May 2021 Poll: Are you happy about the current state of ranger?

[Arheundel.6451]

3 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

No.

1. The core mechanic has too many issues.

2. Druid is incapable of being a decent support in pvp/wvw. Not just because of flaws within the elite spec, but lack of reworks on core ranger traits and skills that would benefit such a role. The Nature Magic trait line especially is underdeveloped in that regard and should be more focused on "support", or at least have its few support options reworked or buffed significantly.

3. Core mechanic is even worse when you pick druid. Would arguably have been better off as a support spec if the pet was replaced entirely for a new set of F1-F4 skills unique to druid, despite the fact it would hurt the spec's dueling and roaming capabilities.

4. Lackluster AoE and groundtargeted damage skills (enough with the projectiles, please). This could change with any elite spec, but I get the feeling EoD will give us some AI heavy nonsense that will pull the profession in the opposite direction. Give ranger a decent weapon and some good damage utility skills, and it would probably work as a pure damage dealer in wvw zergs similiar to core guardian/dragonhunter these days.

 

TL;DR: flawed core mechanic (in all modes) and lackluster team fight and large scale options (pvp/wvw). Potential is there, but Anet doesn't act on it.

I agree with everything except n1, I love how core ranger play even more than soulbeast. Core is viable literally in every game mode where other elites fail to do so. Yeah I am tired also of everything being projectile, you get used to it and know how to work around it but kitten...enough with projectiles, there is reflect and block everywhere you look now

[Lazze.9870]

6 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I agree with everything except n1, I love how core ranger play even more than soulbeast. Core is viable literally in every game mode where other elites fail to do so. Yeah I am tired also of everything being projectile, you get used to it and know how to work around it but kitten...enough with projectiles, there is reflect and block everywhere you look now

Viable, but not always great. Pets are holding core back as a damage dealer in pve, and is useless in larger team fights in pvp/wvw. Druid and soulbeast is also "viable" in all modes, but they occupy the same roles as core do (I can't stress enough how stupid it is that a healer elite spec is lackluster in team fights). Exception being that soulbeast and druid both can act as immob spammers in wvw zergs, but that's still a niche role.

[Deepcuts.9740]

To not make a long list, the main gripe with Druid is: Spirit activation time is far to long.

Sometimes, without being interrupted, the spirit will not activate. It is a real chore to activate them all.

Just for fun, on a necro with all utilities set to some sort of minion, including the elite and heal, press  6 7 8 9 0 (or whatever your binds are) decently fast. I bet 99% of the time all minions will spawn without a problem.

Now, do this with a druid with all spirits. Just tested now, only two Spirits activated.

On top of that, the spirits are static, while the minions move with you.

If spirits would activate and move like Necro's minions, I would be happy. Even only the activation time and I would still be happy.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Deepcuts.9740

[Substance E.4852]

On 5/18/2021 at 9:35 PM, KeyOrion.9506 said:

I'm still listening to Discord for WvW.  They're still spat on, "don't bring anything to the group" every week of every month of every year.  Been playing Ranger in GW2 for 8 years.  And for the last 5 of those years it's "Ranger's are so useless."  "Ranger's can't main."  "Ranger's don't bring anything to group play."  Of course Anet listens to the guys that go "Ranger's are OP, they need to be nerfed...", and all I can think of is..."Excuse me?"  I listen to discord day after day, week after week in WvW channels, and it's ranger's suck, rangers can't do this or that...and then we're called OP, and then we get nerfed?  Excuse me?  I don't get it.  For WvW, we suck, and we're "role specific", and then the few people that say we're OP and our Dmg needs to go down, and our boons for specific Specializations are super max.....I don't see it.  I mained Ranger in GW1, and we were considered "meh" in elite missions, and then I'm maining ranger in GW2, and it's this "go roam on the map, or help the team out and play a different class..." how the hell are we OP, if were spat on?  Basically Ranger fills a "niche" and that niche is pretty much useless according to some within a large community of players in certain non PvE fields.  So my current assessment of ranger is, NO, i'm not happy with the current status of ranger.

