Insanely overpowered ranger skills - Eg. Whirling Defense does more damage than hundred blades

Swagger.1459 · January 15, 2019

@"Ruufio.1496" said:So let's discuss why so many ranger abilities are completely overpowered for the realm of Guild Wars 2 combat.
Whirling DefenseJuly 23, 2013 -This skill now grants 4 seconds of retaliation for the duration of the skill.April 19, 2016 - The damage per strike has been increased by 100%.November 07, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%ONLY A MONTH LATERDecember 12, 2017 - Increased damage by 15%.
In addition to being a whirl finisher and giving retaliation it also reflects projectiles and inflicts 12 stacks of vulnerability. In comparison, hundred blades does about half as much damage and only inflicts damage and nothing else. Balanced vs incredibly overpowered.
Moving on.
Winter's BiteJune 20, 2017 - The damage of this skill has been increased by 150%March 27, 2018 - Increased damage by 20% in PvP and WvW and the bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds.HONED AXES TRAITJanuary 26, 2016 - The ferocity bonus this trait grants has been increased from 150 to 250..
You also do not need to hit a target in order for your next attack to inflict weakness.
Prelude Lash5 target 300 radius AOE pull that also immobilizes. Because just having an AOE pull would be too weak.
Swoop (soulbeast)Range: 1200 Cooldown: 10 seconds.This should literally be nerfed in half. Eg 600 range and 20 second cooldown. Give them an evade if they whine about it.
Blackbear (soulbeast)Defy Pain - Immune to physical damage for 5 seconds.Unflinching Fortitude - Break stun, remove movement conditions and immunity to physical damage for 4 seconds.
Wow. 2 endure pain on 1 pet for a total of 9s immunity. OK. Throw in physical damage immunity signet here or there, maybe some permanent protection and... could you imagine if protection also reduced condition damage by 33% or ranger had access to resistance or mass condition clear? Boy that sure would be OP wouldn't it. You could go full berserker stats and be more survivable than a warrior with his mere 2 endure pains, critical hit immunity and blocks.
Second Skin33% condition damage reduction? Wow... How about nerfing it to 20%. It would still be strong as kiten.
All StancesTheir cooldowns are all WAY too low. What even is 25s cooldown on moa stance lmao. The uptime on that stance is almost 100%. 25s is practically spammable. Nerf all stances to at least 45s bare minimum.
Sick Em/Pets Prowess etc.Is this the highest damage modifier in the game? 40% is INSANE. Imagine if a superior version of hundred blades with a 7.92dmg modifier was buffed by 130% damage, had another 40% damage increase and threw a bunch of other damage modifiers on top of that. Did you know ranger has the most (and best!) damage modifiers in the game (as well as the most damage immunities)? It's not the minor damage modifiers that are the issue... but it is these INSANE ones. Honed axes 240 ferocity (WOAH), Pets Prowess 300 ferocity (HOLY KITTEN!!!!!!!) Attack of Opportunity 25% ... again... HUGE, Vicious Quarry 250 ferocity with fury... WHY SUCH HUGE FEROCITY BONUSES??????? Us engineers only get a reasonable 150 ferocity with fury.
What amazingly ridiculously insane damage modifiers those are. Meanwhile engineer had the 10% damage modiifier removed from tool kit because apparently it was OP to hit a 5k pry bar under best circumstances.
Protective WardWhy is the weakness AOE? Just to increase the random spam in combat?
LongbowFor the fivethousadnth time from the fiftyistthousandth person... the range is NOT 1500. Please fix.
The soulbeast is the most overpowered thing to ever exist in the entirety on Guild Wars 2. More overpowered than a scourge combined with preHoT cele ele combined with prePoF chronomancer. How is this allowed?

Part 3... A more logical comparison to Whirling Defense...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Defense

20s cooldown when traited. Player is rooted.

Damage (12x): 2,904 (7.92)?Retaliation (4s): Reflect incoming damage back to its source.12 Vulnerability (10s): 12% Incoming Damage, 12% Incoming Condition DamageNumber of Targets: 3Duration: 5sAttack Radius: 180Reflection Radius: 150Combo Finisher: Whirl

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Axe

12s cooldown when traited. Player is NOT rooted.

Damage (15x): 3,075 (8.388)?Movement Speed Increase: 50%Number of Targets: 5Radius: 130Combo Finisher: Whirl

And for the sake of your argument...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hundred_Blades

6.4s cooldown when traited. Player is rooted.

Damage (8x): 1,864 (4.62)?Final strike damage: 488 (1.21)?Number of Targets: 3Range: 130

So....

A warrior can use 2 (mobile) Whirling Axes, that hits 5 targets, compared to Ranger using 1 (rooting) Whirling Defense that hits 3 targets...

A warrior can use 4 (rooted) Hundred Blades compared to Ranger using 1 (rooting) Whirling Defense.

