Core ranger pets and other issues

[Arheundel.6451]

@Erzian.5218 said:

@"Krispera.5087" said:Birds never got changed since LAUNCH (2012!) and it's now people are freaking out about them ???

ANet nerfed all other viable pets and ranger burst, so people just did the most logical thing, went bursty and glassier. More dangerous.

Birds get killed so easily and the minute you kite around, pets will have a difficult time to follow the target.

As for GS, they already nerfed Ranger GS and people want it more nerfed ? What do people even want Ranger to do ? Hit wet noodle and be irrelevant ? What happened, again, is that they nerfed Axe MH damage and Serpent Strike on Sword. People did the next logical thing, they went to something more RELIANT, the GS.

Past seasons actually had more diversity with Ranger builds, but now all builds are all more or less the same. Core, Sbeast or even Druid : LB/GS with WS tree line. If you further nerf Ranger and their pets, you'll see more meme condi builds and people were already crying over it in 2v2.

Who gonna check on monster bruisers like Ele, Necs and Guards after those nerfs ?

The reasaon they weren't an issue (although I have already complained about owl damage during core times, not on forums but 1v1 servers) is because ranger over all was complete garbage and nobody played with the exception of spirit ranger when people just complained about spirits instead. When ranger finally became a strong class with HoT, birds and other pets were unplayable because of the absurd AoE damage that HoT brought to the game while also being eclipsed by the ridiculously over powered smoke scale and bristleback. HoT pets were nerfed many times but core pets were still unplayable as they had too little survivabilty to survive in the previous meta games because of the aforementioned AoE damage that was still present (and still is on classes like holo).However, since the recent big balance patch the damage is overall much lower (a good direcetion imo), thus pets like birds and cats (not only tiger) thrive in 1v1s (with the exception of holosmiths who still have too much AoE for pets to be useful and to some extend revenant) as their damage hasn't been adjusted. Most rangers have even dropped smoke scale (best utility pet with good ability to chase) in favor of tiger+bird, which beats smoke scale + x in ranger 1v1 about every time.Erazik and me both have complained about it, kol thinks it's dumb and high profile players of other classes (e.g. sindrener) have complained about it as well. It's questionable design when pets (AI) deal more damage with their hardly telegraphed attacks than players do with telegraphed damage skills (not talking about tiger f2 here as that one is very telegraphed and easily dodgeable).Is ranger the most broken class right now? No, but that doesn't mean that those pets regularly hitting for 3k+ with their autoattack is fine, nor are 5k+ on bird f2 ok considering that it has almost no cast time or animation.

https://ibb.co/0D90tQ8

1x maul+ 1x f2 + 1x bird autoattack against another ranger in a random ranked game. Admittedly very lucky with crits but 18.2k damage from 3 attacks which together occur in about 1.5 seconds (quickness) is still "a bit" high.

Shouldn't they buff the utility of other non dmg pets in the same patch that dmg pets get nerfed? Nerfing cats and birds will only affect 1v1 as that's where you can use cats/birds..everywhere else they insta die ( not that I expect people to care about it...), having pets with zero dmg and 45s CD F2 is not what I would consider..balanced, dmg pets may have not received the nerf bat like other class with last patch...but for certain 80% of the remaining pets didn't get buffed since 2012.

[Arheundel.6451]

@"fashion.6712" said:I dont get this nerf carousel. Class x elite spec is too powerful, nerf! They nerf it. Class x changes to core because elite isnt viable anymore. Class x adapts to it, kills people. People shout "core too powerful, nerf". They nerf it. People switch class. Adapt. Kill people. Now that class becomes class x. Rince and repeat.

Yeah...that's pretty much every online game with a PvP component, you can visit the pvp forum of all the major MMOs atm...all of them littered with nerf threads..that's MMO for you

[DragonFury.6243]

nothing to see here

[Axl.8924]

I have a problem with nerfing pets.

Pets at least with core are part of what rangers are. I don't like the idea of making all pet damage useless.

[Eurantien.4632]

@"DragonFury.6243" said:nothing to see here

Why didn't you dodge the tiger? We can see from this damage that even if you eat all 10 hits of rapid fire and maul. You still won't be dead. You're dodging the wrong things.

[Tayga.3192]

@Eurantien.4632 said:We can see from this damage that even if you eat all 10 hits of rapid fire and maul. You still won't be dead.

It also counts downstate

[Eurantien.4632]

@Tayga.3192 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:We can see from this damage that even if you eat all 10 hits of rapid fire and maul. You still won't be dead.

It also counts downstate

I am saying, 6929 dmg from rapid fire + 4515 dmg from maul is not enought to kill someone. I know in the screenshot he just ate all of it on purpose, but if he tried to dodge... I am saying dodging the pet is more important than dodging core ranger damage.

