Gotejjeken.1267

The term ranger has nothing to do with literal combat range--it's being a keeper or maintainer of an area. Thus 'park ranger', or Walker 'Texas Ranger'. This misinformation I've seen a lot on here, unfortunately. Thematically--which is the driving force of the class choices in the game--firearms are directly opposite of what rangers would use. They represent gunpowder, etc. all the things that are counter-nature. All other classes that use them have a reason--engineers (obviously), warriors (armed men), thieves (assassins). Hammer would be fine since ranger's already have access to greatsword; better for me would be scepter / rework of spirits, since ranger's are creatures of nature and druids are pretty 'magical' already. The problem really, is the pet. If you do hammer then you say ranger can survive better, so the pet becomes a larger focus (and people will cry). If you do scepter, you can probably skirt around this by having spirits replace the pet in some manner, but then ranger's might dislike this. If you do spirits you kind of encroach on druid anyway, because spirits imply support and druid is literal support (or was in competitive modes).

That's anything though, isn't it? If you don't specifically build for conditions you can get burned to death or condi spammed to death (condi herald says hi), with little skill involved. If you don't build for stunbreaks, have fun against a build with a lot of stuns as you can die in seconds. At least immob spam HAS counterplay though; something that is lacking for thieves, clearly, by this topic existing. My original point is even though people complain about thief, I personally don't think it is 'broken' and think it could benefit from the same treatment druid got (healing reduction, evade reduction, etc.), as both ranger and thief are medium armor and can build into toughness for surviving. Thief has stealth, ranger has boons--we have boonrip to counter that--, we need more reveal to counter stealth. If it means upping thief HP to balance then so be it, though maurader thieves can get quite a bit of HP anyway. Another option is to nerf blind / smoke field, but I don't think anyone wants that.

Absolutely no. Druid is the worst of ranger specs. Being either useless or hardcarried by a broken mechanic, that requires counterbuilding with little to no way to actually outplay even trash druids without reliable way to get out of the roots, shouldn't be model for anything. I'd rather fight soulbeasts or thieves all day long (even tho both can be quite cancerous in their own ways). Have you actually played it? I can tell you a decent boon beast is far, far worse than a druid any day. You outplay 'trash' druids by having stab uptime, literally any CC skill, or outranging them, all of which are pretty easy to do. I've played one of the builds that you would hate for many hours and can tell you it's only really effective in group settings (non-zerg). Complaints about rooting are very similar to the complaints about thieves bursting from stealth, both require counterplay. Druid roots have major counterplay as unless you are +1'ing, almost all classes have ways to instantly break out of the roots or never be rooted to begin with. Roots aren't even druid specific, it's one trait on a 10 second ICD lol. SB can actually do immob better being selfish, can have sustain all day, only lacking in condi removal unless you run runes of cleansing. Anyway, Thieves on the other hand are built so that counterplay will 'kill the class' (see above responses). That's just bad design all the way around, as you either have an unkillable +1ing machine and 'have to deal with it' or you 'break the entire class beyond repair'.

Think there just needs to be some more reveal ability added to most classes and a way to reliably CC evades. The latter will be super tricky as it'd effect all classes, but the dodge / teleport spam is getting a little ridiculous from a few classes now. Since most of these discussions devolve into thief vs. ranger (as far as balance goes), have a few suggestions from that standpoint... As a suggestion, I think Druid for instance is actually in a good place, one that could be used as a model for thief. You can be tanky and you have quite a bit of immob ability, but don't have the power to really kill anything with a decent cleanse. In that way, it plays similar role to thief, where you exist to harrass and +1, and can win most 1v1's against inexperienced players, but get doubled up or have anyone with access to CC spam of their own and you are up a creek. Druid to me is more thoughtful in general though, as there is no real instant escape button--you have celestial shadow but must give up other good utilities (verdant etching) to get it. What I'm saying is, I think the thief has too many escape buttons and therefore does not encourage thoughtful play. It currently is like Soulbeast, where a lot of the times a SB can stack protection and stability and power through most things at 1500 range--if you get close they switch to GS and run. In a group you'll never catch them, and it's such a braindead unbalanced way to play. Thief is same, has both stealth, stunbreaks, cc mitagations, etc. with no real tradeoff other than the super low HP / armor if they happen to fall asleep for a bit.

Druid is the healing spec for ranger. Condi druid works really well in WvW, I'd imagine it would work in PvE too and you get crazy amounts of healing. With SLB, yeah you can take a supportive pet but you won't (and shouldn't) be healing like a Guardian.