... If you are standing inside a whopping 5s long, 180 radius skill, and eating up all the damage from the rooted attacking ranger... then start using dodge or simply move out of the way.

Psycoprophet.8107 · January 15, 2019

So that matters why? Lol

Swagger.1459 · January 15, 2019

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:So that matters why? Lol

I’m sorry you don’t understand. Maybe try reading it again and putting it into context?

Psycoprophet.8107 · January 15, 2019

I just don’t understand why whirling defenses doing more damage than 100 blades is a concern. All skills do various amounts of damage and just happens wd does more than 100 blades, why does it matter? Whirling axe’s doesn’t root you like wd and a lot would argue a damage loss for not being rooted would be superior to more damage rooted. So one could argue why should ranger be rooted when warrior can use whirling axe’s un rooted?

Psycoprophet.8107 · January 15, 2019

If whirling defenses rooted the opponent as well as the ranger I could see an issue with damage but like others have mentioned dodge or just step back

RegudonNA.4630 · January 15, 2019

I'll trade you whirling defense for your hundred blades.

Kain Francois.4328 · January 15, 2019

In this thread: "Whirling Defense is OP! Look at how much dmg it does! It does more damage than 100b!"

In other thread: "Whirling Defense sucks because you can't move! please buff it some moar anet, waaah waah WAAAAAH!"

Psycoprophet.8107 · January 15, 2019

@"Kain Francois.4328" said:In this thread: "Whirling Defense is OP! Look at how much dmg it does! It does more damage than 100b!"
In other thread: "Whirling Defense sucks because you can't move! please buff it some moar anet, waaah waah WAAAAAH!"

Haha best post of the day right here

Dahkeus.8243 · January 15, 2019

Stating that ranger is overpowered may be a reasonable claim, but doing so by comparing skills of one profession to skills of another has always and will always be a bad way of making an argument.

DeceiverX.8361 · January 15, 2019

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:
@"DeceiverX.8361" said:Passive SoS should either be removed or put elsewhere. It's legitimately stupid to put it in such a low-priority trait slot in an offensive line. I think ANet wanted to make MMS desirable because it somewhat lacks power otherwise compared to skirmishing and WS on core/druid, but it really is just lazy and there should be more incentive to play MMS through active play.
Sic 'Em is a problem, and the amount of free stats given by BM and pets are a problem when combined with things like extended damage immunity, high mobility, and extended unblockable attacks. BM+SB is basically permanent 20 might + fury + some extra damage and sustain without actually occupying might stacks or running the risk of being corrupted. It's a time-duration Pre-nerf-pre-nerf Assassin's Signet (yes, they nerfed it twice), which was game-shatteringly overpowered at launch and applied only to a single attack, had no extra benefits like revealed, and had a longer cooldown.
The issue is that like many other things in the game, soulbeast has a bloated kit and needs to have a bloated kit because a number of specs released in PoF also have incredibly bloated kits... like FB, Holo, Mirage, and to some extent, Deadeye (though even Deadeye's main issues are more symptoms of previous bad design in thief paired with two relatively thoughtless abilities rather than actual problems with the DE itself).
Ranger is particularly gross however just because of how safe it is. 1800 range attacks dealing an upwards of 7-10k damage (more with OWP) and its combo on an 8s cooldown dealing 50k+ damage in the span of a few seconds with a very high amount of mobility and at least one invuln (one of which is even passive), all on the same build, is not only just difficult to deal with, but frankly, extremely
easy
to play and do well with. It's strictly stronger than warrior has ever been, and by a very substantial margin at that, and frankly, miles easier.
We need to see the game toned down because in all honesty it's just no fun anymore. Especially when going back to core game content and in the PvP modes. One of ANet's main pillars of GW2 was to never phase out old content as to keep it feeling fresh and good. It's why we have downscaled events and dungeons and so on. It's why the gear level was never increased. And yet, the fundamental aspect of playing the game - the classes - bring so much extra power they render any and all of their predecessor content - including their predecessor classes - not just bad, but unenjoyable to deal with because of how easy and mindless it is.
When I go against a core game class with an elite spec at this point, I often feel I don't even need to think to beat them. That's not fun for me and it sure isn't fun for them. Soulbeast is the most egregious, followed by mirage and then holosmith.
WD, Prelude Lash, and the rest are all pretty okay Honestly, Swoop is a great addition for players who want to play the kiting-focused mobile DPS which core ranger and druid otherwise fail to deliver on. But the prominent builds running around right now are really oppressive and feel like they have no counterplay when playing a build with a slight disadvantage or which do not have blatant and direct answers, and often times, when the soulbeast plays well, have their answers negated thanks to things like unbockable attack access, stealth denial, substantial cleave and CC, and so on all within easy grasp.
Hell, I know a few ranger players who have even stopped playing the class because they stopped having fun with it largely being a free win in most matchups just
because
nothing really brings any real threat save condi mirage. But that's just OP vs OP...

