Curse

N I T E Stalker · Aug 11, 2010, 06:06 PM // 18:06

imo i think Shriketalon is right..

Armageddon · Aug 11, 2010, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Nice post Shriketalon

I think the basic problem is that the Ranger is a Jack of all trades, master of none.

There's nothing a Ranger can do that a different class cannot do so much better

Cuilan · Aug 11, 2010, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Marksmanship could use a few reverts in PvE for older versions. Trapping is fine. At least rangers have some form of solo play using their own skills. Traps are fine, be hardcore and trap when foes run by you on a non-trap based bar. Ranger spirits are obviously trash and is the primary thing that needs revamping for the profession.

Interruption preparations will need a nerf if you're going to remove "remove pep" parts of skills.

Tranquility is the one thing that made Ether Renewal healing somewhat hard with the White Mantel, so keep the enchant fun or add something in addition to it.

Axel Zinfandel · Aug 11, 2010, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by biofrog

Well I listed a bunch above.

Ahh, ok, I see now. I feel the want to go over them for a moment. Yes these are the negetive aspects, but they are blaringly huge aspects that make them undesirable.

The rituals help everyone. Even the enemy, but that's beside the point. A VAST majority of the rituals take far too long to set up and maintain for the fast paced nature of PvE... and many of them don't really do anything GOOD, or are pretty situational.

The traps lure & destroy mobs before the party even engages the bloody enemies. Again, Traps take much time to set up. They may be good, but it takes a style of play that not everyone even wants to do.

There's the decent armor and the best elemental armor in the game I'll agree there. Rangers have awesome armor.

the personal pet tank Pets generally don't have good AI, let alone AI to match a human 'tank', if one even enjoys playing that way. Sure, they have the ability to absorb a CRAPload of damage, but it doesn't get used often, as (or so I judge on other peoples' discussing) pets aren't really targeted as much, and can't hold a lot of aggro.

the only skill in the game which actually stops resurrection Which is incredibly situational in PvE. Useful for certain areas, that's it.

You've got interruption skills Which aren't really frequently used in PvE. killing faster is prefered to shutting down, except on key bosses.

condition skills All of which suck in PvE Except Daze and arguably burning.

AoE skills Barrage isn't really all it's cracked up to be, esspecially with Volley as a non-elite.

even their primary attribute makes all skills use less energy!
Not ALL skills, but ok, yes, Expertise is great, even though it's clear Ranger (specifically marksmanship) skills are bumpped up in energy cost to compensate, just like Mesmers and Cast Time

Quote:

Originally Posted by biofrog

If you have every class being good at everything, where's the uniqueness, the disparity in classes, the flair, the fun! Paper, Rock, Scissors! I'm really interested to see how GW2 handles this.

Rangers aren't 'good at everything'. they may be good in PvP, but the same reasons they are good in PvP is why they suck in PvE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by biofrog

Rofl, you can't bring logistics into it.. or a falling giant flaming boulder from the sky would do more than 18 damage

I wassn't talking logistics of the real world, I'm talking logistics of the game. That'd be like if the Axe did one damage range under the scythe. It's flawed from a mechanic standpoint.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 11, 2010, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaker

Stay tuned folks! Next week it's the "Warriors need a buff!" rant, followed by Necros, and continuing each week with a new class until we get back around to Dervishes.

I doubt anyone will ever complain about those classes as long as they stay as strong as they are currently.

The classes that need work are Rangers,Dervishes, Paragons, and Elementalists. Everyone else is between good and amazing.

Also this makes the third thread about updates for a class that is not in the right forum (and that has not been moved) this month.

FengShuiDove · Aug 11, 2010, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Yes please. There's less reason to play Dervish and Paragon than Ranger, but if they do a decent job of the D and P buffs, then Ranger will be the most underpowered profession in a lot of folks' minds. They're playable only because of Expertise and /A, /W, /P, /D, whatever, but none of those are things a person actually wants to do when they create a Ranger. They want the traps, the bows, the nature rituals. Unfortunately, they're all pretty terrible.

If Dervs and Paras are well balanced in the next few months, Rangers will be in dead last, followed by Eles only because HM damage is so highly nerfed. Even then, if we could get Rangers fixed, I'd feel like we had a pretty balanced game.

Some good ideas in the OP, some very simple fixes that would be effective, and some bad, where complexity started to show its ugly hide. Great post overall though.

Tenebrae · Aug 11, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Kanen

Dervish and paragons need more work than ranger ever does/did. Nothing wrong with rangers.

Rangers have good survivability and good with all kinds of physical weapons.

