Curse

Neo-LD · Aug 04, 2005, 05:05 PM // 17:05

The following applies to 8v8 only:

Barrage has a bad rep for PvP, and it makes sense: no one is dumb enough to bunch up for barrage to own them. But has anyone really tried it? Most people dont even try cus they assume they already got it figured out, but heres a list of all the wonderful things barrage can do for you:

1) Kill spirits. Ah those wonderful spirit spammers. Everyone loves those right? Not a barrage ranger. If those spirits are even remotely close to one another, they are going down. Let me tell you, the rangers dont know you have barrage till its too late. Most of em dont even think about where to place em, cus as long as theyre close, they work, and no one ever tries to kill them anyways. Barrage lets you down multiple spirits in seconds. Most spirit rangers sit on top of the spirits they cast cus they dont want to waste more time moving. This also results in plenty of spirits sitting in the same spot. Barrage time....

2) Kill minions. Minions are always bunched up, and thus are easy to own with barrage. With everyones favorite pve combo, barrage + JI, you can kill a whole bunch in practically 1 shot. JI is also a good spell against regular enemies, especially enemy necros.

3) Against Regular players, barrage deals as much extra damage as hunters shot for the same energy and 5x less cooldown. The lack of bleed is negligible. Thus even if it strikes only 1 enemy, barrage is a decent attack. If it strikes 2, its a very good attack (how many skills you know grant double damage?) It might even strike 3, 4, or 5, though the likelyhood of such lucky shots is gets lower. In the very beginning of every match, both sides charge and kinda meet in the middle. For the first 5-10 seconds, the enemy is actually very bunched up as they move as a pack to engage you. After that, the fight is congested enough that you can usually score decent barrage shots. Most people getting hit by barrage think "shit, I gotta move away from my teammates so barrage doesnt own us all" but doing this is not quite as easy as it sounds, for running when being mauled by a warrior isnt a good thing. Runnign while crippled is hard. Running while you are supposed to be healing is dumb. When you are running you arent attacking. All the nasty things barrage does to the enemy team =)

having 1 of these guys on your team makes it 10x stronger against cheesy builds like minions or spirits, and doesnt really make it weaker against normal builds (not that many people play normal builds anymore =/ )

OneArmedScissor · Aug 04, 2005, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

The following applies to 8v8 only:

Barrage has a bad rep for PvP, and it makes sense: no one is dumb enough to bunch up for barrage to own them. But has anyone really tried it? Most people dont even try cus they assume they already got it figured out, but heres a list of all the wonderful things barrage can do for you:

1) Kill spirits. Ah those wonderful spirit spammers. Everyone loves those right? Not a barrage ranger. If those spirits are even remotely close to one another, they are going down. Let me tell you, the rangers dont know you have barrage till its too late. Most of em dont even think about where to place em, cus as long as theyre close, they work, and no one ever tries to kill them anyways. Barrage lets you down multiple spirits in seconds. Most spirit rangers sit on top of the spirits they cast cus they dont want to waste more time moving. This also results in plenty of spirits sitting in the same spot. Barrage time....

2) Kill minions. Minions are always bunched up, and thus are easy to own with barrage. With everyones favorite pve combo, barrage + JI, you can kill a whole bunch in practically 1 shot. JI is also a good spell against regular enemies, especially enemy necros.

3) Against Regular players, barrage deals as much extra damage as hunters shot for the same energy and 5x less cooldown. The lack of bleed is negligible. Thus even if it strikes only 1 enemy, barrage is a decent attack. If it strikes 2, its a very good attack (how many skills you know grant double damage?) It might even strike 3, 4, or 5, though the likelyhood of such lucky shots is gets lower. In the very beginning of every match, both sides charge and kinda meet in the middle. For the first 5-10 seconds, the enemy is actually very bunched up as they move as a pack to engage you. After that, the fight is congested enough that you can usually score decent barrage shots. Most people getting hit by barrage think "shit, I gotta move away from my teammates so barrage doesnt own us all" but doing this is not quite as easy as it sounds, for running when being mauled by a warrior isnt a good thing. Runnign while crippled is hard. Running while you are supposed to be healing is dumb. When you are running you arent attacking. All the nasty things barrage does to the enemy team =)

having 1 of these guys on your team makes it 10x stronger against cheesy builds like minions or spirits, and doesnt really make it weaker against normal builds (not that many people play normal builds anymore =/ )

I use Barrage for my Elite on my Ranger for most of those reasons... even in 4v4.

