Ranger needs traits to fight the reflections creep in game.

[bigo.9037]

22 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Well, i'm using all those weapons (except mh dagger) for solo roaming and small scale grp fights on a regular basis, and they all work great, 1vs1 as well as outnumbered fights alike. Just gotta know how to build arround them (broken cele helps a lot with that 😉).

They “work” but they aren’t as good as lb or GS, which have good defensive and offensive skills.

 

Most other weapons lack useful defensive skills and or have clunky , subpar damage application and actual dmg output. But Tbf I have not yet tried the new celestial stats as I’ve been away from the game for a few months cus of irl. 
 

although, a statset is not gonna fix the things I mentioned above. 

[Zyreva.1078]

Sb has an evade and hard cc, axe has weakness and chill (+ paired with dagger also an evade), with QD you can use that stuff twice even. Beastmode skills and utilities can add more layers of defense. Such as traps with trapper rune and alpine wolf for another stunbreak + dmg immunity. Damage can be surprisingly high on a cele build, if built agressive. Stealth, mobility, hard and soft cc, dolyak stance, cele stats, ... survivability is there too. Not an unkillable build (which makes it actually fun to play), but definitely on par if not better than various lb/gs setups in many cases.

 

It is the best for all situations? No, nothing is. There are certainly situations where lb+gs is better, but that doesn't make those weapons the best overall (it is not like they can't be countered).

On a side note, i haven't lost against lb/gs slb in an even fight since forever, no matter what ranger build i was playing (mostly core melee btw) - i did lose vs other ranger builds occasionally tho and it isn't neccessarily because the players are better.

[bigo.9037]

51 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Sb has an evade and hard cc, axe has weakness and chill (+ paired with dagger also an evade), with QD you can use that stuff twice even. Beastmode skills and utilities can add more layers of defense. Such as traps with trapper rune and alpine wolf for another stunbreak + dmg immunity. Damage can be surprisingly high on a cele build, if built agressive. Stealth, mobility, hard and soft cc, dolyak stance, cele stats, ... survivability is there too. Not an unkillable build (which makes it actually fun to play), but definitely on par if not better than various lb/gs setups in many cases.

 

It is the best for all situations? No, nothing is. There are certainly situations where lb+gs is better, but that doesn't make those weapons the best overall (it is not like they can't be countered).

On a side note, i haven't lost against lb/gs slb in an even fight since forever, no matter what ranger build i was playing (mostly core melee btw) - i did lose vs other ranger builds occasionally tho and it isn't neccessarily because the players are better.

Don’t bring up traits, they apply to all weapons. 
 

axe+dagger has very low dmg. It’s basically a purely defensive set that can be blocked by projectile reflects etc. which gs is still better at since you can block,  KB, evade twice and combo finish. Not to mention another CC that can be used defensively in certain situations. Shortbow has less range and requires you to be in melee range to deal good dmg with poison. The dmg overall is like half of longbow in many cases on equivalent stats. And longbow has 2 defensive skills, stealth and KB. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by bigo.9037

[Zyreva.1078]

All weapons are trash without traits, and not all traits synergize equally well with all weapons. You can't just look at something in a vacuum and deside it is bad, you always have to consider the whole package.

LB is burstier than sb and obviously has higher range, but the burst is quite telegraphed, the distance easily closed for many builds and if you miss lb 3 and/or 4 (which can happen easily, especially when outnumbered, just needs a random blind, aegis, dodge, pebble on the ground, ...) you can end up like a sitting duck quite fast. GS has decent defense (until you meet a thief who just blinds/interrupts everything you try to do) as well as high burst potential, but again, is fairly telegraphed.

SB as well as A/D are pressure weapons. Yea, you aren't going to oneshot stuff with those, but the pressure is nothing to be scoffed at. LB/GS tends be be outpressured quickly if the initial burst doesn't kill the target.

Comparing dmg on equal stats is pretty nonsensical btw, because if you use lb/gs with condi or hybrid stats you might as well run arround with a bunch of wet noodles, while ofc with a pure power build sb is going to fall short in comparison. Again, don't look at these things in a vacuum.

