Ranger feels decrepit, outdated and abandoned.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

23 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Now let me use that argument for medkit scrapper, since you are so adamant about bringing this one up: purity of purpose was legit doing nothing at all as long as you run into power builds. Does this mean we should revert the nerf, since it does nothing against power?

 

We are talking zerg scenario here. Condis WILL be present, it is unavoidable. And that means there is a high likelihood that the condition cleanse and additional healing from bear stance will come to fruition in zerg scenarios. If you deny this, then please, advocate to unnerf purity of purpose, that poor thing doesn't do anything anyway, right?

 

(And before you use this against me: no, I don't think purity of purpose should be unnerfed, just because I main engi. I was just using your argument here to show you that the scenario is not as highly situational as you are making it out to be.)

 

Yes, you can "puke" this healing out with medkit. On a dedicated support build. Keep in mind, with the 3 seconds it is 1,2k healing without any healing power or other healing modifiers.

 

You are comparing a build completely dedicated to healing with something that is not. Stance soulbeasts are not primary healers, if you want to go heal as a ranger, you would go druid, not soulbeast. Soulbeast will not be on par with dedicated healer builds, yes. This does not mean that a skill can not be overloaded and too strong by itself, just because this one skill doesn't make you singlehandedly compete with entire builds dedicated to the same task.

I guess you mean zergs in WvW, because in PvE, I see soulbeasts a ton in group content.

 

And as I already stated, I didn't say that this makes soulbeast a support replacement. A skill can still be overloaded and too strong, even if the class as a whole doesn't end up as a primary support.

 

I am not opposed to making rangers more wanted in zergs, I am opposed against the idea of making stances apply their full duration on allies. Make druid a better support for zergs (there have been quite some suggestions in the past to accomplish that), rework ranger weapons to give them something they can bring as a frontline bruiser soulbeast while buffing their allies with stances, anything like this.

I can't prove that it is OP, correct, that is impossible. I can make an estimate on that, tho. And in my opinion, this is not needed, stances are fine, there are other parts in ranger which need work to make them better in zerg fights.

 

Only have two things:

 

1. Purity of Purpose converts condis and not just removes them, making it doubly problematic as full bear stance share would be; even with the nerf it's leagues above stances

 

2. Everyone always advocates to buff druid when it was buffed around launch and look what happened.  It's a never ending wheel with ranger, a spec will be working, people complain, it gets nerfed, we rangers ask for compensation, forums say buff the spec they nerfed....

[Zyreva.1078]

Druid doesn't need buffs, it needs a rework to funktion as decent PvP/WvW support. Soulbeast also does not need buffs. It is fine in WvW. Stop comparing it to dedicated support specs, that's not what soulbeast is supposed to be. It is primarily a dps spec with some additional grp utility via stance share (and some beast mode skills) and it can fullfill that role just fine.

[Kodama.6453]

15 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

1. Purity of Purpose converts condis and not just removes them, making it doubly problematic as full bear stance share would be; even with the nerf it's leagues above stances

And bear stance also doesn't just remove conditions, it also heals for every condition cleansed. 

 

Also you are missing the point again. I just used purity of purpose to show you that we have to consider effects which are triggered by condition cleanse. Like bear stance healing for every condition cleansed, you made it sound like I am talking about a totally unrealistic case which is so situational that we don't have to consider it. This is obviously wrong, purity of purpose proves that this scenario is quite likely.

15 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

2. Everyone always advocates to buff druid when it was buffed around launch and look what happened.  It's a never ending wheel with ranger, a spec will be working, people complain, it gets nerfed, we rangers ask for compensation, forums say buff the spec they nerfed....

Maybe, I can't  remember that I have been one of the people to advocate for druid nerfs in WvW, tho. 

 

I think druid deserves to be a viable support for zergs. Tempests, scrappers, etc. are allowed to. Druid as one of the primary supports by design should also have a place there.

 

But even if we are not going the druid route, there is also the possibility to strengthen soulbeasts capabilities as a frontline bruiser by changing up weapons to better fit that task.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Gotejjeken.1267]

13 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Druid doesn't need buffs, it needs a rework to funktion as decent PvP/WvW support. Soulbeast also does not need buffs. It is fine in WvW. Stop comparing it to dedicated support specs, that's not what soulbeast is supposed to be. It is primarily a dps spec with some additional grp utility via stance share (and some beast mode skills) and it can fullfill that role just fine.

