The REAL Solution to Touch Rangers...

I don't have a problem with touch rangers. I just don't understand why people like to play touch rangers. It's one of the MOST boring classes you could possibly play (except maybe a rit lord spirit spammer). All you do is c, spacebar, 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 oh look i'm getting hit 3 1 2 1 2 1 2 oh look he's running 4 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 ....

There's no reflexes involved, no finesse, and no flexibility. In short - a really boring class to play.

Ice ele's work wonderfully in this case.

I love how the anti-whining thread turned into a whining thread about anti-whining.

1. It is NOT exploitation, it's a clever cross-classing combination, taking advantage of Expertise by using your secondary with expertise skills. I highly doubt that anet forsaw "in a few years there'll be a build called the touch ranger" if they did it would be "TOUCH RANGER, NERF, NERF!!!!!!!".

2. Wither and Maliase are much better used on a Monk, because it completely shuts down the other team's healing, as long as you're using a cover hex.

3. Most touch rangers are stupid and don't care weather a hammer warrior is on them or not when they use Offering of Blood. They will effectively cut 20% of their own exp, and be killed by the frenzied warrior. What's conveniant about Frenzy warriors against touchies is that life stealing doesnt count as damage, therefore it isn't doubled with frenzy.

4. Monk is FAR more important than a touch ranger as target priority, sure touchies may be able to do decent damage, but monks heal the other team, this makes them far more important. R/N i often use in RA without touchie builds because i know everyone'll target me first thinking im a touchie.

5. Been explained A MILLION TIMES on this thread alone, that you don't need extra skills just incase you meet a toucher, the counters i mentioned have far more uses elswhere.

6. Touchie+Healer/Boon Prot Monk should give you an annoying team, if this happens you should focus all your attention on the boonprot monk, because it's more important than the toucher, as i already mentioned.

Crippling anguish + Malaise + conjure phantasm + life siphon = toucher owned. I managed to solo a toucher 1 vs 1 in a scrimmage.

... Whining thread about anti whining?

PWNED! I'm sure this would also make for a pwned warrior in RA, good combo, except deep wound would be a good addition.

All skills in a touch ranger's bar are usually:
Vamp Touch
Vamp Bite
Throw Dirt
Plague Touch
Offering of Blood {E}
Whirling Def
Dodge/Zojun's Haste
Ressurection Signet

There is way more work involved in a touchie's build than you mentioned.

Hey hey! Welcome to Guild Wars Guru!

Mera: Those are all good counters, but I have something to add with this one:

What I like to do in TA when I meet a team like this is pressure the boon prot until one of the R/Ns decide to go OoB, in which case I call a spike on him and usually he goes down easy.

The OoB is like the toucher's permanent deep wound.

Wouldn't work, touchies use a grand total of one spell in their regular builds, therefore you would steal only one. The first three skills would work, but not the rest.

Well, you have to admit, adding regular deep wound couldn't hurt ^ ^!

Possible Solution #1
Not a full proof solution, but a build I use. Not as effective as a crip-shot or mesmer, but still fun if timed correctly:

R/x (Use R/N for extra irony)

Skills
Pin Down
Oath Shot {e}
Distracting Shot
Hunter's Shot
Apply Poison
Whirling Defence
Troll Ungent, Debilitating Shot, or Storm Chaser
Troll Ungent or Rez Signet (if not in AB)

Attributes
13 expertise
11 Wilderness
11 Marks

Armor: +35 health for 585 max health /w +30HP weapon bonus

Weapon: +5e Recurve Bow + 33% crippling & +30 fort.

You have to play smart and catch the toucher when they aren't in stance, then you can crip them for 15 seconds, so they're S.O.L. after that. If they have a stance up, just kite until it's over. Not as effective as crip shot, but more defensive versus Melee as Whirling can be almost renewed constantly.

Possible Solution #2
This is the most effective way to avoid touchers all together if you don't want to build against them. This solution is so full proof and effective that very few will use this.

format c:\

Crying over Touchers > Crying over IWAY > 1 ecto > 1 shard

I will say this, play the game the way its most fun to you and expect others to do the same. If people have fun playing a toucher they will play them no sense in making a big deal about it, I dont find them taking away my fun as it is both fun and Hilarious to crush those little guys on my warrior (I have a TEAM with me as this is a team game) and I can outdamage their healing and my monk can outheal their damage, and worst case scenario is I end up needing to run.

Play this game for fun, other people do and they wont stop playing touchers just so you can have fun. Do whatever you want in this game just dont step on my blue suede shoes

Hrm, yes Ive tried this. I actually have a story to tell.
As a boon/prot I tried to kite a touch ranger. If I was by myself this would eventually lead to my doom as my energy ran low. Instead I decided to kite round two teamates of mine (Necro and an Ele I belive). I was pretty darn sure that at least two characters could take down the toucher while I was kiting(toucher getting one hit on me now and then as I casted). But no, doing so for a good few minutes resulted in my death.

Is it my fault or the stupidity of my teamates?

