Ehecatl.9172

I really don't get threads like this. Ranger has the best longbow in the game, and the longbow is a meta weapon in all game modes except maybe high-end PVE I think? That isn't a flaw in class design, it's a flaw in content design that doesn't favor ranged weapons in general. The fact that Ranger can be built as a ranged or melee specialist is a good thing. The fact they can be a hybrid and perform both effectively with the same build is even better. Why would anyone want to nerf the ranger class to be pure ranged?

This community has a real problem with "AI" builds, and Ranger is a class that revolves around fighting in tandem with an AI. There is a vocal portion of the PVP community who genuinely don't want rangers to be viable for the same reasons they don't want turret engineers or minion necromancers to be viable. They think true PVP can only happen when absolutely no automation on either side is involved.

You'd be pretty hard-pressed to be able to replace the latex rubber bands that power the crossbow-like variant in nature, though that's as good an explanation as any. Less about how technologically sophisticated the tool is and more about whether it's hand-made. It'd make for a good 1,200 range condi weapon for sure. Spore bombs, toxin spray, maybe a thorny buttstroke for when the enemy gets too close. Or you could have a skill that fires a vine to ensnare and drag enemies to you like a tethered speargun but on land. I imagine the devs would have a lot of fun designing a weapon like that.

I find it hilarious that you can fuse the essence of your turtle companion into your very soul and gain the power to shoot energy beams from your hands from the CANNON strapped to your turtle's back. I've mostly been playing around with the Bristleback. Spike Barrage can stack some pretty nasty bleeds if it all hits. Also been fiddling with Fire Wyvern. The fire AoE now does pretty decent damage if something stands in it for the entire duration. I still feel it needs to either last longer or do more damage for how long the channel is and how heavily telegraphed it is, though. Pheonix is much better. Gale Breath is like a slicing laser. It does pretty good damage for how fast the animation and cooldown is. I really want to like the short-range drakes but dang. Why did Anet even bother buffing them if they didn't give them the ability to turn to adjust their aim like the bristleback can? That said I am enjoying the lunge on drakes' auto in general. They're pretty consistent at biting moving targets now. Chomp could've used a similar treatment. If you don't time it perfectly the drake just halts its movement for a second before resuming the chase.

Did some more testing in Unranked. Dual maces seem pretty decent. When paired with staff I rarely felt like I just didn't have any options when engaging in big fights. Axe/Mace also felt really good. Playstyle is mostly as a skirmisher with the ranged axe skills, but you have a defensive skill in 4 and an AoE melee attack in 5 for when the enemy tries to get in close. Coupled with Splitblade on 3 you can do a surprising amount of close-range burst damage, and more importantly, you don't lose all your mobility like with offhand axe. Mace/Axe I didn't like as much. The pull on Path of Scars is nice when it lands but it is fairly hard to land, and losing mobility for Whirling Defense feels very bad when I could've just kept auto-attacking with mace without getting stuck.

Well, like I said. Let's agree to disagree on that point. I think the existence of all those plant rifles in the world is enough evidence that nature magic can be used in conjunction with rifles, even if Anet doesn't see rifle as a thematically appropriate weapon (though a speargun is completely acceptable despite being just as, if not more, technologically sophisticated). Though now that I even remember the speargun exists I am curious how that fits into your hypothesis. Legitimately curious, mind you. I'm not using this as an "Aha!" thing. I also wouldn't be surprised that if we do ever get rifle it does end up like what you describe. Honestly, it'd probably lead to a more interesting weapon than if they just used a standard gunpowder weapon. It offers a wider range of more interesting weapon skills, as rifles tend to be very one-dimensional gameplay-wise.

A deduction is still not a fact, though. That is my point. You've built up a fine theory here but it's still not confirmed lore. I'm simply not convinced by your evidence. Half of it is related to gameplay in terms of class and weapon balance and half is nature spirits being opposed to mass industrialization that can actively harm the environment, which a simple rifle is not. It's best to just agree to disagree and move on. I do understand the reasoning behind your stance, it just doesn't persuade me away from mine. You uh... Kind of missed the entire point of all my posts in this thread. From my point of view rifle isn't anti-naturalism.

