Smokescale nerf went through, I guess

[Tanek.5983]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Yes, but stuns don't last as long and won't work on breakbar enemies most of the time. You can either Immobilize enemies or use the much easier Cripple.

Neither stuns nor cripple "work" on breakbar enemies in the normal way. They just damage the bar. Cripple damages it so little as to be unnoticeable in most cases, though, which is why I thought the defiance break had been removed entirely. I mean, they did not even bother to put it on the tooltip it is so laughably small an amount.

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Neither stuns nor cripple "work" on breakbar enemies in the normal way. They just damage the bar. Cripple damages it so little as to be unnoticeable in most cases, though, which is why I thought the defiance break had been removed entirely. I mean, they did not even bother to put it on the tooltip it is so laughably small an amount.

Im talking about Predator's Onslaught triggering. Cripple is best at that. 

[Tanek.5983]

8 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Im talking about Predator's Onslaught triggering. Cripple is best at that. 

Maybe I am missing something about how it works. Why is cripple best? The length of time it is applied? Takedown only applies it for 3 seconds, shortest of any of the pet skills that can cripple. So how is a 3s cripple better than a 3s daze?

[DarkFlopy.8197]

1 hour ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Maybe I am missing something about how it works. Why is cripple best? The length of time it is applied? Takedown only applies it for 3 seconds, shortest of any of the pet skills that can cripple. So how is a 3s cripple better than a 3s daze?

From a WvW perspective:

It's all about opportunity, what are you trying to achieve, for example 3sec cripple is enough time to land a heavy attack and benefit from that 15% extra damage while a daze can be instantly removed by a stun break or countered by stability.

Now you can say cripple can be removed or countered by resistance but mostly people do not spend a cleanse/resistance on cripple since it's not really benefiting except if you are trying to run away from the fight.

Therefore on the long run cripple will stay longer than a CC.

Even supports do not pay attention to it and are more focused on when they are being CCed more than anything so they can continue to sustain and stay alive.

[Tanek.5983]

11 minutes ago, DarkFlopy.8197 said:

From a WvW perspective:

So you are saying the pet is potentially more useful in PvP now and the nerf is mostly just on the PvE side.

Which takes us back to the start of the conversation where they just don't want PvE players picking the smokescale anymore.

[DarkFlopy.8197]

1 hour ago, Tanek.5983 said:

So you are saying the pet is potentially more useful in PvP now and the nerf is mostly just on the PvE side.

Which takes us back to the start of the conversation where they just don't want PvE players picking the smokescale anymore.

The comparison was done between a daze and a cripple as replacement for the knockdown that was removed, besides that it depends on which PvP is being talked since WvW and SPvP do not play the same in terms of play style, tactic and so on.

In SPvP CC can be a deciding factor in a fight where in WvW since ppl tend to kite a lot slowing down the enemy can be the deciding factor.

After all those are just personal opinions since nothing is set in stone, and it's quite situational, there are builds that roughly have CC but more movement impairment abilities which can turn tides of fights.

Personally I would prefer a daze instead of a cripple when it comes to the replacement of the knockdown since when I roam I go WS and going MM means you most likely did not take WS and now lacking sustain/defense but in group play I do go MM.

[Mell.4873]

11 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

So you are saying the pet is potentially more useful in PvP now and the nerf is mostly just on the PvE side.

Which takes us back to the start of the conversation where they just don't want PvE players picking the smokescale anymore.

Also, I'm not really saying it is better in PvE just not useless like you originally claimed.

I don't think most people pick Smokescale in PvE unless you want the damage immunity on Soulbeast. Saying that your main reason pick Soulbeast is for big numbers vs an Open World Boss and in that situation the CC and Cripple will not mater, just damage. 50K on a boss is possible and a stun would slow you down.

 

Honestly again it's such a small change. Most pets got a direct buff due to Quickness being applied to them.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

So you are saying the pet is potentially more useful in PvP now and the nerf is mostly just on the PvE side.

Which takes us back to the start of the conversation where they just don't want PvE players picking the smokescale anymore.