 

Druid doesn't need a 'rework' it worked fine before it was nerfed. 

 

5 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I think druid deserves to be a viable support for zergs. Tempests, scrappers, etc. are allowed to. Druid as one of the primary supports by design should also have a place there.

 

But even if we are not going the druid route, there is also the possibility to strengthen soulbeasts capabilities as a frontline bruiser by changing up weapons to better fit that task.

 

It used to have a place there prior to the healing nerfs, and rise of PoF specs that completely invalidated it.  Sprit ranger also used to have a large place in group content when spirits could move.  

 

I don't see how changing up weapons is going to help the awful traits that ranger has.  Very few are group oriented, and most center around the pet which as many have mentioned is about as anti-group as you can get with its squishiness, inability to stealth, and boon stealing.  

 

In fact, the melee weapons we do have access to have seen constant changes/nerfs.  Greatsword attack chain evade comes to mind, crippling throw being removed, sword losing the ability to stick to target, revamping the sword entirely so we lose access to important on-demand evades (i.e. serpent strike) etc. etc.  

 

So the solutions would be to either buff stances to full duration or buff spirits again.  If the new spec has any interplay with spirits and grants access to something like wells then I believe ranger could be useful once again.  

[Zyreva.1078]

Druid was never an actually good support spec outside of PvE, otherwise it would still be good, because healing nerfs alone aren't going to break a spec (other supports have seen some nerfs too, didn't hurt them much tho). Spirits have been meta in PvP for a very short time (long before HoT), outside of that they were always useless (PvE aside, always have been meta there). Spirits were never good for grp play in WvW, because they just died and that's also the main reason why they don't see any play now.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Druid was never an actually good support spec outside of PvE, otherwise it would still be good, because healing nerfs alone aren't going to break a spec (other supports have seen some nerfs too, didn't hurt them much tho). Spirits have been meta in PvP for a very short time (long before HoT), outside of that they were always useless (PvE aside, always have been meta there). Spirits were never good for grp play in WvW, because they just died and that's also the main reason why they don't see any play now.

 

Healing nerfs absolutely broke Druid, because the immob portion of the spec is still intact, and is the only reason why people run it at all.  There was a period after HoT where Druid was wanted in most groups because of the large amount of healing it brought.  

 

The main reason spirits don't see play now isn't because they die easily, its because the buffs they give are stuck in 2012-2013.  They were never updated and lost all competitive use when they became immobile.  

 

I fail to see how any of this contradicts they need to either buff stances to full duration or buff druid group healing and make spirits useful.  

[Aamu.3952]

Edit: removed, unnecessary.

Edited June 26, 2021 by Aamu.3952

[Lazze.9870]

14 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I don't see how changing up weapons is going to help the awful traits that ranger has.  Very few are group oriented, and most center around the pet which as many have mentioned is about as anti-group as you can get with its squishiness, inability to stealth, and boon stealing. 

 

Changing weapons that are already there won't do much because it would require full overhauls which won't happen. But Soulbeast in its current form with a weapon like, say Rev hammer (and then GS on swap) would be able to dish out considerable damage. Skirmishing, Beastmatery and Soulbeast permamerged is a great baseline for a damage focused build and there are builds out there which are all about doing damage in zergs, mainly core guardian/dragonhunter, both of which provide very little else other than a bit of stability and maybe a wall of reflection.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POQAFlRweYgsLmJWuX7P1R8G-zVRYBR0WMsyIzQoiIw2DQAj/3i+LbA-w

Soulbeast has a great baseline. It just lacks that one weapon which can deal reliable aoe damage at a distance. Buff frost trap to DH trap damage levels as a bonus. You don't need something group oriented in every zerg build as long as the damage is justified for bringing it, hence why core guardian/DH are a thing in zergs. And yet, a build like this would still provide some group benefits with stances and spotter, which is just a nice bonus.

 

Having awful group oriented traits hurts a support druid more than it hurts a damage soulbeast for zerging, because the core class brings very little to the table to supplement what druid does. Compared to scrapper which already has a lot from core, only to get ampliefied by the gyros, superspeed and now quickness.