Axe reachs 4k autos in a tanky build and Winter’s bite deals as much damage as the maul ins a AoE at 900 range with chilled and weakness. Split blade can delete glass builds if you hit with the 5 blades. It is a overtunned, it needs the might removed from the autos and the Winter’s bite an slower projectile and more visible. That single weapon alone carries tanky ranger builds. lol 4 k auto ? tanky build ? comon man that fake news Its 4k auto with 25 vuln stacks on target and 25 might and sic em active whilst merged with a dps pet... maybe on a good day. when the stars align. I dont know what their definition of tanky is - apparently it just means taking the WS traitline, but still in zerk gear with scholar runes. LUL. good grief the level of disingenuous deception at play on this forum is almost criminal. This right now in the pvp lobby. With no vulns just the might i build from using the autos and the heal. Only with autos i can maintain easy 12 stacks of might. One heal to copy boons and i'm capped already. And i said sPvP is better more balanced, this in WvW would get easy almost 4K . This build, I am pretty sure you can tweak it so you could squeezy a bit more without losing the self-sustain. Exchanging SoS for the SoW would be a possibility (no invuln in exchange for an immob)http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgAcelZw0YdMPGKeaX6P7RkG-z5IeG9rAKZCohB Winter's bite does roughly double the damage so 5K in a tanky build at 900 range 5 foes AoE . In WvW i've seen up to 10K to 5 targets AoE + chilled + weakness. In my opinion the reason is the constant and easy might the axe gives. Remove that and give some bleeds and the weapon should be fine. An slower Winter's bite would be positive as it is big attack with multiple effects. Can we get...and actual video against live targets for these claims instead of target golems? I really want to see a MH axe ranger doing anything (especially in WvW). A 'tanky' build to me would almost have 3k toughness as well--and around 1k power or so. Now you add in what real players use--boon rip, perma protection, stealth, outranging you, and ports---yeah I need to see this '4k auto' domination in action. I can tell you as someone who plays a very tanky build in WvW (and uses the 'obnoxious' ancient seeds), axe would be one of my last choices as you lose ALL kiting ability with it. The bounce does nothing either--they already reduced this from 3 to 2 targets--because people you know, spread out.

Realistically, if you are Diamond rank you've played a LOT of WvW. Meaning had a lot of rewards / are reaching the theoretical limit for what the mode can provide you. For the rest of us, I would say no to more passive rewards. As it stands, WvW might as well be PvP but with more objectives to congregate around. No one defends anything or puts upgrades on anything (aside from the same old upgrades keeps get like EWP). Why not add more rewards for escorting yaks, defending / upgrading objectives? You know, further actually playing the mode? As it stands now you get a big fight somewhere, usually a keep. After the fight the keep is either flipped or if defense was successful everyone following the tag drains it and leaves. No one sticks around to repair or recapture surrounding camps to build it back up again because the reward for taking it is so much higher than keeping it. Even in desert borderlands the shrines are practically useless to hold, and those were added as more ways to defend. People don't fight over north camp because it feeds two towers and the central keep, the fight over it because it's the closest to home spawn. If it ever reaches T2/T3 it's because it's also the farthest from enemy spawn not because defenders are deterring taking it. I'm not asking for more passive stat advantages for defenders (as that concept is dumb), rather asking for more rewards for doing something else other than blobbing down stray players or k-training in EB.

A whole month...woah. Why do people bring up stealth on SB? I don't think I've ever seen another ranger use smokescales field for stealth, and hunter's shot is super unreliable vs anything with a brain. I would like to see more stability for non-SB so would be in favor of something else granting it instead of only dolyak stance. Yes, I know SotP exists...it just isn't very good (and is an elite). I don't think we should be nerfing dolyak though as the half baked stealth access on most specs does not cover the huge risk of being CC'd. Unfairly so as ranger does not have a teleport either.

I mean it does help to always run in groups, now doesn't it? I think I've seen a solo mag roamer twice in the past week, while see plenty of DH and CD roamers. Even if you scale it up I always see mag groups outnumber any other server except CD during sporadic points of the evening where it runs over everything. So yeah, no idea why k/d even exists for WvW, it's not a skill game mode it's a numbers one...

This whole thread is just about creating counterplay to the immobilize, not removing it or altering it. No one and I mean NO ONE complained about Entangle until recently--you can be CC'd out of it super easily and prior to the stability nerfs people would walk or teleport out of it. You might as well delete druid entirely because bads simply cannot handle this spec. Healing was too OP (despite being the goal of the spec) so it got nerfed, staff mobility was too OP got nerfed, and now ancient seeds is a problem because stability is now stackable instead of unlimited for a duration. This forum is literally what gutted druid to begin with, now we have suggestions to give it 'damage' or 'support' back. How about...immobilize IS support, you're all dying to it, aren't you?

