Kovu.7560

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > @"Kovu.7560" said:

> > > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > > > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > > > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > > > > Is the point that you got hit by a telegraphed shot that can be blocked or reflected?

> > > > >

> > > > > I think the point is that regardless whether it can be blocked,reflected or dodged no one attack should do close to that this games powercreep is getting ridiculous. Imagine already being engaged with someone and being one shot from a sic em ranger just strolling by,its beyond stupid

> > > >

> > > > That's what you sign up for though. It's an open zone, everybody can do whatever they want so ganking, as annoying as it is, is to be expected. In the case of Death's Judgment we have a skill that is balanced around having a very obvious tell and sound. It's allowed to deal high damage because getting it to hit somebody isn't guaranteed. We can argue that ranger is sorely lacking that however and I would be inclined to agree. That and the fact their long range attacks can easily be made unblockable.

> > >

> > > Than why these nerf thief crys **over last few yrs?** why the dagger dps cries,why the MBS cries? Why the daggerstorm cries. So when its ranger installed deleting people with unblockable sic em rapid fires,or revs super bursts or warrior arc divider is fine. If arenet decides such high burst are unacceptable on low sustain classes yetgives high sustain classes crazy bursts lmao like do they have a clue what thier doing? No class should have a skill even with modifiers that can 1 or 2 shot anyone. Regardless common sense would dictate lower the sustain higher the burst potential for more than obvious reasons but not to arenet dev's

> >

> > Because before PoF ranger damage was laughable and before HoT their sustain was laughable. The core profession is better now than it was at HoT launch and back then they were basically just free bags for thieves, among others. People seem to forget ranger weapons overall have the worst coefficients in the game (supposedly a counterbalance for pet contribution) and **the only reason we see obscene numbers from soulbeasts these days is because of the multipliers they introduced to various traitlines along with** (and here's the big one) **sic 'em**.

> >

> > Notice how most issues that come up with ranger damage tends to boil down to sic 'em? Perhaps arc divider, among other skills needs a cut to its damage, but ranger _skills_ don't need nerfing, their ability to stack so many damage multipliers does.

> >

> > Not everything needs to be nerfed in the same way, and I'd hate to see rapid fire, maul, WI etc. have their damage cut because of a utility skill conjoined with some traits that are overperforming. That just punishes non-soulbeasts, and when's the last time someone whined about a core ranger's damage?

> >

> > ~ Kovu

> >

> > edit- Oh, and the extra damage rangers get from eating their pet.

>

> I think everybody knows the issue is sic em and the fact ranger has multiple ways to achieve unblockable with said multipliers. Most people are asking for the unblockable to be shaved a bit as well as the damage multipliers. If the pets kept the 40% from sic em but when merged the multiplier was reduced to 15% people would probably feel it's fine. Is that not more in line with other classes multipliers?

 

Could just remove the 40% damage multiplier facet from sic 'em in general and _replace_ it with 4 seconds of unblockable, and change the merge trait to something else (preferably defensive, like superspeed, a soft cc cleanse or 1 second of invulnerability). Its a pretty one-dimensional trait that's not much of a build investment compared to a utility slot. There are so many blocks and reflects in the game, especially of the AoE variety in zergs that giving the ranger unblockable _options_ shouldn't be an issue -- so long as its a legitimate build investment beyond a minor trait. As for certain utilities, its difficult to balance things that were originally intended to benefit a shotty AI pet to not be too potent for the ranger.

 

Anywho, I'm just throwing darts at a board. I suppose my general point was "its not as simple as shaving some damage off arc divider". Don't nerf core ranger stuff.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > > Is the point that you got hit by a telegraphed shot that can be blocked or reflected?

> > >

> > > I think the point is that regardless whether it can be blocked,reflected or dodged no one attack should do close to that this games powercreep is getting ridiculous. Imagine already being engaged with someone and being one shot from a sic em ranger just strolling by,its beyond stupid

> >

> > That's what you sign up for though. It's an open zone, everybody can do whatever they want so ganking, as annoying as it is, is to be expected. In the case of Death's Judgment we have a skill that is balanced around having a very obvious tell and sound. It's allowed to deal high damage because getting it to hit somebody isn't guaranteed. We can argue that ranger is sorely lacking that however and I would be inclined to agree. That and the fact their long range attacks can easily be made unblockable.