 

But i'm not trying to convince anyone to run something other than lb/gs. Just play whatever works for you/is the most fun, and i'll keep doing the same.

[bigo.9037]

2 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

All weapons are trash without traits, and not all traits synergize equally well with all weapons. You can't just look at something in a vacuum and deside it is bad, you always have to consider the whole package.

LB is burstier than sb and obviously has higher range, but the burst is quite telegraphed, the distance easily closed for many builds and if you miss lb 3 and/or 4 (which can happen easily, especially when outnumbered, just needs a random blind, aegis, dodge, pebble on the ground, ...) you can end up like a sitting duck quite fast. GS has decent defense (until you meet a thief who just blinds/interrupts everything you try to do) as well as high burst potential, but again, is fairly telegraphed.

SB as well as A/D are pressure weapons. Yea, you aren't going to oneshot stuff with those, but the pressure is nothing to be scoffed at. LB/GS tends be be outpressured quickly if the initial burst doesn't kill the target.

Comparing dmg on equal stats is pretty nonsensical btw, because if you use lb/gs with condi or hybrid stats you might as well run arround with a bunch of wet noodles, while ofc with a pure power build sb is going to fall short in comparison. Again, don't look at these things in a vacuum.

 

But i'm not trying to convince anyone to run something other than lb/gs. Just play whatever works for you/is the most fun, and i'll keep doing the same.

Yea but you mentioned QD which is equally as effective on pretty much all weapon sets, and skirmishing can be used on all dmg types (condi, power, hybrid)  

 

you could easily say the same about SB though? You miss your stun/daze and now you only have an evade left? And cripple immob same thing. 
 

Since in wvw cleansing sigil cleanses 3 condis, it’s much easier to straight up negate whatever condi dmg you might make with SB.. but there are no sigils that will take away power dmg so easily. 
 

and btw, i said “equivalent” stats, not equal. That means like, a main power damage set compared to Condi main set. 
 

and yes ofx play whatever you like, but I have also tested these weapon sets many many times and they just straight up are not as good as LB GS. That’s all I’m saying. 

[Zyreva.1078]

6 minutes ago, bigo.9037 said:

and yes ofx play whatever you like, but I have also tested these weapon sets many many times and they just straight up are not as good as LB GS. That’s all I’m saying. 

Until recently i would have said something very similar 😉

Edited June 10, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

All weapons are trash without traits, and not all traits synergize equally well with all weapons. You can't just look at something in a vacuum and deside it is bad, you always have to consider the whole package.

LB is burstier than sb and obviously has higher range, but the burst is quite telegraphed, the distance easily closed for many builds and if you miss lb 3 and/or 4 (which can happen easily, especially when outnumbered, just needs a random blind, aegis, dodge, pebble on the ground, ...) you can end up like a sitting duck quite fast. GS has decent defense (until you meet a thief who just blinds/interrupts everything you try to do) as well as high burst potential, but again, is fairly telegraphed.

SB as well as A/D are pressure weapons. Yea, you aren't going to oneshot stuff with those, but the pressure is nothing to be scoffed at. LB/GS tends be be outpressured quickly if the initial burst doesn't kill the target.

Comparing dmg on equal stats is pretty nonsensical btw, because if you use lb/gs with condi or hybrid stats you might as well run arround with a bunch of wet noodles, while ofc with a pure power build sb is going to fall short in comparison. Again, don't look at these things in a vacuum.

 

But i'm not trying to convince anyone to run something other than lb/gs. Just play whatever works for you/is the most fun, and i'll keep doing the same.

 

I mentioned some of my issue in that streamer wars topic but, I think my overall issue with MH axe is it has tools but none of them work as well as other weapons.

