Zyreva.1078

Yea, stab surely helps a lot against a spec that just corrupts it into fear and against a spec that usually doesn't use a lot of cc and just kills you anyway ... Harb and WB should not be an issue for druid. Generally, if you want ranger to be better, you should ask for less stab across the board, not more, since ranger is a fairly cc heavy and cc reliant class and suffers quite a bit from how much stab and resistance is out there. Less boon spam is what we need, not more of it.

Hu, i'm seeing way more sword necros and staff warriors than any other of the new weapons (and also not that many dagger mesmers) ...

K+D isn't an accurate measurement of player numbers, because players can do more than die or kill other players (eg "ppt/pvd"). High k+d and high ppt is a strong indicator of superior total numbers tho. Total player activity also doesn't neccessarily translates well into "fight numbers" for similar reasons and especially servers with "pretty" kdr have a tendency to stack all at one spot (often eb/sm), allowing them to outnumber in fights even without population advantage (tho ppt tends to suffer in that case). Personally i don't understand the appeal, looks incredibly boring to me.

I said slb gets easy perma prot and i had fights were i ended up with 20s+ of prot on slb. I also said druid comes close and in my video i have like 80-90% uptime thanks to constant reapplication. It's basically always up when i need it and only drops for more than 1-2s if i don't have to dodge, but then i also don't need prot.

I haven't played much since the patch and didn't met any good axe thief so far, so i can't give any specific advice. Against scepter it is usually best to play agressive and pressure them as much as possible, so they can't freecast on you (ca 3 is good to interrupt their 3 skill). If you are pressured, try to stack some stealth to recover. Played a bit yesterday with unchanged setup and cleanses felt still ok. If neccessary i might end up adding a cleansing sigil tho, just have to test some more. You can also look into the new cleanse on pet swap trait. Edit: Just fought an axe thief (cele i assume, not sure how good) and it ended up being a stalemate. I couldn't kill him because of the usual stealth + blind spam, he couldn't kill me, because of sustain and stealth. My only cleanses were Evasive Purity and CA skills (+ LR to clear immob, but no WK). No. Too much effort for no gain.

Hacking has absolutely nothing to do with bad balance. That's two completely unrelated topics.

Do you have any proof that it actually had no cd? A video? A combat log screenshot? Anything? No? Ofc not, it's always the same with threads like this.

Fresh Air tempest can spam air overload ... Also i don't think there is any "impossible" boon-class combo left. I mean, boon steal is universally aviable via sigil, so is condi to boon conversion via relic, so that already covers pretty much every single boon in the game (not 100% uptime ofc, but still).

I do. And i can beat 99% of cele harbs in a 1vs1.

Last time i ran into someone that felt impossible to 1vs1, it was when cata was completely broken beyond anything else, but it has been toned down and now there's nothing and nobody that feels like an impossible matchup for me on ranger. This doesn't mean i never lose 1vs1, but if it happens - and it happens very rarely - it's pretty much always because i messed up or got outplayed. Also i do not avoid any fights because i'm scared of losing. If someone beats me, i'll always come back and try again (and often end up winning). So yes, if i can beat (or at least survive) anyone despite not being the best player out there, then those that struggle to do the same have to be either worse players or playing a worse build (or both). Don't see any other explanation.

You don't have to invest any utilities or specific weapons. Just some gear and traits that offer lot's of additional value anyway, and not just on the defensive side (25 stacks of might for example). Both cele druid and cele slb can kill like ~ 95% of players in WvW just fine, and those that don't die also won't die against most other classes. And the majority of classes have to invest just as much for perma prot or don't even have that much access to prot to begin with. Asking for even more "free" prot on ranger is ridiculous.

You can dodge a lot more than once or twice every 25-30s (with WS + vigor + dodge food you can get to +100% endurance regen for a dodge every 5s, and could even add energy sigils if you want for even more dodge spam). And your pet gets all the boons that you can copy onto yourself twice with WHaO and Fresh reinforcement and Invigorating Bond also grants prot. I never use moa stance (and always preserve protect me for when i need it instead of wasting it just for prot) and can maintain prot just fine with aforementioned setup. (Also you assume ~50% boon duration, but you can very easily get up to 75-80% - without moa stance mind you)

Wasn't too long ago that you disagreed even on that part, but well, guess we made at least some progress ... Oh, i'm absolutely getting carried by cele. But it's not like i'm the only one playing cele, and i never have to face other cele builds and in cele vs cele it's hardly cele that is the carry factor. I also don't know how you come to the conclusion that i think "ranger is the best class in the game". I said it's good, because it can abuse cele quite well, better than some, but certainly not all other classes. Combined with the access to stealth and mobility that makes it a decent roamer. And when it comes to burst, yt is full of videos of (mainly) slb blowing up people and while most of them might be older, OWP was never a neccessity for big numbers and that's the only thing that has been nerfed (and more than compensated for with sword buffs). So big burst is still absolutely there, among stealth and mobility, which are crucial for a "burst roamer" and something that many classes lack. Ranger might not be at the top of the food chain in every single aspect, but it might be the most versatile roamer that can be adapted to pretty much any sort of playstyle, from cele bunker 1vX to full glass ganker, or a more "sustainy" power build for duels - all very much viable options. Other classes like ele or necro might excel with cele, but are weaker with a power setup for example, while thief might not be as good at abusing cele and spamming aoe for outnumbered fights, but ofc has the advantage of stealth spam and mobility to pick of weak targets one by one. So as long cele is meta, ranger can abuse it well, and if cele ever gets nerfed, i'm confident that ranger would be fine too (in it's current state anyway).

