The Ranger Damage Problem is Sic Em

[Zephoid.4263]

All the damage on gs focused on one abliity? Wana look at guard hammer? Hell, last patch saw the ONLY damage source on the weapon (2) go from 4s to 10s cd. Trying to defend ranger GS when thats what they did to an already weak weapon is pretty hard.

[Eurantien.4632]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@memausz.7264 said:The worst part is that rangers can also do 9K vollies from range with Rapid Fire and 6K barrage as well, all from 1500 range.

The Barrage is situational since it's a GtAoE and you can easily get out of it tbh, plenty of dash, leap, blink etc skills around for this to be a very easy thing to do for most people regardless of class.. thus wasting the Rangers skill entirely.I use Barrage mostly to put down AoE on forts etc or block up choke points such as hallways or gates as well as causing annoyance in capture points or enemy groups.For duels or general combat it's less effective I find because people just run out of it most of the time as I said above, it's more effective to cast it on my location then and use it as some kind of defensive shielding to keep the enemy away, but that doesn't work on anyone using a ranged weapon so again it's situational and rarely will Rangers ever be able to get the most out of it's damage.

Rapid fire is the only thing really that makes LB viable as a damage weapon and it has so many counters.. reflects, projectile destroy, blocks, obstructions hell you can even dodge the whole thing.It is a good skill though and if you can land the whole thing it can obliterate someones HP.. it absolutely nukes Warclaws lolBut it all depends on whether you can land it, if it gets blocked or reflected then it's very easy for another player to punish you for it while the only skills you usually have left at that point is a slow auto, a short stealth and a knockback.. and maybe a barrage shield if you havent used it already.So it's endure or swap weapons at that point.

the issue is that ranger is too good at both ranged and melee combatFor most professions with a ranged weapon once a foe gets within a certain range they become considerably disadvantaged even if they swap to an alternate melee weapon. its usually not strong enough to stop someone whos weapon exceels in melee pressure.

Unlike most professiosn rangers kit excells in ranged and melee combat when they weapon swap. For example a thief is deadly with sword or dagger at close range but if they swap to short bow they lose pressure considerablyIF a necro has good pressure with axe and scepter if some one gets to close they lose pressure considerablyIf a warrior cant get close their pressure is is considerably lowered

With ranger if you foe is at a distance long bow gives good enough pressure even main hand axes have good ranged pressureThe moment someone gets close you swap to gs and you pressure is still extremly good you dont really feel backed into a corner becaus the gs kit is that strong. The moment a foe starts to retreat from you another weapon swap to long bow keeps you ranged pressure good.

ITs honestly easy to see why people feel like ranger is doing too much cause most other match ups have a weakness once you range them or get close ranger kind of has the best of both worlds. ITs good at long rage and its not the best in melee range but its certainly good enough to be considered high pressure and before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that. This is just looking at the weapons and excludes things like beast skills you gain from soul beast or any other mechanics that fills rangers unique kit.

There are even condi setups that still apply to this with shortbow and sword / dagger in any case its just got the best of both worlds.To be clear its not a bad feature to have as part of class but perhaps that means it shouldnt have as much damage as it has currently in exchange for having such a flexible combat kit that most other professions dont keep even if they have both a melee and a ranged weapon.

I get what you're saying but for ranger this only goes one way though. Like if we look at it the other way for necro, necro is good at close and mid range imo with scepter or axe or whatever, it doesn't really matter what they swap to they still have something they can use (shroud helps but lets leave that out). There's not really a point where necro feels awkward until it is outranged imo.

Ranger though, yeah, going from LB to GS when you pressure it can be tough to deal with against ranger. But the other way? Going from GS to Lb while in close to medium can be BRUTAL and many times a death sentence while playing ranger. Often times in the mirror match up I actually want my weapons as opposite. When he goes GS I want to be in LB, when he goes LB I want to be in GS it just counters what they're doing. Stay ranged vs their melee and stay melee vs their ranged. LoS on the way in, dodge the pointblank shot and then you just win.

[Eurantien.4632]

@Zephoid.4263 said:All the damage on gs focused on one abliity? Wana look at guard hammer? Hell, last patch saw the ONLY damage source on the weapon (2) go from 4s to 10s cd. Trying to defend ranger GS when thats what they did to an already weak weapon is pretty hard.

Yeah man, we should definitely nerf GS just because Soulbeast main hand dagger still sucks. Good point, good point. Still, problem is Sic Em, not GS

[ZDragon.3046]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@memausz.7264 said:The worst part is that rangers can also do 9K vollies from range with Rapid Fire and 6K barrage as well, all from 1500 range.

