Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Ranger and Thief relegated to small scale...when others can both zerg and small scale fight


Arheundel.6451

Recommended Posts

https://metabattle.com/wiki/WvW

This is mostly a reminder to Anet with the upcoming 3rd expansion, there is hope this time around these two professions will see a decent (not even asking for meta status) Zerg level of fight build and iteration, I am suggesting this because at this point all other professions enjoy both a zerg and small group presence...all except ranger and thief, been like this since launch.

It's not possible anymore to use the same excuse: best roamer because simply speaking they're not, I don't think there is a "best roamer" spec anymore, no build atm guarantee you impunity...you can be killed even on a SA deadeye, which represents the epitome of "running away"

-Revenants can zerg/small group with power and condi herald-Necros can zerg/small group with core necro-scourge and reaper-Engis have scrapper and holosmith-Guardians have firebrand, core guard and dragonhunter-Eles have Tempest and weaver-Warriors have spellbreaker and berseker-Mesmers have chronomancer, mirage and core mesmer

All the mentioned above, do well/great in both zerg and small scenario , when talk about small scale ofc I don't refer only to running ability on a flat surface kind of roaming. Sadly Ranger suffers from "class mechanic" issues to join zerg fight = the pets simply insta die to aoe and thieves can't be given an overarching sustain ability for very obvious reasons ; I don't know how Anet can fix this problem but.....

There would be no point in buying another expansion, play another elite...only to be once again a 1vs1 duellist

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 104
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I get where you are comming from with this, but I also feel I need to constantly point this out:

The "meta" or websites with popular build recommendations are both a blessing and a curse (much like ArcDPS or whatever else). They are a blessing because there are some nice people out there who do the work so you (as a player or leader of players) do not have to. They are curse because you as a player or a leader of players do not do the work to adapt to what you have. I get in constant arguments with people I know over this, because as you well know, people treat these things as gospel when they are not. The truth has always been that there are players who are not good enough to handle those builds and there are players who are too good to limit themselves to those builds.

When it comes the the Ranger and the Thief in larger scale gameplay the latter dominates. It is more a question of being above average that lets you leverage what those classes can bring to the table. However, if people spent more time developing their own builds and comps they would also develop more of their own style and that may fit less popular builds into comps more of the time at least.

What is true is that once people start motivating why certain classes are not in a given comp they rarely have good reasons. There may good reasons as to why they are not selected on a website but most people who deal in building squads do not have that depth of knowledge or fully utilizes that depth when they are limited by working with what they have got at any given time. In those situations though they still tend to talk down about non-meta (or far off-meta) classes and builds but they tend to accept a bunch of other rather questionable or poor choices that in many ways are worse.

That is where myths, like that Rangers wouldn't have good weapons for larger-scale gameplay, starts to brew.

Anyway, to wrap this up. Right now the Ranger is kind of meta or at least close off-meta, but perhaps not for the right reasons, with rather boring immobilization builds. However, if we look past just the current trends there have certainly been a number of different ways to play both Ranger and Thief in settings upwards of 50 players, they have just not really been preferred in situations where the 1 leads the silent 49 and tells them to find a website because s/he can't deal with all the bull of sorting them out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Arheundel.6451" said:It's not possible anymore to use the same excuse: best roamer because simply speaking they're notExcept they still are. Neither class has any excuse. Especially not the thief as they still enjoy permastealth.

Also there is a reason GW2 doesnt have so many limitations on your "main". You are meant to play different classes. So pick another if you want a specific purpose. As you say - almost all of them can do it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meanwhile... after two expansions... necros are still waiting for a roaming build.

The core mechanic of the mentioned classes hardly allows massive AOE or support since it is impossible to balance.

Take thief: in its core it has way too much mobility to add strong AOE.Take ranger: way too much range and AI support.

That's the reason why necros don't get mobility that's not limited to clunky speed rune or pre set wurm port mechanics.

In 2014 ANet promised that their elite specs would add different ways to play a class. After two expansions we know they lack the ability (maybe it's game engine limitations, maybe it's lack of creativity) to design elite specs that define new roles.

