ZDragon.3046

> @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> > SoU is going to be solid when traited for sustain builds. 6% per 3s=2% per second. Core necro drains 3% per second and reaper drains 5%, with the signet those drop to 1% & 3% per second adding a lot of sustain to shroud

>

> Might be difficult to give up Close to Death for Signets of Suffering. But in theory you could get in more soul spirals as a Reaper, yes? Plus you gain an additional 90 power for Signet of Spite.

This would be very inefficient in long fights as after 10 seconds you lose your soul barbs bonsus so no only do you give up 20% damage post 50% hp on the target you also start losing massive up time on soul barbs which is another 10% damage loss. Perma shrouding should not be the focus behind this. Lets also not forget that to take undeath you also lose another utility slot meaning you lost even more potential damage depending on the encounter idea.. undeath is not good for reaper pve if you want to get the most bang for you buck. That said its great for scourge

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> Overall it’s a slight slight nerf for unholy sanctuary. 1% in competitive is 200 health on 20k health target... which is basically the same as it is now except it doesn’t scale with healing power anymore. For pve it’ll be nice but it’s still very low impact change.

how did you come up with this

Base before was about 130 hp per second (no healing power) - this is weaker than base boon regen healing by the way in a grand master slot)

Base after is about 191 hp per second (no extra vitality)

When you really look at what healing power does for necromancer (not very much) there are not many skills healing power scales well with to make it overly worth taking outside of blood well and maybe transfusion or barriers on scourge there really is nothing that shines with additional healing power.

how on earth is this a nerf?

Look at what stat combos offer healing power on current amulets. Off the top of my head I cant think of single trait to ammy combo that makes the previous version of unholy look better when you compare it with the combos of vitality scaling thats common for necromancers to take. Combos with Vitality have much more viability for necromancer than stat combos with healing power in pvp imo with the odd ball being like heal scourge on sage or something. but in that case you wouldnt run death magic. (i dont think)

In any case C fervor is still over kill because its the main trait that makes 2 of the other traits you would look at in the line even have a good chance of always being active so... i mean... i just dont get it.

imo this is the direction they should have taken death magic from the start with traits that just work and not traits that depend on stacking something else to make them work. is nice to have something you know just always performs in a certain way.

First of im glad he took the time to say "numbers are not everything and that there is always going to be a problem" pretty much no matter how much you look at number.

Im extra tired of people trying to use numbers to justify how something is or is not a problem and that numbers should be the only factors of balance.

Also glad that he calls out buffing things into viability in some cases just makes game play boring and unfun sense some people seem to consider that fun is not a factor when we do know that now this is something they consider people can stop with that insane chanting that "fun is not a factor" to be considered in balance.

Insanity.....

I look forward to changes that ideally tone down damage on cc so that i dont feel like i have to dodge every CC that comes at me especially on necro. The idea of necromancer soaking hits might be more viable and valid if they commit to a lot of these changes.

By all means alot of what they said sounds like it would be really good for the game right now. Cause the game right now is just a hot mess.

Going to refrain from saying too much and just use my brain on this post, as a mostly a necro player i feel i have the right to say **"it feels bad man"**

That said, what ever anet chooses to do with this will be left as "it is what it is"

I wont make suggestions.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> If you played the build you wouldnt be spewing out nonsense of "it can 1shot everyoneeeee"

Oh but it can... thats what one shot builds are meant to do under the right conditions. Either im spewing nonsense or you dont know how to play the build to its highest potential meaning you just cant achieve the numbers other people do.

Im not going into all this AGAIN with you we have already discussed it no point in looping it over again and again and gain.

Stop trying to blame his choice of amulet. Thats not the issue here i dont know what else to tell you. im not going to try and explain it to you when you will always find something else to point the finger too.

Have a good day.

> @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> 1. Lock On needs to have the double proc removed (keep the cc one, remove the on-hit one) and increase the cooldown from 25s to 30s.

> 2. Toss Elixir S stealth needs to get reduced from 6s to 3s. The cooldown is only 30s and it's basically a free reset every time a holo uses it. The current iteration literally gives more stealth uptime than a traited Mass Invisibility on mesmer and the cast time is only 1/2s.

> 3. Net Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with a visible animation tied to it.

> 4. Blunderbuss needs a cast time increase to 3/4s with a bigger animation tied to it.

> 5. Overcharged Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with visible animation tied to it.

> 6. Photon Forge autoattack range needs to get reduced to match other melee auto attacks.

> 7. Healing Turret needs it's cast time increased from 3/4s to 1s.

>

> [Video Demonstration](

Or we could do none of this....

and instead not kill core engi tools and look at the problem which is photon forge (risk)

Note i said RISK because thats the whole issue with the elite mechanic is not its damage or its range but the risk that comes with using it.

How about instead of killing everything that is core engi and for the most part fine you instead look at the problem which is the fact that holo's main mechanic is extremly low risk to use.

How do we solve this problem...

1. We increase passive heat generation over time.

2. We adjust heat generation cost of each of the skills

3. We even consider making it so that holo no longer passively loses heat when they exit without trait investment to do so. (possibly forcing them to choose between stability on holo 3 or losing heat when they exit)

4. We add visuals instant cast damage tool belt skills which are some of the biggest offenders in the most comon holo builds.

Ideally you increase the RISK of using holo instead of nerfing everything that is core engi which ruins it from not only a core but also any other elite perspective.

I dont think the cc's should ever be doing 8-12k in a form where its hard to sto or avoid the warrior especially in cases where you have to soak or blow utility to deal with it or just die.

That said i think they should do some level of damage but the best solution would have been to lower the scaling a bit and remove the power for cc attacks to land critical hits. That would have kept them doing some modest damage but not anything crazy. That said warrior in general has too much damage right now like many other professions and that probably was a big factor into rampage as well.

The best thing they can start doing for warrior before reverting the ramapage changes by any means is cull some of the might from all these sources they have.

Dodge on someone = get might

Land hits = get might

magebane = get might

for great ju..."instantly healing and endurance" = get might

Might synergy is way too over the top in regards to increased damage and sustain around that damage.

There are a plethora of warrior skills that do so much damage if they hit that can make most players burn dodges or defensive utility and pressing rampage after those = Free kill

How people didnt see that is beyond me.

Basically these days if it one shots or is cheesy expect it to get nerfed pvp is officially reached that state oh well :C

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

By all means if you can do 20k combos you totally can kill a firebrand.

Lastly your math still does not justify a means to as how someone could have guessed to correctly pick knight amulet this its still invalid that you are trying to justify the idea that he is wrong for not using knight amulet.

Lets stop going in circles because its boring.

Its not possibly to have known their builds thus throwing your idea of "should have had a toughness amulet" out the window. You can blame many things just not that one. Lets also not forget that many of these combos do more than 20k many of them can do realistically closer upwards of 25k to 27k or more even if you reduce that by some odd 30 ish % thats still close to 19k damage which is enough to 1 shot someone running knights ammy even if they are a necro as you wont have bonus vitality. Let alone any other profession who has lower base vitality so even if we exclude necromancers from the list thats still more than enough to 1 shot every other profession in the game with full bonus 1200 toughness. Which is not ok. We are done here.

People dont like it for a reason thats all this conversation ever was

Im not going back and forth with you.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

>

> You clearly have no bloody idea how the toughness works, IF he had prot and toughtness the 20-25k combo would hit him for 10k, he would be at half hp, with all cooldowns against berk ammy meser.

Thats wishful thinking toughness is not that effective.

> I fought prot holo, my combo did about half his hp, thats it. he heals to full in 1s and now I must leave, he knew my build and made right choice to switch, but you people do what you do best, complain.

How do you a know protection holo is running toughness though. You are assuming they did but using the idea that protection holo's damage reduction is a means to classify toughness on any other profession on equal footing WHICH IS WRONG by the way.

You do know that holo or engi in general have lots of ways of reducing damage via raw percentages which is out right better than the flat reduction that toughness would offer. A prot who runs the bubble shield, has protection, and multiple other boons to trigger iron blooded or what ever the damage reduction trait is called is going to be very resistant to damage regardless of which ammy they use because the damage is being reduced up front by a method of a raw percent reduction stacking.

