Ranger November 28th Balance Preview

[Gotejjeken.1267]

54 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Nah all of it was needed (even the smokescale one, that pet was meta for exactly 8 years and any global change would make it go over the limit). The issue is, we need even more.
There is no magic changes that fix everything. Also they probably have bug fixes to go with it.

Smokescale is still meta, just in the wrong way now.  

I don't think people are understanding what giving Takedown damage is actually going to do, and then when they just  reduce that damage how much of a nerf Smokescale will have received for no reason.  

[Sandzibar.5134]

7 hours ago, psizone.8437 said:

The pet changes are nice but Jesus they really didn't touch any ranger skills or traits?!

Most classes got some substantial buffs. I'm pretty worried that we're going to start falling behind, especially with the one wolf pack nerf in WvW (which was needed to a degree, but I think they went too far).

Glad im not the only one who noticed this....

Pet changes are mostly PvE orientated. So absolutely pointless patch, as PvE is a 50k dps joke now.

Pets in PvP and WvW are still going to insta pop with all the aoe and power creep every other class keeps getting.

Their AI is still sheet and they cant keep up with all the teleporting that occurs, or hit with their skills.

Only changes applicable to PvP and WvW are all nerfs.

Longer CD on charge for gazelle and I bet it still wont fookin hit anything.
SS loses 2 knockdowns for soulbeast is omega bad.
No more plasma? lol ok, but everyone else running around with perma boons 24/7 is good design.
Maybe im in a sheet mood.. but this is all looks fooking sheet.

 

[kiwituatara.6053]

Ok, read through it again. Gonna try to stay positive.

Which pets are you most excited for guys?

I'm keen to try out Hyena and White Moa.

• Hyena will be interesting with stance share Soulbeast
• White moa will now be a supportive pet and I've honestly always wanted frost aura on ranger but could only get it through ?runes(I forget if such runes existed) or comboing frost trap.

[BadSanta.6527]

smokescale nerf are horrible 

that takedown its what i like about the pet ......

some of the pet change looks nice like hyana but i dont know withouth the ai change that nessesery i dk how much impact this changes going to make 

although overall step in the right direction

[Arheundel.6451]

Loads of positive changes for the pets:

1. Overall reduction in the massive CD on F2 skill for all pet families, I have been saying for years that F2 skills on 35-45s CD could not be justified at all
2. Devourers, they finally increased attack rate/speed and CD reduction, it only took 11 years but this pet will see play finally
3. Healing soulbeast will be a thing, a very powerful option for gameplay...mace/mace will probably amplify that, Moa/Fern will pack a huge heal team burst
4. Jaguar now applies stealth, on you it would seem...in case people missed that part, being busy with takedown nerf

Anet literally screaming at you to change pets, I wouldn't say that smokescale dead but yeah....there will be better options if you're not single minded on one-shot gameplay

[Mic.1897]

18 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Still looking them over but...

Takedown change is a HUGE mistake.  No reason smokescale should lose a CC, and the tradeoff is the worst balance decision possible.  Do NOT increase the power coefficient, you will just get the same 1-shot build again with some other CC in place (GS #5 => newly hard hitting 'takedown' => Wordly Impact => etc.).  

If anything, take the CC off the soulbeast merge and leave the pet one alone.  The scary bursts aren't unmerged ones anyway, and you just hurt Untamed by removing a controllable CC all in the name of assuming hurting the soulbeast one-shot builds.

Other quick notes, Phoenix Dash NEEDS to be a CC--it makes no sense as-is, when you have E-Wyvern dash being a CC and leaving a field for instance.

Oh, and not sure I love Gazelle stopping at its target--but this is more of a nitpick like with sword idiosyncrasies.  I liked gazelle as is because it running through target allowed it to survive in larger scale content as it'd be outside the blob and not get nuked.  

EDIT: Other bad changes I just noticed--quickening screech change is going to get nerfed like 15 minutes after the patch considering what Dolyak can do for Soulbeast and Unflinching Fortitude--just going to make immortal and uncatchable soulbeasts.

Forage changes are also terrible.  All that just to get rid of plasma which was like a 1/4 roll anyway? Still have to pick the things up off the ground, so no one is going to be using Siamoth just for stealth.  At the very least you need to make Forage like steal where it's just available.  

Pls don't be spoiled

 

It's a bad look

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

I think some of these changes are, conceptually, good.

However, some of these pets are just not worth using even with some of these changes- red moa (unmerged), fire wyvern, and to a lesser degree, phoenix. Devourers and spiders are also still so far off player's radars that I don't even know what to do with them without just making them broken OP.

Fire wyvern needs a rework to the F2 as well as some more power in it's court. The F2 could just become a fireball burp like the adult minor fire wyverns have, for example.

Red moa could use a shift from fury (ranger has plenty of self and group fury access), either to a different boon (Might?) or a damaging skill on it's F2. The moas overall would also benefit a huge amount from unlocking the cooldown based skills in the same way untamed does- a 6k healing skill, that non-untamed builds do not have access to, is now available, meaning red moa as well as blue and white moas will have more use on heal druid.