Really, I can't stop laughing ... when I see someone saying Soulbeast is OP, that he can do 50k damage from 1800 ranger etc ... Yes, he can, as Mesmer and Thief can too, not from 1800, but from 1500. The only BIG difference is that Mesmer and Thief can easily escape after that burst, and Ranger can't!A good player with a balanced build always will beat a Sniper Soulbeast. Please don't look only on Youtube video, and get from there the idea Berserker Sic'em Build is OP, because is not vs good players.

DE does massively less damage than SB since the rework. DE just has fewer inherent tells, but standard rifle combo is basically the same thing as PBS+RF. Literally the only thing keeping DE oppressive is SScope and SA interactions. DJ is garbage and people who die to it either got massively outplayed or suck/aren't paying attention. Mirage can't even dream of the burst damage SB brings; it's 100-0 is just able to get an unsuspecting foe and nothing more.

I'd love for you to enlighten me on this math of yours about thief burst, especially. It's not like I'm an authority on burst thief or anything. Not like I've mained the maximum-possible burst damage thief build for the past six and a half years. /s

And to say ranger can't escape. Are you kidding me? Bird? Arctic Wolf? GS3? Free 1000+ range mobility on such low cooldowns is bad escape? Again, the only class in the game rocking that kind of mobility without major cost is Mirage. Even thief using shortbow struggles to keep up with that much burst disengage while maintaining some semblance of fuel in the tank.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure the issue is more that you've never played the other classes more than anything. Hell, there have been a number of new thieves who mained ranger previously claiming S/D was crazy strong in the past who have come to the boards asking for help on how to deal with anything because they feel totally useless compared to their soulbeast, to slowly realize they learned the game on a training wheels class/build.

What's crazy is I even justified why the SB's kit is wildly overloaded in my post - and how it needs to be - by agreeing with you that these other specs are broken on their design levels which makes for exploitable play with limited weaknesses when played competently. The issue is that SB is broken in numbers which makes it super strong when played by anyone at all. And at the moment it's a bit excessive.

My criticism is that soulbeast is incredibly easy to achieve such high success with and how its damage is so easy to achieve without much cost to its efficacy on other scenarios. It has an answer to nearly everywhere in some aspect of its kits without much investment required to actually get it. Even if it doesn't have the best disengage in the game, it still has better disengage than 90% of the game. Even if it didn't have the best sustain in the game (P.S., as far as full glass builds go, it does, objectively), it still can tank better than 80% of what's out there. Even without the most ranged damage (which it also has), it still gets massively safe engages with next to no opportunity cost. You don't actually need to be even remotely good to pose a massive threat in smallscale when playing one. That's my point.

And if the build I'm referencing is so bad and so insignificant as you claim - which nearly every soulbeast I've encountered in WvW runs (which is around half the overall roaming population today or more I'd say) - then these nerfs will have no impact on the real "good" rangers and just hit the noobs who press three buttons and automatically kill anyone not running an invuln. So... how does this impact ranger skill expression or viability then? According to your logic, it doesn't.

When I go into WvW, if I want things to die and not need to think very much, I play my soulbeast in exotic gear. Despite the fact that I've only put maybe 400 hours in ranger, and despite the fact that I have almost fifteen times the play time and thousands of gold into gear and tons of math to optimize my thief, it's just easy, and generally, just stronger.

Say what you will, but this spec overperforms. OP went too far, but the spirit of the post - soulbeast having ridiculously overtuned numbers and a very easy play pattern to get solid results from - aren't untrue in the slightest.

Sleepwalker.1398 · January 15, 2019

@"Prophet.1584" said:"A ranger beat me in pvp/wvw so please nerf them. i've never played ranger or understand how the build works but please nerf them anyway, TOO OP!!"
the only reason boonbeast is seemingly OP is because scourge doesn't see as much play right now in pvp and spellbreaker doesn't run winds so boons don't get ripped. Heavy boonrip would end boonbeast pretty quickly. Sic EM Sniper is a very strong build but it's less defensive than a thief or mesmer while filling the same role, +1 dps and roaming.Ranger can ONLY roam in wvw, sure it can run in a zerg but not as effectively when compared to the other meta classes. In wvw, where you do see a lot more boonrip, boonbeast still is not viable in zergs, it's too dependent on boons to survive. Ranger has always been a strong 1v1 duelist, that's how it's been since launch, boonbeast just allows for more teamplay than druid or core.I've played all 9 professions to plat at some point so at least have a basic understanding of how they all work so i can time my CC's and utilities. It amazes me that people can still complain about a profession this much without ever having touched it or played it enough to truly understand it's strength and weaknesses.