An AOE thief elite spec would require extreme mobility limitations the moment you pick the traitline. Not just "You can wear weapon xy and use yz utility skills.", but something like "You can wear weapon xy and use yz utility skills, that grant big AOE effects. Your stealth uptime is capped to 1 second. Your leaps and shadowsteps are limited to 600 range and have 50% increased cooldown / initiative costs."

And then think about the maintenance effort for all these splittings...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Arheundel.6451" said:
It's not possible anymore to use the same excuse: best roamer
because simply speaking they're notExcept they still are. Neither class has any excuse.
Especially
not the thief as they still enjoy permastealth.

Also there is a reason GW2 doesnt have so many limitations on your "main". You are meant to play different classes. So pick another if you want a specific purpose. As you say - almost all of them can do it.

Except that they're not by a long shot! There is no duelling ranger or thief build that cannot be demolished by a say guardian, necro, engi etc etc....feel free to try and prove me wrong. Never had a problem with switching class especially because...I do that already and for that reason I can talk on the other hand you give no explanation why ranger and thief should be barred from zerg play.

People play burn guardian in small scale all the times or reaper burst or tank scrapper with rocket boot .....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Arheundel.6451 said:Except that they're not by a long shot! There is no duelling ranger or thief build that cannot be demolished by a say guardian, necro, engi etc etc....A good roaming experience is about picking your targets and minimizing situations where you can be overwhelmed by numbers.

A thief does only die, when he wants to. He can escape from a 50 man blob with two skills and not even another thief can stop him.

And if you have a good terrain awareness, then ranger is the king of roaming due to its range and mobility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"KrHome.1920" said:Meanwhile... after two expansions... necros are still waiting for a roaming build.

The core mechanic of the mentioned classes hardly allows massive AOE or support since it is impossible to balance.

Take thief: in its core it has way too much mobility to add strong AOE.Take ranger: way too much range and AI support.

That's the reason why necros don't get mobility that's not limited to clunky speed rune or pre set wurm port mechanics.

In 2014 ANet promised that their elite specs would add different ways to play a class. After two expansions we know they lack the ability (maybe it's game engine limitations, maybe it's lack of creativity) to design elite specs that define new roles.

An AOE thief elite spec would require extreme mobility limitations the moment you pick the traitline. Not just "You can wear weapon xy and use yz utility skills.", but something like "You can wear weapon xy and use yz utility skills, that grant big AOE effects. Your stealth uptime is capped to 1 second. Your leaps and shadowsteps are limited to 600 range and have 50% increased cooldown / initiative costs."

And then think about the maintenance effort for all these splittings...

Ranger "range" has been neutered by numerous nerfs and now even your glassiest build will fail to burst down anything sitting above full zerk stat combo, a burst that comes from the use of 30s+ CD utilities on top of 3 offensive traitlines/skills. Let me not start on "barrier and reflect" spam which completely shuts down any resemblance of ranged dmg

Thief uses shortbow and shadowsteap for mobility..for any AoE application they would have to give up that mobility which is the only thing keeping them away from insta death, for how much we all(including me) hate thieves...let's try to be less biased in this case

We don't know what the devs are really capable off...sometimes they nail it ( dragon hunter - chronomancer -scrapper -tempest -reaper - soulbeast)..others they don't, we can only pray but god it'd be a no deal for me if they'll ask me to play yet another duellist build on ranger

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Arheundel.6451" said:Ranger "range" has been neutered by numerous nerfs and now even your glassiest build will fail to burst down anything sitting above full zerk stat combo, a burst that comes from the use of 30s+ CD utilities on top of 3 offensive traitlines/skills. Let me not start on "barrier and reflect" spam which completely shuts down any resemblance of ranged dmgI fight bursty soulbeasts all day. You should learn from them. They burst harder than a shatter mesmer from higher range, on a lower cooldown, with more mobility and a better melee weapon for the case that you can manage to close the gap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:Except that they're not by a long shot! There is no duelling ranger or thief build that cannot be demolished by a say guardian, necro, engi etc etc....A good roaming experience is about picking your targets and minimizing situations where you can be overwhelmed by numbers.