All boon pets should be able to upkeep their boon (imo, in pve), with exceptions (white tiger, siege turtle). If the only thing their F2 does is a boon, give them the ability to maintain that- Jungle Stalker is a good example, the buffs seem like it'll be able to maintain it's might output quite easily. Blue moa? 4 seconds of protection. That is awful. I get not giving the siege turtle full prot uptime, but blue moa is already really underused, give it a niche, please.

Phoenix might actually be a solid pick if the F2 changes increase it's DPS enough- however, I'd like to see Dash drop all the "wind bombs" at the target's feet, stopping the phoenix when it reaches it's target, similar to how elementalist fire/earth dagger 3s work.

Drakes are still far too out there as well. River drake especially- give it more damage and a faster F2, currently the F2 is a DPS loss on an already weak pet. Overall they need to deal more damage- there's next to 0 utility to be had, give them some oomph.

I could go on, but a lot of these pets will just always fall short, usually in damage if not utility. Most pets can easily get away with "just more damage", and maybe constant pve boon sharing (as opposed to temporary with We Heal as One or by only taking Nature Magic), but a lot of them need just more power.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

Pls don't be spoiled

It's a bad look

Wat

9 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

 

1. Jaguar now applies stealth, on you it would seem...in case people missed that part, being busy with takedown nerf

I don't read the 'on you' part anywhere in there.  What it reads like is they replaced the unique effect in Stalk with Stealth...so the pet can be revealed and also, so it becomes visible when hitting something.

It's a nerf.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

All of the buffs are useless tiny number tweaks. However, they are nerfing Smokescale which this is a big nerf for competitive:

Smokescale

• Bite: Increased the power coefficient from 0.25 to 0.56 in PvE only.
• Takedown: Reduced the cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. This skill no longer knocks down enemies. Increased the power coefficient from 0.01 to 0.5 in WvW and PvP.
• Takedown (Soulbeast): Reduced the cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. This skill no longer knocks down enemies. Increased the power coefficient from 0.7 to 0.1 in PvE and from 0.01 to 1.0 in WvW and PvP.

^ Read the bolded.

So out of all these insignificant tiny number tweaks that look cool for pve, it won't change anything for pvp/wvw. The only thing that will be an impactful change for competitive is the nerf to Smokescale.

This patch concerning competitive, is just a big fat disappointing nerf for Ranger when every other class is receiving a ton of buffs.

Arenanet is going too hard on Ranger lately. They need to calm that **** down.

[Sandzibar.5134]

I blame Boyce.

 

[Birdie.3869]

Pig won't forage eggs anymore?

My pig meme won't work anymore now :(

Hope they don't go through with that change.
(Seriously, all the pigs forage only their worst forages with that. Why? One already has to walk over to where the pet was or call the pet back to you, use the forage, then go through a 1-2 second animation picking it up and then use it before getting back to the fight. Foraging was a meme. What were they thinking?)

Edited October 28, 2023 by Birdie.3869

[Mic.1897]

22 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Wat

 

I mean look at your original post just whining about and demanding changes to fit your needs lol

It's a video game

[psizone.8437]

5 minutes ago, Mic.1897 said:

I mean look at your original post just whining about and demanding changes to fit your needs lol

The whole intent of showing us these changes was to gather feedback, they even stated they'll be reading discussions on the forums about it.

Nothing in his posts reads like a demand, he gave thought out responses to the changes and pointed out where some changes could be seen as a bad choice.

You really misread the room, dude.

[Mic.1897]

You should read their post again

Actual child behavior lol

[CETheLucid.3964]

Looks good. Shame about the smokescale 'nerf' (all hail the several other pets that can still provide hard CC) but everything else is looking like a net gain. Long time coming. I hope this includes a fix for the aether sharks long pause before doing something when you swap it in. Looking forward to the redone Canthan pets on Soulbeast, especially the siege turtle but the other ranged pets in general. Might be bristleback and spider time again. Support moa is looking attractive as well, especially outside of druid. Jaguar is gonna make bads cry. We're nature ninjas now.

Pets are an integral part of the ranger class. It's good they finally got the love they deserve. 🐾

[Sansar.1302]

56 minutes ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

Looks good. Shame about the smokescale 'nerf' (all hail the several other pets that can still provide hard CC) but everything else is looking like a net gain. Long time coming. I hope this includes a fix for the aether sharks long pause before doing something when you swap it in. Looking forward to the redone Canthan pets on Soulbeast, especially the siege turtle but the other ranged pets in general. Might be bristleback and spider time again. Support moa is looking attractive as well, especially outside of druid. Jaguar is gonna make bads cry. We're nature ninjas now.

Pets are an integral part of the ranger class. It's good they finally got the love they deserve. 🐾

Dont know about pve but for wvw and spvp this patch wil be a net nerf considering most other classes is buffed.

And in wvw and to lesser degree spvp pets will forever be semi usless.