That Anet felt rifle wasn't sufficiently nature-themed isn't an assumption. That this means the spirits of nature hate guns IS an assumption. Ranger Longbow can't just be inferior to other professions' rifles for gameplay balance reasons, so it makes for a poor argument concerning a lore point. Rangers do use nature spirits in combat, but that doesn't mean nature spirits can't or won't empower a firearm as well. Sure, a wind spirit might not work well with a bullet, but there are spirits of fire, stone, and thunder I could see meshing well with a rifle. Fire, metal, lava, bolts of lightning, etc. These are all elements of nature too. Heck, the ranger could draw on the power of the Sun and launch beams of pure heat in the form of a deadly laser and still be on point for nature magic since we know the celestial bodies are fair game due to druid. .... That'd be kind of fun actually. An offensive take on staff where the light beam is meant for pure, non-projectile damage rather than healing. That's true. I hope we do get new elite specs eventually. I enjoy the lore they bring to the game as well as the interesting mechanics. An elite spec like you describe would be really neat. Plant-like turrets would pair dangerously well with the ranger's already existing traps and make for a deadly zone control specialist. Or if it gets bundles we could get something like the engineer flamethrower but with swarms of bees or poison spores for a non-projectile ranged attack. We already have some living biological weapons like the Chak Rifle, so bio-guns are actually pretty reasonable in Tyria.

I played a few matches in SPVP, first with dagger/mace to test it as an offhand and then with dual mace. Staff was my secondary both times and I was playing Untamed. I like how they feel to use. The animations are solid. I think Mace 5 is my favorite. It's like your character just decided to be a drummer out of nowhere and wanted to jam out. Can't say much as to their effectiveness yet but I didn't feel helpless with them. Dagger/Mace played a lot like dual dagger but with more AoE output in team fights and a little better sustain. I also noticed Mace was added to Ambidexterous, which is nice. Dual mace felt a little sluggish but that's to be expected with a weapon like mace, I think. Overall I enjoyed them and look forward to having them as a tool in my kit. Might need to buy another set of armor for a more power-oriented support set.

This is getting a bit circular. You're still making assumptions about the setting's lore based on mostly an absence of evidence concerning something that hasn't yet been added to the game. Nature magic definitely is involved in ranger weapon use, but there's no hard evidence that nature magic can't be used with a firearm. You can claim it is a logical assumption based on gameplay factors (with gameplay like weapon range not necessarily being based in lore, or did all ranger shortbows get their draw weight reduced when Anet nerfed the range?) but it's just not enough support for me to consider it a credible argument on its own. Which isn't to say I don't consider your opinion valid. It's just as valid as mine and the pro-rifle crowd is. I just find your argument for dismissing the pro-rifle argument very weak. I've often thought it'd be neat to get an Engineer subclass focused around other races learning to use Sylvari plant-tech eventually. Stuff like seed pod mortars, poison spore sprayers, etc. Part of Tyria's lore that I enjoy most is how much the technology and culture spread from group to group. Alas, it doesn't seem like we're going to get any more elite specs at this point. Probably just new weapon sets every few years.

I am explaining why people feel the way they feel. I've not made any judgment on Anet for their weapon choices one way or another as I've personally been pretty content with what we've gotten. This is still a non-argument, though. You're saying that because Tyria might have some unknown lore mechanic we've not yet explicitly seen that people can't point to facts from real life to justify their personal views on subjects of theme. It's also ignoring evidence to the contrary, like the several explicitly magical plant rifles already in the game or the fact Sylvari can create rifles using their innate connection to nature magic the same way they make all their gear. Also as an aside, I didn't call rifles superior to bows for hunting. I said both have pros and cons and that it is largely a matter of preference. Rifles are better as a weapon of war 100%, but we're not discussing war. We're discussing survivalists in the woods where the needs of the wielder are very different. Hammer and Untamed being conceptualized as a melee playstyle is definitely why they chose Hammer, but I'm sure most people can see why it was regarded as an unusual choice for a nature survivalist class. In the end, I'm happy with what we got as the hammer is actually quite fun to use. And yes, I've noted that clubs are considered maces in the game. Still, a person might not know that off the top of their head, and seeing the word mace conjures a fairly specific mental image. Personally, if we were going to get a support weapon I would've gone scepter. But that's just me. I'm still looking forward to trying out maces.