The Barrage is situational since it's a GtAoE and you can easily get out of it tbh, plenty of dash, leap, blink etc skills around for this to be a very easy thing to do for most people regardless of class.. thus wasting the Rangers skill entirely.I use Barrage mostly to put down AoE on forts etc or block up choke points such as hallways or gates as well as causing annoyance in capture points or enemy groups.For duels or general combat it's less effective I find because people just run out of it most of the time as I said above, it's more effective to cast it on my location then and use it as some kind of defensive shielding to keep the enemy away, but that doesn't work on anyone using a ranged weapon so again it's situational and rarely will Rangers ever be able to get the most out of it's damage.

Rapid fire is the only thing really that makes LB viable as a damage weapon and it has so many counters.. reflects, projectile destroy, blocks, obstructions hell you can even dodge the whole thing.It is a good skill though and if you can land the whole thing it can obliterate someones HP.. it absolutely nukes Warclaws lolBut it all depends on whether you can land it, if it gets blocked or reflected then it's very easy for another player to punish you for it while the only skills you usually have left at that point is a slow auto, a short stealth and a knockback.. and maybe a barrage shield if you havent used it already.So it's endure or swap weapons at that point.

the issue is that ranger is too good at both ranged and melee combatFor most professions with a ranged weapon once a foe gets within a certain range they become considerably disadvantaged even if they swap to an alternate melee weapon. its usually not strong enough to stop someone whos weapon exceels in melee pressure.

Unlike most professiosn rangers kit excells in ranged and melee combat when they weapon swap. For example a thief is deadly with sword or dagger at close range but if they swap to short bow they lose pressure considerablyIF a necro has good pressure with axe and scepter if some one gets to close they lose pressure considerablyIf a warrior cant get close their pressure is is considerably lowered

With ranger if you foe is at a distance long bow gives good enough pressure even main hand axes have good ranged pressureThe moment someone gets close you swap to gs and you pressure is still extremly good you dont really feel backed into a corner becaus the gs kit is that strong. The moment a foe starts to retreat from you another weapon swap to long bow keeps you ranged pressure good.

ITs honestly easy to see why people feel like ranger is doing too much cause most other match ups have a weakness once you range them or get close ranger kind of has the best of both worlds. ITs good at long rage and its not the best in melee range but its certainly good enough to be considered high pressure and before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that. This is just looking at the weapons and excludes things like beast skills you gain from soul beast or any other mechanics that fills rangers unique kit.

There are even condi setups that still apply to this with shortbow and sword / dagger in any case its just got the best of both worlds.To be clear its not a bad feature to have as part of class but perhaps that means it shouldnt have as much damage as it has currently in exchange for having such a flexible combat kit that most other professions dont keep even if they have both a melee and a ranged weapon.

I get what you're saying but for ranger this only goes one way though. Like if we look at it the other way for necro, necro is good at close and mid range imo with scepter or axe or whatever, it doesn't really matter what they swap to they still have something they can use (shroud helps but lets leave that out). There's not really a point where necro feels awkward until it is outranged imo.

This is a bit false because core necro has fantastic range if anything its good at mid to long range and horrible at close range even with something like staff marks or dagger melee.

Reaper changes necro from being good at mid to long range to being decent at mid to close range and even then its close range pressure is not as strong as ranger's melee pressure because necros lack stability, blocks, and a wide boon table which rangers have access to.

Again almost everything suffers in some way even if you look at core necro anything getting too close puts it at a disadvantageReaper anything kiting it puts it at a disadvantage

There is no default to being strong in both categories in one setupScourge use to have that power and it no longer has it due to how anet changed how the shades worked. IF anything this would have been the closest thing on necro you could have compared to ranger having great ranged and melee pressure.

Even firebrand which is or was... one of the strongest professions/elites in the game lacks ranged pressure as scepter projectiles are mad slow and miss moving targets more often than they hit them.

Ranger is literally the only one that is fairly strong in both categories of long and close range with something as simple as a weapon swap a warrior swapping to a long bow wont give them exceptional ranged pressure. Even rifle on warrior wont do this for example.

Ranger though, yeah, going from LB to GS when you pressure it can be tough to deal with against ranger. But the other way? Going from GS to Lb while in close to medium can be BRUTAL and many times a death sentence while playing ranger. Often times in the mirror match up I actually want my weapons as opposite. When he goes GS I want to be in LB, when he goes LB I want to be in GS it just counters what they're doing. Stay ranged vs their melee and stay melee vs their ranged. LoS on the way in, dodge the pointblank shot and then you just win.

Most professions fall to this weakness though very few are strong in the mid range department and most excel in either melee or long range so im not sure this is much of a thing to cedit to only the ranger being weak in mid range.

Most other professions still suffer a long or melee ranged weakness while also having the mid range weakness too and ranger still gets the best of both worlds in most of its weapon combinations. Again its not a bad thing to excel in both but as i said perhaps the damage is to high to have that flexibility. When maul starts hitting more than things like hundredblades does and hundredblades requires heavy setup to land even 2/3rds of it where as maul does not and can just be pushed on a whim when in range knowing you can possibly chain a missed one into a hiltbash to reset it i mean.... do we really need to question why people are now possibly pointing the finger at rangers.