This is yet another reason why percentage values are more favorable than fixed stat values even if the fixed stats convert in some way to being a percentage value after they are applied. If a skill says take 10% reduced damage and you compare it to a trait that says gain 200 toughness the 10% reduced damage will be better no matter which amulet you run. For example zerker ammy with 80% or more damage reduction from traits and skills vs knight amulet will still result that the zerker ammy user will take far less damage. Because by no means does 2.2k toughness convert by any means to something to the effect of 80% or more damage reduction. Prot Holo can run bonus toughness and im not saying that they couldnt but they certainly dont need to. At one point they could reach 95% damage reduction in short instances and take less than 200 crits damage from other players on zerk ammy while they were running zerk ammy then anet made some modifications to how damage reduction traits added up which is why you dont see that anymore. My point is your looking at protection holo and assuming that what they do is = to what everyone else gets for taking some toughness and thats just straight up false.

> Had FB that facetank 2 people while rezing for 20s, took no damage. Thats fine.

This sounds unrealistic i dont even need to run glass reaper and attack a rezzing firebrand for 5 seconds than this to make them question that attempting to hold f is a mistake Lets also mention that generally speaking if this is a support firebrand it wont take him 20 seconds to res a player especially if your damage is that low that you had time to attack him or the perosn he was trying to save for 20 seconds. Should he be able to sit perfectly still for 20 seconds while under pressure form high dps and just be fine using no skills what so ever..... IVE NEVER SEEN THIS HAPPEN EVER!

> Prot holo that I stood at max range and attacked for about a minute and he outhealed my damage with passive regenerations and healing turren without bothering to dodge anything, thats fine too.

if all you did was stand at range and auto attack yeah that sounds about normal. You are not a ranger with a longbow your threat pressure is not that good from ranged. What were you thinking. That you cant auto someone to death with your great-sword or something :grey_question:

> As for mirage thing, if you fight against 4 guardians that tought kitten man, its preety much dodge everything becouse retal alone will drop you to 20% during a fight.

> ammy doesnt matter.

No No No :astonished: if you just ran with more hp you wouldnt die you know this going in. This is the logic you just applied to someone else and just like that you now understand how you own statement made no sense.

Im no pro but you have much to learn about the game or games and stats in general and a lot of things happen which you dont seem to understand or make bad comparisons to justify your own suggestions. We all make miss reads from time to time but you do it far more often than you should which leads me to believe its not people like me who ruin the game its people like you who try to justify everything through double speak and misdirection. You dismissed my argument over how someone could falsely select an amulet by guessing what the other team was running to say "Well protection holo has good damage reduction" basically and then started pointing fingers at every other profession (most of which we already know are going to be nerfed in the future) to misdirect your initial insane statement of "well he should have had toughness!" ontop of what i can only is assuming that raw toughness works the same way as front loaded raw percentage reduction which is what prot holo is all about.

You flipped the script when your own logic is turned against you i think its safe to say we are done here :-1:

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> @"ZDragon.3046" what you propose ruins other mesmer builds, for example

> If you buff top end damage and nerf low end damage, it will turn into even more steamroll fiesta, where holo runs at you holding m1 and you cant do anything becouse you cant fight back, cant generate clones cuz they get 1shot cleaved.

So being able to 1 shot the holo is ok where they also cant do anything back? Or at least someone who is not fast enough to panic press shrink panic potion etc

> Then it creates a problem where mes long range bombards you with ambushes and if you get close you get boomed with 14k shatter.

Sword ambush is at least obvious and dodgable especially at range. Not to mention you give up a core line for the mirage line which likely culls your damage down quite a bit in exchange.

> Solution to the 1shot build is remove Mental Anguish from the game, it serves only to 1shot and nothing else.

Im am almost sure thats not the only purpose of Mental Anguish

The idea of mental Anguish is not just for burst but also the idea that some one with the right build set up might be encouraged to not attack or use skills say if confusion was applied in a high numbered count or they are just generally running away but not using any skills. It has other purposes where it could be seen as useful. Though if you think thats the right call so be it.

> There are already tools to deal with this 1shot build, people just dont use them. Do you think that whiny necro would die so much if he used knights amulet?

Because knight amulet does not stop this kind of damage which is the issue with the game right now. You can have healla toughness in your build and still be 1shot by that level of damage. Trust me Ive used knight amulet against this before by the time the weapon swap to sword happens you have like 1k hp especially if you have no shroud to cover your rear. The best tools that stop this kind of things are life saving passives that negate damage like the ones i named above endure pain, instant reflexes etc.

> He faces 4 power builds, and he took amulet with no toughness, laughable.

So if you know you are fighting 4 guardians with mirage should you be taking barbarian amulet so that retaliation does not erase all of your hp while fighting?

Would you do that?

No you wouldnt because that amulet does nothing for your build and its not an optimal solution for working around that issue.

The idea of arguing that he took the wrong amulet is silly most people have an idea in mind of what build they want to play before the match starts even if i was to run a tanky setup i probably wouldnt have used knights for something like this my first instinctive thought when seeing multiple mesmers on a enemy team especially if its before the staff nerfs would be that condition damage is going to be high and i need more vitality not more toughness. Its possible he could have made the wrong read meaning its possible that there is no way he could have known what the mesmers were going to be running when the match started.

You literally cannot argue that he is wrong for taking the wrong amulet especially when there is a high chance of guessing incorrectly while also trying to accommodate your own build.

Had you said he is wrong for not running spectral armor "ok this is legit"

Had you said he is wrong for going in first and solo "ok this is legit"

Had you said he is wrong for going in with no Life force "ok this is legit"

But to say he should have had on the right ammy so he should die to this "no thats just bs"

> I would take condi mes with 1200 toughtness ammy and toughness rune, with prema protection and laugh at them.

And you would be erased just as fast as he was because your hp would be 19k which is easily erasable to glass cannon builds even with 1500 or more bonus toughness.

Toughness is good for smaller hits like cleave or stray aoe for direct focust hard burst especially ones that hit in big meaty chunks of damage its some what worthless. AT best you end up still alive with 10% or less hp and then anything you cast is interrupted by the 2nd part of the burst as they weapon swap.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > Has anyone thought that maybe traits dont need to be nerfed here just the f1 shatter itself.

> > Nerf its low end damage so that shattering with 1 clone is not very potent as seen in someones post above with a 1 clone shatter doing a total of 12k damage.

> > But buff it so that its more potent on the max end shatter that way even if this build is used it wont be doing that level of damage and doing 1 shots from stealth especially

> >

> > its a simple fix that wont kill any traits but helps normalize the shatter itself if its doing that kind of damage with a 1 clone why would you work for more when its damage is suppose to scale up with clones reaching even higher amounts I still dont know why a 1 clone shatter is doing a total of 12k damage by itself, darn everything else.

> >

> > That said i dont think anet will take this approach to the issue presented.

> >

> > As for other comments ive seen someone compared this to LoL getting 1 shot by assassin like characters.

> > In that game

> > 1 you dont run into unsafe spots and riot split true stealth from camoflauge which gw2 does not have

> > 2 you have wards that can be placed and reveal peoples locations even in stealth

> >

> > Someone also compared this to fps games where you get 1 shot by snipers and or shotguns

> > 1 if these things are left unchecked the whole game becomes all players using these things and it gets old very quick

> > 2 these things generally are not enticing to the player on the receiving end of them especially if they dont like that playstyle

> > 3 not everyone wants to be forced into that playstyle to feel like they can do something

> >

> > Generally people dont like not getting to play and thats what 1 shot builds do they dont allow people to play especially when they dont or cant see them coming.

>

> Im hight dia every season in lol.

> In league everyone gets 1shoted, from tanks to glass cannons, if you fail to dodge skillshot then you are dead. Doesnt even ahve to be skillshot really, can be point and click too.

> Wards get removed by sweepers, or avoided by gameknowlage ( i play jungle, and its trivial to avoid wards unless its 5man premade )

Yes that called having counter-play thats fine but generally they dont get removed immediately they serve their purpose unless you place them foolishly right in a foe's face.

> Wards that reveal stealth COST GOLD, compare it to like losing a trait so that sometimes you can reveal someone.