>

> Than why these nerf thief crys **over last few yrs?** why the dagger dps cries,why the MBS cries? Why the daggerstorm cries. So when its ranger installed deleting people with unblockable sic em rapid fires,or revs super bursts or warrior arc divider is fine. If arenet decides such high burst are unacceptable on low sustain classes yetgives high sustain classes crazy bursts lmao like do they have a clue what thier doing? No class should have a skill even with modifiers that can 1 or 2 shot anyone. Regardless common sense would dictate lower the sustain higher the burst potential for more than obvious reasons but not to arenet dev's

 

Because before PoF ranger damage was laughable and before HoT their sustain was laughable. The core profession is better now than it was at HoT launch and back then they were basically just free bags for thieves, among others. People seem to forget ranger weapons overall have the worst coefficients in the game (supposedly a counterbalance for pet contribution) and **the only reason we see obscene numbers from soulbeasts these days is because of the multipliers they introduced to various traitlines along with** (and here's the big one) **sic 'em**.

 

Notice how most issues that come up with ranger damage tends to boil down to sic 'em? Perhaps arc divider, among other skills needs a cut to its damage, but ranger _skills_ don't need nerfing, their ability to stack so many damage multipliers does.

 

Not everything needs to be nerfed in the same way, and I'd hate to see rapid fire, maul, WI etc. have their damage cut because of a utility skill conjoined with some traits that are overperforming. That just punishes non-soulbeasts, and when's the last time someone whined about a core ranger's damage?

 

~ Kovu

 

edit- Oh, and the extra damage rangers get from eating their pet.

I can see both sides of the coin. I'd be okay with, like, 3 seconds -- but on the whole unless you hit like a wet noodle in anything more than a 1v1 you should be able to match or even out-cleave someone being revived by one person. If you're going for the stomp you know you gotta get in there quick.

 

I think ongoing diminishing returns on multiple sources of reviving and downstate healing (transfusion, MI. pet res etc.) so players have a _chance_ to stomp a player being revived my multiple others could be an option. It would help promote ganking in outnumbered scenarios, which I'm totally okay with. Those thieves and rangers _should_ be feared. I wouldn't know the first thing about balancing such a mechanic though.

 

~ Kovu

Guardians and Necromancers get +3 pips.

There. Incentivized. =)

 

Eh. I wouldn't want to discourage roaming and small scale whilst promoting benefits for the servers with the bigger groups.

A lot of people enjoy the small scale aspect and won't be interested in forming a buddy group to do the thing they do. (Sometimes I'll join a "scouting" party, but its rarely full and the players are rarely in the same place.)

 

~ Kovu

Add three additional tiers of downstate.

We'll call the new mechanic incep-state!

 

~ Kovu

> @"Zephoid.4263" said:

> Then make ranger top teir play not revolve around OHK burst. **Buff it in areas that improve its sustain to counteract the loss**, but sic-em has to go.

Its funny you'd mention thief going home.

I usually initially cap home while playing my ranger and suggest the third goes elsewhere. My initial burst of mobility isn't all that much worse off than a thief's. If there's a thief on my team that feels confident as a duelist and wants to go far I totally support them.

 

What happens most often is I'll get a free cap on home and our team will outnumber the middle point as multiple of the enemy team see the thief pushing their home and go after him/her. This often results in a successful cap of home and mid.

If 4 enemy push mid (or 3 mid and 1 to me at my team's home) the thief can often force a decap/stalemate on far often forcing the enemy team to send back support to deal with it. That thief also has the option to pull out whenever it wants, and if multiple enemy players are running around their third of the map that's a win for our team.