[Math.5123]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@Tayga.3192 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:We can see from this damage that even if you eat all 10 hits of rapid fire and maul. You still won't be dead.

It also counts downstate

I am saying, 6929 dmg from rapid fire + 4515 dmg from maul is not enought to kill someone. I know in the screenshot he just ate all of it on purpose, but if he tried to dodge... I am saying dodging the pet is more important than dodging core ranger damage.

6929 is still very high in this meta. Compare it to something like guardian gs 2 which is melee on top of having lower output. The ranger "just dodge lul" is getting a bit old at this point.

Edit: 4.5k potentially every 4.5 seconds is also very very high for a skill that isn't really melee based.

[Axl.8924]

Can we please not kill rangers by nerfing the pets into the ground?

If you nerf bird dmg and all that, then you create an issue where pets become pointless. Their dmg will be weak and they will die fast.

[aymnad.9023]

@Erzian.5218 said:Erazik and me both have complained about it, kol thinks it's dumb and high profile players of other classes (e.g. sindrener) have complained about it as well. It's questionable design when pets (AI) deal more damage with their hardly telegraphed attacks than players do with telegraphed damage skills (not talking about tiger f2 here as that one is very telegraphed and easily dodgeable).The frequent animation-less F2 is the main issue imo on birds. As for autos because of the weird semi-static animation I am never sure if they work fine or not.

I would also add scrapper which does a decent job vs them since they just spam stuff on point and get barrier while killing pet.

[shadowpass.4236]

Bird and Tiger damage are high but both of those pets are squishier than someone running berserker amulet. The pets also don't get condi clear from wilderness survival nor do they dodge when the ranger does.

I think the bird autos are pretty annoying (2k is pretty high) but they are extremely easy to kill. If you kill the ranger's pets, you win the fight. No other class can get shut down that hard when you counter their class mechanic. Killing the pets means the ranger loses damage, utility, condi clear, boons, etc. for 48 seconds with beastmastery. That's insanely high value for simply bursting the pets after the ranger pet swaps.

Mauls hit for around 3.3k on a crit on demolishers amulet. Anything higher than that is with modifiers from marks and it only bumps it up to 4.3k not counting moment of clarity. If you nerf maul damage more, any builds that don't rely on modifiers will flat out be unable to kill anyone because asides from our pets, the only things that can deal enough damage to kill on the core build are mauls and rapid fires. So there are only two skills you have to avoid.

But w/e. Bird and tiger damage is high but if you nerf the damage on our glass pets too much, they die so fast they'll be useless. The tradeoff for the damage is that they can be killed very quickly. Even if you don't kill the pet immediately, the ranger will be forced to call it back and kite away or risk having to break combat (if you chase, you will kill) to survive.

Just to give a reference: it takes less time to kill a bird or tiger than it takes to kill an AFK core necro running berserker amulet.

[Eurantien.4632]

I will trade 15% pet damage for 25% pet tankiness

[Chaith.8256]

@Eurantien.4632 said:I will trade 15% pet damage for 25% pet tankiness

I would trade $15.00 USD for $25.00 USD

[Eurantien.4632]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:I will trade 15% pet damage for 25% pet tankiness

I would trade $15.00 USD for $25.00 USD

If we are trying to balance pets. This might be an equal trade. The fact that pets, with Beasmastery - the traitline for pets - can die in 1v1s in under 15s just to cleave is insane..

[Mime.9308]

yes nerf pet damage pls, but like others pointed out there is some need for defensive buffs, like maybe more utility to heal pets or have survival skills cleanse pet aswell. for now too much of rangers dps is done passivly by pet while having an incredible, too stong, toolkit for survival/kiting. also i hate to see markmanship get nerfed but there is an insane amount of damage modifiers which makes the pets hit like a nuke and allows soulbeasts to hit 14k mauls with merged maul skill f1 (animation almost invisible)and with gs maul aswell.

[Eurantien.4632]

@Ashkew.6584 said:yes nerf pet damage pls, but like others pointed out there is some need for defensive buffs, like maybe more utility to heal pets or have survival skills cleanse pet aswell. for now too much of rangers dps is done passivly by pet while having an incredible, too stong, toolkit for survival/kiting. also i hate to see markmanship get nerfed but there is an insane amount of damage modifiers which makes the pets hit like a nuke and allows soulbeasts to hit 14k mauls with merged maul skill f1 (animation almost invisible)and with gs maul aswell.

Merged pig Maul needs a nerf. Just had a silver tier burn guard nuke my pets in under 5s, wasn't even targetting them and I was actively trying to keep them alive.