Yes thats called having a resource cost and you sure enough buy them when a stealth champion gets fed or is a problem so that you can counter them. Tools like this dont exsist in gw2 if they did people would use them against certain professions that use stealth more than others to no doubt shut them down.

> Stealth and camuflage isnt that just akali that was overpowered as usual and was invisible inside of towers? stealth classes CANT be revealed, you can only kinda get their location by using sweeper.

Stealth is when a champion can not be seen under normal means by enemies except turrets and gold wards no matter how close they get to them while camouflage hides a champion from minions and some wards how ever they are revealed if they get too close to an enemy champion even if they dont attack. In other words its a lesser stealth.

Akali's smoke is not the same concept i believe they specifically label it as obscured and is pretty much unique only to her. its more of a half way point between something like being invuln and being in true stealth. She is untargetable but can still be hit by aoe. Thats a bad reference to use for what i pointed out. Accurate champions would be more like Twitch who has true stealth vs Evelynn who uses camouflage.

> Important not is that in league you cant just dodge, some classes just cant. And if you get hityou get 1shot bya any mage.

Even in this example you still know not to walk into the mage's range without your team or you die. Most mages dont have stealth access and and almost always be seen when engaging them except for when hiding in brush, for which there are wards. If stealth was not as strong as it is in gw2 people wouldnt have as much of a right to really complain about this kind of build but so long as it remains as 100% total invisibility getting blown up with this kind of damage without tell is not ok. No amount of references will make it ok especially if those references are examples where 100% true stealth does not exist or a lesser stealth exist along side true stealth.

> And speaking of F1.

> I did the same combo on meta power mirage.

> 3 times, Damage was as follows :

> - 4464 from F1 ( both crit )

> - 4996 from F1 ( both crit )

> - 3794 from F1 ( 1 crit )

> Im sure the F1 damage is the problem. Keep in mind that classes that get boomed by 1shot have access to protections, to weakness.

> And since mesmer has garbage tier condi clear he cant remove weakness.

> How can mesmer deal any shatter damage if you nerf THIS. Now think whats the damage against target with protecrion, about 2-3k ?

once again i said nerf its low end aka it wont do as much with 1 clone and to buff its top end when used with 3 clones to make up for the loss of damage on the low end. Doing this would solve the one shot issue and bring it down to a more proper bursting level without digging into traits which undoubtably will ruin mesmer more than just normalizing the shatter itself.

> Did some more testing, 4clone shatter, with Vulnerability stacks AND might dealt 9k damage.

> thats almost as much as random skill from warrior.

The issue is that you cannot apply weakness and would not know to apply protection to a class you cannot see coming. IF the burst could always be seen people would take far less issue with it. Its the concept that mesmer has great mobility and common access to stealth that basically makes this play style very limited to counter espeically on initial interactions without having a passive (balanced stance, endure pain, instant reflexes) to save you.

When you compare these burst to other professions even if their damage might be higher keep in mind its almost never damage you wont see coming except in a few cases and in those cases stealth access is much more limited than what it is for the mesmer.

The only other profession that has potential to one shot like this from stealth is core thief with a 24k back stabs and that shouldn't exists either.

Has anyone thought that maybe traits dont need to be nerfed here just the f1 shatter itself.

Nerf its low end damage so that shattering with 1 clone is not very potent as seen in someones post above with a 1 clone shatter doing a total of 12k damage.

But buff it so that its more potent on the max end shatter that way even if this build is used it wont be doing that level of damage and doing 1 shots from stealth especially

its a simple fix that wont kill any traits but helps normalize the shatter itself if its doing that kind of damage with a 1 clone why would you work for more when its damage is suppose to scale up with clones reaching even higher amounts I still dont know why a 1 clone shatter is doing a total of 12k damage by itself, darn everything else.

That said i dont think anet will take this approach to the issue presented.

As for other comments ive seen someone compared this to LoL getting 1 shot by assassin like characters.

In that game

1 you dont run into unsafe spots and riot split true stealth from camoflauge which gw2 does not have

2 you have wards that can be placed and reveal peoples locations even in stealth

Someone also compared this to fps games where you get 1 shot by snipers and or shotguns

1 if these things are left unchecked the whole game becomes all players using these things and it gets old very quick

2 these things generally are not enticing to the player on the receiving end of them especially if they dont like that playstyle

3 not everyone wants to be forced into that playstyle to feel like they can do something

Generally people dont like not getting to play and thats what 1 shot builds do they dont allow people to play especially when they dont or cant see them coming.

Welp i knew this was coming when i saw serious yet good players saying that it was problem 2 nights ago. This will most certainly be the next thing thats gonna get hit along side firebrand and possibly weaver. This kind of damage and multi cast to trigger this level of damage in such short time frames is generally not ok.

And to be real its the multi casting Mirror blade having a cast time while almost everything else in the combo does not until weapon swap to sword which at that point the person is already dead. even with over 20k hp. Im all for power burst being raw and nasty but this is just horrid. You should not be able to do this kind of damage and not see it coming.

Incoming cast times to shatters and mantra actives to prevent this insane level of multi casting.

Realistically this is just as bad as rampage cc chain to win and ranger sickem burst form out of nowhere mesmers should not be surprised when this gets gutted from the game. Regardless of what level of competitive play its used in.

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"reikken.4961" said:

> > > idk dudes. I think shrouded removal is already pretty amazing. In PvP I take death magic over spite on reaper and it feels really tanky. It makes for my primary condi clear.

> >

> > Shrouded removal was already a decent trait for an adept in death magic before the rework ideally nothing changed much about it aside from the carapace stack mechanic. Traits that just work like that are fine its the traits like Soul comp, and Beyond the Veil that kind of initally dont do anything that bother me. Aslo how the system very much pushes people to C.Fervor and kind of forcing at least a hybrid or full condition build to make it work with C,Fervor.

>

> well, I think unholy sanctuary is also good, at least when you're packing spectral skills. When shroud runs out, you can pop a spectral skill and get a whole bunch of life force and then shroud up again instead of getting burst down

>

> and I think corruptor's fervor actually kinda sucks, since it's so unreliable. it won't help you out at all if you're on the losing end of a fight. seems like it just helps you win harder when already winning. But even more than that, the fact that the protection doesn't kick in when you hit the stack requirement makes it feel really lackluster. You can reach the required stacks, but if they fall off after 2 seconds, you end up with nothing to show for it

C.Fervor is the best grandmaster still in the idea of working around stacks to the max or a high stack count IF your goal is just aimed at condition removal and hp recovery then you can forgo it for Unholy though you need to invest in vitality here or its not worth it imo. Still even at base vitality its current heal value is still better than it was when it was based on healing power. Right now with no bonus vitality you can recover 191 hp in pvp where as the old version was something like 130 ish or some insanely joke of a number. I ran a bunker build that was able to net 311 hp per second back along side vamp sigetnet which when triggered was restoring about 560 hp or something like that. Ideally i could have possibly been more bunker if i was running blood magic but was not Ideally Unholy is better than it was but its still not going to out class C Fervor just because everything else in the line depends on stacking that one effect.

Im just happy they changed Unholy at all because it was so underpowered for a self sustain grandmaster trait.

> @"Arheundel.6451" said:

> The main reason why people ask for nerfs is because they hate to lose...not because of the validity of their claims. The use of smokescale got nothing to do with their defeat and it's rather hilarious that people think the smokescale is the reason the ranger wins, the pet has seen already several nerfs..so many that **it's completely useless outside a niche fightning scenario in 1v1**....

>

> The CC provided by smokescale is neither unique or random ...ulterior nerfs to the pet are pointless..as you will realize

Well thats a fairly bold statement of you to make. Ill simply say i dont fully agree with you and move on. Some complaints are justified some are not. Its not just about winning or losing in every case.

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> idk dudes. I think shrouded removal is already pretty amazing. In PvP I take death magic over spite on reaper and it feels really tanky. It makes for my primary condi clear.

Shrouded removal was already a decent trait for an adept in death magic before the rework ideally nothing changed much about it aside from the carapace stack mechanic. Traits that just work like that are fine its the traits like Soul comp, and Beyond the Veil that kind of initally dont do anything that bother me. Aslo how the system very much pushes people to C.Fervor and kind of forcing at least a hybrid or full condition build to make it work with C,Fervor.