 

As for camping on a node, as a ranger I _love_ it when players camp the node. That means they're not smacking me. If someone wants to stand on a node and let me free cast on them, great! This happens curiously often in the initial stages of a game when an enemy is trying to force a cap on our home. (At least in high gold). Beyond rare situations the only time I'll camp a node by myself is if I'm in a 1v1 with another ranger. That said, I gave up on trying to 1v1 warriors or either of the engineer elite specs for a node. They can have it, I'll go +1 something that's actually susceptible to power damage and then out-mobility them back for the decap. >.>

 

I've won matchups where we've better half of our fights because the thief has astounding map awareness and is stellar at keeping nodes de-capped (and full capped while the team fight is happening).

 

~ Kovu

> @"HazyDaisy.4107" said:

> Can confirm half of T2 red zergs are composed of rangers, don't know who's to blame, **but maybe next week it'll shrink down to a quarter**.

 

On no downstate week? Good fucking luck.

 

~ Kovu

Soulbeasts serve a niche role, but they can certainly be useful. They're your second worst option for serving within the confines of a large group boonball (only thief is less useful in that regard) but they can do other neat things. =)

 

Aside from picking off stragglers they're situationally the best de-siegers in the game. Barrage doesn't require line of sight and if you run power, merge with a power pet, use sic 'em, & stack 25 might you can down an arrow cart in three volleys (about 50 seconds of game time if traited and the skill isn't initially on cooldown) on your own. Perhaps a tag plans to attack something but wants it de-fanged a bit ahead of time? There's one way you can help. If you have another soulbeast buddy, you can de-fang stuff pretty quick.

 

A couple of soulbeasts are also decent in their own party within a squad for the tag to utilize to pick off specific targets on engage. Sometimes the fight between two sustain-balls lasts a long time and the only way to off people on the other side is with ranged burst damage. You just have to be smart about when you burst, don't just fire randomly into the enemy group while your tag stares them down. (Apart from being ineffective it puts a big target on your head for when the two groups _do_ engage.) Soulbeast is also great for deleting enemy thieves, rangers and gank-specs -- but be careful 'cause they can do the same to you. The trick is to remain fairly close to your tag so you can lose yourself within your group when someone tried to melee-gank you.

 

Core rangers and druids are significantly less useful in wvw, though. Its not that druids can't do stuff, its that guardians and revenants do it better. Kinda sad, but at least soulbeast is a thing.

 

~ KOvu

I mean, I do agree they should be CC'able. I think Anet suggested something about a break bar in the future?

A successful Maul (w/e the 1 skill is called) should be a two-way dismount as well. (Missing with it of course only dismounts the attacker.)

 

That said.

 

I don't mind the health bar, dodges or speed. I mean, everyone gets a kitty and it _should_ have some contributive mechanics attached to it apart from slightly increased movement. I know people hate change, but you guys need to adapt. Its not that bad.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Samug.6512" said:

> > @"Kovu.7560" said:

> > > @"Vagrant.7206" said:

> > > Hey, scrapper's unique mechanic is useless again!

> >

> > I don't think scrapper is going to fall out of favor anytime soon.

> >

> > Unrelated I'm a little sad, I'm on vacation (and will not have internet or the time to play) from the 26th until the 5th. I wish they'd announce these things sooner.

> >

> > ~ Kovu

>

> He didn't say Scrapper is going to fall out of favour.

 

No, I was pointing out the uselessness of that particular mechanic for 1 week won't change that.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Vagrant.7206" said:

> Hey, scrapper's unique mechanic is useless again!

 

I don't think scrapper is going to fall out of favor anytime soon.

 

Unrelated I'm a little sad, I'm on vacation (and will not have internet or the time to play) from the 26th until the 5th. I wish they'd announce these things sooner.

 

~ Kovu

Maybe the range on longbow for ranger has increased to the point where the ranger no longer has to be close enough to render for the player to shoot them dead.

That'd do it.

 

~ Kovu

I'll admit I haven't paid that much attention to detail.

Haven't those always been there? Has this been addressed before?