Not just pets, anet nerfs anything moving for a ranger...cough spirits unbound cough. Which I think is the problem the expansion will face, and why we may be at the end of GW2 as a whole. Ranger has always seemingly been top 3 most played classes despite having viability issues and getting hit with nerfs most patches. The problem is there is nowhere else to go with it. Can't run core as pets aren't allowed to do damage, but are still allowed to die and be a liability. Druid, WAS a support spec at one point--but they never did integrate spirits with it, because that would be logical. Soulbeast, is a mess. It's a 'fix' to pets dying all the time, which they wouldn't do if they were faster and...well, useful outside a F2 utility. They made Soulbeast MORE of a mess by eliminating pet swap in battle because 'the spec wasn't giving anything up'. When the spec wouldn't have to exist if they would quit nerfing pets (or make them immortal at least). So what possibly could a new spec even entail? See bunny thumper thrown around everywhere--yeah chance of that happening when we get pet Aataxe's (i.e. never). There's no hope of an actual tank ranger with a pet that can stand in there and take damage. They might as well have given druid a hammer instead of a staff if they wanted that. How I think they'll handle it is the worst way--give ranger access to firearms. We'll get teleports that will be nerfed, and essentially be a deadeye with a pet, still single target, still awful. But it is easiest for them as it already exists in the game, and keeps that 'unparalleled range' crap people like to use in the 'ranger should have a gun because RANGEr' debates....

I must say, these topics always make me laugh. It's like, we get you hate druid (and ancient seeds in particular), but these 'fixes'....wow. For instance, you ever tried getting into a smokescale field in the middle of battle? I'm guessing 'no' if you think that's a reliable stealth mechanism...which also requires you to sacrifice a pet slot and one of your leaps (which are defensive manuvers btw, so once used you're up a creek). But that's not the funny part, the funny part is the fix...get rid of F2 for druid. Based on ONE F2 skill, and the literal only smoke field given by a pet. You have a deadeye avatar do you not...stealth is your game. Which is actually why I think you hate druid as we counter thief pretty well. Also this 'Beastmastery traitline brings too much for the Soulbeast in any gamemode'; yeah, the traitline that is made to synergize with the pet mechanic, which as SB is...surprise, you. Trust me, if they revoked all the nerfs to pets over the years you'd write a novel. Anyone that has been around long enough to remember when jaguars could hit huge numbers from their stealth F2 without any leashing range will know what I'm talking about. You don't want pets to be able to hit you, or druid in particular is going to become your worst nightmare as it can still petswap--so when you aren't immobilized, the pet is latched onto you. I mean, I'd love it. I'd love if they'd restore the pet stats without me having to take beastmastery, as atm my build is gimped without taking it. Since that's a straight up buff, they're never going to do it.

Go Soulbeast, glass as you're capable of (i.e. marauder gear is fine, but berserker everything else). I find LB / Axe / Axe better for open world than GS is, axe is a mob weapon so it just works better in general and find I don't get reflected all that often to suffer being only range. Traitlines you'll want WS/BM/X...I use Skirmishing for the last one due to vicious quarry giving a ton of ferocity when you have honed axes in BM selected (and WS gives super fury uptime). Can solo plenty of champs this way, especially if you use a pet with prelude lash as you'll have many ways to take a breakbar down. Shouldn't have too many problems with open world either. As for group play, just going to lay it out now...ranger is not a group profession. Ranger seriously lacks in the sustain department and can share hardly anything (SB stances are half baked); so if you do decide to do WvW or PvP you're going to need to get used to fringe supporting / roaming. Ranger is pretty excellent in havoc though, so if you WvW and run with groups of 5-8 you can provide a lot especially if you lean into immobilize. EDIT: Realized I came at the group thing with a competitive perspective--for PvE groups / raids I believe condi ranger is acutally pretty helpful with spotter and such...I don't do PvE group content so your mileage will vary.

Ideally you'd be able to access your bank from your inventory, then combine shared slots with extra bank tabs. I guess they'd lose money that way, even if you had to pay for the convenience of accessing your bank from your inventory.

You play WvW for the mats and easy access to legendary armor after a set amount of time (skirmish tickets, etc.). In fact if you farm all your legendary armor and trinkets in WvW, what do you need gold for aside from possibly a precursor or other expensive skin? Any other thing you are better off just buying gems.

If you take immobilize, you're going to have to give more stuns, stealth, or stability. Ranger is squishy as all get out (if you want to do damage); I don't get why people here don't see it--more than likely low skill ceiling on the forums. So you either go down the thief route and give us a lot more stealth, the warrior route with some stuns / stability, etc. As a druid, in the past month I've been caught offguard by one other druid and it was indeed condi. I was more caught offguard that anyone was actually using the shortbow when you can walk out of its range. Said druid was also with 5 other people so they weren't roaming. Why is it though, that for instance guardian can have block, ele can have barrier, theif stealth/super evades, necro dual health bars, etc. but ranger has nothing outside of...immobilize? Which is only on druid and you still have to worry about the pet that doesn't work half the time and 80% of them are speed bugged (if they weren't you all would bring a flood of tears on here).