Instead of just making decent traits that immediately do something and you know will always be doing that something. Without C.Fervor, deathmagic is more like half a traitline. with C.Fervor and carapace at high stacks it still feels lackluster to other defensive lines on other professions who dont have to play the stacking mini game to such an abysmal high count.

I would have just settled for traits that just did things without a mini game requirement. Shrouded removal and Unholy are good examples of traits that just do things even if they are not the strongest traits they just work no mini game required. If its gotta be made into a mini game make it worth.

I dont think all of death magic is bad but i dislike taking 1 or 2 good traits because they directly do things while the rest of the line feels lackluster while other lines feel more wholesome when used its why people perefered blood over death for a long time because it just felt more active and wholesome to use in terms of self sustain despite its main feature is suppose to be group support.

> @"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:

> That aside, necro is not like other professions and standard rules don't apply. Take for example parasitic contagion. healing based on % of condi damage dealt.

> Vitality is similar case - for everyone else vitality is more max hp, case closed. Easily the weakest defensive stat except squishers that need that extra hp to survive burst.

>

> But for necro the story is different - more vitality = more Life Force and unlike health, life force is restored by max LF %, not flat values boosted by stats. So more vitality = more healing for necro's 2nd life bar. Now another push was made with unholy sanctuary giving such feature to his regular health. And i approve. This is one of necro's unique perks (he profits off vitality more then others, due to his facetank nature), and makes Unholy Sanctuary a worthwhile trait compared to previous version.

>

> Only thing is that Corruter's fervor still overshadows it, because of Carapace stacking...

Basically this ^ i agree

Now if only we could see blood magics life steal mechanic be based off of realistic damage dealt instead of healing power and power. Even if the percents are really low values or if it has a maximum cap on it etc. Cant heal more than x % of max hp in a single hit etc.

Would much rather see at least one of those vamp traits (the minor or the master) scale based off of my strike damage.

> @"viquing.8254" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"viquing.8254" said:

> > > There is a reason why WvW blob are full of necro and not mesmers.

> > Yes and its not for the reasons you listed

> > WvW is full of necros because in zerg fights aoe's are king and necro brings tons of aoe while mesmer does not. Mesmer contributes almost nothing to a zerg fight so there is no reason for them to be there.

> >

> > The issue in pvp is not nearly the same.

> I list aoe as main reason, you say aoe is the reason but it's not the reason I list. Ok...

Must have missed it that said most of the other reasons were just extra bs xD

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> @"ZDragon.3046"

>

> "all pets buffs are dependent upon the beast mastery line."

>

> I get what you're saying here, but that's just not how they chose to do things. And people screaming "nerf pets" Is not the way to deal with anything, considering that not only are the pets not OP, but Ranger in general is not even approaching the bar of currently problematic build structures. I feel like people are tunneling visioning the idea that "Pets are an individual entity outside of the Ranger class, and we feel they are strong." No this all wrong. Pets are a part of the Ranger. Some of the Ranger's skills are in the form of the pet, rather than Sand Shades, or Tomes, or Swapping a list of utilities by swapping legends, ect ect. The Ranger which is not even approaching the bar of problematic, as clearly indicated by its complete lack of representation in more competitive AT environments or even top leaderboard play, needs those skills to remain viable, even middle way up the hierarchy of class tier strength. The only difference here between the pet and other class kits, is that the Ranger's pet being visually its own vector, makes people visually isolate that small allocation of skills from the Ranger that is on the pet, as some individual entity. It makes them feel like "They are being tag teamed by some strong AI, and other classes don't have pets, so this pet is some unfair advantage to Ranger." When the reality is that the Ranger & Pet's collective damage output, utility when paired, is a necessity to staying relevant to powerful kits like Photon Forge. Again, this whole pet thing is an illusion, and people need to identify the difference between things that are actually overpowered, and something they annoys them because they have not yet learned to how to counter play some basic mechanic.

>

Understandable and in every case i dont think its just "the damage" as noted in some cases i think its the utility combined with the damage. Its one thing to have a pet that only omega boost your damage or only provides great lockdown via cc or conditions or only improves the rangers utility kit if that is its primary purpose its another to have a pet that focuses several of these things at once certainly wouldnt be fair depending on how much of each it provided. Smokescale just happens to be one of those pets in my opinion under certain cases.

That said i dont have the exp that you have in ranger if you have been a main of ranger for 7 years so i take your opinions pretty seriously if thats the case.

> About Smokescales:

>

> The only reason Smokescale is so popular is because of Soulbeast merge. While merged, the Soulbeast gets a relatively quick cycling 2s Knockdown, and Smoke Assault. Smoke Assault functions exactly like Unrelenting Assault on a Power Shiro Herald. This single skill right now, is completely responsible for keeping Soulbeast viable at all. No really, this single skill is so powerful that the properly used timing of to be able to counter offensive & chase while evading and ruining someone's burst, is the only thing that allows Soulbeast to potentially brawl with other classes. Like, you have to use Smokescale right, it's not really a choice unless you're so much better than the opponent that it doesn't matter what you use. Even if you want to claim it's not "essential" it's still by far the best choice. Even while unmerged, the Smokescale deals his damage with fair accuracy due to the teleport, and often is good at landing his extra CC. But in no way is the Smokescale a big damage dealer in the way that many people like to believe. It's more that he's accurate, than a big damage dealer. Not so easy to kite Smoke Assault from a pet is what's going on here. But on Core Ranger or Druid who have no merge skills, Smokescale isn't so hot of an option unless you're leaning on its F2 skill for stealthing. The Smokescale dies a lot easier than other pets when you can't merge him for free reset and there are pets that just deal a lot heavier damage and are tankier than the Smokescale. Most Core Rangers you see using Smokescale are because they've just seen Soulbeasts use it for so long, that they imagine it is the go to pet. Most of them don't even utilize the stealth, and as such they should be taking other pets in its place while running Core or Druid.

I dont agree here smoke-scale is still a good option in pvp for builds outside of soulbeast play as it grants stealth access and thats a very valuable tool as you pointed out its fairly accurate at landing attacks and cc as well. These things alone makes it very valuable asset to all ranger builds. I think smokescale has the same stats in hp and toughness as bears so it does not die as fast as some of the other pets (nothing dies faster than birds and felines) being the most glass cannon pets out there.

One thing i will say is that you are correct smokescales damage is not very high until soulbeast comes into the picture but over all its still a very very strong pet. if not the best common pet any ranger can take on almost any build.

> More like, Ranger isn't present at all in any competitive team lol. I don't think you're quite understanding to the degree that this class is not viable for tournament right now. And yeah you're kitten straight something is wrong. What's wrong is that people who are like 4 months deep into this game with only 300 matches played, come in here and complain about things like Deadeye & Ranger "pretty much anything with ranged damage" because they have not yet discovered the basic mechanic of "Taking LOS seriously." Use it, it's there to use, it's part of the game. You can't expect to waddle around in the open on a $%^&ing Necromancer and not get clapped by a Deadeye that you know is in the game design. But yet this is what people do. The scope of their mind somehow only wraps around the idea of "Cool melee knights clashing together on a node" and they seriously completely ignore ranged attackers. They completely ignore things like the 4 pillars around mid in EC. They just stand there and get shot up, stay in the Silver 3/Gold 1 division, and then come in here and complain about how OP it is. And even when people mention to them to start using LOS, they refuse to alter their playstyle "Which is why they're stuck in Gold 1" because the entitlement to complain and get something annoying changed, is easier than accepting that there is ranged damage in the game, and that they need to utilize LOS in Guild Wars 2, the same way they would in some FPS. The difference between the players in competitive teams and the players who are in here complaining is this: The competitive players utilize LOS and this makes ALL ranged based builds pretty much no longer viable, which is why you don't see them at all in tournament or very very rarely, and the competitive players realize how suck Rangers are Deadeyes are which is why they aren't in here complaining. The players who are in here complaining, are literally the players who I shoot up in the open while running unranked/ranked. They are the players who for some reason, will walk at me, directly at me in the open, while I'm on a Berserker Soulbeast DPS, and never learn their lesson. They repeatedly do the same thing over and over and expect some different outcome, and then come into here on the forum and complain about it, rather than accept the basic fundamental present in literally every other game, that you do not walk across an open field towards something is high powered ranged, unless you have some tact about how you are going to reach that player to dismantle him. This idea is no different in GW2 than it is in any game, and nor should it be. **But if players want to stress that "They don't like how the dynamic feels in this game with ranged attackers" I can't argue with that. They have every right to say they just don't like how it feels and would rather see it not in the game. But I will always argue when they say "The ranged is OP" because it isn't. Again, they need to understand the difference between actually OP and just annoying or something they don't like.**

>

I still consider any pvp content competitive and yes there are different skill levels within competitive play but i think the majority should always be considered. The majority of people dont and likely wont have the skill level or time and freedom to play at the level that some of those teams do.