With invulnerable fortifications being an option, adding an extra pseudo-layer of defense to the garrison keep would be kind of overkill considering how easy it is to defend already, but it would be neat to know if this particular detail has some history attached to it beyond aesthetics.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Kylden Ar.3724" said:

> > @"Kovu.7560" said:

> > > @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> > > On the flip side of that, if you have really bad damage, cleansing, strip, heal, and boon output.... why would you want to run that build at all?

> >

> > Single target pick builds probably won't register as particularly high in any of those categories, but they do serve a niche contributive role. No replacement for a meta guard, necro, scrapper etc. -- but should otherwise fall into your loose criteria of not being detrimental.

> >

> > Also, while I generally run straight dps on my necro, I have saved a lot more people on my transfusion build, sometimes leading to swinging the fight in my team's favor.

> > Its just the fuckups that are more memorable and visible-- with everyone being clumped up, and some of those "fuckups" were caused by unwanted delayed teleporting. That teleport AI is about as unreliable as Ranger's SnR.

> >

> > ~ Kovu

>

> When I tag up ([usually to defend](

) home BL) I have no problem with single target builds/classes as long as the players _can follow the target I call._ I call, you all kill it, then we finish it and keep going.

>

> Seems like every push I see fail is cause when the commander calls target no one follows it and it doesn't go down. Now tag-a-longs outside the squad can't see these calls, but those in it have no excuse.

 

Fair.

_Dismount trap in 1844378, 1844377, 1844376..._

Firebrand, Scrapper, Scourge, Scourge, Herald/Spellbreaker/Chronomancer.

People downplay it but I still see some nifty group Mesmer play. Gotta catch your opponent off guard though. On the flipside, elementalists of any kind are a liability.

 

That said I still hop on my ranger main sometimes. The "meta" composition can't tell me what to do, its not my mom!

 

~ Kovu

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > @"Kovu.7560" said:

> > > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > > Having a few specific strategic unblockables is fine, like dragonhunter deflecting shot, so you can interrupt a block and punish. 4 seconds unblockable for *all attacks* on a 10 (minimum) sec cd is not even close to being fine.

> >

> > Again, you'll never see that in actual play.

> > Its like saying a Druid has 30%+ stealth uptime and a full cleanse every 11 seconds in wvw. If all you're doing is activating those traits you're _ignoring_ the majority of your specialization mechanics.

> Can you rephrase, I don't quite get your point.

> > I'm pretty much with @"Cyric.7813" on this one. If you see the unblockable and sic 'em icons on that ranger's bar, dodge, use an evasion ability, stand behind some terrain, interrupt them (this game has tons of gap closers) or pop an invulnerability.

> >

> > ~ Kovu

> If it was a couple of hits or maybe 1-2 seconds this would be legit counterplay.

 

The same thing could be said about blocks in the first place. Between blocks, evasion frames and invulnerabilities some professions can entirely negate 4 out of 5 longbow attacks for quite some time. If that ranger just swapped into longbow, welp, they'd better deal with the fact that they're useless for 9 seconds. If they changed unblockable effects to only affect a number of attacks I'd expect the same change to every single ability in the game that blocks in the first place. (I understand that would basically be another form of aegis, I'm just making the comparison.)

 

What I meant is that you'll never run into a decent ranger that procs Unstoppable Union every 10~11 seconds because they wouldn't have it for the stun break element and if they're leaving beastmode as soon as they enter it they're not benefiting from the increased stats, non-instant-cast abilities that benefit the ranger while in beastmode or the merged skills associated with beastmode.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> Having a few specific strategic unblockables is fine, like dragonhunter deflecting shot, so you can interrupt a block and punish. 4 seconds unblockable for *all attacks* on a 10 (minimum) sec cd is not even close to being fine.

 

Again, you'll never see that in actual play.

Its like saying a Druid has 30%+ stealth uptime and a full cleanse every 11 seconds in wvw. If all you're doing is activating those traits you're _ignoring_ the majority of your specialization mechanics.

I'm pretty much with @"Cyric.7813" on this one. If you see the unblockable and sic 'em icons on that ranger's bar, dodge, use an evasion ability, stand behind some terrain, interrupt them (this game has tons of gap closers) or pop an invulnerability.