It makes more sense when you realize that the community (especially WvW) just plain hates the Ranger class for whatever reason/s

If you complain that Ranger has no role in WvW team comps, they'll tell you to go roam because the Ranger is a "roaming class"

Immediately after this, they'll then go make a post complaining that the Ranger is too good at roaming and needs massive nerfs

It's the same duplicitous kitten you see when you ask Anet to fix Druid so it's not limited to healbot for Raids

"Well it's good in raids" is immediately followed by posts demanding that Anet give us more options for heal roles which would only make the Druid even more irrelevant

I've even see people say we should get rid of Frost Spirit's buff so other healers are more appealing

Rangers being stacked in speedclear meme comps in fractals was something that needed immediate nuke from orbit nerfing but rolling through content with 5 of the same condi cheese class is A-OK 👌

Edited May 23, 2021 by Substance E.4852

[Leonidrex.5649]

3 hours ago, Substance E.4852 said:

It makes more sense when you realize that the community (especially WvW) just plain hates the Ranger class for whatever reason/s

If you complain that Ranger has no role in WvW team comps, they'll tell you to go roam because the Ranger is a "roaming class"

Immediately after this, they'll then go make a post complaining that the Ranger is too good at roaming and needs massive nerfs

It's the same duplicitous kitten you see when you ask Anet to fix Druid so it's not limited to healbot for Raids

"Well it's good in raids" is immediately followed by posts demanding that Anet give us more options for heal roles which would only make the Druid even more irrelevant

I've even see people say we should get rid of Frost Spirit's buff so other healers are more appealing

Rangers being stacked in speedclear meme comps in fractals was something that needed immediate nuke from orbit nerfing but rolling through content with 5 of the same condi cheese class is A-OK 👌

it boils down to LB being broken with its 1900 range instead off 1500, and WvW being a flat terrain with almost no real LoS.
Every class has to put waaaay too much effort to even close the gap, and even then stealth -> reposition -> gs dodge spam -> stealth -> reposition and you just go back again and again to overtuned range.

[Arheundel.6451]

16 hours ago, Substance E.4852 said:

It makes more sense when you realize that the community (especially WvW) just plain hates the Ranger class for whatever reason/s

If you complain that Ranger has no role in WvW team comps, they'll tell you to go roam because the Ranger is a "roaming class"

Immediately after this, they'll then go make a post complaining that the Ranger is too good at roaming and needs massive nerfs

It's the same duplicitous kitten you see when you ask Anet to fix Druid so it's not limited to healbot for Raids

"Well it's good in raids" is immediately followed by posts demanding that Anet give us more options for heal roles which would only make the Druid even more irrelevant

I've even see people say we should get rid of Frost Spirit's buff so other healers are more appealing

Rangers being stacked in speedclear meme comps in fractals was something that needed immediate nuke from orbit nerfing but rolling through content with 5 of the same condi cheese class is A-OK 👌

I can play guardian, warrior...even core ele d/d and ranger remains the easiest class to kill , over 90% of ranger attacks are single , the main weaknesses of the class are: 

 

1)Lack of strong AoE, outside Whirling Defense and Maul , the class completely lack Aoe presence, making it very easy to shut down and kite compared to other classes

2) Over 90% of the attacks are projectiles with just Signet of the Hunt to apply unblockable, literally every profession is ripe with blocks, reflect, looking for an opening is a long process, the better the opponent, the harder and longer it gets obviously but to a point where you feel like wasting time ( against guardians, tempest, mesmers, spellbreakers, scrappers )

3) You can't run and fire behind you like you can do on professions like engi with grenades, mesmer with shatters, necro with marks, well, thief and renegade with shortbow

 

Ranger for me remains the easiest class to down when on other professions(ele-guardian-warrior, sometimes when I play necro), I play ranger because I love to run some builds like : sb axe/axe, sb oneshot (pretty fun in wvw I won't lie, but works only against absolute scrubs or targets with 0 defenses left and me using a full zerk build with no stunbreaks or sustain ), core MM tiger is a very chill build for PvE and roaming on staff druid in WvW remains a pure joy( getting away from gankers in style...I love it)...other than that I would have no reason to play ranger, kind of terrible in PvP ( can reach Plat with it..but again..anybody can reach Plat with anything in GW2 PvP) but no impact for high end PvP compared to broken renegade, prot holo, even fire weaver is more useful and competitive than ranger in PvP. In WvW...outside the oneshot build leeching kills , ranger is utterly useless and you're wasting time better spent on other profession if you'd really want to contribute on the map during zerg vs zerg hours.