As far as people not making changes to how they play, Its one thing to know when your current profession does not have the capability to win a certain fight and another when something is either unjust or obviously broken.

I dont think ranged attacks are op especially projectile based ones. (WHICH CAN BE REFLECTED) Ranger's kits are well built, as you said you can run zerker and generally im guessing your utility set up covers your defense via additional evades, breakstuns, or damage resistance etc. I honestly dont know why you dont see ranger in high level competitive because its always appeared as one of the stronger professions to me personally. Or maybe its just strong for solo but does not live up to the standard in coordinated combat also.... firebrand is doing "the most" right now and thats probably got something to do with it too.

In any case just because there is no team using ranger does not justify a means to say its not competitive, I mean if we went on balancing by what is or is not used by top teams this there is always going to be some spec thats not competitive for a season.

Not everyone here is new to the game with less than 300 matches played some people here do make legit complaints with reasoning behind them. The OP in this case is not one of those people and the other post are making that pretty clear.

>

> lol dude come on man. I play every class from time to time. And don't try to disregard the knowledge of someone who mains a class. The people who main the same class each season are the people who notice things like this: "Well last season I would tear this guy up. This season after my nerf and his buff, I can't beat this guy 1v1 on a node anymore. He isn't doing anything different than he ever has, his class is just stronger now, and mine was nerfed a bit." Not everyone is ultra bias dude. There are a lot of people who really do just want this game to be balanced. You've got to understand that when these types of players say "Dude my class is just suck right now in this meta" they aren't lying. They are noticing that after some patch changes, buffs in some places, nerfs in others, that their rating dropped from like 1600-1700 play down to like bottom 1500. They also notice the other people they've know for years who play the same class they do, are also experiencing similar rating drops due to nerfs vs. buffs. So we can INB4 this "You main it so you don't know what it feels like to fight it! You're probably biased!" garbage, because I'm not. I was a main advocate in the nerf suggestion vs. Sic Em. Just think about it that for a bit. Consider what that means.

I know not everyone is ultra Bias but we will tend to be even slightly bias (or maybe there is a better word) lets say "concerned" for professions we main even if we try to go about it in a open and honest way of how we see it from both the giving and receiving ends. Im certainly this way myself i try not to be very bias but if i have a need to make a case to point something out based on my exp and i think i can i certainly will try it just as you have here and there is nothing wrong with making your case.

Most people i want to think who are still doing pvp these days tinker every or almost every class to some extent because thats the best way to learn what other professions can do and cant do.

I'll be honest it my statement was a bias check though your initial one did feel kind of the same and ill apologize for that it might not have even been directed at mel, But I see where you are coming from overall.

As far as the bits about rating goes it happens people get nerfed and people get buffed not every nerf or buff is because of "complaints or demands" if anything most of the time anet does not listen to us unless its on something critical like people running perma stealth deadeye in wvw (back before it was reworked where you just needed to mark someone and wait.)

Certain things are justified to complain for obvious reasons somethings are not.

> @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > - none elite builds being able to use elite map pets (one of which provides way too much in terms of both damage and utility which is why its used in almost every competitive build)

> > >

> > > Seen this argument made before and strongly disagree, if you limited pets like that then you'd effectively kill Rangers competitive build diversity and force everyone to start playing the same generic Soulbeast builds.

> > > Nobody is going to run a Druid.. a healing spec for the Smokescale and Core Ranger will more or less be pushed out of the game mode entirely.

> > > If you forbid non specs to used expansion pets then you'd also have to restrict the core pets elite specs could use too otherwise they would be blatantly superior to core class and that's something i'm pretty sure the Devs have said in the past they absolutely don't want elite specs to be.

> > Well no one is going to resitrct core pets being combined with elites thats just silly but the other way around is possibly fair game.

> >

> > To reverse ideals of killing ranger build diversity this it means effectively that the ranger is potentially back peddling on 1 or 2 pets which is also not good.

>

> On this I agree, but rather than restrict those pets to elite specs I'd much rather see the other pets be improved or completely revamped to make them more useful and unique.

Based on what i heard this wont happen unless anet decides to pretty much revamp the core game from the ground up but i mean.... dreams.

>

> > If you say ranger is dead without smoke scale than smoke scale is equally part problem as to why some people see it as over performing. Build diveristy already looks pretty slim with ranger because all i see is smokescale, pig, and deer, and rarely someone uses a bear for immunity with soul-beast.

>

> It's not so much that Ranger is dead without smokescale or Deer etc it's that locking those pets behind specific specs means that you are effectively limiting people to a very small amount of viable builds.

> You say everyone is running these specific pets now on various builds but if you restrict them to the specs only then that problem is going to turn into every ranger is running the exact same cheapo OP build that everyone hates.

> That just leads to cries of nerf this nerf that (as we saw with the Soulbeast Sic-Em damage) and if the Devs do decide to nerf the build due to excessive use then that will effectively kill the Ranger entirely by screwing it's only viable playstyle and forcing people into other roles they're not interested in playing.. to which most will just take up another class entirely so they can keep playing high dps.

In truth anything thats over used that feels way too cheap will always be complained about to needing nerfs. To that statement is why we saw rampage get over nerfed the way we did because you pressed 1 button and either you immediately win via cc damage chain or the person is prepared for it but has to blow hella defenses against it to ensure they didnt take 12k in a single strike. Overall when it didnt work it was just scary but when it did work it just felt extra cheap. People demanded it be culled. Sickem was much of the same thing

Murge > Sickem > Elite skill > Rapidfire.... or Maul and Target died before they knew what hit em. Ideally 1 shot builds, skills, or mechanics just dont need to exsist on the level that most of them do in the game right now. Even if its a really competitive build or not its just not fun getting one shot. People dont like "not getting to play" regardless of their skill level, thats just universal feeling you want to feel impactful even if you die in the end as a result. IF you die without being able to have done anything right away its not a good feeling. People will demand culling and pick up their spears.

>

> > As far as pets go people dont bother with much diversity as it is and i cant help but wonder if its that all pets are bad or maybe just a few of them are over performing (a conversation for another day)

>

> It's true there are a number of pets that get little to no use what so ever.. For example I can't recall the last time I saw someone running around with a Krytan Drakehound or a White Moa bird.

> Imo the problem lies not in that SmokeScale and Deer are exceptionally good though.. it's that most other pets are pretty garbage at standard or just stand inferior to others due to their abilities falling short of other pets or Ranger skills.

>

> > There are other HoT pets and other PoF pets that see almost no use 1 because smoke scale immediately takes one slot in 9/10 builds.

>

> True.

> Tiger see's little use because Fury is so easily obtained from other sources, the best thing Tiger can contribute to really is 100% fury uptime but that can be obtained easily without it as well so overall kinda useless pet tbh which really sucks for me since Tigers are one of my favourite animals.

>

> Fire Wyvern is a cool one but it's F2 is so abysmally bad it's not even funny.

> Pathetic burn on what is a bad joke of a cast time.. far better off getting a fire field from Torch instead.

>

> Electric Wyvern isn't too bad though, I've taken to using it recently to add some more CC to my build.

> It can provide some decent CC for a pet, Cripple, Wing Buffet, the F2 and the lightning field can all provide CC which is pretty great, specially if your build was lacking in it like mine was.