 

We have:

 

Axe #1 - Ricochets and grants might; nothing a LB won't do at greater range and faster (if you use sigil of rage for instance); LB won't ricochet but it will pierce with MM

 

Axe #2 - Applies bleeds; nothing a SB won't do but faster--can stack 10 bleed with sharpening stone and axe #2, can do this with sharpening stone, sb #2 and a few autos (or use crippling shot and have your pet apply some for you)--in addition you get poison with shortbow

 

Axe #3 - Unique, the only really standout thing about MH axe

 

If we extend to offhand:

 

Axe #4 - Useless, but even so both concussion shot and PBS do a better job at overall utility

 

Axe #5 - Biggest problem is being immobile while casting, otherwise works fine.  Still outclassed by barrage and if you want rather immobile damage maul (4-5 second channel to get to 8-10k damage vs. one hit, if it hits lol). 

 

I don't really want to mention MH Dagger as as far as I'm concerned it has zero redeeming qualities.  But for OH Dagger:

 

Dagger #4 - This would be plenty serviceable if they'd give the range back from offhand training; as is pretty much anything is better for kiting (sword is closest but serpent strike just has more evade frames)

 

Dagger #5 - Outclassed by crippling shot mostly--can be fine though, it's a toss up with torch really for me as burning field tends to do more with less telegraph (you aren't throwing it like you unfortunately are with torch #4)

 

Anyway, I've personally been trying to theorycraft something with axe for forever now.  I've tried replacing shortbow in my druid build with both Axe/Dagger and Axe/Wh (taking BM instead of WS)--neither of which really give me full utility that a shortbow does.  Like axe will stack some nice stuff + chill, but reapplication is a pain and pressure is non-existent.

 

Think axe would be dope if it would remove a boon on the #1 with a certain ICD.  Then you'd have something super unique for ranger because you could strip boons in an area.  Overall that would make it good for me, and then OH axe just need to entirely rework axe #4 (to be more like prelude lash) and axe #5 to be cast while moving (I can hear the forum cries from miles as an army of rangers runs into a zerg whirling away).     

Edited June 10, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[bigo.9037]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Until recently i would have said something very similar 😉

Are you playing with celestial stats? Cus then what you’re saying just boils down to the fact that those weapons need like 60% more stats to be functional… which isn’t a great case for those weapons.

[Zyreva.1078]

6 minutes ago, bigo.9037 said:

Are you playing with celestial stats? Cus then what you’re saying just boils down to the fact that those weapons need like 60% more stats to be functional… which isn’t a great case for those weapons.

 

Yes, i'm using cele (tb might work too tho i haven't used it with the particular build i'm playing atm)

Could also argue, that weapons which can utilize the by far most op stat combination effectively, are good.

[bigo.9037]

4 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

 

Yes, i'm using cele (tb might work too tho i haven't used it with the particular build i'm playing atm)

Could also argue, that weapons which can utilize the by far most op stat combination effectively, are good.

Broken stat sets don’t make the weapons stronger. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

22 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Wait, you want all these nonsensical changes because of some terribad backline Elementalist casting meteor shower? This is why we can't have nice things.

 

I swear, I don't know what scares awful players more, ancient seeds or longbow.  I can tell you good players don't care about either of these things and they don't do anything outside of picking off stragglers.  I wonder if it's the stragglers that always come to the forums?

 

I mean, in the past day while roaming I've fought a berserker who stayed in my immobs for all of 1/4 of a second, a scrapper who is literally immune to the immobs and on top throws up projectile blocks with superspeed, and if that goes wrong just goes into mini-mode and becomes immune to literally everything, and a reaper who if I dare pull out LB would just port to me and destroy.  

 

Anyway, the 'inverted damage' on LB is the best--sure let's not fix shortbow (which is meant to be close range and also suffers from projectile blocking issues), let's essentially make longbow a melee weapon (lol) because people can't seem to find the dodge key or a line of sight.  Trust me, you don't need inverted anything, if you are squishy I'm killing you regardless with GS.  Unless you want to 'invert' that too and I could throw it again, would be great.  