There is a variant of soulbeast that provides boons in zerg that i have seen.So i'd say its not "only" a roaming class.

Prophet.1584 · January 15, 2019

@Ruufio.1496 said:
@"Prophet.1584" said:snip

Boon Rip > Swoop Greatsword opposite direction > Swoop Owl opposite direction > Ranger is now at least 2200 range away from you and out of combat. If he isn't out of combat then he also quickening zephyr to create distance which ALSO grants superspeed because it was ALSO buffed for no reason other than to create the most overpowered spec in existence.

No one cares about zerg fights. There is no skill involved in those compared to low mans.

I'm sorry but this is your opinion. another player who only plays raids wouldn't have used a soulbeast at all until the recent buffs to power damage because everything else outperformed it. A dedicated wvw zerger still wouldnt play soulbeast over a meta class because it doesn't bring as much as they do to the zerg. the only use ranger had before the slight increase to power damage and the slight reduction to condi dps was as a healbot druid. our dps didn't even matter it was so low, we had 1!! viable dps raid build since the start of raids, condi dps, until the power increase.

The only area in this game that ranger has almost always been in a decent spot is in roaming/dueling. i say almost because at one time there was NO ONE who wanted a ranger on their pvp team and they saw 0 use in tournaments.

thief can have multiple shadowsteps to move the same distance you mentioned and moremesmer doesnt blink as far but can get pretty closeboth professions can also have access to a large amount of stealthin regards to engineer, the only thing i will say is that a quick look on snowcrows website will show you that engi only parses 100dps less than a power soulbeast.

this is a circular argument that can never end where i defend my position of it not being OP and you keep saying it is regardless of the facts brought forth. hopefully non fact based opinions on forums by "god knows who" won't factor in to balance like it seems to.

Dragonzhunter.8506 · January 16, 2019

@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:
@DeceiverX.8361 said:Passive SoS should either be removed or put elsewhere. It's legitimately stupid to put it in such a low-priority trait slot in an offensive line. I think ANet wanted to make MMS desirable because it somewhat lacks power otherwise compared to skirmishing and WS on core/druid, but it really is just lazy and there should be more incentive to play MMS through active play.
Sic 'Em is a problem, and the amount of free stats given by BM and pets are a problem when combined with things like extended damage immunity, high mobility, and extended unblockable attacks. BM+SB is basically permanent 20 might + fury + some extra damage and sustain without actually occupying might stacks or running the risk of being corrupted. It's a time-duration Pre-nerf-pre-nerf Assassin's Signet (yes, they nerfed it twice), which was game-shatteringly overpowered at launch and applied only to a single attack, had no extra benefits like revealed, and had a longer cooldown.
The issue is that like many other things in the game, soulbeast has a bloated kit and needs to have a bloated kit because a number of specs released in PoF also have incredibly bloated kits... like FB, Holo, Mirage, and to some extent, Deadeye (though even Deadeye's main issues are more symptoms of previous bad design in thief paired with two relatively thoughtless abilities rather than actual problems with the DE itself).
Ranger is particularly gross however just because of how safe it is. 1800 range attacks dealing an upwards of 7-10k damage (more with OWP) and its combo on an 8s cooldown dealing 50k+ damage in the span of a few seconds with a very high amount of mobility and at least one invuln (one of which is even passive), all on the same build, is not only just difficult to deal with, but frankly, extremely
easy
to play and do well with. It's strictly stronger than warrior has ever been, and by a very substantial margin at that, and frankly, miles easier.
We need to see the game toned down because in all honesty it's just no fun anymore. Especially when going back to core game content and in the PvP modes. One of ANet's main pillars of GW2 was to never phase out old content as to keep it feeling fresh and good. It's why we have downscaled events and dungeons and so on. It's why the gear level was never increased. And yet, the fundamental aspect of playing the game - the classes - bring so much extra power they render any and all of their predecessor content - including their predecessor classes - not just bad, but unenjoyable to deal with because of how easy and mindless it is.
When I go against a core game class with an elite spec at this point, I often feel I don't even need to think to beat them. That's not fun for me and it sure isn't fun for them. Soulbeast is the most egregious, followed by mirage and then holosmith.
WD, Prelude Lash, and the rest are all pretty okay Honestly, Swoop is a great addition for players who want to play the kiting-focused mobile DPS which core ranger and druid otherwise fail to deliver on. But the prominent builds running around right now are really oppressive and feel like they have no counterplay when playing a build with a slight disadvantage or which do not have blatant and direct answers, and often times, when the soulbeast plays well, have their answers negated thanks to things like unbockable attack access, stealth denial, substantial cleave and CC, and so on all within easy grasp.
Hell, I know a few ranger players who have even stopped playing the class because they stopped having fun with it largely being a free win in most matchups just
because
nothing really brings any real threat save condi mirage. But that's just OP vs OP...