[Seb De Tyra.3421]

On 6/23/2021 at 3:59 AM, Aamu.3952 said:

Not to mention the mandatory green fart cloud that still doesn't have a client-side toggle option - kind of culls enjoyment for character design on my main.

 

Swappable soul-pets are a good idea for an elite spec. The system was already in place with Revenant stances prior to PoF. Combine Soulbeast and rev stances and you have a perfectly functional implementation of a petless ranger. Hopefully the next expac can deliver a petless ranger take - as playing truly petless on ranger would probably be the single biggest thing to differentiate and deliver on what elite spec is supposed to be; a fresh way to play your class.

I would love to get rid of pets. Any game that has implementated pets on a class has always been notorious for bugs and clunky design, GW2 is nothing different. A petless specialisation would be awesome IMO.

[Dami.5046]

18 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

As I posted in another thread by rangers wanting to WvW, they just need to play soulbeast because Arenanet hasn't created a way to stow pet. Without stow pet you can't stealth push: this has been relevant in 2012 and still relevant now. Also any overflow boons/buffs get taken by the pet.

SB can merge???

[xDuckYx.4920]

Every other class that can use a bow is better than "the archer" class itself

[Dadnir.5038]

18 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Druid was never an actually good support spec outside of PvE, otherwise it would still be good, because healing nerfs alone aren't going to break a spec (other supports have seen some nerfs too, didn't hurt them much tho). Spirits have been meta in PvP for a very short time (long before HoT), outside of that they were always useless (PvE aside, always have been meta there). Spirits were never good for grp play in WvW, because they just died and that's also the main reason why they don't see any play now.

Spirit weren't meta in PvE before HoT (Like Necromancers, Rangers were not welcome in PvE end game content due to the infamous bearbow stigma at that time).

 

In sPvP/WvW, druid had to much self sustain which led to the nerf of it's (self)healing efficiency. The loss of this self healing efficiency made druid lose it's edge in competitive modes and that's what people grief (but officially it's the support that's been nerfed, never mind the 50% increase outgoing healing while in avatar form on lingering light).

 

That said, nowaday in PvE, most people think Alacrity/Quickness are a necessity to be a "support". They are no longer satified when they provide vigor, swiftness, protection, fury and might. In WvW you're not a support if you don't provide stab/aegis and in PvP... Well I'm not sure players welcome support there (Reading the sPvP subforum, they'd rather quick supports out of the gamemode).

[Kodama.6453]

50 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That said, nowaday in PvE, most people think Alacrity/Quickness are a necessity to be a "support". They are no longer satified when they provide vigor, swiftness, protection, fury and might.

Not entirely true. The thing is that you need to provide a huge dps increase for your team to be a viable support. Support builds tend to deal pretty bad damage themselves and in an environment in which you want to max out the dps of the group, it is better to have at least strong buffs for the group to increase their dps if you don't provide the damage yourself.

 

Druid is a great example how you can still be pretty kitten requested as a support class, even if you don't have alacrity or quickness. Druid has good might share and on top of this the spirits and spotter. Sun spirit is a really good dps increase for condi damage, winter spirit is a great and unique damage buff for power builds and spotter brings up the crit rate of your supported players, so less investment in precision is needed to reach 100% crit chance.

 

But these are mechanics which are entirely unique to ranger. No other class can distribute the buffs you get from spirits or the precision aura from spotter.

 

Engineer (as one example that got changed to provide quickness) just didn't bring any meaningful damage buffs to the table. Might share was really not optimal and there is just 1 unique buff for engineer, helping condition heavy teams (pinpoint distribution), but this one was located on a trait line which offers absolutely nothing except this buff for a healing build. And you are basically required to take inventions and alchemy to heal efficiently.

 

So quickness was just the easiest way to fix this. Quickness and alacrity are great dps buffs for the team, so if you can provide one of these, then you have the dps buff required to be considered a good support. But these 2 buffs are not absolutely required to be a good support, just good dps buffs are and these 2 boons are just easier to inject into a class.

[Dadnir.5038]

29 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Not entirely true. The thing is that you need to provide a huge dps increase for your team to be a viable support. Support builds tend to deal pretty bad damage themselves and in an environment in which you want to max out the dps of the group, it is better to have at least strong buffs for the group to increase their dps if you don't provide the damage yourself.

