you can flip any tower in a short amount of time and most keeps, especially when you run with 20-30 people. That has nothing to do with defender advantage and everything to do with blob size. If you have an equal defender blob inside the objective, you're going to lose--because you most likely are going to be fighting siege as well as defender buffs. Open field fights have to truly be open field, which is tough outside of desert as if your 'open field' is in range of a claimed objective, the defenders are still getting that advantage. Warclaw also makes it very easy to disengage as defender into a structure or stall for time.

No, you used to BUY them with Badges of Honor, of which players always had tons (changed in Spring 2016). Even when I was NOT actively playing WvW I had enough BoH to buy multiple GoB and even regretted not buying more back then. This was even easier when AP where added and the subsequent BoH rewards there too, effectively removing the necessity to WvW at all for GoB. The WvW legi armor was added far later than the GoB change (WvW legi armor was added in May 2017). Please do some basic wiki searches if you are unclear on the acutal changes made to this mode. I said I don't want changes UNTIL the developers have shown that they understand the mode. That is not the same as not wanting change. Yes, and the changes to having all stats select-able recently has made exotic gear and gearing even easier. If you want no gear, or nearly no gear dependence in WvW, make a strong argument for that instead of back dooring. I doubt you will find a great amount of acceptance in the current player base though, given the current players are attracted to the mode as is. As far as gating stats: WvW has had PvE stats from day one. I would love to have you explain how this was not intended. I don't care about your GW1 analogies. There was no WvW in GW1, and the Spvp mode here does not have gear, so for all intents and purposes, that's the mode you can play if you want a GW1 similar pvp experience. For the first point I meant badges of honor used to only come from killing players ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Badge_of_Honor&oldid=327793 ), and yes you had to buy gift of battle with that. Now badges of honor drop from literally everything and you can get gifts of battle through a reward track, thus 'easy mode'. Not really concerned with how many badges you had or how you got them, for all I know you zerged around in EB and were flooded with them with little effort. Yes, and BoH were plenty. Again, I had no issue buying multiple gifts back then and I was not even active in WvW. Sub WvW rank 300 for the first 2 years of the game. The biggest loss was mostly due to no auto loot. That is without even mentioning the achievement point reward implementation after the first 6 months, and with them thousands of BoH for every player. I fail to see your point. Unless the point was to hand pick short moments in time of this game which had nearly no effect at all on the topic discussed. Legendary items were basically 1 in a million the first few months for players, and after that it was certainly not the BoH limiting access. My mistake. Your sentence structure made it seem as though you were continuing your point about badges of Honor. If 24 weeks of maximum skirmish tickets is not tying the armor to WvW, I don't know what is. You not agreeing that players who are participating as part of the zerg are playing WvW is not my problem. This mode has many different play styles shoved together. Your preferred play style is not the only one that counts or matters. Sure. Doesn't change the fact you were putting words in my mouth. Subjective interpretation of someone who maybe should move on? I wouldn't know. Again, in case you missed it: WvW has had PvE gear from day 1. GW1 had gearing just like GW2 in PvE and never gave out PvE gear for free. In fact getting multiple sets was likely more expensive there than it is to get exotic gear in GW2. Especially when going for meta upgrades for that gear (Superior Rune of Vigor was always expensive, as were desired Runes for specific builds easily rivaling today's Scholar Runes in GW2 and above). WvW has always had PvE elements by design. PvP in GW1 had mostly no gearing. Similar to Spvp in GW2. That's the mode you need to look to if you want your GW1 non gearing experience. You reap what you sow. You come telling everyone they are wrong at how they enjoy the game. Tell everyone here that the game mode should change after 8 years in a way YOU want it to change in some cases against the very initial conception and implementation. Then expect everyone to agree? That's not how opinions work.I personally don't care, I have been around long enough to know what WvW is and to get legendary armor. My point in this topic is for people like the TC that find it hard to get back into WvW (or get into it in the first place) because the systems have not been updated to welcome new / returning players. I mean we're arguing in a topic about helping a mode that can't be helped really due to the way server transfers and bandwagoning work. Add in gear that you grind out in a different mode (i.e. PvE), ridiculous things you have to earn through mastery (warclaw, gliding), private tags, claim buff, and you've got just about the highest bar to entry to any mode in the game. That's great for longevity. It's just silly not to add a set of specific WvW only stat-swappable (i.e. legendary) equipment to make builds easier to try out and use. That encourages new players, so we don't have to kill the same gold+ ranks over, and over again--as for the off chance someone new to the mode may read this, despite rank most high ranks are inversely proportional to skill level, esp. as you hit platinum, mithril, and esp. diamond.