Ranger is Depression

[Baseleader.4128]

1 hour ago, Absinthey.5340 said:

PvE - Zero reasons to use a Ranger over the Flavor of the Decade classes outside of subpar druid healing. 

SLB is absolutely amazing in PvE. With druid getting alac, that seems promising. Also they're increasing sources of might and if that means druid can take the healing trait instead of Grace of the Land, I wouldnt call the healing subpar at all. I'm really hoping that's the case. Rarely get to use that trait but when you do, you feel soooo strong.

[Absinthey.5340]

3 minutes ago, Baseleader.4128 said:

SLB is absolutely amazing in PvE. With druid getting alac, that seems promising. Also they're increasing sources of might and if that means druid can take the healing trait instead of Grace of the Land, I wouldnt call the healing subpar at all. I'm really hoping that's the case. Rarely get to use that trait but when you do, you feel soooo strong.

 

Just so we're clear, I'm speaking of raids, fractals, strikes, not open-world PvE.

 

Soulbeast's shared stances are the ONLY reason it has ANY viability in challenging group PvE content. Stances remain a unique party buff that has no replacement, but the core of the spec design offers, in reality, nothing that a meta class wont do better. 

 

Druid Healing is outclassed by Firebrand in ANY PvE scenario.

 

Druid Support is outclassed by Firebrand AND Chronomancer.

 

Unless you just *enjoy* Druid, there are still zero reasons to choose it over other classes, which is still my point. While soulbeast has good burst, there are easier ways to achieve the same damage and still offer more utility with other classes.

 

Can ranger have some niche viability? Sure. But again, you'd be hard pressed to find a logical reason to choose a ranger over better choices. Nothing wrong with playing off meta, and doesn't mean you can't be successful in doing so. It also shouldn't be understated that almost any build you play in GW2 can work for PvE as long as you can dodge red circles. 

 

Ranger lacks an identity in group play, and adding alac to spirits just feels like a band-aid fix. The game evolved while ranger was left in vanilla state. 

 

 

[anduriell.6280]

6 hours ago, Absinthey.5340 said:

Ranger lacks an identity in group play, and adding alac to spirits just feels like a band-aid fix. The game evolved while ranger was left in vanilla state. 

For how anet phrase it it seems they will give alac with the spirit activation and remove the unique buffs for boons. I hope at least they are pulsing ones, like it used to be with the old GM. 

But in any case if the spirits won't follow the ranger they will be still niche utilities with only use in one PvE submodes . I don't understand why they would put so much effort into the spirits when they have bigger fish to fry like for example Ranger having no place in a whole gamemode. 

[enkeny.6937]

We will see later, but the post yesterday made my fear worse. It depends on numbers, but nature vengeance give boon on activating spirits, so if we give alacrity with activating spirits, it may force the "alacrity build" to not be flexible at all. I mean, if we need a trait (1 trait line is fixed), need boon duration (100%) AND 4 skill, leaving an elite spot open, it will be useless. But we are rangers, so we are used to it. 🙂 
At this point I don't have hope for support and dps alacrity role. And I don't think a healer alacrity druid will be useful (expect if no other alacrity, my guild raid group has this problem, so I may be usable.)

So if nature vengeance get "activating spirits will give 2 sec alacrity for nearby allies" then we have heal alacrity option.
If untamed get damage update, with Fervent Force maybe a damage alacrity is viewable. 

We will see it soon...

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

12 hours ago, Absinthey.5340 said:

 

Just so we're clear, I'm speaking of raids, fractals, strikes, not open-world PvE.

 

 

Soulbeast is absolutely AMAZING right now in Raids and Fractals. If you're a power DPS, you want burst. You need burst. Power fights have quick phases, such as Qadim 1, or don't have enough ramp up time for condis to work well, such as Mursaat Overseer. Soulbeast not only is the king of burst damage on power, but it also helps the people in its squad do the exact same thing.

 

I would argue about your opinion on druid support being outclassed, but that's about to change in a week. Spirits are currently a very viable buff as it is a flat 5% damage increase or extra burning for the condi classes. RIP spirits.

 

[Absinthey.5340]

🤡

[Baseleader.4128]

On 6/23/2022 at 2:29 AM, Absinthey.5340 said:

Soulbeast's shared stances are the ONLY reason it has ANY viability in challenging group PvE content. Stances remain a unique party buff that has no replacement, but the core of the spec design offers, in reality, nothing that a meta class wont do better. 

I am equally surprised at this comment. SLB is very much seen as an S-tier Power class atm. It has phenomenal burst, OWP is an incredible skill. I dont know what "meta classes" you refer to, but SLB is seen as a meta power class for sure. In fractals for instance, it's one of the rare power classes I ever see in there and I do CMs+T4 every day. I also play SLB almost always when I want to play power and rarely does sth like SLB get outmatched on a boss like KC.