 

Druid is a great example how you can still be pretty kitten requested as a support class, even if you don't have alacrity or quickness. Druid has good might share and on top of this the spirits and spotter. Sun spirit is a really good dps increase for condi damage, winter spirit is a great and unique damage buff for power builds and spotter brings up the crit rate of your supported players, so less investment in precision is needed to reach 100% crit chance.

 

But these are mechanics which are entirely unique to ranger. No other class can distribute the buffs you get from spirits or the precision aura from spotter.

 

Engineer (as one example that got changed to provide quickness) just didn't bring any meaningful damage buffs to the table. Might share was really not optimal and there is just 1 unique buff for engineer, helping condition heavy teams (pinpoint distribution), but this one was located on a trait line which offers absolutely nothing except this buff for a healing build. And you are basically required to take inventions and alchemy to heal efficiently.

 

So quickness was just the easiest way to fix this. Quickness and alacrity are great dps buffs for the team, so if you can provide one of these, then you have the dps buff required to be considered a good support. But these 2 buffs are not absolutely required to be a good support, just good dps buffs are and these 2 boons are just easier to inject into a class.

 

So by your logic Tempest should get Alacrity or Quickness to make it a "meaningful" support? Thief should get Alacrity and Quickness to be a meanigful support? Even scourge giving nothing but might as offensive support should get Quickness or Alacrity to become a meanigful support?

 

From my point of view you're just justifying powercreep here.

[Infusion.7149]

3 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

SB can merge???

Yes that's why soulbeast is the only decent spec for WvW.

[Arheundel.6451]

2 hours ago, xDuckYx.4920 said:

Every other class that can use a bow is better than "the archer" class itself

...no, ranger is by far the best longbow user in the game, yes shortbow sucks compared to renegade or even thief but...oh well

[Kodama.6453]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

 

So by your logic Tempest should get Alacrity or Quickness to make it a "meaningful" support? Thief should get Alacrity and Quickness to be a meanigful support? Even scourge giving nothing but might as offensive support should get Quickness or Alacrity to become a meanigful support?

 

From my point of view you're just justifying powercreep here.

Well, look at the situation of engineer before this change. You really never saw a support scrapper in end game PvE content. Exactly because of the lack of damage buffs I was speaking of, but now we are considered really good supports thanks to the group damage buff through quickness.

 

If you look at the engineer forum, I was actually really vocal against the suggestion to add group quickness to scrapper. Mostly because I thought that scrapper is not supposed to be a heal support in the first place, but a bruiser, so if we are given such powerful buffs to support a healing support build, I would have preferred to get it on the next elite spec.

 

But this is how we ended up with this. Damage buffs are seen as needed to get taken as a support, that is the reality of this game.

This being said, I never said you have to give these boons to a class to make them viable supports. And especially not both of them are needed.

 

I directly said that damage buffs for your group are needed... quickness and alacrity are just one way which is quite easy to inject into classes. This does not mean I say that all these classes need to get these buffs to achieve making them meaningful supports in end PvE.

 

Tempest is considered not to be a great support choice rn, exactly because of the lack of damage buffs. But you can achieve this in other ways, for example by reworking overload air to increase strike damage from allies while they are in the lightning field, for example, instead of making it strike with lightning whenever your allies attack.

 

Thief has the problem that they don't have a support elite spec to begin with. I think they can give thief one with the next elite specs, which might make thief a viable support by giving them some other damage buffs, which can get achieved in many different ways. Maybe you can increase damage against a target you steal from, maybe you get utility skills which buff allied damage, or whatever.

 

You get the idea. Quickness and alacrity are not the only thing to achieve making supports more desired, they were just an easy way.

Edited June 26, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Spirit weren't meta in PvE before HoT (Like Necromancers, Rangers were not welcome in PvE end game content due to the infamous bearbow stigma at that time).

 

Gotta disagree here with rangers not being welcome in engame content, as spotter rangers were absolutely a thing in dungeon runs. 

 

I seem to remember a few of the spirits being highly requested as well (unless I'm only remembering GW1 where spirit ranger was king).  

 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

18 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Gotta disagree here with rangers not being welcome in engame content, as spotter rangers were absolutely a thing in dungeon runs. 

 

I seem to remember a few of the spirits being highly requested as well (unless I'm only remembering GW1 where spirit ranger was king). 