Cripple alone is useless in competitive when we have chill and, in some cases, slow.  Anything else is copium.

For cripple to work, it has to work like: Crippling Shot - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) which has an immob component when flanking.

There's zero reason to remove the hard CC in PvE though outside of as someone said they can't put an effect in one enviro and not another.  If that's the case then cripple is just the default choice as the CC removal is huge detriment for setting up bursts in any competitive enviro that isn't in the middle of a zerg blob.  So, they had to add something to it outside damage as they basically obliterated the skill without any real explanation.

Anyway, just switch to Gazelle, it probably actually outclasses smokescale now as it still has two CC's, does good damage, and the smoke field really isn't necessary anymore after all the 'burst from stealth' nerfs ranger has endured over the last year.  

Edited December 4, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Tanek.5983]

40 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Anyway, just switch to Gazelle, it probably actually outclasses smokescale now as it still has two CC's, does good damage, and the smoke field really isn't necessary anymore after all the 'burst from stealth' nerfs ranger has endured over the last year.  

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

On 12/3/2023 at 7:19 PM, Mell.4873 said:

Yes, but stuns don't last as long and won't work on breakbar enemies most of the time.

Do you mean defiant foes? The ones where the talent is always active anyway? That's where you need cripple to activate the talent that is already active?

[Levetty.1279]

On 12/2/2023 at 7:04 PM, Mell.4873 said:

Everyone is so Jaded over such a small change. I mean the Smokefield wasn't removed, this reminds me of when they increased the cooldown of Sharpening Stones by 6 seconds.

The Pet is still a valid pick for WvW roaming. I mean how often where people relying on that stun, and if it was being used from stealth you have plenty of other options. I mean just pet swap after you stealth if you want.

Post one valid reason why Sharpening stone had to be nerfed.

[Mell.4873]

31 minutes ago, Silvoshipnos.2089 said:

Do you mean defiant foes? The ones where the talent is always active anyway? That's where you need cripple to activate the talent that is already active?

I have really tested it, other similar traits need the an controlling effect to be active but maybe enemies with a breakbar automatically get Predator's Onslaught applied to them.

Otherwise my logic holds true since Cripple is the easier way to apply the controlling effect required. It wouldn't be hard to test, maybe I will later if you want. 

[Mell.4873]

12 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Post one valid reason why Sharpening stone had to be nerfed.

It didn't need to be nerfed but everyone made such a big deal out of it. Nerfs happen, your classes didn't become impossible to play after a 6 second increase in a cooldown. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Levetty.1279]

1 minute ago, Mell.4873 said:

It didn't need to be nerfed

Then stop defending it.

[Mell.4873]

Just now, Levetty.1279 said:

Then stop defending it.

When did I.... 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

When did I.... 

Guess not really a 'defense' as much as a spin of it being a 'small' change when 6s increase on both your condi burst and 2 condi cleanse if traited is quite a lot.  That and it was the only such skill that did not receive a CD reduction with no explanation.  

Same thing is happening in this topic with Smokescale KD removal.  It's not a 'small' change when even PvE players are noticing its effect loss on breakbars as not everyone runs Red Moa raid rotation.  

I think the frustration here is that they keep applying these 'small' nerfs without any explanation and more of us need to call them out on it instead of acting as if it's fine.  As these 'small' changes are always coupled with large ones (recently, Ancient Seed removal and OWP nerf) that put it over the top into unacceptable territory as they are never replaced with anything meaningful.  

Literally this entire patch was bugfixes for pets and they still suffer from the 'mech queue bug' where they can no longer cancel one action with another and lots of times their auto-attack screws over commanding them to do anything else.  They still can't path for kitten and devs also made sure to throw in other 'small' changes like KD removal, Jacranda HP nuking, Porcine Forage destruction, whatever Lacerating => Brash Slash is supposed to do, etc. to end up with net nerfs anyway...