 

Also, are you saying pets improve damage options more than past years? I hope not or you need to go read some patch notes, it's walls of text like this that got pets neutered to window pane licking CC devices.  In the 'days of old' you'd be dead in about 30 seconds while standing on a wall from a stealth attack via jaguar.  So I think what you really mean is 'pets are ignored above because they suck so much I have nothing to complain about' 😂

 

 

 

Enjoy longbow and ranger generally being terrible forever in group play, then.  You either should have to take risks for damage and be part of the target capping defensive approach, or be useless in ZvZ where that's the rationale behind why they're memed on, and sPvP where the entire purpose is to stand on a node and get actively punished for getting up close.  You either get to pewpew easy kills with tons of disengage on SB, or get your mobility and defenses butchered like a staff MS ele or necro.  These are sacrifices other classes make for their group play builds, and why thief and power mesmer are even lower priority than rangers; they have no safety, sustain, nor damage to blow up the backline, and are fundamentally designed to port around outside of the center of a fight with way less durability as to not be able to contribute to target capping.

 

Shortbow is a fantastic smallscale weapon.  I run it on my ranger and honestly it's my free-win build.  The only reason it isn't usable in ZvZ is group cleanses with its poor cover conditions.  To "Fix" shortbow, you have to get rid of condition damage builds; it's fundamentally quite good at its role as a smallscale kit where reflects aren't constantly being applied because it pumps some great numbers and has a very good set of skills, and is my go-to when I need to get carried in 1x2+ scenarios.  It's extremely easy to play, has a decent skill ceiling, a number of neat interactions with various gear sets and sigils, and generally, one of ANet's success stories from weapon skills that age fairly well.  It may have enough weaknesses to make it situational in some fights against really good foes or require extensive defensive play to finally chip someone down, which can and should be improved (such as traits that actually allow you to build around it, or making the other melee condition options usable for ranger), but fundamentally, the kit is solid as a midranged DPS skirmishing setup.

 

As for pets, no.  I said the class's weapon skill damage has been improved enough where the weak pets don't really factor into consideration.  The proportion of damage the pet is intended to deal relative to the ranger is lower than in past years as a consequence for the improvement of ranger's damage.  Rangers used to be balanced numerically on their weapon skills to assume the pet did 30% of their damage and their kits.  Since this is no longer true, the inherent weakness of pets, which despite being a problem, is insignificant enough today where I did not factor it into any argument on the class needing a major rework to pets anymore.

Edited June 11, 2021 by DeceiverX.8361

[Faolain.2374]

For how many longbow rangers there are in wvw atm, reflects are 100% needed. Speaking from a smallscale perspective, and solo roaming to an extent, there are some rangers who literally stand on the edge of being out of combat, continuously bursting with OWP, Sick’em, rapid fire etc and the second you get any closer they run to maintain the gap and resume their pew pew when they’re completely risk free again. Sure you can say bring mobility to fix this issue but some classes simply don’t have that mobility option. 
 

In smallscale outnumbered fights, there has to be a counter to being clouded by 10+ of these types of players. They shouldn’t be rewarded for playing at such safe distances, and doing higher burst damage than people in melee. It’s a kitten way of playing imo and you can tell how bad a lot of these players are because they still just continue to burst the reflects and kill themselves. If they haven’t got the sense to adapt to a reflect/ swap weapons/ stop for a few seconds etc, then they should be punished for it rather than this easy lame play style being made easier for them. 
 

everyone knows how kitten/meme the longbow playstyle is, and you want to make it easier for these bad players? Instead what people should be doing when they see there are reflects up is either wait until the reflects are down or swap to your non projectile/ melee weapon like every other class has to do.

[Gorem.8104]

Reminds me of how things used to be years ago where people only used blocks/defence abilities to try and save themselves when running away. I used to use the signet to get un-blockable and would kill em so often. 

 

Course now they have so many defence abilities that make them immune they can just pop them at will. Cause watching someone go tiny and become immune to everything is good game mechanics for pvp. 

 

The sheer amount of ways to entirely shut down a ranger ranging has gotten out of hand. Some classes can just live through everything you throw at them for miles in wvw even in a pure damage spec. Although, that does make it quite funny how you can tell the differences in skill/classes. Cause there are still players that are killed almost just with LB2 at range somehow. 

[Faolain.2374]

12 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Reminds me of how things used to be years ago where people only used blocks/defence abilities to try and save themselves when running away. I used to use the signet to get un-blockable and would kill em so often. 