Shure some skills suck but then again they do with most classes.

Leave ranger alone imo

Oh the P and D lover. Soz pal but i have to call bullcrap on that.

The main prob with P and D is the LACK of skills . The main prob with Rangers is the LACK of USEFUL skills and main role. See the diff ?

You cant say "hey , rangers can have X good builds so they are fine" . Look to the % . If P and D would have 100 skills each and only 6 good builds and Rangers had 300 skills and only 10 good builds ...... are they balanced ? nah. And sadly , thats the case. 4 Att lines and only 2 of them work "good" :
- Marks , deal damage , conditions .... not the best DPS ofc but still decent.
- Expertise , allows rangers to mimic and helps them to survive and endure long battles ( WTF , long battles in PvE ? )
- Rest , plain BS. Almost ...... 6 or 10% of the skills from those atts are "usable".

If you say "nothing is wrong with rangers" either you never seen/played one in GW or you are blind.

G4ymBoy · Aug 11, 2010, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I agree with most of the suggested changes. The conditional conditions intrigue me. I personally use a lot of different skills from other classes along with Marksmans Wager (one of TC's changes I totally disagree with leave my stupid build fuel alone). Otherwise I love that someone is thinking outside the box.

Ka Tet · Aug 11, 2010, 09:35 PM // 21:35

How the frig do you guys think traps work? If you hide a bear trap under some brush, a bear may step on it, especially if you leave a pic-a-nic basket nearby. If you just drop it in front of a bear, the bear won't step on it and will instead rape and eat you. In that order.
The problem is not with rangers, the problem is with pve'ers who seem to assume that they should have a "win game button" to press at their leisure.

gremlin · Aug 11, 2010, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Well, bows should not be not good at dealing damage, not Rangers themselves; I would like to see that Beast Mastery becomes a valid damage attribute.

I must admit I have not declared myself very precisely. Ranged weapons should not deal as much damage as a melee weapon, spears are horribly broken and deal far to much damage, please don't use them for comparison.
I might be standing alone with this, but for me the existing of one broken mechanic doesn't justify the implementation of another one.

With respect the only way to make such comparisons between the weapons is to assume they are game equivalents to real life weapons from our past.

So lets do that.
A sword isn't a serious battlefield weapon when fully armoured enemies are around.
Its a personal defence weapon of last resort, useless against plate and even chain mail gives it a hard time.

Axe pretty good decent penetration and damage often used successfully
Hammer ditto crushed all armours and kills the enemy.

Scythe well might do something against unarmoured foes but you would need to make it much more like a military pole arm for it to be used in a battle so lets assume this is so in the game.

Daggers hmm ok for suicide attacks but your gonna die after disabling one target not used unless your main weapon breaks and you have no choice.

Ok so far, now we have the Bow universally used from ancient battles of the bronze age right into the gunpowder era.

If you stick a 30 inch piece of wood into someone right through their armour they are in trouble its not as if you continue to run around and fight with one through a leg arm or head.

You have a far slower rate of fire limited ammunition but devestating deep wound damage combined with high armour piercing capabilities.

Pretty near any arrow hit that penetrates causes massive trauma and puts the enemy out of action.

Of course that's real life not gw so I guess in the game all weapons are pretty much equal so a bow should be considered just as lethal as any of the other weapons.

reaper with no name · Aug 11, 2010, 09:52 PM // 21:52

There are 3 ways to be underpowered in PvE.

Paragon: Most of the skills are crap.

Dervish: Has good skills that are all used better by other professions.

Ranger: Has skills good at things that are worthless in PvE.

Make no mistake, the Ranger needs buffs, badly. And while I admit I didn't read most of the individual suggestions (honestly, it wouldn't matter, seeing as how Anet never reads these things), I doubt that most of the concepts will ever see the light of day. And even if they did, there's a very good chance that they wouldn't matter.

Damage and Defense wins PvE. The Ranger and the Paragon are the two ranged physical professions. The Paragon, however, is half support and half damage. The Ranger, therefore, would probably be best suited to further specialization into ranged physical damage (both single target and AoE). Unlike the challenges of the mesmer (which had to make a niche without kicking the necromancer or ritualist out of their places), there aren't any other professions that are supposed to be doing these things.

Unfortunately, as of right now the Ranger has no hope of being the best ranged physical AoE due to Ritualists being better at Splinter Barrage. As for how to fix that, I don't know. But it's something to think about.

Fay Vert · Aug 11, 2010, 10:30 PM // 22:30

I agree with much of the analysis but disagree with most of the suggestions. I don;t think bow multiattacking is the way to go and making conditions more fiddly isn't going to help any.

