Ranger November 28th Balance Preview

[Beddo.1907]

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

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

I dare you to win a zerg fight without healers, since gw2 is not designed for healers.

[Rap Tiger.1257]

I thought the nerf on smokescale takedown was unnecessary, but I'm happy to have an improvement on the pets I usually play like phoenix and wyvern fire

[aetemes.2603]

The quickness to pets is all I registered...a lot of the other changes, I read ok cool reduced cd..then..reduced effect time and range???..I am like...the effect wasn't even that good to start with but maybe with the pet talents it's hype? The smokescale nerf feels like the strongest "maybe you'll consider others" move which that vibe always feels bleh.

The devourers I feel were the suuuuper dead family...again can't register if that'll save them.

Edited October 31, 2023 by aetemes.2603

[Kjeld.9730]

Why take away 2 knockdowns at once? i kinda understand taking it away from smokescale because people have complained to me about the randomness of it but why take it away from the merged version as well?

If it's just for continuity then that's a stupid reason!

gazelle's charge stopping at its target sounds like a good change but i will have to see what it's like with the increased cooldown.

quickening screech removing movement impairing condis sounds great.

[Scynte.1340]

I really like these changes! I can't wait to try them out! 

I'll miss the other items I'll get from warthog, but perhaps this could be a starting point to turn forage into a flipover skill so you can use the skill without needing to pick to the item. Alternatively, forage could do both things, perhaps with different items. 

It's amazing how much they were able to increase damage of devourer and bear attacks. The modifiers nearly doubled! Devourer's burrow retreat skill doesn't sound as pointless now,  especially with the ai changes. 

I think people are sleeping on the sustain from the healing moa, bear, and drake skills. 

Drake sounds really good now, especially if the breath attacks were widened (not shown in notes). Fire and confuse breaths should be a big damage increase. Lightning breath is always satisfying, so using it 50% more frequently is great. I like the cleave! 

Hyena sounds good now. It's about time! Pet swap and transform effects should not kill the extra allies. 

Polar Bear icy roar sounds great! It's like a mini reaper elite shout. I could see other bear roars having similarly impactful effects like this one. Would one that removes a boon be op? Perhaps taunt? 

I'm glad the eod pets will be fixed.

Don't forget to touch the Hall of Monuments pets!

[asterix.9614]

Another 💩hat from anet, nerf after nerf for rangers. Thank you for nerfing the one good roaming pet we had. Guess I should be playing willbender, as they are never touched 🙂

[Psycoprophet.8107]

43 minutes ago, asterix.9614 said:

Another 💩hat from anet, nerf after nerf for rangers. Thank you for nerfing the one good roaming pet we had. Guess I should be playing willbender, as they are never touched 🙂

Honestly the unmerged knockdown removal is probably fair game zince it's ai but they could of left the merged knockdown and woulda been in line while not destroying the pets viability.

[Beddo.1907]

There is a funny paradox with smokescale. By nerfing it, we got a clear proof in a form of complaining that it was needed, because y'all would play it no matter how many buffs other pets get.

Actually most people will play it anyway.

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

There is a funny paradox with smokescale. By nerfing it, we got a clear proof in a form of complaining that it was needed, because y'all would play it no matter how many buffs other pets get.

Actually most people will play it anyway.

How are complaints about an unjustified nerf a proof that said nerf was needed? Doesn't make any sense. And yes, smokescale likely continues to get used. Because other pets are garbage. Simply as that. I bet many would love to use different pets (i certainly do), but they just suck and will continue to suck. The whole "pet improvement patch" is nothing but a farce. Small buffs to open world players with bad build, nerfs to pretty much every single ranger build in PvP/WvW (especially non slb) while not adressing any of the actual pet related issues and bugs.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

7 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

There is a funny paradox with smokescale. By nerfing it, we got a clear proof in a form of complaining that it was needed, because y'all would play it no matter how many buffs other pets get.

Actually most people will play it anyway.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I believe the actual paradox here is that they intended to nerf it, but they actually didn't (at least not yet).  As, Takedown now has damage--so you will get good stealth bursts with it; after a week or two of that THEN it will be a nerf once they adjust the damage down.

As for the unmerged, the pattern is predictable on swap (smoke assault => takedown); if someone leaves the pet out then it becomes a bit unpredictable when takedown will come off CD, but it's also unpredictable for the ranger too--no one is trying to set up a burst outside of from swap.  

The fact the new 'pet master' dev apparently is missing all of this is the most concerning thing for me at least.  

[Beddo.1907]

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I believe the actual paradox here is that they intended to nerf it, but they actually didn't (at least not yet).  As, Takedown now has damage--so you will get good stealth bursts with it; after a week or two of that THEN it will be a nerf once they adjust the damage down.

As for the unmerged, the pattern is predictable on swap (smoke assault => takedown); if someone leaves the pet out then it becomes a bit unpredictable when takedown will come off CD, but it's also unpredictable for the ranger too--no one is trying to set up a burst outside of from swap.  

The fact the new 'pet master' dev apparently is missing all of this is the most concerning thing for me at least.  

0.5 scaling and 20s CD is the base number, it was just reduced in pvp/wvw due to being a cc ability, so now they reverted it due to CC being gone.
Also those numbers are lower than other pets, so your theory is not working out.

[psizone.8437]

15 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Actually most people will play it anyway.

Because of smoke assault.

If other pets had the ability to stick to a target better they'd be used more.

Give pets a decent movement speed buff and a small range increase to their attacks and you'll find more pets being used.

[Beddo.1907]

3 hours ago, psizone.8437 said:

Give pets a decent movement speed buff and a small range increase to their attacks and you'll find more pets being used.