I think now that....Necro is nerfedFirebrand is nerfedRev is nerfed

We all knew that likely other over the top things might appear that where being covered by those three professions. Ranger just might be riding that line really close and may need some adjustments. I certainly think ranger is worth keeping any eye on right now. I will say this ive seen a lot of firebrands, revs, and necros vanish after nerf fixes and a lot of rangers pop up just like necros, and revs did after the initial patch.

IF this is the start of the next ez meta shift we might expect some nerfs for ranger in the coming weeks.I mean i know it still has outliers like the deer hitting up to 7k still while being a 2s daze despite it getting a nerf already.

[Teratus.2859]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@memausz.7264 said:The worst part is that rangers can also do 9K vollies from range with Rapid Fire and 6K barrage as well, all from 1500 range.

The Barrage is situational since it's a GtAoE and you can easily get out of it tbh, plenty of dash, leap, blink etc skills around for this to be a very easy thing to do for most people regardless of class.. thus wasting the Rangers skill entirely.I use Barrage mostly to put down AoE on forts etc or block up choke points such as hallways or gates as well as causing annoyance in capture points or enemy groups.For duels or general combat it's less effective I find because people just run out of it most of the time as I said above, it's more effective to cast it on my location then and use it as some kind of defensive shielding to keep the enemy away, but that doesn't work on anyone using a ranged weapon so again it's situational and rarely will Rangers ever be able to get the most out of it's damage.

Rapid fire is the only thing really that makes LB viable as a damage weapon and it has so many counters.. reflects, projectile destroy, blocks, obstructions hell you can even dodge the whole thing.It is a good skill though and if you can land the whole thing it can obliterate someones HP.. it absolutely nukes Warclaws lolBut it all depends on whether you can land it, if it gets blocked or reflected then it's very easy for another player to punish you for it while the only skills you usually have left at that point is a slow auto, a short stealth and a knockback.. and maybe a barrage shield if you havent used it already.So it's endure or swap weapons at that point.

the issue is that ranger is too good at both ranged and melee combatFor most professions with a ranged weapon once a foe gets within a certain range they become considerably disadvantaged even if they swap to an alternate melee weapon. its usually not strong enough to stop someone whos weapon exceels in melee pressure.

Unlike most professiosn rangers kit excells in ranged and melee combat when they weapon swap. For example a thief is deadly with sword or dagger at close range but if they swap to short bow they lose pressure considerablyIF a necro has good pressure with axe and scepter if some one gets to close they lose pressure considerablyIf a warrior cant get close their pressure is is considerably lowered

With ranger if you foe is at a distance long bow gives good enough pressure even main hand axes have good ranged pressureThe moment someone gets close you swap to gs and you pressure is still extremly good you dont really feel backed into a corner becaus the gs kit is that strong. The moment a foe starts to retreat from you another weapon swap to long bow keeps you ranged pressure good.

ITs honestly easy to see why people feel like ranger is doing too much cause most other match ups have a weakness once you range them or get close ranger kind of has the best of both worlds. ITs good at long rage and its not the best in melee range but its certainly good enough to be considered high pressure and before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that. This is just looking at the weapons and excludes things like beast skills you gain from soul beast or any other mechanics that fills rangers unique kit.

There are even condi setups that still apply to this with shortbow and sword / dagger in any case its just got the best of both worlds.To be clear its not a bad feature to have as part of class but perhaps that means it shouldnt have as much damage as it has currently in exchange for having such a flexible combat kit that most other professions dont keep even if they have both a melee and a ranged weapon.

I agree with much of this although I would argue that the problem isn't that Ranger is too good, it's that most other classes kinda suck in the Ranged department, which is something I would rather see addressed instead as I enjoy Ranged play and it's benefits.I'd like to see more classes become better in this area rather than one of the few good classes in this area being brought down and ultimately runining the playstyle entirely.

Deadeye for example is a sniper.. it should be able to play as a sniper but it really can't.. this does bug me tbh.Deadeye by all rights should have the longest attack range in the game.

I can't speak much for Greatsword, It's not a weapon I really use on Ranger, I prefer the Sword/Warhorn combo myself for the mobility.But I would think Greatsword tells are pretty big for most skills, least that's what I've felt using them in PvE.

[Eurantien.4632]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@memausz.7264 said:The worst part is that rangers can also do 9K vollies from range with Rapid Fire and 6K barrage as well, all from 1500 range.