The basic problem with bows is that the mechanic in GW is just wrong. In RL bows are one-shot deadly, slow fire rate with a low chance to hit. In GW bows are low damage dealers, slow fire rate with 100% chance to hit. I think the damage should be significantly increased (more than a base hammer dammage) but the hit chance should be a factor of Marksmanship, something like Marks*5, that then gives you more skill effect options with chances to hit. Range and bow type could also affect the chance.

Traps with bigger damage but non-stackable could be better for general PvE play and I like the idea of turning some other skills into traps. Might be tricky balancing some areas.

Pets still have dreadful control, hard to see how they can fix this, especially in a game this old.

But yeah PvE rangerbuff

/signed

Being · Aug 11, 2010, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlCapwn

As a Ranger 95% of the time for the last 4 1/2 years, I can fully say I support the idea of an update to Rangers(for PvE). I find myself using secondary profession builds basically all the time rather than bows or any other useless ranger skills. And so....

/signed

This.

Why even bother using any of the Ranger's primary skills when running a secondary profession build is more superior to any primary builds. I'm so much better off running around with a bar full of Ritualist or Dervish skills in PvE than a full bar Ranger ones.

FengShuiDove · Aug 11, 2010, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

How the frig do you guys think traps work? If you hide a bear trap under some brush, a bear may step on it, especially if you leave a pic-a-nic basket nearby. If you just drop it in front of a bear, the bear won't step on it and will instead rape and eat you. In that order.
The problem is not with rangers, the problem is with pve'ers who seem to assume that they should have a "win game button" to press at their leisure.

Wow, you have shifted my perspective. Next time I play Ranger, I'll bring a trapper bar so that the traps "feel good", because they sure aren't useful in any normal PvE situation.

I think we all realize that's how traps work, but then again, meteors crashing from an arbitrarily high height don't cause a small amount of damage and knockdown members of the Shadow Army in the Fissure of Woe. It's not supposed to be realistic. If a skill isn't effective in some capacity, it's worthless.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 11, 2010, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

How the frig do you guys think traps work? If you hide a bear trap under some brush, a bear may step on it, especially if you leave a pic-a-nic basket nearby. If you just drop it in front of a bear, the bear won't step on it and will instead rape and eat you. In that order.
The problem is not with rangers, the problem is with pve'ers who seem to assume that they should have a "win game button" to press at their leisure.

Did you just say a bear will rape you? Are you stupid?

Artisan Archer · Aug 11, 2010, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Not every profession needs to do big damage or make red bars go up. There are other things to Guild Wars. A Ranger is a toolbox, not a shotgun. Some of you people just make it painfully obvious how bad you are at Guild Wars.

Shriketalon · Aug 11, 2010, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

This was a high-quality post. Thank you.

And thank you, in turn, for your insightful response. It is always nice to read well thought out feedback. If I may address a few points...

"I like the idea of a prep that adds extra multi-target arrows to attack skills. However, I'm not sure it should be Triple Shot, if only because I think Triple Shot could be worthwhile on its own with a recharge reduction."

Actually, I did not intend for Triple Shot to be a preparation, but simply an untyped Skill. That may make it sound ridiculously overpowered, but here's my take on it; an Assassin can add Critical Agility to just about any bar under the sun and get a major benefit. A paragon can always use TNTF for anywhere he goes, and an Ele always gets a nice benefit from Elemental Lord. The Ranger's got a major problem with his class PvE skills, in that they are niche. One only works with pets, one only works with single target multiarrow attacking, aka a single build. The intent was to make it work on just about anything, because any bow build can benefit from a little extra fire.

Or, to use the wonderful phase; "You don't need to be a better shot, you just need to shoot more bullets".

"You largely ignore the multiple-arrows-one-target "ranger spike" playstyle."

This was by intention. Spiking IS a viable playstyle, but at its core, it comes down to numbers. Damage, recharge rate, and energy cost make or break a spike build. I am not the person to ask about such figures. When it comes down to the game's math, that department is best left to someone with all the formulas, all the data, who can do a side-by-side comparison to rate spiking abilities across professions, aka an expert.

On the plus side, though, my crackpot suggestions did avoid a few select skills intentionally. These include Oath Shot, Needling Shot, Sloth Hunter Shot, and a few others which generally aim towards single target damage, just the build you're talking about.

"Rangers badly need a decent 33%IAS. Similarly, we need a decent non-elite e-management skill that isn't in beast mastery."