Then you remember GW1. Truly, ranger wasn't welcome in the end game before HoT. In fact, anything that wasn't an elementalist, a warrior or a thief before HoT was either optional or rejected (yes even guardian). The rankng was more or less:

1. S rank: Elementalist (Conjure shortbow/lightning hammer/Fiery GS, Fire field/water field/lightning field/blast)
2. A rank: Warrior (Phallanx strength/traited GS), Thief (stealth for add skip)
3. B rank: Mesmer (reflect/portal/Quickness), Engineer (Blast + most fields)
4. C rank: Guardian (reflect but held back by it's light fields)
5. F rank: Necromancer/Ranger

[xDuckYx.4920]

10 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

...no, ranger is by far the best longbow user in the game, yes shortbow sucks compared to renegade or even thief but...oh well

 

Wtf? Maybe the "Ranger" would be ok if they would reduce the cd of the awesome 2 attack skills the ranger has with longbow by half because the 2 other skills do no dmg at all

[Infusion.7149]

20 minutes ago, xDuckYx.4920 said:

 

Wtf? Maybe the "Ranger" would be ok if they would reduce the cd of the awesome 2 attack skills the ranger has with longbow by half because the 2 other skills do no dmg at all

Point-blank shot actually does more damage than Rapid Fire per second, see iDPS chart at

https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast

• Frost Trap    7001
• Hunter's Call    5282
• Barrage    3785
• Worldly Impact    3373
• Path of Scars    3201
• Whirling Defense    3176
• Frenzied Attack    3134
• Maul    2828
• Winter's Bite    2679
• Point-Blank Shot    2497
• Kick    2348
• Rapid Fire    2220
• Charge    2050
• Hilt Bash + Maul    2029

Rapid Fire does not need a cooldown reduction because the cast time would be half your rotation if it were spammable. Barrage has a high coefficient so if it received a cooldown reduction the damage would be lowered by a similar amount , which reduces burst making it not attractive over Greatsword.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[xDuckYx.4920]

20 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Point-blank shot actually does more damage than Rapid Fire per second, see iDPS chart at

https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast

• Frost Trap    7001
• Hunter's Call    5282
• Barrage    3785
• Worldly Impact    3373
• Path of Scars    3201
• Whirling Defense    3176
• Frenzied Attack    3134
• Maul    2828
• Winter's Bite    2679
• Point-Blank Shot    2497
• Kick    2348
• Rapid Fire    2220
• Charge    2050
• Hilt Bash + Maul    2029

Rapid Fire does not need a cooldown reduction because the cast time would be half your rotation if it were spammable. Barrage has a high coefficient so if it received a cooldown reduction the damage would be lowered by a similar amount , which reduces burst making it not attractive over Greatsword.

 

How can point blank shot has more dps than rapid fire? Point blank hits 1 time with 12 sec of cd while rapid fire hits how often with a 8 sec cd? And in pvp/wvw point blank deals like no dmg at all.....

[Infusion.7149]

3 minutes ago, xDuckYx.4920 said:

 

How can point blank shot has more dps than rapid fire? Point blank hits 1 time with 12 sec of cd while rapid fire hits how often with a 8 sec cd? And in pvp/wvw point blank deals like no dmg at all.....

Are you talking about PVE or PVP/WVW? More or less all CC does 0.01 coefficient in competitive now.
Go look at the chart if you mean for PVE. DPS = Damage per second. Point blank shot has a much lower activation time.

[Zyreva.1078]

11 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Point-blank shot actually does more damage than Rapid Fire per second, see iDPS chart at

 

No idea what the "i" in iDPS stands for, but from the looks of it the list is just about skill priority, but it does not display how much dps a skill provides over the coure of an actual fight (which is going to be higher for rapid fire for sure), so the claim "pbs does more dmg than rapid fire" is quite misleading.

Edited June 27, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Infusion.7149]

4 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

 

No idea what the "i" in iDPS stands for, but from the looks of it the list is just about skill priority, but it does not display how much dps a skill provides over the coure of an actual fight (which is going to be higher for rapid fire for sure), so the claim "pbs does more dmg than rapid fire" is quite misleading.

The explanation given by the chart creator is damage/cast time from damage log.
Rapid fire does more damage (not DPS) overall because it hits more times , is used more often, and has lower cooldown.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Infusion.7149