 

Course now they have so many defence abilities that make them immune they can just pop them at will. Cause watching someone go tiny and become immune to everything is good game mechanics for pvp. 

 

The sheer amount of ways to entirely shut down a ranger ranging has gotten out of hand. Some classes can just live through everything you throw at them for miles in wvw even in a pure damage spec. Although, that does make it quite funny how you can tell the differences in skill/classes. Cause there are still players that are killed almost just with LB2 at range somehow. 

probably because it’s like an initial 20k burst, followed by a slightly less hitting burst every 10 seconds from 1.5k range? And the moment you focus them they run away because outside of the broken damage, broken range pew pew spam, these players are actually bad, playing in an unskilled way which for some reason people feel should be rewarded??? 

 That and you never find a solo ranger, they are always ganking people already in fights and outnumbering. 

[frareanselm.1925]

Well, the reason why ranger is relegated as a skirmisher-roamer and has no place in megazergs is the overpowered reflections of ele, guard and scrapper

[Arheundel.6451]

4 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

Well, the reason why ranger is relegated as a skirmisher-roamer and has no place in megazergs is the overpowered reflections of ele, guard and scrapper

Be glad of all this reflect...if not you'd see an encyclopedia worth of nerf threads on the forum every single day. We have all this reflect..and people still cry every day about rangers....

[Gorem.8104]

On 6/14/2021 at 1:21 AM, Arheundel.6451 said:

Be glad of all this reflect...if not you'd see an encyclopedia worth of nerf threads on the forum every single day. We have all this reflect..and people still cry every day about rangers....

Bad players scream the loudest unfortunately.  Good players can spend such a long time being immune to us that if we did get more nerfs in some area's it'd be better to just roll another class 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Gorem.8104

[Obtena.7952]

... or Rangers need to introduce some melee elements into their competitive builds. You know, there isn't anything unreasonable about having a weak point. It's not even unreasonable to believe it's intended. 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Gotejjeken.1267]

16 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

... or Rangers need to introduce some melee elements into their competitive builds. You know, there isn't anything unreasonable about having a weak point. It's not even unreasonable to believe it's intended. 

 

Like Greatsword.? Yeah no one uses that.  Ever.  

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Reminds me this video.

 

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Like Greatsword.? Yeah no one uses that.  Ever.  

OK ... maybe they should. I mean, at what point did people conclude competitive aspects of MMO's were all about being able to counter everything thrown at them? The whole point of PVP is that someone outplays and wins. If we just give everyone the tools to counter all the tools everyone else has, then PVP as a game mode is nonsensical. 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... maybe they should. I mean, at what point did people conclude competitive aspects of MMO's were all about being able to counter everything thrown at them? The whole point of PVP is that someone outplays and wins. If we just give everyone the tools to counter all the tools everyone else has, then PVP as a game mode is nonsensical. 

 

Welcome to GW2?

 

Very little of GW2 PvP is about outplaying anything, most of it is about finding a build that you can either cheese/meme on or one that never dies.  

[Arheundel.6451]

7 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... maybe they should. I mean, at what point did people conclude competitive aspects of MMO's were all about being able to counter everything thrown at them? The whole point of PVP is that someone outplays and wins. If we just give everyone the tools to counter all the tools everyone else has, then PVP as a game mode is nonsensical. 

Yes, good point...that's why I actively play ranger-warrior-guardian-ele-necro, I can freely switch between as they are all fully geared head to toe with selected builds but...try to explain the same concept to the rest of the GW2 playerbase now

[anduriell.6280]

9 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Reminds me this video.

 

I don't see warrior blocks like a problem thou, the projectile hate creep came from AoE Blocks or reflections, like the auramancer, scrapper or FB with the valiant bulkward (the bubble) and the recently  buffed Wall of reflection and Shield of Absorption or the Spellbreaker's Winds of Disenchantment, i don't understand why that elite needs the projectile block...   

 

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by anduriell.6280

[Obtena.7952]

16 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Welcome to GW2?

 

Very little of GW2 PvP is about outplaying anything, most of it is about finding a build that you can either cheese/meme on or one that never dies.  

OK ... but that still doesn't change what I said really.