 

Overall an average concept class, fun in some instance, good variety of builds and working weapons which is the strongest point, virtually useless as teamfighter outside Raid Druid healer...nice class to have and play...to main it possibly but right now it's neither the best roamer ( middle of the pack, never seen in dedicated gank groups made up solely of renegade, holos, thief, core necro and FB/scrapper) able to carry in PvP (can't really hold a point against top builds and barely able to duel a single opponent while kiting off-point, mostly lose instantly with a good +1) or very fun to use in PvE ( lack of good AoE, once you use whirling defense). Really that's ranger for me.....

Edited May 24, 2021 by Arheundel.6451

[Andy.5981]

2 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I can play guardian, warrior...even core ele d/d and ranger remains the easiest class to kill , over 90% of ranger attacks are single , the main weaknesses of the class are: 

 

etc..

A fair appraisal of the class atm. Patch after patch after patch the damage has come down to a level where it now isn't even able to burst kill in most cases. It cannot sustain itself in the face of pressure and anything with multiple ae conditions mops the floor with the class.

Yet we still get people wanting to reduce its abilities even further, such as the range of its Longbow and maul damage.

TBH if you are dying at range to a Ranger atm then you are really doing something really wrong.

I've played the class since release. I also have characters of all classes, of all of them Ranger has been the most fun to play.

I dont want the class to be un-killable, Anet seem to reserve that for its golden children, but at least give us a chance.

For the first time since release I'm finding myself at the stage where I'm not particularly fussed if I play the game. Sad but there you have it.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Andy.5981

[Lazze.9870]

12 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

it boils down to LB being broken with its 1900 range instead off 1500, and WvW being a flat terrain with almost no real LoS.
Every class has to put waaaay too much effort to even close the gap, and even then stealth -> reposition -> gs dodge spam -> stealth -> reposition and you just go back again and again to overtuned range.

 

I wouldn't mind normalising the LB range if that meant ranger would get some utility and tools in return.

 

But dude, GS dodge spam? The auto evade was removed some time in 2019.

 

If you wanna talk about broken utility and roaming options, look at scrapper. That kitten is stupid.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

 

I wouldn't mind normalising the LB range if that meant ranger would get some utility and tools in return.

 

But dude, GS dodge spam? The auto evade was removed some time in 2019.

 

If you wanna talk about broken utility and roaming options, look at scrapper. That kitten is stupid.

you have 3s block on gs4, 0,75s evade on gs4 and 0,5s evade with gs3, thats evade spamming.
its over 4s of safety build into 1 weapon

[Zyreva.1078]

Neither of those evades is aviable on demand, nor are they spammable.

Don't get me wrong, GS is a good weapon, both offensively and defensively, but it is far from "evade spam".

[Lazze.9870]

1 hour ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

you have 3s block on gs4, 0,75s evade on gs4 and 0,5s evade with gs3, thats evade spamming.
its over 4s of safety build into 1 weapon

 

I don't even know why I bother having a conversation with someone that sees everything in a vacuum. Ranger overall has very few defensive utilities on all of its weapons combined, has close to zero immediate safety from its class mechanic other than some merged SB skills, and its selection of utility skills aren't exactly choke-full with "safety" either.

 

GS is a good weapon, but in the grand scheme of things it is hardly evade spam.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Leonidrex.5649]

56 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

 

I don't even know why I bother having a conversation with someone that sees everything in a vacuum. Ranger overall has very few defensive utilities on all of its weapons combined, has close to zero immediate safety from its class mechanic other than some merged SB skills, and its selection of utility skills aren't exactly choke-full with "safety" either.