The devs' thoughts are obviously valid as well, but shouldn't be used to dissuade people from making their own thoughts on the matter clear. We're just talking on a forum at the end of the day. Your second point is mostly supposition. There's no actual lore that says firearms can't be used in conjunction with nature magic, so it's a pretty weak argument against using real-world history for examples where rifles were used by people who were wilderness explorers, survivalists, and nature preservationists. Heck, the fact there are several rifle skins where the rifle is outright made of living plant matter (Modrem Rifle, Maguuma Rifle, Bioluminescent Rifle, Bloodroot Rifle, Dreamthistle Rifle, Grinning Gourd Rifle, Nightmare Rifle, Verdant Rifle, Summer Light Rife, Warden Rifle) strongly suggests nature magic gels with firearms just fine. Without lore to the contrary, it is entirely reasonable for people to look to real-world history for examples and inspiration for their ranger and a lot of people just don't see the rifle as anathema to the natural world the way others do. As for the "personal betrayal" thing, I think that comes down to what the new weapons have been. I don't recall a lot of pushback against staff thematically. At the very least I was pretty excited to be getting a weapon that focused more on the magical side of the class rather than martial. I think most of the pushback has been against hammers and maces, neither of which are weapons you'd normally use in a survivalist situation. Like... At all. They are very specific weapons of war that are primarily for hurting people in plate armor, something you're not likely to need to do if you're ranging the wilderness. So I totally get the feeling that Anet is doing backflips to avoid what to a lot of people is the most thematically appropriate weapon left. That said, skins fix all issues. I absolutely adore my Maguuma Hammer on my Charr druid and thankfully there are a few mace skins that can be presented as clubs, which I've noted before in other threads. At the same time though, I wouldn't mind giving my Sylvari ranger Bloodroot or Bioluminescent Rifle so I can be more like Laranthir and his Pale Reavers.

It's always interesting to see this convo come up because it invokes such intense responses from both sides. I find whether or not you're pro ranger rifle ultimately comes down to your personal views of what a rifle represents. A lot of people see firearms as emblems of technological progress. Tools that brought about the end of mankind's reliance on nature and began the process of industrialization. These people will generally dislike rifles or pistols as options for rangers as the ranger is fundamentally the nature class. Those who are pro-firearm tend to see firearms as being entirely in line with other ranger weapons as tools for survival. You can hunt with a rifle just as you can hunt with a bow. Both weapons have their pros and cons compared to one another and tend to be a matter of preference when it comes to modern-day hunters. Arrows can be fashioned in the wild, but you can carry a loooot more bullets than you can arrows. There's a reason early colonial explorers of North America used rifles during their massive, cross-continental expeditions. But of course, the ranger isn't a hunter class. They aren't meant to be big game hunters killing animals for sport. But even then, the best weapon for protecting nature from other humans is again the firearm. You see this with modern-day conservationists as well as the ranching cultures scattered around the world during the 1800s. Rifles have historically been used by exactly the sort of wilderness survivalist explorers and defenders of animals that the ranger is meant to represent. Which is why threads like these keep happening. For a lot of people, the rifle is an iconic nature-warrior weapon. And in my mind, it is at least more thematically appropriate than the greatsword, even though I love the greatsword and use it often.

They could just add burning to the staff's auto attack if they really wanted rangers to build for burn damage.

The maces look interesting. It'll be nice to have a second set for support builds. Might make staff more useful by proxy since now a support druid can maybe defend themselves in melee without giving up all their healing output. I'm also interested to try it on Untamed. Kind of funny, but this might work better on a bunker Untamed than the daggers they just nerfed. I wonder what their Ambush skill will be. It seems to be an AoE-focused weapon so I am hoping for a big, powerful blast! Also as an aside, the first guns were invented before the first greatswords and both were contemporary weapons for literally hundreds of years. The technology to create a high-end greatsword is a lot more sophisticated than people think.