The Barrage is situational since it's a GtAoE and you can easily get out of it tbh, plenty of dash, leap, blink etc skills around for this to be a very easy thing to do for most people regardless of class.. thus wasting the Rangers skill entirely.I use Barrage mostly to put down AoE on forts etc or block up choke points such as hallways or gates as well as causing annoyance in capture points or enemy groups.For duels or general combat it's less effective I find because people just run out of it most of the time as I said above, it's more effective to cast it on my location then and use it as some kind of defensive shielding to keep the enemy away, but that doesn't work on anyone using a ranged weapon so again it's situational and rarely will Rangers ever be able to get the most out of it's damage.

Rapid fire is the only thing really that makes LB viable as a damage weapon and it has so many counters.. reflects, projectile destroy, blocks, obstructions hell you can even dodge the whole thing.It is a good skill though and if you can land the whole thing it can obliterate someones HP.. it absolutely nukes Warclaws lolBut it all depends on whether you can land it, if it gets blocked or reflected then it's very easy for another player to punish you for it while the only skills you usually have left at that point is a slow auto, a short stealth and a knockback.. and maybe a barrage shield if you havent used it already.So it's endure or swap weapons at that point.

the issue is that ranger is too good at both ranged and melee combatFor most professions with a ranged weapon once a foe gets within a certain range they become considerably disadvantaged even if they swap to an alternate melee weapon. its usually not strong enough to stop someone whos weapon exceels in melee pressure.

Unlike most professiosn rangers kit excells in ranged and melee combat when they weapon swap. For example a thief is deadly with sword or dagger at close range but if they swap to short bow they lose pressure considerablyIF a necro has good pressure with axe and scepter if some one gets to close they lose pressure considerablyIf a warrior cant get close their pressure is is considerably lowered

With ranger if you foe is at a distance long bow gives good enough pressure even main hand axes have good ranged pressureThe moment someone gets close you swap to gs and you pressure is still extremly good you dont really feel backed into a corner becaus the gs kit is that strong. The moment a foe starts to retreat from you another weapon swap to long bow keeps you ranged pressure good.

ITs honestly easy to see why people feel like ranger is doing too much cause most other match ups have a weakness once you range them or get close ranger kind of has the best of both worlds. ITs good at long rage and its not the best in melee range but its certainly good enough to be considered high pressure and before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that. This is just looking at the weapons and excludes things like beast skills you gain from soul beast or any other mechanics that fills rangers unique kit.

There are even condi setups that still apply to this with shortbow and sword / dagger in any case its just got the best of both worlds.To be clear its not a bad feature to have as part of class but perhaps that means it shouldnt have as much damage as it has currently in exchange for having such a flexible combat kit that most other professions dont keep even if they have both a melee and a ranged weapon.

I get what you're saying but for ranger this only goes one way though. Like if we look at it the other way for necro, necro is good at close and mid range imo with scepter or axe or whatever, it doesn't really matter what they swap to they still have something they can use (shroud helps but lets leave that out). There's not really a point where necro feels awkward until it is outranged imo.

This is a bit false because core necro has fantastic range if anything its good at mid to long range and horrible at close range even with something like staff marks or dagger melee.

Reaper changes necro from being good at mid to long range to being decent at mid to close range and even then its close range pressure is not as strong as ranger's melee pressure because necros lack stability, blocks, and a wide boon table which rangers have access to.

Again almost everything suffers in some way even if you look at core necro anything getting too close puts it at a disadvantageReaper anything kiting it puts it at a disadvantage

There is no default to being strong in both categories in one setupScourge use to have that power and it no longer has it due to how anet changed how the shades worked. IF anything this would have been the closest thing on necro you could have compared to ranger having great ranged and melee pressure.

Even firebrand which is or was... one of the strongest professions/elites in the game lacks ranged pressure as scepter projectiles are mad slow and miss moving targets more often than they hit them.

Ranger is literally the only one that is fairly strong in both categories of long and close range with something as simple as a weapon swap a warrior swapping to a long bow wont give them exceptional ranged pressure. Even rifle on warrior wont do this for example.

Ranger though, yeah, going from LB to GS when you pressure it can be tough to deal with against ranger. But the other way? Going from GS to Lb while in close to medium can be BRUTAL and many times a death sentence while playing ranger. Often times in the mirror match up I actually want my weapons as opposite. When he goes GS I want to be in LB, when he goes LB I want to be in GS it just counters what they're doing. Stay ranged vs their melee and stay melee vs their ranged. LoS on the way in, dodge the pointblank shot and then you just win.

Most professions fall to this weakness though very few are strong in the mid range department and most excel in either melee or long range so im not sure this is much of a thing to cedit to only the ranger being weak in mid range.

Most other professions still suffer a long or melee ranged weakness while also having the mid range weakness too and ranger still gets the best of both worlds in most of its weapon combinations. Again its not a bad thing to excel in both but as i said perhaps the damage is to high to have that flexibility. When maul starts hitting more than things like hundredblades does and hundredblades requires heavy setup to land even 2/3rds of it where as maul does not and can just be pushed on a whim when in range knowing you can possibly chain a missed one into a hiltbash to reset it i mean.... do we really need to question why people are now possibly pointing the finger at rangers.

