Eurantien.4632

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> This kind of already exists in the format of ATs, but they really should make ATs more frequent even if they lower the rewards when doing so.

>

> In my opinion they need to remove ranked mode completely, and start doing monthly seasons for ATs. Then they can tie old ranked rewards to unranked for the pve grinders, and transist the rating/badge system to AT matches per monthly AT season only.

I think this is a solid idea.

One Wolf Pack is just a worse version of Impossible Odds with a CD and a duration of 6s.

No.

@"Supreme.3164"

I said nerf sustain on Wilderness Survival.

What that means is running a build without wilderness survival inherently has little sustain. You could take windborne notes and/or resounding timber, yet running NM and BM to get those traits + another line that isn't WS would make your build inherently low in sustain. You would have poor healing, weak access to condi clear, and would likely have a hard time dealing with burst damage.

You could take healing spring or bear stance to bolster your condi clear without running WS but using your heal to negate condition damage leaves you insanely vulnerable at other times. I would define a build such as that to be inherently low in sustain.

When I say nerf WS i mean what I have said since the beginning. Rugged Growth should never have existed. We need condition clears in other lines.

WS provides ranger with protection on dodge - very strong. That protection heals more than regen - even with the nerf (and low healing power). It also provides ranger with some of its only condition clears and CD reduction on ranger's (arguably) best heal and stunbreaks.

People complain about Ranger DPS and whatnot, but the problem really isn't that ranger does too much damage when it is glass in return (that's a good thing), it is that ranger can still do really solid damage numbers while running a line that carries ranger on its own, WS.

I think the game would benefit from super strong lines like WS being nerfed across all professions - where instead of having "do it all" skills and builds you have to build in moments of weakness.

Builds that run 3 lines without WS have inherent weaknesses. Especially if you run 3 dps traitlines. You have little condi clear and clear windows where you have nothing available. And that is how I believe the game should be played.

What ranger truly needs is to be free from the pigeon-hole that is WS. It has always been there, some nerfs to the line and some love to some other lines/utilities to provide ranger with some more condi clear options besides our heal skills and ranger would be in a much healthier spot.

As an aside,

Bunker ranger in sPvP works just fine and is quite strong. Unfortunately, it is that it is currently overshadowed by things much stronger, such as Kalla Renegade.

There are also other ranger builds that work decently well... that being said it is by no means anywhere close to optimal for sPvP - other professions are simply better.

Again, even though WS is the root of ranger's problems and the sustain it offers needs to be shaved, it cannot be done until condi clear appears somewhere else for ranger and/or other professions are nerfed as well.

Hmm given that ranger is one of the weakest if not the weakest profession in top tier sPvP right now. I would disagree with most of this. Greatsword for example, has been overnerfed - and imo is too weak to see true competitive use. Yeah, yeah. I know. There is not really a competitive scene. But balancing for anything other than top tier just means that ranger will stay underpowered.

Things that really need to be changed:

Lower some GS CDs a little. They're too high right now.

Nerf sustain on Wilderness Survival (and sustain across the board for other professions). This is the main problem with ranger being too powerful. It is not that Soulbeast has too many damage modifiers now. If you run soulbeast dps without WS you are just as glass as you deserve to be for the damage you do.

Nerf Jacaranda immob or damage.

Axe if fine. There are no "good" ranger tank builds. Many other things side node better than ranger. The era of side node tank ranger is gone and will stay gone for quite some time imo.

Druid is trash and needs all the help it can get. As long as it doesn't have stab, it will forever be a build for memes and nothing truly good.

Nerf Trap runes.

> @"anduriell.6280" said:

> > @"Eurantien.4632" said:

> > Live Fast with Essence of Speed does increase the duration of the Fury from Live Fast by 2 seconds. Works the same way for similar applications such as Zephyr's Speed and Unstoppable Union giving 2s extra of protection and vigor (but not quickness).

>

> Then i'm sure i'm mistaken and the skill is bugged. Please open a thread in the Bugs subforum ato see if Anet fix it. That trait makes sense if it can trigger with quickness as well, otherwise it does not make sense.