A thief does only die, when he wants to. It can escape from a 50 man blob with two skills and not even another thief can stop it.

And if you have a good terrain awareness, then ranger is the king of roaming due to its range and mobility.

Dragon hunter reveal + sic'em can make short work of your hopes of escaping on thief, not impossible to run away...but these days it's not impossible to kill a thief before he can manage to run away

With little to no access to unblockable, any ranged burst can be quickly be taken care of and then a herald or dragon hunter or thief can easily reach you and kill you off that's because you'd be running a glass cannon to deal any resemblance of dmg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"Arheundel.6451" said:Ranger "range" has been neutered by numerous nerfs and now even your glassiest build will fail to burst down anything sitting above full zerk stat combo, a burst that comes from the use of 30s+ CD utilities on top of 3 offensive traitlines/skills. Let me not start on "barrier and reflect" spam which completely shuts down any resemblance of ranged dmgI fight bursty soulbeasts all day. You should learn from them. They burst harder than a shatter mesmer from higher range, on a lower cooldown, with more mobility and a better melee weapon for the case that you can manage to close the gap.

Unless you catch somebody off guard while/after a fight..you won't kill any half decent player on a burst pewpew ranger.....with all this talk of ranger longbow...what are you trying to prove? I don't see the point with your discussion. You seem to forget about : condi heralds, burn guardians, reapers, core signet necros, bunker weavers, holosmiths, scrappers, spellbreakers etc etc . The point of this thread was to emphasize the lack of decent zerg builds for ranger and thief while other profession enjoy a healthy presence both in small and large scale...I see no problem with my request.

If I must change class to enjoy large group fights ..fine....but then we need to take a hard long look at all other roamer specs...they shouldn't be able to even touch a ranger or thief then and that simply because those professions already enjoy their big zerg fights

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I appreciate how @subversiontwo.7501 essentially ended the topic with the first post but everyone gets in a tussle over the semantics of roaming instead.

Thief and Ranger both have a couple of different builds to be used in zergs. Zergs however are lead by one person, and quite frankly in my experience that one person barely registers on knowing how a large scale fight operates, much less how to optimize their tools to achieve X or Y. If all you know how to do is shout 'PUSH', well your builds are going to look like things that are good at pushing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ranger has never been in a zerg "meta" - poor design and was laughably under-powered on release. Since then they've become one of the strongest solo/small scale classes via buffs and Elite Specs. You can play in a zerg especially on a Soulbeast however the reason Ranger has never been part of the zerg meta is because everything a Ranger can do (All specs) can be done by another class better, which is what the "meta" is all about - the highest performance of/for X role.

Thieves were part of the "meta" for a while - Daredevil spec. The damage and evasion they had/have access to was nearly unmatched. Pop in, spam Staff 5 and dodges, pop out unscathed. However, unlike Rangers, Thieves don't really add much to a zerg in terms of support, so to say that nothing a Thief does really helps others around them, rather than purely themselves. Yes, many other classes have similar builds etc but it's a Thief, the clue's in the name and the design...

LRDR - Rangers and Thieves are more suited to roaming/small scale. Other classes can do what they do but better/more efficiently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"subversiontwo.7501" said:I get where you are comming from with this, but I also feel I need to constantly point this out:

The "meta" or websites with popular build recommendations are both a blessing and a curse (much like ArcDPS or whatever else). They are a blessing because there are some nice people out there who do the work so you (as a player or leader of players) do not have to. They are curse because you as a player or a leader of players do not do the work to adapt to what you have. I get in constant arguments with people I know over this, because as you well know, people treat these things as gospel when they are not. The truth has always been that there are players who are not good enough to handle those builds and there are players who are too good to limit themselves to those builds.

When it comes the the Ranger and the Thief in larger scale gameplay the latter dominates. It is more a question of being above average that lets you leverage what those classes can bring to the table. However, if people spent more time developing their own builds and comps they would also develop more of their own style and that may fit less popular builds into comps more of the time at least.