I think now that....Necro is nerfedFirebrand is nerfedRev is nerfed

We all knew that likely other over the top things might appear that where being covered by those three professions. Ranger just might be riding that line really close and may need some adjustments. I certainly think ranger is worth keeping any eye on right now. I will say this ive seen a lot of firebrands, revs, and necros vanish after nerf fixes and a lot of rangers pop up just like necros, and revs did after the initial patch.

IF this is the start of the next ez meta shift we might expect some nerfs for ranger in the coming weeks.I mean i know it still has outliers like the deer hitting up to 7k still while being a 2s daze despite it getting a nerf already.

I guess that's a matter of perspective.

I have only ever died to a necro that's right on top of me (unless feared a good distance away), but I guess that's mostly due to shroud.

Difference between hundred blades and maul is that a full hundred blades can actually 100-0 somoene without the war even going berserker ammy. Yet both require the same set up with a CC (ranger also needing an interrupt).

Warrior has the strongest pure melee set up.

Firebrand doesn't have great ranged pressure but it also has teleports to close the gap.

Rev has good ranged pressure and better melee pressure but can't really do both (and ranged not really being viable due to the kit in pvp - and the fact that people can gap close).

Warrior does have a killer ranged weapon in rifle, war just lacks something to make it truly viable, though I am confident rifle war could easily be played at a plat level successfully.

In addition, melee staying power. Ranger has no way of getting into melee and STAYING in melee during a team fight. That's why most comps now just run stuff that can keep being balled up and just mow stuff over, it's like a melee range snowball. Ranger kind of counters that because if no one is taking teleports or gap closers, ranged damage becomes better. On the flip side once ranger gets caught and gets into the fray it HAS to get back out or it is toast... and that's hard to do...

so yeah, these things might not be top tier viable - fuck neither is ranger - and i'm not saying ranger damage isn't a little too high I'm saying Sic Em is the problem and I think you're overlooking some trade offs.

AGAIN this is a matter of perspective. I'm coming from top tier play (where i believe the game should be balanced around) where I think people should be rewarded for high risk high reward builds that get almost - and sometimes completely - obliterated if they make a mistake.

[Aktium.9506]

@Eurantien.4632 said:though I am confident rifle war could easily be played at a plat level successfully.We've had a couple of Warr mains with rifle builds a handful of seasons back in high plat/low legends on EUI'm hazy on the details but they were somewhat more manageable than Rangers because no PBS and no pet that can CC while the Ranger is ranged

[ZDragon.3046]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@memausz.7264 said:The worst part is that rangers can also do 9K vollies from range with Rapid Fire and 6K barrage as well, all from 1500 range.

The Barrage is situational since it's a GtAoE and you can easily get out of it tbh, plenty of dash, leap, blink etc skills around for this to be a very easy thing to do for most people regardless of class.. thus wasting the Rangers skill entirely.I use Barrage mostly to put down AoE on forts etc or block up choke points such as hallways or gates as well as causing annoyance in capture points or enemy groups.For duels or general combat it's less effective I find because people just run out of it most of the time as I said above, it's more effective to cast it on my location then and use it as some kind of defensive shielding to keep the enemy away, but that doesn't work on anyone using a ranged weapon so again it's situational and rarely will Rangers ever be able to get the most out of it's damage.

Rapid fire is the only thing really that makes LB viable as a damage weapon and it has so many counters.. reflects, projectile destroy, blocks, obstructions hell you can even dodge the whole thing.It is a good skill though and if you can land the whole thing it can obliterate someones HP.. it absolutely nukes Warclaws lolBut it all depends on whether you can land it, if it gets blocked or reflected then it's very easy for another player to punish you for it while the only skills you usually have left at that point is a slow auto, a short stealth and a knockback.. and maybe a barrage shield if you havent used it already.So it's endure or swap weapons at that point.

the issue is that ranger is too good at both ranged and melee combatFor most professions with a ranged weapon once a foe gets within a certain range they become considerably disadvantaged even if they swap to an alternate melee weapon. its usually not strong enough to stop someone whos weapon exceels in melee pressure.

Unlike most professiosn rangers kit excells in ranged and melee combat when they weapon swap. For example a thief is deadly with sword or dagger at close range but if they swap to short bow they lose pressure considerablyIF a necro has good pressure with axe and scepter if some one gets to close they lose pressure considerablyIf a warrior cant get close their pressure is is considerably lowered

With ranger if you foe is at a distance long bow gives good enough pressure even main hand axes have good ranged pressureThe moment someone gets close you swap to gs and you pressure is still extremly good you dont really feel backed into a corner becaus the gs kit is that strong. The moment a foe starts to retreat from you another weapon swap to long bow keeps you ranged pressure good.