I think you were partially right before, it only works for boons you already have. BUT it also works on other boons you get at the same time as quickness - just not the quickness itself.

Live Fast with Essence of Speed does increase the duration of the Fury from Live Fast by 2 seconds. Works the same way for similar applications such as Zephyr's Speed and Unstoppable Union giving 2s extra of protection and vigor (but not quickness).

Does any other class have skills like this that work against the profession? Signet of renewal not cleansing when merged for no benefit to the ranger. Signer of renewal having a range for the ranger transfer (despite being a 50s cd). Guard not working when merged. Etc.

These and the LR damage just work against reactive play. Shouldn't have to wait for a window of opportunity to stunbreak effectively.

LR doesnt work in rings already, weaver mudslide, doesnt stunbreak taunt *(taunt is not removed by stunbreak with cast times)*, or work against shocking aura or the shield stun on engi. Asking for it to remove damage to not proc blocks or shocking aura would be a nice start in some QoL changes that ranger has missed out on for ages.

And yet the points in this thread still stand. Marksmanship is still a used traitline - despite it being nerfed. Skirmishing is the one in need of love.

There are quite a few viable options for ranger imo. Just gotta get out there and test some stuff out.

Jacaranda dmg + immob is quite powerful. I think it's been too powerful for quite sometime and now that everything else has left the spotlight it's getting it's time to shine. It is 100% annoying. But the best bet is to prob change the immob from a root to just a plain immob and lower the dmg a hair.

We all know invisibility should just be like Halo camouflage where you can still see them but its harder to see them and they cant be targeted.

The removal of the free tourney format was the true downfall.

It was the best way to positively find a team. If you won you continued (at least for a bit). It helped build positive connections with other players because you were incentivized on this fundamental level to work together to succeed. It encouraged you to work together without even thinking about doing it.

You have this amazing positive.

You also have the negatives of any PvP game.

With single game queue you just keep playing and just hoping for lucky rolls. You end up hating people who waste your single game. There is nothing positive than can come from ranked at the moment. ATs also have no positive things for random and new players. They'll just get stomped by higher tier players and discouraged. If you're a higher tier player and play LFG you will hate whoever silver or gold player joins your "plat +" team. Theres only this one sweet spot of plat players finding plat players that makes this game have a positive.

So with the current format. You just have negatives for almost everything. All negatives and no positivity just breeds toxicity.

> @"Sznurek.8791" said:

> Druid is still too weak to be in any high level meta.

> Core ranger is good but lacks mobility for the role.

> Soulbeast is closest to be a side node meta, but it's not really that strong so I think he might be on top tier teams but I don't think he will be in best teams.

This.

This trait is the epitome of poor design. Passive damage trait that becomes ridiculously overpowered when paired with Flashbang. Hasn't been touched in 5 months.

UPDATE!

7/28 patch did not address the problems.

> @"mistsim.2748" said:

> The Viper Nest nerf didn't seem to go through (although it's changed on the UI), but the increased duration did.

> I modified this build by switching to Rabid amulet with Orr Runes. This is probably the best bang for the buck, against both condi and power builds.

> This build remains unbeatable in 1v1's.

surprised you haven't gone with sunless yet

> @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:

> > @"Eurantien.4632" said:

> > Doesn't fly. Ranger is almost only single target and gets single target damage nerfed every patch.

>

> They should've focused on nerfing ranger's sustain and effective healing instead of their damage. Keep the class high risk/reward. Instead, they went with the dull route of making them pet bots that slowly wither you down with Protect Me! spam and WS.

Yeah. It falls on deaf ears but the problem is and always has been sustain through wilderness survival.

The damage isn't a problem when the class dies when caught.

Doesn't fly. Ranger is almost only single target and gets single target damage nerfed every patch.

> @"hotte in space.2158" said:

> > @"Skyronight.6370" said:

> > not a single class has been viable for 7 years straight except thief. i wonder why....

> you forgot ranger

lol no

Ranger just needs evasive purity ICD removed.