A small forward movement (like the one bite description has), is probably also an option. Instead of standing and making a small gap each time the pet attacks, it will reduce the gap by a certain amount.
Even better if all 3 are mixed in some way.

[psizone.8437]

31 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

A small forward movement (like the one bite description has), is probably also an option. Instead of standing and making a small gap each time the pet attacks, it will reduce the gap by a certain amount.
Even better if all 3 are mixed in some way.

I wonder if they still have the old coding for the original sword autoattack somewhere, the tracking that had would be perfect for pets.

But yeah, until that's changed we won't see much use of other pets in competitive modes.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

0.5 scaling and 20s CD is the base number, it was just reduced in pvp/wvw due to being a cc ability, so now they reverted it due to CC being gone.
Also those numbers are lower than other pets, so your theory is not working out.

• 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.

Only merged version matters for what I'm talking about.  

Edited November 1, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[CETheLucid.3964]

22 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

As, Takedown now has damage--so you will get good stealth bursts with it; after a week or two of that THEN it will be a nerf once they adjust the damage down.

I would hope not. You know once the ranger combos the smokefield that shenanigans are inbound. You can't get any more telegraphed than that and now it lacks the KD. There's certainly no shortage of damage mitigation. You know it's coming. I would hope we keep the damage or else the removal of the KD was pointless.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

I would hope not. You know once the ranger combos the smokefield that shenanigans are inbound. You can't get any more telegraphed than that and now it lacks the KD. There's certainly no shortage of damage mitigation. You know it's coming. I would hope we keep the damage or else the removal of the KD was pointless.

I agree but am highly skeptical because they just nerfed Maul for essentially the same reason of using it to burst from stealth / it not being super telegraphed. 

The similarities are there with Takedown interactions, the complaint just switches from 'oh I got CC'd randomly' to 'OMG the pet did 4k crit on me without warning' and 'OMG merged ranger did 7-8k from stealth WTF'.  

If I'm wrong, then that would also mean ranger loses a CC for a mediocre damage skill which then I guess is still a nerf.  

[Zyreva.1078]

If you want to burst someone from stealth you would use your hardest hitting skills - and that won't be take down. Ranger has many skills (merged pet skills even) that can hit harder than a skill with a 1,0 coefficient. So yes, that skill will be fairly useless, same as all the other merged pet skills that do nothing but dmg while not actually having enough dmg to be useful as burst skill. As if ranger didn't have enough of those ...

Charge - which offers mobility and cc - will deal more dmg than that skill that will do nothing but dmg. To a single target. At 130 range ...

Edited November 2, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Gotejjeken.1267]

18 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Charge - which offers mobility and cc - will deal more dmg than that skill that will do nothing but dmg. To a single target. At 130 range ...

Charge currently is on 1.13 coeffic for 'impact damage', which I assume will be the only one left once they 'fix' gazelle not to go through things (i.e. travel damage).  

Also, since it moves you, it would be more comparable to smoke assault which makes you invulnerable--difference is you can use charge to move away from things while smoke assault requires target, but I'd still compare takedown to kick instead.

Will have to see it in practice I guess.  

 

[Rap Tiger.1257]

"nerf on jaguar and some others like phoenix's wing buffet, wyverns that previously did damage in PvP as well as the electric wyvern's f2 attack, could give a decent dash when teamed up with phoenix using soulbeast, remove the nerfs also on bristleback which will I came now...and smokescale no take down....since the only update we will have will be on the pets, which should have been fixed since the beginning of the game.....or half at least. all other classes are getting buffs, our side of rangers just repairs their pets..."

Remembering that Anet has nerfed these pets and their attacks before, I don't know why they still give nerfs in this update that will only fix the pets... \o/

Edited November 4, 2023 by Rap Tiger.1257

[BatelGeuce.3591]

On 10/27/2023 at 10:11 PM, Beddo.1907 said:

Smokescale

•  Increased the power coefficient from 0.7 to 0.1

Makes one wonder ...

Also, can you hear that?
That's mechanists crying because rangers will be getting a pet update while they still lose percentage of stats on their mech if they don't micro manage it!

Edited November 13, 2023 by BatelGeuce.3591

[Lazze.9870]

On 10/28/2023 at 2:34 AM, 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.

This is such a clueless, bad take. If something has been meta for 8 years, it doesn't necessarily make it broken.

It means 1) the alternatives are kittening garbage. And the alternatives are still kittening garbage for the kind of content you use smokescale in.

... and 2) several ranger builds rely on stealth to stay competitive and no other pet offers the same utility. Smokescale will remain meta unless it's nerfed to a ridiculous amount (including the field itself).

If you think bombing the entire class is a worthwhile trade-off to make some arbitrary pet choice balance in select game modes instead of just accepting that smokescale is a go-to pvp pet for a lot of builds, then.. Well. You're wrong.

---------

Anyway...

This balance patch is meh. It makes a few pets slightly more usable and adds a little bit of QoL that should have been done years ago. I'm not gonna complain about it "finally" happening, because at the end of the day it's better late than never, but it's typical how they still managed to get some pet nerfs in there for no good reason.

I think Anet has done a pretty good with the overall ranger changes the past year, year and a half, but they're missing the mark with this one.

There are low hanging fruits on ranger beside the godforsaken pet mechanic that needs to be looked at. Torch is easily the worst weapon in the entire game. I also believe ranger is the only bow user without decent piercing/aoe baked into the weapons without relying on garbage traits at this point. And will marksmanship ever get a little QoL change so that the minors aren't completely  dead unless you play Remorseless?

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

..

Edited November 14, 2023 by Lazze.9870

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

did they fix siege turtle yet

[Beddo.1907]

5 hours ago, Incurve Giidis.7829 said:

did they fix siege turtle yet

If you mean the EoD AI freeze, then yes.