[ReganDryke.4023]

28 minutes ago, Baseleader.4128 said:

OWP is an incredible skill.

Not after those balance changes.

[Baseleader.4128]

yh the balance changes to SLB suck, but before this SLB was amazing

[Baseleader.4128]

On 6/23/2022 at 2:29 AM, Absinthey.5340 said:

Druid Healing is outclassed by Firebrand in ANY PvE scenario.

This also shows a lack of understanding. FB is busted cause of its versatility, but in actual healing output, Druid is absolutely better.

[anduriell.6280]

5 hours ago, Baseleader.4128 said:

This also shows a lack of understanding. FB is busted cause of its versatility, but in actual healing output, Druid is absolutely better.

FB is better at healing aside of all the support it brings, period. 
yes Druid can pop the avatar every 10s and overheal everybody yet the fb can output better sustained healing overall. 
that’s why even tempest is better at healing than a Druid. You will learn those basics when you get some play hours ..

[Absinthey.5340]

Lots of people responding to defend the class like a white knight. I'm not attacking your favorite toy, I'm advocating for changes that will bring ranger more in line with other classes so that it has a place within group play. That's it.

 

To argue that ranger is fine is literally shooting yourself in the foot. There's absolutely a reason why this class is underrepresented in group play and your opinion won't change those statistics.

 

Either way, pretty much burnt out on waiting for decent changes. There's less frustrating games with less incompetent developers to be playing right now. 

 

I'm pretty sure these recent patch note previews gave me can cer anyways. 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Absinthey.5340

[Absinthey.5340]

Recent changes mean nothing. There are still zero reasons to bring ranger into group play. 

 

WvW Zergs laugh at the thought of bringing along a Ranger. It's literally a meme. 

 

PvP side node duelist for eternity with almost no team synergy. Druid remains gutted while Mechanist exists. 

 

PvE - Check all the challenge mode comps and tell me how sought after druid heals or ranger spirits are. (hint: they aren't)

 

Ranger is still Depression. 

 

 

[Cytoplasma.8216]

Druid 

" Oh no where is my spirit ? Are they still a live ? "

" Oh i have 3 k dps " 

 

Mechanist 

" Oh i must press one Button " 

" Oh i have full boon. Lots of barrier and 6 k dps" 

 

This is balance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Cytoplasma.8216

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

5 hours ago, Cytoplasma.8216 said:

Druid 

" Oh no where is my spirit ? Are they still a live ? "

" Oh i have 3 k dps " 

 

Mechanist 

" Oh i must press one Button " 

" Oh i have full boon. Lots of barrier and 6 k dps" 

 

This is balance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Druid is more like:

 

'Where is my spirit? Is it still alive? Oh, it is? Time to spend time to cast 3 of them for alacrity while waiting for my healing resource to come back in order to use it on might when the party is full and then lose most of my healing output when it's actually needed!'

 

Druid needs a rework for something. Might generation should be easier, not harder, since we have to burn our healing resource to do it, with our extremely limited non-druid healing capabilities. 2 might was fine, imo, and them nerfing it hurts Druid (who also got hit decently hard with spirit nerfs) when it doesn't need it anymore.

[BadSanta.6527]

Nerfing druid was pointless to begin with, idont get it why pet with druid do less dmg and now with might generation, i mean those change was acceptable if non of the support/ healer can do high dps but when mech , fire brand and scurge exist i dont get it

[Westenev.5289]

Well, at least long range shot got buffed.

 

*shrugs*

[anduriell.6280]

I’d like to remind ranger is depression.

[kiwituatara.6053]

I was messing around with core ranger pet build in wvw, getting pet might stack to 25 and using Sic Em... the damage was so bad. I've tried bristleback, dogs, smokescale, birds, and felines. Birds and felines used to be dps pets too, but their dmg is so disappointing and their survivability has never been addressed.

 

Mechanist's pet is way tankier and they do way more damage. The rationale was cuz they lose their toolbelt. Core rangers never had a toolbelt in the first place. Ranger weapon damage was shaved off cuz we have "pet damage". Then pet damage was nerfed to the ground cuz "AI damage shouldn't be so strong". I don't understand why Mechanists gets to have best of both worlds.

 

Issues:

1. Pet survivability needs to be addressed if they're not allowed to deal any significant damage. At least give us that
2. Core ranger pet death penalty is too high but could be fixed with above changes
3. Druid pet stat penalty is way too high
4. Soulbeast pets are the strongest cuz there is no pet death penalty, they can just be revived every 10s. A lot of the pet nerfs that affect other range specs could've been avoided if they had just addressed this instead. I don't think reducing the amount of pets from 2 to 1 was the way to go.