What is true is that once people start motivating why certain classes are not in a given comp they rarely have good reasons. There may good reasons as to why they are not selected on a website but most people who deal in building squads do not have that depth of knowledge or fully utilizes that depth when they are limited by working with what they have got at any given time. In those situations though they still tend to talk down about non-meta (or far off-meta) classes and builds but they tend to accept a bunch of other rather questionable or poor choices that in many ways are worse.

That is where myths, like that Rangers wouldn't have good weapons for larger-scale gameplay, starts to brew.

Anyway, to wrap this up. Right now the Ranger is kind of meta or at least close off-meta, but perhaps not for the right reasons, with rather boring immobilization builds. However, if we look past just the current trends there have certainly been a number of different ways to play both Ranger and Thief in settings upwards of 50 players, they have just not really been preferred in situations where the 1 leads the silent 49 and tells them to find a website because s/he can't deal with all the bull of sorting them out.

How is the lack of ranged aoe weapons a myth?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Give Soulbeast a weapon like rev hammer and it would instantly be meta for zerging.

But why even talk about it.We told anet that it was always the weapon choice that holds ranger back.

They should give every class a new weapon baseline to fix problems like that.

Kitten, doesnt even need to be ranged. Just any non projectile weapon with decent aoe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Arheundel.6451 said:

How is the lack of ranged aoe weapons a myth?

A ranger can chill at the top of damage meters with barrage by itself. I've done it. To say nothing of carrying the ability to make banner wielders lives hell with unblockable OWP piercing rapid fires at the same time.

It's a matter of knowing how to position to do those things, knowing which targets you actually need to hit and how, and thus has a fairly high skill ceiling in order to be effective.

The contention is that in a 25 man group, you would be better off with say... 5 scourges 5 heralds when the actual best thing would likely look something akin to 3 scourges 2 reapers 3 heralds 1 soulbeast 1 weaver. But the utilization of the latter requires far more commander knowledge and player knowledge. The former just requires the commander to say 'BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB'. If you want rangers and thieves to be able to do the latter, well someone is getting kicked out, because you can only have 5 of those builds given party size.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get where you are coming from. I used to main thief and it was the only profession I would play in WvW for the first 2-3 years of this game. Back in the day with broken skills and no meta you could play anything you wanted. I did mess around with a hammer warrior and staff Elementalist, but I was stubborn and would mainly play thief.

It wasn't until the HOT expansion that I seriously starting playing other professions. I setup a Revenant, Reaper, and later a Dragonhunter with ascended armor. After seeing how effective those professions were I could no longer play thief in zergs. You just feel outgunned and risk being a bag with all of the random AOE damage. Now that we have templates I'm mainly playing as my (Burn Guard/Minstrel Firebrand) or my (Hybrid Scourge/Power Reaper). The templates allow you to pick the best build for your current situation.

I just want to encourage you to try other professions. It's fun trying out new builds and once you have several professions setup you are more resilient to nerfs or shifts in the meta. It also allows you to use the right tool for the right job. For example, nothing compares to a staff Elementalist when you are outnumbered and defending a keep.

I also honestly don't think there is any way to make Thief or Ranger meta. If you are stuck on those professions, then your only options would be to try the staff Daredevil and immobilize Soulbeast from metabattle.

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do fine in large scale fights on daredevil and deadeye. They're both mostly the same build and template and mostly I pack my kit to cover people and open stuff up. I don't try to make a tanky build, my build is still kind of generic and not a huge amount of health, but the secondary mods that go off from traits and gear slot items can go a long way if staggered well and shortbow blast, shortbow 5 port, and Death's Retreat are great in team fights. Much of what it comes down to in large fights is calming down and realizing that most of the circles and effects don't require you to blow through your cooldowns and resource pools, you mostly need to read your side and the other side to know what people are plotting and panning camera to watch all your blind angles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:Give Soulbeast a weapon like rev hammer and it would instantly be meta for zerging.If there is any one change where the mechanics are rather wonky, I would say that they could do well in changing the Staff auto from a target-beam to a narrow and long cone (ie., like the Engi spray can but longer and thinner or like the Staff 4 roots). That would make the between-celestials play far more sleek, engaging and fun. It would also enhance celestial uptime for players who may still be learning alot.