ITs honestly easy to see why people feel like ranger is doing too much cause most other match ups have a weakness once you range them or get close ranger kind of has the best of both worlds. ITs good at long rage and its not the best in melee range but its certainly good enough to be considered high pressure and before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that. This is just looking at the weapons and excludes things like beast skills you gain from soul beast or any other mechanics that fills rangers unique kit.

There are even condi setups that still apply to this with shortbow and sword / dagger in any case its just got the best of both worlds.To be clear its not a bad feature to have as part of class but perhaps that means it shouldnt have as much damage as it has currently in exchange for having such a flexible combat kit that most other professions dont keep even if they have both a melee and a ranged weapon.

I get what you're saying but for ranger this only goes one way though. Like if we look at it the other way for necro, necro is good at close and mid range imo with scepter or axe or whatever, it doesn't really matter what they swap to they still have something they can use (shroud helps but lets leave that out). There's not really a point where necro feels awkward until it is outranged imo.

This is a bit false because core necro has fantastic range if anything its good at mid to long range and horrible at close range even with something like staff marks or dagger melee.

Reaper changes necro from being good at mid to long range to being decent at mid to close range and even then its close range pressure is not as strong as ranger's melee pressure because necros lack stability, blocks, and a wide boon table which rangers have access to.

Again almost everything suffers in some way even if you look at core necro anything getting too close puts it at a disadvantageReaper anything kiting it puts it at a disadvantage

There is no default to being strong in both categories in one setupScourge use to have that power and it no longer has it due to how anet changed how the shades worked. IF anything this would have been the closest thing on necro you could have compared to ranger having great ranged and melee pressure.

Even firebrand which is or was... one of the strongest professions/elites in the game lacks ranged pressure as scepter projectiles are mad slow and miss moving targets more often than they hit them.

Ranger is literally the only one that is fairly strong in both categories of long and close range with something as simple as a weapon swap a warrior swapping to a long bow wont give them exceptional ranged pressure. Even rifle on warrior wont do this for example.

Ranger though, yeah, going from LB to GS when you pressure it can be tough to deal with against ranger. But the other way? Going from GS to Lb while in close to medium can be BRUTAL and many times a death sentence while playing ranger. Often times in the mirror match up I actually want my weapons as opposite. When he goes GS I want to be in LB, when he goes LB I want to be in GS it just counters what they're doing. Stay ranged vs their melee and stay melee vs their ranged. LoS on the way in, dodge the pointblank shot and then you just win.

Most professions fall to this weakness though very few are strong in the mid range department and most excel in either melee or long range so im not sure this is much of a thing to cedit to only the ranger being weak in mid range.

Most other professions still suffer a long or melee ranged weakness while also having the mid range weakness too and ranger still gets the best of both worlds in most of its weapon combinations. Again its not a bad thing to excel in both but as i said perhaps the damage is to high to have that flexibility. When maul starts hitting more than things like hundredblades does and hundredblades requires heavy setup to land even 2/3rds of it where as maul does not and can just be pushed on a whim when in range knowing you can possibly chain a missed one into a hiltbash to reset it i mean.... do we really need to question why people are now possibly pointing the finger at rangers.

I think now that....Necro is nerfedFirebrand is nerfedRev is nerfed

We all knew that likely other over the top things might appear that where being covered by those three professions. Ranger just might be riding that line really close and may need some adjustments. I certainly think ranger is worth keeping any eye on right now. I will say this ive seen a lot of firebrands, revs, and necros vanish after nerf fixes and a lot of rangers pop up just like necros, and revs did after the initial patch.

IF this is the start of the next ez meta shift we might expect some nerfs for ranger in the coming weeks.I mean i know it still has outliers like the deer hitting up to 7k still while being a 2s daze despite it getting a nerf already.

I guess that's a matter of perspective.I mean i guess this is fair

I have only ever died to a necro that's right on top of me (unless feared a good distance away), but I guess that's mostly due to shroud.

Again thats because they dont like to be in close range its where they become weak in most cases excluding reaper when its shroud is up and even now after nerfs thats kind of weak too with the stability reduction.

Difference between hundred blades and maul is that a full hundred blades can actually 100-0 somoene without the war even going berserker ammy. Yet both require the same set up with a CC (ranger also needing an interrupt).

It cant actually thats the problem no setup locks a target down enough for the full cast of hundredblades to land and even when it does it does not 1 shot most targets that wouldnt also be 1shot by maul. IF hundredblades can 100-0 a squishy maul certainly can too and it lacks the major setup that 100 blades needs.

You almost will never see a warrior walk up and hundredblades but you see rangers walk up and maul all the time because they can you dont 100% need cc setup to get great value out of it. Sure you might miss it a lot but its low cd can be reset if hilt bash lands and the pay off when you do hit it even when the target is not cc'ed is pretty great.