[Mime.9308]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@Ashkew.6584 said:yes nerf pet damage pls, but like others pointed out there is some need for defensive buffs, like maybe more utility to heal pets or have survival skills cleanse pet aswell. for now too much of rangers dps is done passivly by pet while having an incredible, too stong, toolkit for survival/kiting. also i hate to see markmanship get nerfed but there is an insane amount of damage modifiers which makes the pets hit like a nuke and allows soulbeasts to hit 14k mauls with merged maul skill f1 (animation almost invisible)and with gs maul aswell.

Merged pig Maul needs a nerf. Just had a silver tier burn guard nuke my pets in under 5s, wasn't even targetting them and I was actively trying to keep them alive.

haha yea burn guards are funny on birds , yea really need a way of cleansing pet

[Erzian.5218]

Burn guard still loses vs the ranger without their pet though.

[Eurantien.4632]

@Erzian.5218 said:Burn guard still loses vs the ranger without their pet though.

There are things out there where this isn't the case.

[Erzian.5218]

Yes, it is very annoying outside of 1v1s if that is what you mean with that. I am not disagreeing that many ranger pets need defensive buffs either through more stats or preferably though being affected by the ranger’s condition removal or both, but the damage of some pets is still ridiculous even when you take their survivability issues into account.

[Avatar.3568]

@Erzian.5218 said:Yes, it is very annoying outside of 1v1s if that is what you mean with that. I am not disagreeing that many ranger pets need defensive buffs either through more stats or preferably though being affected by the ranger’s condition removal or both, but the damage of some pets is still ridiculous even when you take their survivability issues into account.

That's true but ranger is just in pretty bad position to balance

Core needs the pets to do dmg atm, the normal attacks just do mostly no dmgs

But if you take soilbeast, the dmg on weapons are still ridiculous (if you go marksmanship)

If you nerf pet dmg but buff weapons everybody crys about soulbeast dps

If you nerf pet dmg but increase sustainability everybody crys about how unkillable ranger is

If you just nerf, ranger is going to be useless again

Maybe the team should adjust the other classes to ranger now

[Lazze.9870]

Imagine dying consistently to pets.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Avatar.3568 said:

@"Erzian.5218" said:Yes, it is very annoying outside of 1v1s if that is what you mean with that. I am not disagreeing that many ranger pets need defensive buffs either through more stats or preferably though being affected by the ranger’s condition removal or both, but the damage of some pets is still ridiculous even when you take their survivability issues into account.

That's true but ranger is just in pretty bad position to balance

Core needs the pets to do dmg atm, the normal attacks just do mostly no dmgs

But if you take soilbeast, the dmg on weapons are still ridiculous (if you go marksmanship)

If you nerf pet dmg but buff weapons everybody crys about soulbeast dps

If you nerf pet dmg but increase sustainability everybody crys about how unkillable ranger is

If you just nerf, ranger is going to be useless again

Maybe the team should adjust the other classes to ranger now

People would cry either way, as dev you just need to make sure the class is viable and fun to play...the only way pvpers would consider ranger as balanced is if...the ranger itself poses no threat whatsoever even to a bronze peon ...basically "balanced" on these forum means trash tier, the moment you start killing people with a build..they'll call it Op and make a nerf thread

[Eurantien.4632]

@Erzian.5218 said:Yes, it is very annoying outside of 1v1s if that is what you mean with that. I am not disagreeing that many ranger pets need defensive buffs either through more stats or preferably though being affected by the ranger’s condition removal or both, but the damage of some pets is still ridiculous even when you take their survivability issues into account.

It's just the problem with ranger, every pet should have slight varations in core stats and then the rest scale off of ranger stats. If ranger goes zerk, pets should do big damage and be squishy

but right now ranger can go tanky and pets can still do damage its the same problem with Beastmaster ranger in 2013,, and Druid when it came out, and Soulbeast when it came out.

and WS is AGAIN still the root of the problem. 1 traitline providing all the tankiness and survivability ranger needs.

[Avatar.3568]

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@Erzian.5218 said:Yes, it is very annoying outside of 1v1s if that is what you mean with that. I am not disagreeing that many ranger pets need defensive buffs either through more stats or preferably though being affected by the ranger’s condition removal or both, but the damage of some pets is still ridiculous even when you take their survivability issues into account.

It's just the problem with ranger, every pet should have slight varations in core stats and then the rest scale off of ranger stats. If ranger goes zerk, pets should do big damage and be squishy

but right now ranger can go tanky and pets can still do damage its the same problem with Beastmaster ranger in 2013,, and Druid when it came out, and Soulbeast when it came out.

and WS is AGAIN still the root of the problem. 1 traitline providing all the tankiness and survivability ranger needs.

Ws should be splitted up, some of the usefull traits should go to the 300 sec cd placeholder