Best we can hope for is that pets get treated as class fluff and all balance modifications is used on the player side not pet side.

[CETheLucid.3964]

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Dont know about pve but for wvw and spvp this patch wil be a net nerf considering most other classes is buffed.

Other classes getting buffed doesn't mean ranger is getting nerfed. For PvP and WvW nothing much changes. They're good roamers and far flippers. Or bunkers as the case may be. Just depends. The other classes aren't getting buffed so wildly that they invalidate ranger. Ranger is in a pretty good place at present. Ranger will almost certainly get looked at again with the new weapon mastery update. Pet rebalance was a long time coming and it looks solid.

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

And in wvw and to lesser degree spvp pets will forever be semi usless.

Correct. Nothing changes. Not much to be done about that even if you do run into PCs that make the NPC look sentient. Most PCs will easily overcome the NPC pet. Falls on you to juggle it around. For all it's faults the pet is an extra thing on the screen that does stuff the enemy is forced to contend with. You want to work with that or you don't. That's the profession. Update will make them ever slightly less useless against PCs and OP against PCs who think they're NPCs.

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Best we can hope for is that pets get treated as class fluff and all balance modifications is used on the player side not pet side.

You should try playing soulbeast. Sounds right up your alley. Or maybe ranger just isn't your jam.

[Sansar.1302]

11 minutes ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

Other classes getting buffed doesn't mean ranger is getting nerfed. For PvP and WvW nothing much changes. They're good roamers and far flippers. Or bunkers as the case may be. Just depends. The other classes aren't getting buffed so wildly that they invalidate ranger. Ranger is in a pretty good place at present. Ranger will almost certainly get looked at again with the new weapon mastery update. Pet rebalance was a long time coming and it looks solid.

Correct. Nothing changes. Not much to be done about that even if you do run into PCs that make the NPC look sentient. Most PCs will easily overcome the NPC pet. Falls on you to juggle it around. For all it's faults the pet is an extra thing on the screen that does stuff the enemy is forced to contend with. You want to work with that or you don't. That's the profession. Update will make them ever slightly less useless against PCs and OP against PCs who think they're NPCs.

You should try playing soulbeast. Sounds right up your alley. Or maybe ranger just isn't your jam.

Ranger is in a horrible spot in WvW not wanted in grps and mediocre in roaming 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Sansar.1302
Bad spelling

[CETheLucid.3964]

4 minutes ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Ranger is in a horrible spot in WvW not wanted in grps and mediocre in roaming 

Ranger is an excellent roamer and havoc squad player. Ranger isn't very good for zerging. Good ranger can stay alive and do alright but they don't really provide anything to the zerg that other classes do better. Feel free to follow the public tag around but probably stay out of the squad so the boons prioritize the right people.

"I want ranger to be good at zerging"

Alright that's fair. But ranger isn't in a bad place because they're not a meta pick in one out of three styles of play in WvW.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

I mean look at your original post just whining about and demanding changes to fit your needs lol

It's a video game

My question is how much experience you have with Ranger, and/or why you are posting in the topic when every post thus far is just directed at me?

You say to fit 'my needs' but look through the topic, for instance, I'm not the only one saying the smokescale nerf was a bad decision, was just the first one in the topic to say it.  

Not sure how the rest fits 'my needs' either--an actual example of what would fit my needs is Iboga health getting increased, but I didn't mention that.  

[Ehecatl.9172]

I'm just glad pets are getting any attention at all. The quickness change alone is pretty big.

Better velocity for spiders and devourers will be nice. Maybe we'll actually see them able to hit a moving target now.

[Sansar.1302]

4 hours ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

Ranger is an excellent roamer and havoc squad player. Ranger isn't very good for zerging. Good ranger can stay alive and do alright but they don't really provide anything to the zerg that other classes do better. Feel free to follow the public tag around but probably stay out of the squad so the boons prioritize the right people.

"I want ranger to be good at zerging"

Alright that's fair. But ranger isn't in a bad place because they're not a meta pick in one out of three styles of play in WvW.

Ranger have been a good roamer in the past, but to call ranger Excellent for roaming now is a bad bad joke. 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Sansar.1302

[Beddo.1907]

7 hours ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Ranger is in a horrible spot in WvW not wanted in grps and mediocre in roaming 

Ranger is meta slot for healer in zergs.

[Sansar.1302]

5 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Ranger is meta slot for healer in zergs.

Healers should not be in guild wars 2 , it is not designed for that.

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

This patch is meaningless for competitive game modes as long as pets keep on rubberbanding across the screen when trying to hit a moving target. I'm glad that they are finally trying to look at pets that have barely been touched since 2012 but this is insufficient.

The whole mechanic with porcine pets needs to be changed, its little more than a spandrel from the whole consumable items, this functionality got removed from thieves' steal mechanic back in 2015.

We also still have weird things like Hunter's gaze and potent ally having an internal cooldown, where similar traits in other classes don't. We have go for the eyes and wilting strikes that are so unbelievably bad when compared to any other traits in the game.