Warrior has the strongest pure melee set up.I agree with this generally

Firebrand doesn't have great ranged pressure but it also has teleports to close the gap.I dont find the teleports all that strong they are not exactly spam-able and without a utility slot investment its 1 teleport 2 if you count the utility. I think firebrand was less about gap close and more the issue of having more sustain than it should have had, combined with the fact that it could hold you in its symbols where as you dont see those qualities with core guardian or dragon hunter even which then makes the symbols far stronger as nothing before fire brand had the power to hold you within those zones for such lengthy periods of time.

Rev has good ranged pressure and better melee pressure but can't really do both (and ranged not really being viable due to the kit in pvp - and the fact that people can gap close).

This is debatable imo. I would say ok pressure at best and thats with something like the renegade shortbow builds a few people have been running you certainly dont see anything like ranger pressure though which is fine after all it is called ranger.

Warrior does have a killer ranged weapon in rifle, war just lacks something to make it truly viable, though I am confident rifle war could easily be played at a plat level successfully.I dont agree here, i wont go into details to save some text space

In addition, melee staying power. Ranger has no way of getting into melee and STAYING in melee during a team fight. That's why most comps now just run stuff that can keep being balled up and just mow stuff over, it's like a melee range snowball. Ranger kind of counters that because if no one is taking teleports or gap closers, ranged damage becomes better. On the flip side once ranger gets caught and gets into the fray it HAS to get back out or it is toast... and that's hard to do...

I agree with this up till the last bitSaying that if something gets caught in the fray and and has to get out or its toast applies to most professions in the game. Most professions dont want to be focused in the fray of combat regardless of what they are either they get out or they die im not sure that counts as a weakness to just ranger when it easily applies to most professions that dont have ez outs like instant stealth or instant low cd blinks/ports. ?

so yeah, these things might not be top tier viable - kitten neither is ranger - and i'm not saying ranger damage isn't a little too high I'm saying Sic Em is the problem and I think you're overlooking some trade offs.

AGAIN this is a matter of perspective. I'm coming from top tier play (where i believe the game should be balanced around) where I think people should be rewarded for high risk high reward builds that get almost - and sometimes completely - obliterated if they make a mistake.

Some of those things are not viable period let alone top tier, I cant recall the last time i saw a warrior with a rifle in pvp (was probably when zerker got the update) and thats certainly for a good reason. Even then it was all 1 shot memes like every other profession was and its certainly not gonna be like that now with damage cuts. Ive seen warriors using every weapon after the nerf patch except rifle i think. I sitll have yet to see rev use a hammer in pvp either. Which only leaves shortbow as an ok ranged option but thats nothing crazy.

Keep in mind anet hopefully does not aim to balance this game for top tier play only because its not where the majority of players will sit. But where top tier starts and a matter of perspective too so i wont argue much on that.

While Sic Em is an issue in itself these are just things to consider. If ranger damage is a bit too high then simply adjust/lower it and dont hit sic em as hard which gives it more risk/ reward to take in the utility slot. Its much easier for a fairly skilled player to react to the revealed effect and immediately mentally prep for sick em and prepare a counter play or defense for a few seconds than it is for them to just generally fight something that might be mechanically over-tuned all the time with sick em just blowing it out of proportion. The last thing we need is sic em getting nerfed to the point that it's seen purely unviable as a utility option while base damage remains generally higher than it really should be. (this assumes it really is too high take that with a grain of salt)

I cant say im a top percentile tier player but what i can say is that you dont only balance any game around the top percentile you do ideally do it for the middle to high tier level of play because this is where the majority of you players will be in most cases of any game. Balancing for the top percentile makes it imbalanced for anything lower and doing it for the entry level makes it imbalanced at anything above.If the game is imbalanced for people trying to climb then you see massive meta shifts as again that's where majority of players will be sitting and big portion of them move to whats busted at that current patch at that tier of play to climb and not get stuck because something thats just mechanically superior holds them back if they dont. While not all players play flavor of the patch many of them do.

While i do agree people should be rewarded for high risk plays that is also a matter of perspective as you said... most people wont agree something is risky especially if a build has options to slip out of mistakes and recover several times in a row. Most builds (even the glass cannon risky ones) will allow several mistakes to be made and its rare to have 1 mistake be promised defeat especially after nerfs. Then again there is a difference between making a risky play and having a risky build you can have safe low risk build and make risky plays with it and vice versa.

[Eurantien.4632]

@ZDragon.3046

Good write up. Thanks for taking the time and write out something thoughtful.

I just wanted to add that the reason I targeted sic em was because it addresses problems on soulbeast and on core. Soulbeast dmg and core ranger pet dmg. Im fine with sic em being unplayable. We could nerf GS and longbow damage, but it would then make high risk druid and core ranger builds have even less of a reward. Core ranger does not see top play - and I dont think it will. I dont think itll be common in mid tier play either except for this bursty pet build (and we know druid doesn't see that area of play - especially not as anything high risk). The reason for this is damage from longbow and GS arent actually high enough on these classes and the glassy pets are too squishy in teamfights (they even will die in 1v1s to certain things - by accident even!)