That would be the point of changing Expert Focus into a stance (I know, it's buried in the quagmire of skill ideas, but it is there)thus letting it stack with Rapid Fire, allowing a pure bow user to have 33% IAS, energy reduction on bow skill cost, and a minor damage boost, all wrapped up in one solid package.

"Condition spreading is generally worthless in PvE because most conditions are generally worthless in PvE."

Aye, I know. That's the point of the Improved Conditions, to make something worthwhile out of generally underpowered effects by making them the foundation of better abilities. They might be a little hit and miss, though; looking back over the list I'd say I made the chains far longer than they should have been, might need to amend that.

"Traps are very difficult to fix, for all the reasons you explain. My best solution is to steal directly from D2. Convert traps into limited-ammunition proximity-based turrets."

This, right here, is brilliant.

Appropriate for the game lore (because we already have things like the Nightfall/EotN traps which function as turrets and point-blank-directional effects), easy to use in a balanced group, and can be splashed into a build for a benefit without requiring the full bar. Kudos, sir, that's a very nice idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by biofrog

Here's something for you: My Elementalist, supposedly the 'damage dealers' of the game, used the Elite Savannah Heat skill on a level 30 hard mode warrior boss the other day.

Actually, I do advocate assisting the Elementalist. But unlike the Ranger, revamping the Ele is actually a very, very simple matter which can be summed up in two words.

Armor penetration.

Unlike holy, shadow, chaos, dark (which is different from shadow

), untyped, and some attack skill damage, elemental damage suffers from the extremely high armor levels that plague Hard Mode. As a result, the class that should be the pinnacle of damage dealing can't do that, because his fire is less effective than a mesmeric overload or a necrotic wave.

But that is rather easy to fix if they gave the Ele three or four skills tailor made to provide armor penetration for all his skills. Whereas the Ranger needs a serious fix, more than simply cranking around numbers, especially when it comes to his utility skills. But that's another discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fay Vert

I agree with much of the analysis but disagree with most of the suggestions.

Now that's the kind of feedback I love to hear.

As for your high damage idea, it is an interesting possibility, but changing the bow's functionality at this point would probably not be feasible. Instead, focusing on the spiking element with a few good skills would handle this nicely (the aforementioned Oath, Needling, Sloth Hunter, etc).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artisan Archer

Not every profession needs to do big damage or make red bars go up. There are other things to Guild Wars. A Ranger is a toolbox, not a shotgun. Some of you people just make it painfully obvious how bad you are at Guild Wars.

But when your toolbox consists of a rusty wrench, a ball of twine, and a moldy sandwich, it's time to get new tools. All classes should contribute to the game, and skill has nothing to do with it. If one class is inferior to another in all its aspects or contributes nothing to the party that another profession cannot do better, it needs improvement.

Aldric · Aug 11, 2010, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlCapwn

As a Ranger 95% of the time for the last 4 1/2 years, I can fully say I support the idea of an update to Rangers(for PvE). I find myself using secondary profession builds basically all the time rather than bows or any other useless ranger skills. And so....

/signed

Ditto, the only time i use a bow nowadays is for puling or the odd weird mission like BLA when Splinter/Barrage returns to my bar.

R/P with spears or R/D with a Scythe are both much more powerful than anything a bow can output in the majority of situations. Havent got around to daggers/hammers or Axes much yet but i'll have a go next

BM - Queuing 2 skills, improved AI and better controls would really give the pet builds a boost. Maybe some skill changes to synergise it better with bows as opposed to secondary weapons

Traps - A niche playstyle for solo play, I love rangers but even i would kick a nugget trying to run a trap build in my pug. Liked Cthons idea for D2 like traps though, that could be interesting

Rituals - The odd situational use for a couple of these is not good enough for an entire game mechanic. Needs a drastic overhall to make them useful.

Marksmanship - Underpowered beyond a few semi average builds, needs buffing/reworking to make it a more usable choice.

/signed and some good suggestions from a few posts about how to resolve some of these issues.

Wielder Of Magic · Aug 11, 2010, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fay Vert

I think the damage should be significantly increased (more than a base hammer dammage)

I have a feeling something like that would cause serious balance issues.
Not only when looking at things like Rspike in pvp, but also the fact that when people complain that spears are already broken because of their damage, how broken would a weapon with bigger ranger and damage comparable or even bigger then that of a hammer be?

why bring buffed melees when buffed rangers can one-shot everything?

I agree rangers need a buff, but messing with the damage of the bow is not the way to go imo.

Artisan Archer · Aug 11, 2010, 11:39 PM // 23:39

@OP reading your suggestions, your idea of a ranger seems to be: spread conditions, pew pew power. I can see how you would think they aren't much of a toolbox yea.