Is the world linking in the {host, link} order? If so, am I seeing this right that Darkhaven is a host world?

Really? We literally dodged one patch. It had to happen eventually. In the view of most players, elementalists still have more builds that are viable in large scale gameplay despite the shout nerf. (Heck, ranger shouts aren't even classified as shouts anymore.) When tempest is nerfed down to druid-levels of irrelevancy, we can have a chat. These days druids are just immob-bots, something that doesn't really stick in the scrapper-heavy meta. Unless you're talking about roaming, in which case yes rangers have some stupid builds -- but so do most professions. This patch didn't really touch that. ~ Kovu edit - While not technically untrue, saying stuff like rangers were buffed by proxy of not being nerfed is cynical and misleading. All of the stuff this patch addressed won't make rangers (noticeably) better at small skirmishes, nor worse at contributing more to a zerg. Duride got a massive buff from this update so yes.Care to elaborate on that? About the topic, it's simple. People play ranger as they expect a pet class to be good and/or mistakenly believe the pet will relieve some pressure and allow them to learn the game. The latter is only really true in PvE. People play thieves as they are essentially high damage glass cannons with about a million escape options. Neither class is particularly wanted in zerg play, and only slightly tolerated in small group play. If you are dying to a thief and weren't ganked, or dying to any ranger at all in general...you need to rethink how you play.

It's more that I like Trickster archetypes and mobility... something ripped away from mes. Tell me more about the high skill classes like Guard, Necro, and your lovely Ranger. How long do you think someone would have to practice to be effective on those vs a thief or mes? No, thief and mes are so faceroll that's why everyone plays them. Definitely not an kitten load more rangers, guards and necros. Cause the community plays what's effective. I only know about ranger, but people play it because they love pet classes, not necessarily because it's easy. What most people seem to scream about on here are the glass LB rangers that only work in groups of 3-4 and are hard to target in that situation. In zergs or solo, it shouldn't be hard to be equal to or beat most rangers. Glass LB will melt and any survivability massively takes away from damage potential. I'll tell you every group I'm in I'm targeted first no matter what weapon I use, and I've come to the conclusion that it's because people see rangers as easy targets to down. Which is partially true as we don't necessarily have a ton of tools at the disposal and our class mechanic is either gimped or borderline useless depending on how you use it.

How about this...we remove stealth from the game. Thieves can have their evades, Mes the clones, etc. just no more stealth. Because, that's what this is about. TC 'mained mesmer for 6 years' most likely because of the ability to shatter bomb from stealth, the massive broken condi's from clones for years, etc. Then mesmer got adjusted / nerfed so moved on to thief...because of stealth and ability to run away. Essentially if you are dying to necros and ranger pets you have bigger L2P issues. For one, we'd like a vertical teleport like thief has, which is invaluable in WvW.

I as a ranger would love to be able to disengage if I'm losing a fight. To get stealth as a ranger, have to land hunters shot (forcing you to use LB), use smokescale and have it out / wait for it to finish making the field / leap into it, or run porcine and play roulette. Also Ranger has essentially one block on GS, and sustain either means losing all damage or having basically two skills (dolyak and rampage as one / SoTP). But yes, please keep complaining about LB 2. At least in this case the devs saw ranger is in probably the best place it's going to be until the expansion so they left it alone.

I've tried this every way I can think of and it isn't working for me. What I did was go into WvW and slot live fast and essence of speed to see if essence of speed increases quickness as well or just other boons affecting you. It seems to do neither? Use a beast skill to get quickness, doesn't increase the quickness you get from the skill (for me it's 3s with food), nor does it increase the fury uptime (i.e. other boon). Use beast skill to get quickness then cast say protect me, no increases. Cast protect me then use beast skill, nothing. So....how does this work? Does it work?

Just my two cents, but Prelude Lash can be run without signet of stone--just have to time it and be good at kiting (which as a Ranger is probably a must anyway). For the topic at hand, swappable F3's would be nice so that it's not such a chore trying to find the correct pet / archetype combo.

Which is amazing as anet keeps nerfing the roaming potential of these two classes. They both are heavily single target in most circumstances which is just really bad for WvW in general. I mean, the only role I can find for my ranger right now is to be annoying. I can pretty much escape anything, but down nothing competent. While trolling zergs is fun, PPT is ultimately meaningless so them taking our keep now or 2 minutes from now doesn't hold too much weight in the grand scheme of things.

Was thinking one possibility we don't have at the moment is spirit ranger. Fix those and give us a scythe and I'm happy.