So the problem is really soulbeast damage mods... therefore sic em.

[monk seal.8079]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

Really sic em should just be removed from the game.

Strongly disagree with this recommendation because removing Sic 'Em from the game adversely affects ranger players in open world, meta events, raids, strike missions, fractals, and dungeons. A skill that is useful in other game modes should not be removed just to satisfy the small population of players in pvp.

[Eurantien.4632]

@monk seal.8079 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

Really sic em should just be removed from the game.

Strongly disagree with this recommendation because removing Sic 'Em from the game adversely affects ranger players in open world, meta events, raids, strike missions, fractals, and dungeons. A skill that is useful in other game modes should not be removed just to satisfy the small population of players in pvp.

I mean, it should do like 0% damage gains in PvP. Obviously they wont remove skills from the whole game. But they could number tweak it to useless in PvP.

[Eurantien.4632]

Duplicate post

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

before the nerfes many people considered it to out perform warrior in melee range so i mean have what you will with that.

What warriors are we using as a basis for this thesis? Silver 2? Maybe lower?

[Cyric.7813]

no, its not. end of story

[Math.5123]

Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

[Eurantien.4632]

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

Only moment of clarity is 50% and that's only on interrupts. Kinda hard to pull off that one.

Also nerfing those wont mean ranger still doesn't destroy people.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I would be happy with fresh reinforcement not doubling might anymore if that was the only change they made for soulbeast. also the warhorn trait in MM is bugged and still giving 6 stacks of might.

[Eurantien.4632]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:I would be happy with fresh reinforcement not doubling might anymore if that was the only change they made for soulbeast. also the warhorn trait in MM is bugged and still giving 6 stacks of might.

that build isn't doing the damage people are complaining about. Could be the next one though,

[Math.5123]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

Only moment of clarity is 50% and that's only on interrupts. Kinda hard to pull off that one.

Also nerfing those wont mean ranger still doesn't destroy people.

Name one other class with 50% modifiers. I dare you.

[Eurantien.4632]

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

Only moment of clarity is 50% and that's only on interrupts. Kinda hard to pull off that one.

Also nerfing those wont mean ranger still doesn't destroy people.

Name one other class with 50% modifiers. I dare you.

Name another class that relies on a single weapon skill and single hit to kill someone. I dare you.

Most people are dying to straight maul remorseless and sic em, WITHOUT moment of clarity. That damage mod isn't the problem. Moment of clarity offers a lot of counterplay and is only (maybe) a problem on soulbeast. The problem is Sic Em.

[Downstate.4697]

Problem is this meta favors crit damage and modifiers over straight power. Ranger has too many modifiers. Biggest culprit is attack of opportunity and sic em. Both deserve 50% damage modifier shaves

[Yasai.3549]

Just make Siccem apply 25 Vuln stacks instead of boosting the Ranger's damage.

Then change Marksmanship to increase damage per Vuln stack similar to Rev's Devastation line.

"BUT WE ALREADY APPLY ALOT OF VULN!"

Good. Make people burn cleanse on Vuln.Protection is too powerful anyway.

[Fantasylife.7981]

Condition dmg is too high and somehow ranger power dmg is too high as well.

[Math.5123]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

Only moment of clarity is 50% and that's only on interrupts. Kinda hard to pull off that one.

Also nerfing those wont mean ranger still doesn't destroy people.

Name one other class with 50% modifiers. I dare you.

Name another class that relies on a single weapon skill and single hit to kill someone. I dare you.

Most people are dying to straight maul remorseless and sic em, WITHOUT moment of clarity. That damage mod isn't the problem. Moment of clarity offers a lot of counterplay and is only (maybe) a problem on soulbeast. The problem is Sic Em.

Hammer guardian (being about double cooldown of maul), hammer warrior, greatsword guardian. Last one isn't a single hit, but a 2.5 second channel which is arguably harder to hit.

[ArlAlt.1630]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:Casual 50% modifiers in Marksman and Maul isn't helping.

Only moment of clarity is 50% and that's only on interrupts. Kinda hard to pull off that one.

Also nerfing those wont mean ranger still doesn't destroy people.

Name one other class with 50% modifiers. I dare you.

Name another class that relies on a single weapon skill and single hit to kill someone. I dare you.

Most people are dying to straight maul remorseless and sic em, WITHOUT moment of clarity. That damage mod isn't the problem. Moment of clarity offers a lot of counterplay and is only (maybe) a problem on soulbeast. The problem is Sic Em.

Shatter Mesmer, D/P thief come off the top. The notion that Ranger is universally screwed by ANET balancing is false. Mind you I already agreed with your point, or maybe I forgot to put it in writing.