 

GS is a good weapon, but in the grand scheme of things it is hardly evade spam.

exept LR which is additional dodge that gives vigor, combined with extra energy regeneration from wilderness survival, leads ranger to dodge spam.
gs3, gs4, gs4, lr, 2x dodge, high energy regen + stealth make ranger survivable.
if you think otherwise you are biased 

[Lazze.9870]

15 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

exept LR which is additional dodge that gives vigor, combined with extra energy regeneration from wilderness survival, leads ranger to dodge spam.
gs3, gs4, gs4, lr, 2x dodge, high energy regen + stealth make ranger survivable.
if you think otherwise you are biased 

 

I never said ranger has no surviveability. I implied its surviveability is unequally distributed among skills, traits, weapons, mechanic.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[fatihso.7258]

Soulbeast won't be fixed until they revert One Wolf Pack back to 60 seconds cooldown, it's being 80 seconds cooldown is not lining up with the rotation as it used to be when it was 60 seconds. It's good that they boosted Furious Strength to 15% with today's patch but still OWP cooldown is the biggest problem for Soulbeast rotation.

Edited May 25, 2021 by fatihso.7258

[Infusion.7149]

4 hours ago, fatihso.7258 said:

Soulbeast won't be fixed until they revert One Wolf Pack back to 60 seconds cooldown, it's being 80 seconds cooldown is not lining up with the rotation as it used to be when it was 60 seconds. It's good that they boosted Furious Strength to 15% with today's patch but still OWP cooldown is the biggest problem for Soulbeast rotation.

If they revert OWP and leave Furious Strength as is after this patch it would be powercreep in terms of power burst. Instead OWP should have been reverted and some key skills cut in cooldown (i.e. Frost trap, sharpening stone , etc). A key thing to remember is Furious strength was not changed to affect condition damage either.

Will be ~36-37K power soulbeast benchmark after the Furious Strength readjustment and ~36.3K for condi , while hybrid (1/3 power dps) should go from ~37K to roughly 37.5 or 38K.

[anduriell.6280]

How does the change of an +5% increased damage impacted the ranger in PvE? Any significant difference or still at the bottom? 

[Lazze.9870]

15 % damage for having fury. From a minor. That's kinda ridiculous. Should have left it at 10 %, added condition damage to it (which I have been saying since 2017), and looked somewhere else for a damage increase.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[anduriell.6280]

2 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

15 % damage for having fury. From a minor. That's kinda ridiculous. Should have left it at 10 %, added condition damage to it (which I have been saying since 2017), and looked somewhere else for a damage increase.

If the Dps in PvE is still at the bottom of the barrel i don't think it would mean much the number they put in there. That's why i am asking if the additional 5% fix the dps metrics. 

 

I agree with you it would be nice for Soulbeast to get access to some trait to apply some sort of condition instead straight buffing the strike damage (power damage). 

[Lazze.9870]

3 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

If the Dps in PvE is still at the bottom of the barrel i don't think it would mean much the number they put in there. That's why i am asking if the additional 5% fix the dps metrics. 

 

I agree with you it would be nice for Soulbeast to get access to some trait to apply some sort of condition instead straight buffing the strike damage (power damage). 

It is such a band-aid way of doing it even if it fixed the metrics. It was in line with similar traits at 7 %, they should have added condition damage to it as well and left it like that, at most buffed it to 10 %. Rev's Ferocious Aggression got the same treatment 4 years ago, before PoF. It boggles my mind why they didn't apply that same logic to soulbeast which was built from the ground up to be both power and condi. Berserker had a similar kind of trait before its rework, a minor modifier for both condi and power.

 

Overall damage should be improved by buffing core stuff, adjusting cooldowns is a safe way to do it without worrying too much about all the modifiers soulbeast has.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Leonidrex.5649]

7 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

If the Dps in PvE is still at the bottom of the barrel i don't think it would mean much the number they put in there. That's why i am asking if the additional 5% fix the dps metrics. 

 

I agree with you it would be nice for Soulbeast to get access to some trait to apply some sort of condition instead straight buffing the strike damage (power damage). 

as long as they dont fix torment and exposure changes something silly as 5% dmg buff wont fix anything, why not play brainless conid build and get 40k dps instead off breaking your back trying to pull off 35k..
comobs are awkward, and you are punished for using lb5/axe5 on many encounters, its still meh but better.
Its a honestly really good change for open world pve tho.