 

~ Kovu

If you're popping into and out of beastmode entirely for the unblockable facet you're not making the most of the specialization's abilities (i.e. the synergy gained by utilizing the mechanics normally restricted to your pet _and_ the skills tied to beastmode itself). On top of that if you're spamming it on cooldown you're certainly not using it for the stun break. (Heck, you probably aren't anyway.) 36% uptime is just another example of an extreme you'll _almost_ never see in actual play. Like 40k attacks.

But hey, I use Fresh Reinforcement, so whatever floats your boats.

 

~ Kovu

I was in a match the other day where we couldn't win a 3v2 to take a node.

I was running power soulbeast, had a condi mirage and spellbreaker ally and we couldn't force a decap from a firebrand and scrapper. Their support tandem was pretty damn solid. They could literally stand there and dual-tank. Good on them for synergizing so well, but deng my one wolf pack, sic 'em unblockable rapid fire, wh4 wombo combo was only tickling even the guardian.

 

I'll admit I'm not an expert on how engineer plays, but holy heck was that some serious tanking.

 

~ Kovu

I have a ton of timegated materials sitting in my bank that I have no immediate plans to use, heck I may never.

When you play the game off and on and do your dailies often it doesn't take long in the grand scheme of things to accumulate the stuff.

 

That said I agree that its certainly annoying when I run into a timegate I didn't account for. At that point I'll see if I can bum crafting off guildies. Otherwise I'll use the trading post or do whatever else I can do with relation to whatever I'm crafting and wait out the timegate. Much of the time I'm not finishing the item that day so there's no real reason to throw gold at the trading post.

 

I actually have 250 Funerary Incenses sitting in my collection that I worked on daily since PoF's release, but I haven't really cared for any of the stuff a Gift of Desert Mastery leads to -- so I mostly just use them to tease people in guild chat who complain about being gated by Funerary Incenses. =p

 

~ Kovu

> @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> On the flip side of that, if you have really bad damage, cleansing, strip, heal, and boon output.... why would you want to run that build at all?

 

Single target pick builds probably won't register as particularly high in any of those categories, but they do serve a niche contributive role. No replacement for a meta guard, necro, scrapper etc. -- but should otherwise fall into your loose criteria of not being detrimental.

 

Also, while I generally run straight dps on my necro, I have saved a lot more people on my transfusion build, sometimes leading to swinging the fight in my team's favor.

Its just the fuckups that are more memorable and visible-- with everyone being clumped up, and some of those "fuckups" were caused by unwanted delayed teleporting. That teleport AI is about as unreliable as Ranger's SnR.

 

~ Kovu

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"Elementalist Owner.7802" said:

> > The issue is that literally a monkey could adapt to this meta. Anyone with 3 brain cells can spam all of their buttons at once, that doesn't make you a "good" player.

>

> them days when I actually had to time my stab since there were only 2 sources and no boon duration.

 

And (almost) no AoE corruption spam. Those well timed stabs actually _meant_ something.

These days more than ever the numerical advantage will win the fight. Before if you timed your abilities well you could whittle down a larger group with superior gameplay, I don't see that as much anymore. Maybe its because "all the good guilds left" (whatever you want to believe) but I feel the direction of game balance played at least as much of a role.

 

~ Kovu

 

edit- Also, deng @ someone being offended by my satirical post about my biggest gripe of the gamemode being "having to play standing up because the cat hogs the computer chair... et al."

> @"Kiroshima.8497" said:

> Maps aren't large enough to warrant a forward operating base styled waypoint. You'd need something DESIGNED like an ARMA map (smaller for gw2 mechanics but that kind of scale) to really necessitate buildable bases.

>

> I would love it though if we got that no lie.

 

I could see it on desert map, its large and obnoxious to navigate.

But on the whole I agree its not a stellar idea for this game. You're supposed to capture objectives and upgrade to their waypoints, not obsolete them by dropping a waypoint underneath the shield bubble with the catapults.

 

~ Kovu