> I can't speak as much for PoF pets though, I haven't really used them personally so i've little familiarity with them.

People really do discredit Electric Wyvern a bit too much its not so bad of a pet tbh.

Alot of the PoF pets aside from the creepy bush and the strange tongue worm thing are rarely used i know one is a cat that like blinks or something then you have the sand lion which looks like it would have potential but in reality its just kinda meh. I feel like they should expand on at least the HoT and PoF pets to open up options a bit more and maybe at least try to temp people away from just smokescale.

> > >

> > > > - gs block duration is far too long for the short cd it has its basically stronger than warrior shield block with a counter attack option not sure this should be a thing something needs to change here either the duration of the block or the cd of the block.

> > >

> > > It is a pretty strong block, I guess that's the tradeoff for the removal of evade though.

> > I thought the evade on auto was fine.

>

> As did I, I made a Ranger build based around high evasion just for fun and I enjoyed it until the Greatsword change took away the only backup evade weapon that was viable to my Sword Dagger combo.

> At least I got the block now but it's not the same.

> > What was not fine is intentionally triggering the 3rd part of the auto chain 3 times in a row for a very long extended evade duration. All they really needed to do was force the chain to reset to the first hit instead of allowing the 3rd hit to repeat 2-3 times.

>

> Agreed, that was pretty broken.

>

> > > I do like that the counter attack is player input based now rather than auto/cancelling the block.. but I miss the ability to throw the greatsword at a fleeing enemy to cripple them, I used that quite a bit when I ran GS.

> >

> > This part is fine no one will argue that counter attack was bad before if someone hit you at ranged but it did kind of make the gs predictable and could force the block to be ended early i just think as it is right now gs block should not be outperforming warrior shield block but thats just me. Minor number adjustment really only need to be made there.

> >

>

> Again I agree, I like Warrior Shields but GS block shouldn't be outperforming a Shield.. I mean, it's a friggin shield!! that's it's primary function!! XD

> Warriors do get access to projectile reflect on block though but if you ask me that should not be a trait, it should be a default part of the shield block skill.

>

> > Going back to the smoke scale though this thing is a problem and while im not saying it should be treated as for what i said previously it certainly needs to be looked into with just how much it provides to all builds of ranger which is why its so over used. Its a very strong well rounded pet in terms of damage and utility especially when combined with soul-beast. Nerf it? No.... not yet but do keep an eye on it while looking at other areas of ranger. Maybe start comparing how ranger performs in competitive modes across different builds with it vs without it even when using other HoT and PoF pets which generally all of which are better than Core game pets having a fairly smarter AI and superior attacks compared to core game pets.

>

> I use the Smokescale myself largely for it's CC which is something I lack on my actual Ranger but the damage it deals and it's sturdyness is nice to have too.

> It is a well rounded pet compared to others that I definitely agree with.

>

> The thing with Smokescale though and by extention some othe rexpansion pets is that it's easy to see these pets as better because a good number of them have very uniqe catagories and abilities.

>

> There is only one Smokescale, one Deer, one Iboga, one Jacaranda and One Bristle Back. meanwhile other pets like Sand Lion and Tiger get lumped into the Feline category where they're competing against other felines for abilities/utility while trying to avoid becoming clones of another Cat but also still having to be restricted to the feline stat set.

> Hell the pet system could be entirely redeisgned so that you could customize your pets role and what skin your using could be purely cosmetic.

> Rather than pick between 7 cats you could just pick Feline, pick the skin/F2 ability and then choose what stat role you want, offensive, defensive, CC, support etc.. that would be so much better than what we currently have atm.

I really like this last bit as an idea overall tbh at least with being able to just pick the f2 ability that would feel more like you trained x pet to do x thing rather than swapping to a whole new one altogether.

Though like i said im not demanding smoke scale nerfs but its certainly a pet to keep an eye on for now. Ive always felt like ranger was one of the stronger professions and i still think it is and i dont think that it shouldnt be. But i do think that all the others should be right up there with it (at least on a core level) and undoubtably many of them are not.

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > In pvp matches remove the ability to whisper or even chat to the enemy team during the match.

> >

> > > Inside you own team there should be some kind of negative karma report system where if you get enough hits you start to build up some kind of punishment or something that only matches you with people who have a similar number of reports.

> > > If only truly toxic people could only be matched with other toxic people the problem would be solved fairly quickly.

> > >

> > > I usually only report people if the toxicity gets to a level where it starts to sound more like harassment or gets racial etc. There are no needs to say somethings swearing is ok but you know when you go to far the moment you even think to type it.

> > >

> > > Ideally people who want to be toxic will continue to be toxic until they are properly punished for it showing such improper behavior. You dont learn not to do something wrong if you dont get punished for doing it.

> > >

> > > Outside of matches its just dependent on people to not have have a god complex tbh

> > > The number of people ive seen on Team USA (or at least going by the guild tag) act like butts to other players even in just free for all arena let alone in even unranked matches just because "hey look at me good at the game" is beyond me.

> > > The idea that "you dont play the way i do" thus "I can bully, be toxic, and harass" mentality is just one of the many things that ruins pvp imo at least when i see it. I also see it more often than i like.

> > >

> > > I know it happens in all competitive games but gw2 has to be one of games where i see it far more often than i would like to see it.

> >

> > Basically all of this.

> >

> > At this point, the only thing that is going to stop people from being as ugly as they can be to people they dont like or are frustrated with is to limit the way they can express that frustration, allowing players to refuse to play with or against certain players, or by swiftly punishing them with something that detracts from their gameplay experience the more frequently or intensely they vent that toxicity.

> >

> > There's a reason you don't see a whole lot of toxicity on the forums atm. each of those things is enforced here. The worst you can do here is float a really bad suggestion.

>

> I guess I'll give my own opinion too. I think they could take some notes from Blizzard with Overwatch. It's not that they have "solved" toxic behaviour or they have the "best" system but they have taken steps to lessen it and communicated clearly with the community on how they are dealing with it. I would really like to see this effort from Anet.

>

> * Let people know when someone they reported gets a ban.

> * Have a minor rewards system for getting some kind of "up vote" at the end of matches.

> * Have a "down vote" system so that people can see when someone has LOTS of complaints from other players and knows what to expect.

> * I would say the system could try to group those with a lot of thumbs down to play together so those who are toxic get stuck with others who are toxic BUT I know the PvP community is too small to make this work.

> * Mute those who get to a certain "down vote" threshold automatically.

>

>

> These are just some ideas, none perfect.

Any minor move in the right direction is better than having no system to enforce on encourage better behavior in general which gw2 currently does not have. Some of these ideas would go along way too. That said the pvp system as a whole needs vast improvements and this would hopefully be considered as a part of it if it were to ever happen i hope.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > The unholy change that happened yesterday is ideally how the rest of the line should have been redesigned from the start. Simple but direct and reliable its fixed but works scales on something relatable to necromancer which is high vitality.

>

> I'll disagree, healing should depend on healing power, healing by a percentage of anything else is bad design. The unholy change isn't ideal, it's another one of those steps in the wrong direction that is pleasing to the players' eyes.

This is fine until your healing value base is lower than boon regen as grand master trait which is not acceptable. In a line thats suppose to improve self sustain.

>

> The game have a stat dedicated to sustain, yet ANet barely make use of it. If ANet were to make use of it, the players would have to make sacrifice for their sustain and thus we would have less of those abominations with both high survivability and high damage.

Because most builds dont need to invest in healing power to get modest / average and in some cases generous use out of their sustaining or self healing traits. Unholy was at base so low as a grand master that it was just joke. Unless every other form of self healing sustain in other professions defensive lines also required healing power for them to work i would agree but considering the rest of the game didnt go in that direction i dont see why necormancer should have to either.

Healing power is only really worth it if you want to heal others in great amounts not yourself. Outside of maybe ele very few professions make use of self sustain on offensive builds that require them to take healing power to make it work.

I prefer something that just works without me having to play a mini game thats not anymore effective for professions that dont have such a system for their sustain lines and the lines work much more effectively.