Edited July 4, 2022 by kiwituatara.6053

[Absinthey.5340]

23 hours ago, kiwituatara.6053 said:

Mechanist's pet is way tankier and they do way more damage. The rationale was cuz they lose their toolbelt. Core rangers never had a toolbelt in the first place. Ranger weapon damage was shaved off cuz we have "pet damage". Then pet damage was nerfed to the ground cuz "AI damage shouldn't be so strong". I don't understand why Mechanists gets to have best of both worlds.

 

Exactly. 

 

From a PvP perspective, I wonder how the post HoT Bunker Druid would fare in today's meta?

 

It would not even be meta! Yet the nerf remains when they have made things like Firebrand, Scourge, Tempest and Mechanist which are even more oppressive than bunker druid ever was.

 

Every nerf to ranger shares the same similarity: Nerf it, leave it in a gutted state, power creep new elites of NON RANGER CLASSES that are doing the exact oppressive things that they deemed worthy of nerfing in the first place. 

 

Soulbeast can't swap pets.

Druid has negative pet stats.

Druid's seed of life remains GUTTED and useless since 2016. 

Core Ranger has 2 300 second c/d traits.

Spirits are useless.

Can't throw traps

3 USELESS ELITE SPEC WEAPONS

 

I'm sure there's more nerfs but these are just a few that come to mind that don't even make sense in the current power crept state of the game. 

 

RANGER IS DEPRESSION

Edited July 5, 2022 by Absinthey.5340

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

I detail quite finely what's wrong with Ranger in pve after the patch, here -> Soulbeast/Druid Alacrity Feedback - CMs & T4s point of view - Ranger - Guild Wars 2 Forums

In WvW both Soulbeast and Druid are dominant Roamers but they completely lack solid roles in zerg play.

In PvP Ranger always gets these weird skill splits so that it is weaker in PvP than it is in WvW/PvE. They need to stop doing this. Furthermore I'll say that regardless of the nerfing skill splits, it isn't necessarily that Ranger is so weak in PvP, but rather other classes/builds are so incredibly bloated right now that they push most of the other classes/builds in the game right out of viable meta for higher tier competition, say MATs or special tournaments.

Few things:

1. Reverse the change the One Wolf Pack. It was a bad idea. Soulbeast needed the damage output in PvE.
2. Reverse stupid skill splits in PvP like Druid CA Kit being on 20s ICD. It should be 10s just like it is in WvW/PvE. There is no longer a reason for such nerfing skill splits after so many options were removed from PvP. All they do is leave the class in a crippled state.
3. The key to fixing Ranger in PvP is all about nerfing the classes that RIGHTFULLY deserve direct nerfing. Not going to go all into that in this thread though. Plenty of that discussion in the PvP subforum.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sansar.1302]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:22 PM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I detail quite finely what's wrong with Ranger in pve after the patch, here -> Soulbeast/Druid Alacrity Feedback - CMs & T4s point of view - Ranger - Guild Wars 2 Forums

In WvW both Soulbeast and Druid are dominant Roamers but they completely lack solid roles in zerg play.

In PvP Ranger always gets these weird skill splits so that it is weaker in PvP than it is in WvW/PvE. They need to stop doing this. Furthermore I'll say that regardless of the nerfing skill splits, it isn't necessarily that Ranger is so weak in PvP, but rather other classes/builds are so incredibly bloated right now that they push most of the other classes/builds in the game right out of viable meta for higher tier competition, say MATs or special tournaments.

Few things:

1. Reverse the change the One Wolf Pack. It was a bad idea. Soulbeast needed the damage output in PvE.
2. Reverse stupid skill splits in PvP like Druid CA Kit being on 20s ICD. It should be 10s just like it is in WvW/PvE. There is no longer a reason for such nerfing skill splits after so many options were removed from PvP. All they do is leave the class in a crippled state.
3. The key to fixing Ranger in PvP is all about nerfing the classes that RIGHTFULLY deserve direct nerfing. Not going to go all into that in this thread though. Plenty of that discussion in the PvP subforum.

I actualy think Ranger and all elite specs is weaker in WvW than they are in sPvP  but that migth be because how strong some of the other classes new elite specs is in WvW

 

PvE i would not know anything about as i dont play that game mode and have not since i hit 80 apart from some stats on gear and to get few runes and so on.

[voltaicbore.8012]

What's even more depressing than the state of ranger, is the state of ranger players I'm starting to meet in the game.

Sometimes I come across a fellow ranger main, and they run power. I (try to) commiserate with them about the senseless gutting of OWP, but they respond with "dooooood we have a power benchmark at 40K now, what are you complaining about?" Then without fail they go on to praise coefficients getting raised on a lot of stuff.