[Mell.4873]

27 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Guess not really a 'defense' as much as a spin of it being a 'small' change when 6s increase on both your condi burst and 2 condi cleanse if traited is quite a lot.  That and it was the only such skill that did not receive a CD reduction with no explanation.  

Wilderness Knowledge still removes conditions. Wasn't the reasoning that it would be to OP for certain playing styles that didn't use Wilderness Knowledge or the Wilderness Survival trait line.

 

Anyway, small nerfs are fine I mean how would they balance anything. Big nerfs are not but they don't seem to do that as often on Ranger. We get some pretty mild balance.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Anyway, small nerfs are fine I mean how would they balance anything. Big nerfs are not but they don't seem to do that as often on Ranger. We get some pretty mild balance.

Mild balance.  That would be what Mesmer gets and I know you know quite a bit about that profession.

If we just go with that comparison, Sharpening Stone is laughable even WITH the CD reduction when Mes pukes out confusion and thus can abuse Akeem for one.  We won't go into all the invuln / stealth spam etc. that makes mes an unkillable roamer in WvW and a very tough fight in sPvP.    

So, let's stop the 'we' and the dancing around and call a spade a spade.  There has been no good given reason for any of these random nerfs ranger receives.  

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Mild balance.  That would be what Mesmer gets and I know you know quite a bit about that profession.

If we just go with that comparison, Sharpening Stone is laughable even WITH the CD reduction when Mes pukes out confusion and thus can abuse Akeem for one.  We won't go into all the invuln / stealth spam etc. that makes mes an unkillable roamer in WvW and a very tough fight in sPvP.    

So, let's stop the 'we' and the dancing around and call a spade a spade.  There has been no good given reason for any of these random nerfs ranger receives.  

Mesmer has it's own issues and large scale nerfs that have ruined the class over the years. 

In regard to Rangers okay there might not be any reason for the nerf, I agree. But you have to agree it is a pretty small in comparison to anything else other classes get. I mean alot of class got boon removal and corrupting boons straight nerfed that was much worse. 

Ranger rarely receives any major changes with probably the biggest recent one being Sword which most people liked. 

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

11 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I have really tested it, other similar traits need the an controlling effect to be active but maybe enemies with a breakbar automatically get Predator's Onslaught applied to them.

Otherwise my logic holds true since Cripple is the easier way to apply the controlling effect required. It wouldn't be hard to test, maybe I will later if you want. 

"I haven't tested but if I were right I'd be right" 10/10 logic. You should consider being a philosopher.

[Mell.4873]

9 hours ago, Silvoshipnos.2089 said:

"I haven't tested but if I were right I'd be right" 10/10 logic. You should consider being a philosopher.

Tested it and it seems to always apply to defiant enemies, so cripple is only worth it on non-defiant enemies.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Tanek.5983]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Tested it and it seems to always apply to defiant enemies, so cripple is only worth on it on non-defiant enemies.

Which is what I'd been saying and why the near complete removal of the defiance break is still a problem.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Tested it and it seems to always apply to defiant enemies, so cripple is only worth it on non-defiant enemies.

😂

[Mell.4873]

5 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

😂

Honestly the author might be right. It is pretty much useless in PvE so it is a direct nerf. 

Reminds me of the time a didn't know you could still use your pet skills when you are downed in PvP or the fact that pet swapping to a pet of the same family resets it's skills even if the UI doesn't show it. 

[EnderzShadow.2506]

On 11/28/2023 at 12:56 PM, Mell.4873 said:

Using their logic, they must have felt like it made their upcoming pet buffs would be invalid if everyone still picked Smokescale. I guess nerfing it makes people reconsider its use.
It probably won't invalidate it in PvP.

Sadly, that's probably true and at the same time the quickest and laziest response. Also seems to be the common denominator to every change they make.
Make other things better? Naw, don't do that. Just break the thing Rangers enjoy using. Problem Solved--HOORAY CHEER FOR US!!
Waiting for a dev to get mad at me. To be clear, Yes I am criticizing your company and your employees for how they do their job.
Those decisions effect my enjoyment of the game. But you don't want me to call you on it. Funny stuff.