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > >

> > > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > > The heal is fine the real main issues with ranger are

> > > > >

> > > > > - none elite builds being able to use elite map pets (one of which provides way too much in terms of both damage and utility which is why its used in almost every competitive build)

> > > > > - gs block duration is far too long for the short cd it has its basically stronger than warrior shield block with a counter attack option not sure this should be a thing something needs to change here either the duration of the block or the cd of the block.

> > > > > - rangers have some pretty busted boon generation

> > > > >

> > > > > The ranger heals are actually fine and well balanced imo

> > > > > Troll Unguant takes basically 9 seconds to complete its full healing potential if you include the half second cast time if the ranger is low enough Troll Unguant is one of the worst heals they can take because you dont get a burst of healing on cast. The reason Troll Unguant looks strong is because when used at half or high health percentages ranger has hella tools to ensure they can avoid, block, or just disengage all together.

> > > > >

> > > > > I would literally argue that if only druids could take smoke scale because its a pet that came with HoT then Ranger would be tone down hella hard with just that change alone.

> > > > >

> > > > > Ranger the combo of warrior meets thief with lesser draw backs of both of those professions in one.

> > > >

> > > > I dont know much about range man, but when I look at their boon and see 3min swiftness and 1min of fury i cringe inside, something is wrong there.

> > > > Also fix the kitten gazele that teleports on top of people and 1shot them, fix the pets tracking in stealth.

> > > > Whats the point of using short stealth to reposition, if dumbo pet takes 3s to realize you stealthed, they continue running at you, knock you down, then bite you and they OOOH WHERE HE AT.

> > > > Fix the pets that dont get retargetet by axe3 and other mesmer stuff. ( tho this one kinda makes sense per say, lets say they have a good nose. and smell the cheese ).

> > >

> > > 1. You guys need to realize that pets, unlike the kits of every other core class, have not been buffed at all. In fact, they have only ever received nerfing. The Core Ranger's class kit IS pets. While other Core Classes such as Necromancer, or Engineer, have received great buffing to their Core Class F skill kits over the years, Core Ranger pets have received nothing but nerfs. The compensation for this, are the pets from expansions. This is not an issue with the moral principle of "Should expansion content be allowed to be used on a Core Class" but rather a requirement for the Core Ranger's kit to be able to keep up with all of the buffing that other Core Class kits have received. I'm not so sure you guys quite realize how much the core pets suck. In no way do core pets even begin to equal the raw power & utility provided by something like a Reaper kit, or Scourge kit, or Photon Forge "along with all of the tool belt skills provided in the kit", or Mesmer Shatter skills.

> > > 2. Speaking of Mesmers. What about Mesmer/Mirage clone play? These things deal WAY more damage with random auto attack spam than a Ranger pet could ever hope to do, even while landing a top tier combo with it. The clones can also evade attacks and be combined with several other Mesmer functions that grant the Mesmer more utility with those clones than the pets on a Ranger. The Clones also can be constantly perpetually cycled, ever present, and never on a nearly 1 minute death cool down. So why all of the special hate for Ranger pets? Well it's real simple, there is a special annoyance people get when an AI follows them in melee range. It gives this "feeling" of being 2v1d. I notice that people complain about Bambi & the Smokescale, but never complain about my Bristleback, even though the Bristleback is actually landing a lot more consistent damage on the player than the melee pets because his projectile graphics are nearly invisible on autos and it's hard to see the F2 burst coming when he's sitting 500+ range off node and not following you. But see that's exactly it, that "Feeling" of being 2v1'd isn't there when it isn't a Bambi or Smokescale following them around. This is the same reason why people somehow don't make the connection that Mesmer clones are just stronger pets in every way than Ranger pets, because the large majority of them are ranged like Bristleback. So there is a lack of "feeling" that special getting 1vX'd feeling.

> > > 3. Also, stop embellishing this "I got 1shot by Bambi stuff." Man, I'm a Ranger main of 8 years, I've been playing every season since seasons began and even before. I've been playing all this season as well, in the current patching we are discussing. I have never once myself landed even a meme build version of a maximized Bambi strike, for a little more than a standard Maul would hit, and that's if you really really go out of your way to design a build around such nonsense. Designing a build around landing meme Bambi strikes renders such a useless kitten build that isn't even worth running. With a build like that, you're waiting for the stars to align so you can land a meme 10k strike from Bambi, as you're getting shrekt by some Holosmith or Spellbreaker. It isn't worth it at all. Realistically on more standardized builds, you're looking at maybe 4k to 6k strikes from Bambi, which is hardly a 1 shot, and definitely far less damage than the kit provided by a Reaper or Holosmith. It's just that you don't feel 2v1'd when other classes get on you. And if you are seriously getting hit by friggin "headbutt", my dudes... learn to dodge roll, or simply... walk away from the pet when he stops & stands still and obviously visually puts his head down for the wind up animation into Headbutt. It's like almost as obvious as Earth Shaker man. Come on, l2p.

> > >

> > > Anyway, the truth to this garbage complaining about Ranger pets is just that people find it annoying that something with vitality is following them around dealing damage at all. Furthermore I'd like to point out that you shouldn't greatly embellish claims like "3 minutes of swiftness - 1 minute of fury" come on now boys. Ranger has just as much access to boons as every other class right now. In fact, there are quite a few classes that greatly outshine the Ranger in terms of boon pumping, AKA: Firebrand, Heralds, Weavers. Or look at these:

> > >

> > > * "Ranger the combo of warrior meets thief with lesser draw backs of both of those professions in one." Yeah yeah, that's why Warrior & Thief sees a ton of representation in competitive play but Ranger sees zero. Makes sense.

> > > * "Also fix the kitten gazele that teleports on top of people and 1shot them, fix the pets tracking in stealth." It doesn't 1 shot anything and it doesn't teleport. If anything, what you're experiencing is desynch error, which happens with everything in the game from time to time.

> > >

> > > Just try to understand the difference between when something is actually overpowered, and when something is just an annoying mechanic to you.

> >

> > Im not complaining about bambi damage, im complaining about bambi being glichy as kitten and about pets being broken and ignoring stealth, had times where pet just walks thorough wall to charge me, thats kitten up.

> > Clones unlike pets die to 1 hit, and pet is constant pressure, they should provide utility only, ranger shouldnt be allowed to hide behind a wall and watch you get kicked for 2-3k by a pet, and if you kill it, he just resummons a new one or MeRgEs WiTh It.

> > I like playing glassy builds, makes fights more on edge for me, and properly kiting and dodging hits only to have pet glich throught a wall and chunk me for 70% of my HP is infuriating.

> > Let me repeat, I DONT WANT PET DMG TO BE NERFED, I WANT PETS TO BE FIXED BUG WISE, no tracking stealth, no running through walls and no randomly teleporting

> > ( warriors do that too sometimes somehow ??? the fuq )

> > Also if a class can get 3min of swiftness then there is something not right. Just my opinion here but hey mb all those 3min of swiftness are overkill.

> > TBH nerfing swiftness would buff ranger, becouse if you steal it you gain less? like you gonna have it perma anyways. LoL

>

> Honestly slb trade off should have been access to only one pet since their bond is so strong that the ranger gets boosted when merged. Also no pet should have hard cc as that's to strong of a effect to be passive, hard cc as a acquired skill is more than fine. Evade on auto was also fine and the exploit rangers used for the evade shoulda been fixed instead of out right removing the evade.

I also said this but no one will agree with that trade off. having a 1 pet limit would make a lot of sense for slb. Im fine with pets having hard cc's but they need have better tells so that a player can see them coming wihouth having to exclusively focus directly on the pet. Some pets do have kind of a visual noise effect to tell you they are performing a CC attack even when the ranger has not commanded them to but others much like the Deer pet just kind of yolo their CC attacks. It can be hard to see the deer getting ready to charge you or head flip you if you are more so trying to avoid getting hit with point blank shot or maul combo'ed etc.

Once again the evade was fine the fix should have been to just force the auto chain to restart regardless if you hit or missed the 3rd chain swing on purpose or not.

Depends on the character design and armor and just style in general. Ive seen some people with them where they look super basic and janky and ive seen some players who make themselves look like royalty with the same cape. If you have good style you can make it work if this cape is not for you then its not for you wait for the next one.