Let's get something straight, how many people actually stay "spread out" through the entire battle? Not many. Even when they spread out, you can just flank them and get the angles right so you can hit them with Barrage. If they move again, you're doing a good job because the time it takes for them all to move means they won't be attacking or casting spells.
Barrage is spammable unlike Hunter's Shot, etc. It's cheap as well. It adds +13 damage (depending upon your marksmanship attribute). And it has the potential to multiple targets. It's a good elite.

Morganas · Aug 04, 2005, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Barrage's big weakness is that it removes preps, and alot of ranger builds rely on those for heavy damage. My pve ranger has partially bypassed that by using order of pain instead, along with that marksmanship spirit, both of which add +dmg to all foes hit.

For a short joyous moment when I captured barrage, I actually had order of pain, order of vampire, and barrage all on my bar at the same time. I miss those several seconds...

White Designs · Aug 04, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Barrage is great when you stack buffs onto the Ranger, especially Judge's Insight and the Order's, as mentioned. Unfortunately, we play in a Nature's dominated world, which makes those enchantments out of the question. Insight will be removed fast, and although the Order's are spammable, 4 sec cast times with Nature's kills them.

Quick Shot and a prep is better under current conditions.

=HT=Ingram · Aug 04, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Its nice to see people Giving rangers some respect finally. cept now instead of saying they suck, people are complaining they are too good. I'm laughing my a$$ off is all.

Neo-LD · Aug 04, 2005, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Designs

Barrage is great when you stack buffs onto the Ranger, especially Judge's Insight and the Order's, as mentioned. Unfortunately, we play in a Nature's dominated world, which makes those enchantments out of the question. Insight will be removed fast, and although the Order's are spammable, 4 sec cast times with Nature's kills them.

Quick Shot and a prep is better under current conditions.

Better for nuking a single target, certainly. I am in fact a huge fan of QS, I just wanted to explain that barrage isnt as bad as people make it out to be. Sure barrage is 3x better with enchantements, but its still a great skill on its own. See the part of my OP where I compare it to hunters shot.

Corwin · Aug 04, 2005, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I've had this concept for a while now - every time I saw Barrage bashed for PvP, I've thought to myself "but you still get the bonus damage and it's still super spammable, even if you don't hit more than one target."

I just didn't open my mouth before because I didn't think it was worth starting an argument. Nice to see someone else coming 'round to my way of thinking, though

Neo-LD · Aug 04, 2005, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corwin

I've had this concept for a while now - every time I saw Barrage bashed for PvP, I've thought to myself "but you still get the bonus damage and it's still super spammable, even if you don't hit more than one target."

I just didn't open my mouth before because I didn't think it was worth starting an argument. Nice to see someone else coming 'round to my way of thinking, though

Well thanks for agreeing, i guess. You coulda voiced your support without trying to take credit for the idea though. If you thought of it first thats great, and you should feel good. But you didnt need to sap my ego

Corwin · Aug 04, 2005, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Well thanks for agreeing, i guess. You coulda voiced your support without trying to take credit for the idea though. If you thought of it first thats great, and you should feel good. But you didnt need to sap my ego

Doh! Sorry, man, wasn't my intention. One of the hazards of written communication, I guess - looked okay to me when I wrote it, but then, I knew what I meant. I can totally see how it reads the way you took it too - I gotta be more careful when I'm reading these over before I post 'em.

I just meant "yay, I wasn't smoking crack when I decided that Barrage was a decent skill." I did NOT mean "haha, it was my idea first :P "

Validation is nice sometimes, especially when you're on the underdog side of an argument or perception. That's all I was going for.

White Designs · Aug 04, 2005, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Better for nuking a single target, certainly. I am in fact a huge fan of QS, I just wanted to explain that barrage isnt as bad as people make it out to be. Sure barrage is 3x better with enchantements, but its still a great skill on its own. See the part of my OP where I compare it to hunters shot.

I understand what you are saying, but in my opinion in with Nature's being king right now, I don't see a Barrage ranger cutting it, since without enchantments the damage doesn't really compare to a good warrior. Yes, it is very good against Fiends/spirit teams but I don't think either of them are common or powerful enough to justify a Barrage Ranger.

This is since the ranger elite is so vital to its functions, R/Me energy denial has Echo, Spirit Ranger has Oath Shot, Fast Damage has Quick Shot, etc. A ranger with Barrage is a damage dealer, but without the enchantments, it probably falls short...too bad really, I like Barrage a lot as a skill.