It's just... ugh. A lot of those high bench builds are running axe/axe + LB. That means 8 out of your 10 weapon abilities are projectiles. Also a lot of the white knights are ignoring the fact that to make use of splitblade, you're basically standing in melee anyways outside of the enormous hitbox situations. While projectile hate isn't the biggest issue you might come across in organized pve, I'd say it's still a step down from having non-projectile options on swap.

Also in the spirit of the OP, another random nerf a lot of us forgot about: switching our Shouts into Commands. Why? Why ANet? Everyone else gets shouts. We get ours taken away for some... RP reason? It certainly can't be the uber single-condition cleansing power that came from a rune set that still exists in the game (alongside every other class' shouts).

For me the issue is not so much the raw outcomes themselves - we can still bench suitably high, and as more people seem to be finding out, ranged attacks are a great way to sustain dps in harder encounters. It's just the way ranger gets to that "decent bench/range is good" point feels inferior to other classes. I'm tired of feeling like a second class citizen at this point. It's sad to see so many fellow rangers have just internalized being treated this way.

 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

What's even more depressing than the state of ranger, is the state of ranger players I'm starting to meet in the game.

Sometimes I come across a fellow ranger main, and they run power. I (try to) commiserate with them about the senseless gutting of OWP, but they respond with "dooooood we have a power benchmark at 40K now, what are you complaining about?" Then without fail they go on to praise coefficients getting raised on a lot of stuff.

It's just... ugh. A lot of those high bench builds are running axe/axe + LB. That means 8 out of your 10 weapon abilities are projectiles. Also a lot of the white knights are ignoring the fact that to make use of splitblade, you're basically standing in melee anyways outside of the enormous hitbox situations. While projectile hate isn't the biggest issue you might come across in organized pve, I'd say it's still a step down from having non-projectile options on swap.

Also in the spirit of the OP, another random nerf a lot of us forgot about: switching our Shouts into Commands. Why? Why ANet? Everyone else gets shouts. We get ours taken away for some... RP reason? It certainly can't be the uber single-condition cleansing power that came from a rune set that still exists in the game (alongside every other class' shouts).

For me the issue is not so much the raw outcomes themselves - we can still bench suitably high, and as more people seem to be finding out, ranged attacks are a great way to sustain dps in harder encounters. It's just the way ranger gets to that "decent bench/range is good" point feels inferior to other classes. I'm tired of feeling like a second class citizen at this point. It's sad to see so many fellow rangers have just internalized being treated this way.

 

 

 

The OWP change is also nonsensical because a majority of ranger weapons are built around burst--Rapid Fire, Whirling Defense, Maul, and for the most part Winter's Bite.  That's four different weapons all with one skill that is meant to be a burst in some way or another (either channeled or all at once).  Heck, you could even extend it to torch and OH dagger because they have bonfire for condi burst and stalker's strike for hybrid burst.  

So, they raise coefficients to make sustained damage more important, but our sustained damage weapons (MH dagger, MH sword, and I'd say hammer) are mostly lacking.  The other sustained damage weapon being staff is essentially a kiting tool, so leaving that out altogether. 

In the end, these changes end up as a nerf because they haven't fixed the weapon skills themselves.  

The worst part isn't the numbers it's the reasoning.  They are balancing around burst windows being to hard to hit, which makes no sense because ranger always has been a mobile / medium armor class that should be bursty.  We don't have sustained damage in the form of ground target AoE, and even our traps are literally all burst oriented.  

Also on commands, I'd like to think they were converted from shouts to work with untamed--but they then somewhere along the line scrapped that entire idea and went with cantrips.  So, it just dev disagreement and eventually limbo that has caused this.  Which yes, is annoying as trooper runes at least made NM somewhat bearable, because you could take another DPS line.  Instead, you have to take WS for WK cleanse (don't get me started on empathetic bond lol) or have even more careful play and only use bear stance / cleansing sigils.  

At the end of the day,  I fear soulbeast will keep seeing these nerfs though until most of us outright quit.  As they don't seem to want to fix untamed in any meaningful way or revert the druid nerfs.  That just makes soulbeast top choice in all regards, so the path of least resistance is keep hitting it until all our builds suck.  

[anduriell.6280]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:22 PM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

n WvW both Soulbeast and Druid are dominant Roamers

Again with this hyperbolic one side experience while playing against roleplayers  in WvW trying to catch the gift of battle.

Soulbeast was decent,  good maybe depending on your skill, as a 1v1 noobstomper. Druid is not, they are been relegated to a troll build a trailblazers, traps and short bow with negligible impact in roaming or combat in general. 

neither of both are dominant. Yes depending on the server you can see some pewpew running around straight from pve just to get the gift of battle for their legendary but ranger is not the norm. Manly because they are not wanted in WvW but also because while roaming there are easier and better classes to play like thief.

it would be good if Anet actually would release  the real numbers (subclass, level, hours), as pve they are not that significant.