Which will prob be with episode 2 or with winters day patch and try your luck then.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

>

>

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > The heal is fine the real main issues with ranger are

> > >

> > > - none elite builds being able to use elite map pets (one of which provides way too much in terms of both damage and utility which is why its used in almost every competitive build)

> > > - gs block duration is far too long for the short cd it has its basically stronger than warrior shield block with a counter attack option not sure this should be a thing something needs to change here either the duration of the block or the cd of the block.

> > > - rangers have some pretty busted boon generation

> > >

> > > The ranger heals are actually fine and well balanced imo

> > > Troll Unguant takes basically 9 seconds to complete its full healing potential if you include the half second cast time if the ranger is low enough Troll Unguant is one of the worst heals they can take because you dont get a burst of healing on cast. The reason Troll Unguant looks strong is because when used at half or high health percentages ranger has hella tools to ensure they can avoid, block, or just disengage all together.

> > >

> > > I would literally argue that if only druids could take smoke scale because its a pet that came with HoT then Ranger would be tone down hella hard with just that change alone.

> > >

> > > Ranger the combo of warrior meets thief with lesser draw backs of both of those professions in one.

> >

> > I dont know much about range man, but when I look at their boon and see 3min swiftness and 1min of fury i cringe inside, something is wrong there.

> > Also fix the kitten gazele that teleports on top of people and 1shot them, fix the pets tracking in stealth.

> > Whats the point of using short stealth to reposition, if dumbo pet takes 3s to realize you stealthed, they continue running at you, knock you down, then bite you and they OOOH WHERE HE AT.

> > Fix the pets that dont get retargetet by axe3 and other mesmer stuff. ( tho this one kinda makes sense per say, lets say they have a good nose. and smell the cheese ).

>

> 1. You guys need to realize that pets, unlike the kits of every other core class, have not been buffed at all. In fact, they have only ever received nerfing. The Core Ranger's class kit IS pets. While other Core Classes such as Necromancer, or Engineer, have received great buffing to their Core Class F skill kits over the years, Core Ranger pets have received nothing but nerfs. The compensation for this, are the pets from expansions. This is not an issue with the moral principle of "Should expansion content be allowed to be used on a Core Class" but rather a requirement for the Core Ranger's kit to be able to keep up with all of the buffing that other Core Class kits have received. I'm not so sure you guys quite realize how much the core pets suck. In no way do core pets even begin to equal the raw power & utility provided by something like a Reaper kit, or Scourge kit, or Photon Forge "along with all of the tool belt skills provided in the kit", or Mesmer Shatter skills.

Technically speaking incorrect they are indirectly buffed via the beast mastery line the reason that they pets are not directly buffed is because for some reason anet has not duplicated pets apart from mobs in the open world, in other words if they buff the standard wolf pet all the wolf AI's in open world as result get a buff along with it.

Thus the solution to this problem was buffing beast mastery so that it only effects the rangers pets and thats how they buff ranger pets in general which means that all pets buffs are dependent upon the beast mastery line. The few pets that have received nerfs i think we can agree were rightly justified, the most notable one being bristle back machine gun.

HoT and PoF pets are stronger because they are designed better, have more effective attacks and more modern take on AI design in a nutshell they have better mechanics, move faster, and have a higher chance to hit you even without the beast-mastery improving them because their base designs even in the open world are just generally better.

Keep in mind that as i said all you see is smoke scale 99% of the time in 1 of the 2 slots out of all the HoT and PoF pets that could be there its likely a reason for that. Lets not dumb it down smokescale is awesome and one of the best if not THE BEST ranger pet in the game overall. This is fine for this to be that case but i just think it does quite a bit when you consider its potentials, porting attacks, soul beast fusion gives the player this attack, smoke aoe that can be used for blinding projectiles or additional stealth access its just up there.

As for the rest of the stuff you wrote after this im assume you are addressing Leon I didnt really bring mesmer into this. Ill only reply to the bits i think might be addressed more at me to shorten things up.

> Anyway, the truth to this garbage complaining about Ranger pets is just that people find it annoying that something with vitality is following them around dealing damage at all. Furthermore I'd like to point out that you shouldn't greatly embellish claims like "3 minutes of swiftness - 1 minute of fury" come on now boys. Ranger has just as much access to boons as every other class right now. In fact, there are quite a few classes that greatly outshine the Ranger in terms of boon pumping, AKA: Firebrand, Heralds, Weavers. Or look at these:

Boons in general need to come down that includes rangers thats all ill say here.

> * "Ranger the combo of warrior meets thief with lesser draw backs of both of those professions in one." Yeah yeah, that's why Warrior & Thief sees a ton of representation in competitive play but Ranger sees zero. Makes sense.

Not sure what competitive play you are looking at.

I guess competitive play means only what makes it to streams and not the majority of everyone else who plays generally. Ranger was not on the top winning team there for nothing what so ever is wrong with it... this is not how things work. If ranger is not in competitive "at all" then something is wrong.

You are allowed to have your own opinion on what you consider competitive and what you dont but i consider any environment where you compete in a setting of victory or defeat against other real players be it wvw, ranked, or even un ranked as competitive play. You are competing with a or against other real life people. IF you only want to consider the best of the best or only high end toruny streams the only true competitive play the the game is doomed.

The idea of only or trying to always justify balancing around specifically the top percentile is still a strange concept to me. Most people dont and wont play at that level so why focus on it so drastically. Especially right now where the pool that makes up competitive play is all kinds of jacked up by win trades, bots, and a whole ton of other issues like solo vs duo q etc.

> Just try to understand the difference between when something is actually overpowered

We can only ask you to do the same but it might be hard to see it while using it. Unless you dont main it. Some times you dont know how strong something is even if you main it till you fight it with something else.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> You're just moving the issue to the adept tier, with this there is absolutely no reason to take _flesh of the master_ and little reason to take _shrouded removal_.

>

> Also, having incoming poison duration reduced doesn't fit the necromancer's philosophy. The necromancer's philosophy is built in such a way that he want to have conditions on him as long as possible in order to send them back for more damage.

>

> At the moment there is 2 issues with death magic:

> - _Unholy sanctuary_ isn't tied to the carapace system which make this badly designed trait a poor choice to take. Because, yes, a the trait is badly designed. It litterally force the special mechanism to have a baseline defensive shroud instead of giving a true layer of defense.

> - Death magic is overloaded with minion traits while minions aren't even close to be a part of the necromancer's special mechanic. You can have 3-4 traits that boost a mechanism that is always available to your character, it's not an issue. However, minions aren't always available. They aren't tied to weapon skills (like mesmer's clones) nor are they tied to your special mechanism (like ranger's pet). They are just random utilities with poorly effective flip skill.

>

> If ANet want to decently present a traitline with that many minion traits, they need to either incorporate the minion's spawn into one of the minor traits of the death magic traitline or move most of those traits into an elite specialization whose special mechanic is related to minions generation.

>

> As for _unholy sanctuary_, the trait need to part from the shroud and be related to the death carapace mechanism if ANet want to make it into an healthy trait. It shouldn't be complicated to end up with something like:

>

> > _Unholy sanctuary_: Regenerate your health for X amount every seconds for every 10 stacks of _death carapace_ on you. Whenever you'd take a lethal hit gain 3500 barrier and 20 stack of _death carapace_, ICD 30 seconds.

Lets get 1 thing right though the whole line Death magic is badly designed imo. Even if at its best its slightly better than it was its still designed kind of poorly.

I would value unholy over most of the way anet designed the other traits to work around the carapace mini game system. Overall they could have just inserted tools that are always reliable or missing critical tools and simple traits that other light armor professions have that necro did not and death magci would have been properly adding a true layer of defense to the profession but you cant do that with a mini game thats worse than the old version was when its at low stack count.

It still holds way too many traits that hold no value to in combat situations or traits that are basically enforce corruptors fervor.

The unholy change that happened yesterday is ideally how the rest of the line should have been redesigned from the start. Simple but direct and reliable its fixed but works scales on something relatable to necromancer which is high vitality.

Now that the whole line has been reworked to carapace it theoretically could have been tied so that it scaled with carapace but then again carapace is kind of iffy if you dont run Putrid + lots of poison application or C.Fervor.