I've ran into all of those builds plenty of times too and they don't do anything vs a somewhat decently played cele build. Same as power ranger. And against squishies ranger (slb especially) still has plenty of burst with many ways of killing someone in 2-3 seconds. Doesn't even need OWP for that, so those nerfs aren't even that relevant. WB is probably the only class that is actually better than ranger on power builds (and i'm confident a decently played power ranger can still win, so not an impossible matchup), the other's are about even or worse.

Not true, other classes have to invest into defense too to get decent amounts of protection. Nobody gets perma prot while going full glass. Also both WS and NM do provide some offensive value too, and that cele "bunker" ranger isn't far off from other cele "bunkers" in terms of dmg.

Again, that's nothing specific to ranger, all classes suffer in this cele meta unless you take advantage of it.

On 2 minutes of cd and with 1s of cast time and if you happen to run into a terrormancer they could pretty much perma fear you with corrupts alone if you dare to use that skill. And for a long time that was the only source of stab that saw any use in a somewhat viable build. Still gives decent amount of stab, but now on much shorter cd, just doesn't pulse anymore which is only relevant vs strips and those keep getting nerfed anyway. Compared to something like dolyak stance it's nothing. But that applies to pretty much every class. It's cele or gtfo. Unless you are blowing up a bunch of afk squishies, or dueling power only or something like that, which ranger can do just fine too. Most players ARE bad, even if they have been arround for years (i have run into a few of the forum rangers here that are constantly crying about how weak the class is, and guess what, all of them were bad). (Pets being broken is my only class specific issue with ranger right now, but despite that the class is still in a very strong state).

Ranger main since almost 10 years. You can check out this where you can see me fight not one but multiple players at once. And while those are obviously not the best opponents, i can 1vs1 everyone just fine. If i die 1vs1 - which very rarely happens - it's because i messed up. Fact is, the vast majority of players in WvW are bad and this is especially true for rangers. Probably because the class is very easy to get into and often recommended for new players, but it also gives players the impression that they are better than they really are due to it's effectiveness at very low skill levels. That "easy effectiveness" quicky diminishes against better players, which doesn't mean ranger can't be effective still, but it just needs to be build and played properly, and that's where the majority fails.

Complete nonsense. Core ranger never had good access to stab. All ranger elite specs add more and better stab access than core and it has always been like that (stab in general was a lot less common back then). There were times when ranger wasn't good anywhere but WvW solo roaming - it wasn't welcome in (instanced) PvE, not meta for competitive sPvP and a joke for WvW zergs. But now it is (and has been for quite a while) top tier in all those game modes/play styles. Thinking that ranger as a whole is in a bad spot is ridiculous, even more so when compared to core times. It's the players that are bad, not the class. Different game, different design. There has never been a "primary" weapon for ranger (or any class) in GW2. Bows are just an option among others.

WS + NM + SLB + cele = easy perma prot. Druid with the same setup comes close. Ranger has more than enough access to protection.

If thief, mes and guard are your main concern, then stab isn't going to help you, because 2 of those classes can strip it quite reliably and the third doesn't rely on cc anyway.

Which ironically hurts (power) ranger more than lack of stab.

Shouldn't even exist in this game imo.

Since SC suggests tiger even on pure dps builds that don't care about providing boons, i guess tiger now surpasses lynx in raw dps even without factoring it's fury application. I did not test this myself tho and assume most cats are still very close to each other in terms of dps (maybe with the exception of the white tiger as lowest dps).

While balance isn't great, i doubt it is the worst of all games out there. Thing is, your probem isn't really about balance - it's that there is no archer class in this game and by trying to roleplay as one you are serverely handicaping yourself. And the game simply can't accomodate for every single roleplay build players come up with. (Long-)Bow ranger not being great isn't a recent development btw, and certainly not the result of the latest patch (that might actually be a buff to power builds, the new Survival Instincts trait is quite decent - ofc hardly matters with how dominant cele/boonspam is). And it's not even that lb ranger is weak, just doesn't work very well in the current meta. Ranger does have very strong builds tho, so again, your problem isn't a matter of class balance. Slb has one of the best stab skills in the game and druid gets away without a whole lot of stab just fine thanks to CA and related traits that can grant cc or stealth even while cc'ed on a very short cd (+ with it's crazy sustain it really needs to have at least a little bit of a weakness). So it's only core and untamed that suffer from a lack of stability.