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"Eurantien.4632" said:

> > The problem is their design philosophy when it comes to traitlines - the belief that defensive traitlines should be purely defensive and offensive traitlines purely offensive

>

> That's the intent, yet eng, rev, and ranger have multiple traitlines that do both offense and defense. No wonder ranger eng and rev are the 3 best classes in the game.

Ranger is garbage at top tier. That's another problem in their design philosophy. They dont balance around the top.

> @"aymnad.9023" said:

> > @"Eurantien.4632" said:

> > When unmerging if it pops, pet does not get unblockable.

> It does if the trait is not on cd. Look at my example n°2. I even checked in PvE. It works exactly as it should. So if it does not in PvP this is a bug.

> Or maybe you are talking about something else?

>

>

I'm 98% confident that even if Clarion Bond is off CD and ready to use that if you are in combat and unmerge, your pet WILL NOT get the buffs.

If you are in combat, merging with your pet will give you unblockable due to clarion bond (if the cd is available)

Any other time, nothing gets unblockable while playing soulbeast.

When unmerging if it pops, pet does not get unblockable.

Merging before combat, calrion bond won't trigger (you're not in combat) - no unblockable

The problem is their design philosophy when it comes to traitlines - the belief that defensive traitlines should be purely defensive and offensive traitlines purely offensive instead of a mix of offense/sustain or offense/utility while meanwhile having high base damage due to stats instead of damage modifiers.

Lets look at Ranger:

Wilderness Survival: Purely Defensive - Condi clear - Sustain (healing) - Tankiness (protection) - Stunbreak cd reduction

Marksmanship: Offensive, minor utility - Damage modifiers for GS or LB

Skirmishing: Offensive (traps), utility (Quickdraw)

Beastmastery: Offensive/Sustain/Utility - Pet stat buff - quickness and superspeed on pet swap - regen access

Nature Magic: Defensive/support: Mostly just provides defense to the ranger in different ways than WS

The problem is that as a ranger vs a ranger I can take WS and NM and just straight up beat you if you are running utility/offensive traitlines and forgo the defensive ones. This was not always the case. When expansions came out a dps ranger could beat other rangers still - but since the repeated damage and CD nerfs to ranger offensive lines and weapons, it is no longer possible for a dps ranger to kill a defense traitline ranger of (somewhat) lesser skill - this is how it was back in core. You simply cannot do enough damage or sustain long enough to be able to land a burst combo that could down someone running WS (the pure defense traitline).

I believe, that the traitlines should be diversed. Add condi clear and/or sustain to like skirmishing for example. Now all of a sudden you can take your multiple offensive/utility traitlines but you aren't entirely defensive. Although you'd have access to some condi clear for example you would not have access to protection - making you more vulnerable to power damage. It could also be made so that whatever condi clear is in skirmishing incentivized taking something besides survival skills to prevent people from going full defense traitline + another (now kind of) defensive traitline.

With this, someone opting for more dps would have more sustain and a more likely chance at beating someone going full defense. In this way we could flavor the traitlines to (sort of how thief kind of does) to favor different playstyles rather than just pure take defensive traits and win.

> @"kiwituatara.6053" said:

> > @"Eurantien.4632" said:

> > http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgAEZlVwwYhYoY56o16Lx4zB-z5AfGZKF6VFIwB

> >

> > All the trash condis melt off of you, you still have insane condi clear. Just get off point outnumbered and then push back in and decap quickly with quickdraw and/or glyph of tides.

> >

> > I'd run smoke over wyvern too for the stealth when needed.

>

> I've been trying to run your SoR, healing spring, empathic bond combo in WvW, its not working well for me >_<

Yeah WvW people can get a lot of bonus condi duration which makes it tougher

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgAEZlVwwYhYoY56o16Lx4zB-z5AfGZKF6VFIwB

All the trash condis melt off of you, you still have insane condi clear. Just get off point outnumbered and then push back in and decap quickly with quickdraw and/or glyph of tides.

I'd run smoke over wyvern too for the stealth when needed.