Neo-LD · Aug 04, 2005, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Uh, spirit spam not common? By my experience I fight a spirit group at least every other battle. Minion groups arent that rare either. NR usually goes hand in hand with spirit spam, so if there arent any spirits, there probably isnt any NR. If there are spirits you effective. if there arent, you are even more effective. In the unlikely circumstance where NR is the only spirit used, recasting JI isnt so bad. NR is killer against builds that cast many many enchantments. If you just stick to casting and recasting one, it isnt so bad.

White Designs · Aug 04, 2005, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Minion groups are super-rare, enough said.

Spirit groups are more common, but the ones that just spam spirits all over the place are not as much. Good spirit groups generally rely on Fertile Season, Nature's and maybe Quickening Zephyr as the main spirits. They will spread them around alot and prevent Barrage or similiar AoE spells from destroying them all.

And Nature's Renewal just *kills* Judge's Insight. Insight can reasonably last 15-20 seconds, so must be reapplied frequently. Under NR, that's 4 seconds spent casting JI every 15-20 seconds as a Ranger, which is a heck of a lot of time spent doing nothing. Not only that, every time a new NR comes down, which is pretty often, then bam, another 4 seconds casting or a much more ineffective ranger.

Neo-LD · Aug 05, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

While NR screw over all enchants, its more devastating to enchants with long cooldowns, since when they get removed they have no chance to come back at all. With fast recharge stuff like JI, you can still have it if you need.

With NR so popular right now, most people dont carry many enchants besides reversal, prot spirit, and guardian. If you are the only person in your group with 20 second enchants, its 5 seconds for the NR ranger to remove it and 4 for you to reapply. Not exactly a bad trade.

I believe that Arenanet will do something about NR in the next patch, so we can debate whether barrage is better then. I do agree that though, QS, Echo, and Oath are better elites at the moment I just wanted to point out that barrage runs a close 4th, it doesnt suck like most people believe.

ElderAtronach · Aug 05, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

I forget who it was, but someone on guru forums (or several someones) advocated barrage for PVP even in 4v4 arenas a while ago. It was before you made this thread btw, Neo

Didn't mean to burst your bubble, but yeah. Anyway, barrage + conjure is still a great combo, as is barrage + JI, the latter being more competitive in tombs due to the number of spirit teams out there at the moment.

Calibretto_9 · Aug 05, 2005, 02:14 AM // 02:14

I'd say this: Don't listen to everything you hear. Too many people jump on the boards and advocate this strategy or that strategy because some hotshot stated that he thinks it's the only way to play. Experimenting with new things is one of the best, and only, ways to invent new builds. I say keep it up, and if you think barrage sounds good, go try it out. Always fun to watch an enemy react as they slowly realize you're not another cookie cutter build.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Aug 05, 2005, 04:27 PM // 16:27

I don't remember when Barrage had a bad Rep... for a while, it was the most hotly sought skill for rangers. Barrage has always been a reputable skill and a damn good one in PvP.

I used to hear about Barrage + Mark of Pain success stories in the tombs, but I've never done that personally.

Maybe I don't frequent the forums enough but I've never heard someone say that Barrage is a bad skill.

Lt.Crumpet · Aug 05, 2005, 04:39 PM // 16:39

barrage the most hotly sought skill for rangers? understatement of the year in my case. ever since i saw the skill in like january, im like OMG OMG OMG I WANT IT. now that im older and jaded, it is still very nice. i can see that in some cases barrage isnt the best, but i like +13ish dmg to up to 6 guys. it makes me smile to see 6 high yellow numbers above guys heads.

Winds of Blood · Aug 05, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Shields up = t3h owned??

Shrapnel_Magnet · Aug 05, 2005, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Shields up is good until the ranger realizes he should switch his bow to an Elemental Type... or switches targets... or waits out the duration and then attacks during the recharge time.

I'm not knocking the skill, it's a powerful one... I'm just saying that it's not going to make every ranger look stupid... actually, never mind, most players aren't tactically aware of Guild Wars, so yes, it makes 90% of rangers look like 9 year olds with spitballs.

Redead91 · Aug 05, 2005, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Right, shields up would mess up barrage, but to be honest, anyone can post skill A and someone can respond with, "Skill B = t3h owned??" The whole point of Guild Wars is to think of new strategies and counters, but very rarely have I noticed shields up being used, and if that is just a personal experience than fine, but with the rise and fall of the ranger population in pvp, so will you see the rise and fall of anti-ranger skills. Barrage is still a fun skill and useful skill in my opinion. It's up to you if you want to spend your elite slot on it.