[Shagie.7612]

eh idk, i like it thematically much more than rangers/hunters in other rpg, and soulbeast is such a cool archetype to me as far as a spec goes, like lemme just merge my soul with my buddies, 10/10

 

but man, there's a lot of really frustrating things

like, pets being simultaneously a gigantic threat (from a highly skilled random CC or whatever) and also potentially completely useless is really crappy

 

i feel like a lot of the mechanics of the class are pretty poorly done and the class is limited in a lot of ways that i never felt about it in GW1

[Lazze.9870]

9 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

i feel like a lot of the mechanics of the class are pretty poorly done and the class is limited in a lot of ways that i never felt about it in GW1

 

Yeah, because GW1 didn't force an AI companion on us.

[Shagie.7612]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Yeah, because GW1 didn't force an AI companion on us.

It's partially that, but even running pet builds, they've always felt more functional to me.

I think the pets work better in that game because YOU control everything besides it just being a autoattack bot.

 

But also like, the build diversity and ability to step into different roles feels much better to me, where in GW2 I often feel like ranger's kind of stuck because it lacks things like traits/utilities/mechanics that let it say, participate in large scale combat, have sustained damage builds (I always really liked playing like, poison arrow interrupters in GW1), and having the self-expression that classes like thief and mes do.

 

I play the class cause I like it thematically, and I'll play it no matter how good or bad it is and find some form of fun in it, but there's times when the way you're incentivized, arguably forced, to play is frustrating.

[Lazze.9870]

On 5/27/2021 at 11:55 AM, Shagie.7612 said:

It's partially that, but even running pet builds, they've always felt more functional to me.

I think the pets work better in that game because YOU control everything besides it just being a autoattack bot.

 

But also like, the build diversity and ability to step into different roles feels much better to me

 

It's a combination of controlling your pet's skills other than its normal autoattack and the fact that GW1's combat and pathing lends itself much better to AI actually hitting stuff.

 

Expertise as a "mechanic", or main attribute, in combination with secondary classes allowed ranger multiple build options, and it always did something as long as you invested points into it (which you should).

 

Unless Anet is willing to make an elite spec in similar vain to Scourge, more or less abandoning the idea of the core mechanic, but still using the correlating traits to affect a new set of mechanic skills, that's what we'll always be stuck with. Druid could have easily been that elite spec, keeping the avatar as the F5 and replacing pet swap with two modes that offer a different set of F1-F3 skills (dusk and dawn, or whatever, split between damage/CC and more support - just spitting ideas at this point) - or simpler, four F skills that are always there, one of which count as a beast skill, while treating the avatar as pet swap for related traits. It would lose dueling and roaming capabilities, but that's a worthy tradeoff in my book. Core and soulbeast already do those roles well.

 

The fact that permamerged soulbeast is a possibility, and even the optimal way to play ranger in certain content, might be the death of any future spec without a physical pet as a part of the profession mechanic. We'll see, but my bet is that the EoD elite spec will focus heavily on AI, or rather an active pet as opposed to an inactive one. Some people want that, but I don't see it creating any new playstyles or roles, nor me being particularly fond of playing it.

 

I also play the class because I like it thematically and there is no real alternative. GW1 did it much better, though.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

3 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

 

Unless Anet is willing to make an elite spec in similar vain to Scourge, more or less abandoning the idea of the core mechanic, but still using the correlating traits to affect a new set of mechanic skills, that's what we'll always be stuck with.

An idea I personally had for a future mechanic that would be similar to Scourge shades would be using an Animal Totem in place of a pet, essentially pets in a non-persistent form (something that is out temporarily when choose we summon it) and lasts for a set duration based on time or resource. Something functioning like Scourge Shades or Revenant Tablet.

 

Really hesitant about a pet focused elite spec being what we get. Lots of the ideas I see going around seem more fitting as a general pet mechanic rework rather than something we’d want an elite spec to focus on. Worried that it would end up being too strong in PvE then subsequently getting nerfed. Example being turret engi in the past. 
 

In competitive game modes like PvP or WvW, also worried about a class which has all of its focus on a pet ends up having a very weak main character that can be easily countered.