Also, God already responded to the question with most things you can do with a Longbow. However, I want to add one thing to that (even if I did not say ranged AoE in my initial post, that was just Arehundel's interpretation, that everything had to be ranged) and that is that even if there are alot of reflects and projectile-hate in the game, the Ranger is still one of the more mobile classes and you don't have to stand on tag to play with the tag.

It seems to be an increasingly lost art where even alot of Eles these days only seems to hug tag, spam fields and complain about reflections, whereas more experienced Eles understands that they have high mobility - can get behind hostile flanks and wards - and that their burst damage output drastically improves from positions where they can combine fields and autos. That was bread and butter before.

You can't always expect easy pickings off the tag but players with some level of experience will know how to position, move and when it is appropriate to be where. That goes for the Ranger too. Especially now when unblock-rotation bursts or trait-reset volleys may not be as devastating after the damage nerfs. Reflects are a thing and they will impact your damage more than the Revs for example, but all those classes excel when they learn how to play around the reflects. A Rev that supplements reticle AoE with autos is also a better Rev than one that just hugs tag to pirate ship (not including melee Revs ofc).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Dagger.2035" said:I also honestly don't think there is any way to make Thief or Ranger meta. If you are stuck on those professions, then your only options would be to try the staff Daredevil and immobilize Soulbeast from metabattle.

People have this notion that that Thief or Ranger are prevented from joining a squad inside WvW. All this really means is that if you were to rank professions and elites, from best to worse, in terms of their effectiveness in zergs, Thief and Ranger would be at the bottom, and in any content in any game mode, somebody has to be at the bottom. A decent player can have an impact with Ranger or Thief in a zerg, and nobody can argue against that. Thing is, that same player, if equally skilled in other professions, would have more of an impact on Necro, Rev, etc.

It's just like PvE fractals - even in T4s, you don't need a healer, but in pug groups people like to have one as it makes things easier, and of all the healer builds, the Healbrand is superior in terms of boons and carry potential, so pugs in T4s always demand a Healbrand. Same thing holds true for zerg commanders. If they are opening it up to pugs, they don't people's "personal favorite" build, they want copy/paste off metabattle.

You want to play Ranger or Thief in a zerg? Become good at it, join a guild and demonstrate that greatness to the commander(s), and when you run with them, open or closed, you will get your wish.

Fact is, if I wanted to pick a profession for OW PvE stuff that had good AoE and cleave potential, the bottom of that list for me would be Thief and Ranger, so it's not a surprise that they fall behind other builds in a zerg. Equally not shocking, when in a small engagement, where single target DPS and training your target is more critical, Thief and Ranger are at the top of the food chain, while a builds like Scourge, Staff Ele and Hammer Rev have to work harder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Arheundel.6451" said:snip

The reason Ranger has no place in many zergs has to do with the braindead way the vast majority of players use the class.Stance Share and Immob spam are excellent contributors in WvW groups. Druid can do condi clear on a competitive level with Spellbreaker and Firebrand.A good soulbeast absolutely has a place in a t1 zerg.

But what do "Ranger mains" do?Pew pew uselessly from the top of walls and squirrel off tag ad-nauseum hoping for a scrap of WxP.They get constantly jebaited out of position, they think nothing about what they bring to groups.They rock Longbow like it's the only weapon in their kit ignoring the value that Axe and GS can bring.They LB4 targets out of melee's position instead of using the skill situationally, and they think Barrage is acceptable damage.

Most comms would be happy if your average ranger could Push on tag, keep their supply up and build on time....But you know what?Most "Ranger mains" can't manage these simple tasks and somehow think it's the job of an elite spec to give them a place in a zerg instead of just playing at the same minimum standard as the rest of us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anet just needs to give Rangers and teefs AoE Boons/heals/damage that is better than other classes, then boom, they are in. It's all about the boon ball AoE. Maybe next expansion they will do this. Hopefully though they kill the boon ball. Give either of these classes a hammer with a huge aoe on it and they will be in the club.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...