I see a lot of comments about DPS in this. Sure, a LOT of characters can deal more DPS than a touch ranger, however you have to realise that the ranger is HEALING himself at the same rate.

What irritates me is that taking down a toucher requires a specific build. Taking down any other kind of character you can sort-of get away with most builds. Its either Warrior-KD-Warriors Cunning, Mesmer-Diversion, Necro-Degen-Kite, Elementalist-Freeze (and I think assasins would do well but not sure).

1)1Vs1 means nothing.
2)You devoted half your skillbar to counter one Touch. What if you don't meet one? What if you meet four? I believe in addition the rest of your skillbar is devoted to e-management.
3) Malaise ends when you hit 0 energy. Any clever touch ranger will do focus swapping to get rid of malaise.

1) Backfire. Only completely stupid touchies would run OoB with this on them. You assume touchies are stupid players. BTW, Backfire doesn't hit at all the whole rest of their skill bar AND is easily removed.
2) Diversion. Yeah, if you hit Vamp touch/bite. And again, you assume the touchie to be stupid and use his skill while div his on him. A clever touchie will simply run away waiting the hex to wear off. And Diversion can handle one touchie. Not two. Or three. Or four.
3) Blackout. Wow. You disabled yourself and the touchie for... What, 6-7 seconds? It's a draw. Not a winning move. Useful before calling a spike, though.
4)KD chain. I forgot to mention, again, that touchies are completely stupid and won't use evade stances when a frenzied hammer warr will strike their face. Wild blow? You will have problems to build the AD needed for your KD chain, then.
5) Kiting. I should mention that if you force your opponent to kite, then its a first step to victory. While kiting you, your opponent don't do anything. More, if you run faster than him, you will win on the long run, lowering is HP (and forcing energy use to heal), and forcing him to run instead of actually doing damage on the opponent.

I used Touch ranger's build. I found it to be a cheap build, extremely powerful in random situations (RA, AB).
Only teamplay win over it (by calling spikes on them, cripple them and ordering all your party members to flee them), but for unorganised newbies, it is extremely hard to overcome it. What I mean is that an unorganized team of Touchies will almost always win over an unorganised team of anything else.

Again, Im' not against the overall clever use of Expertise to diversify the use of secondary professions for the ranger, but the copying of Vamp touch boosted this build toward imbalance.

not to be rude, but have you even tried a normal warrior build versus a toucher, lol they die.

Assassin's are not only easly countered, but also can be evaded or have the damage reduced.

mesmers yeah, usually they can win with a good enough degeneration build.

Elemantalists.. depends on the target.

My solution is easy, Immolate-Meteor, Run around in circles, the degen will kill any touch ranger

As a mesmer Conjure Phantasm-Nightmare, Illusion of Haste- Imagined Burden

nah, i honestly do find it hilarious

I mainly play touch ranger for one reason: to get faction, whether it's Baltazar to unlock skills or alliance faction for whatever reason. I use the build in Alliance Battles, Random Arenas, and this past weekend in Fort Aspenwood. Here are my thoughts on some of the above posts:

At least in my experience, I have had NO problems with warriors and usually assassins. Why ? Throw Dirt. Even without it, I am generally able to take them down as my "attacks" are self-healing. I simply last longer.

Rangers with Crippling Shot and Poison ? You better make sure you don't have any teammates around. This also goes for suggestions of Deep Wound. If I can't reach one of your teammates, then yeah, I'll die.

It puzzles me greatly when a warrior blinds me from melee range. I'll never figure that one out. Yes, it does happen.

Any casts of Empathy or other such irrelevant hexes are much like blinding me or like blinding monks and mesmers. They simply indicate the person simply doesn't understand the build / game enough.

For those of you calling for a nerf, or thinking that Vamp Touch and Bite should be spells, or that Expertise should be fixed: ANet has already spoken and acted on the issue. They have said it was a build that could and should be countered and they didn't feel it was overpowered. Also, notice the in-game description of Expertise has been changed to a reduction of the energy cost of all your "non-Spells", as opposed to the previous wording of traps, preparations, and attacks. For me, this indicates that ANet intends the energy discount to be applied as it is currently. You simply cannot argue coherently that this was overlooked by ANet any longer.

Degen is the best way to kill a good touch ranger. If they don't have a body near them, they have no healing or condition removal. They never have hex removal. Just make sure your teammates stay away. Energy denial won't work all that well against good ones - focus swapping. I have 3 levels of energy and no longer have energy problems. This also helps waiting out Backfire.

Don't expect a nerf. Touch rangers do not pose a problem to skilled players. If you don't have the skills to counter them in your build, you'd better have the sense to stay away from them. You don't see them having much success in organized team play, and as such, no nerf is called for.

I won't get into whether or not TRs are balanced in different situations (that's a can of worms), but I can say that the commonly spouted tactic "kill the touch ranger first" is idiotic. Here you have a character with a large capacity to self-heal (which far outstrips the sacrifice with OoB), and great defense against physical, elemental (natural armor), and condition degen (cheap plague touch). You don't focus everything on the most hardened character. You just kite him and kill his pals. Remember if the TR is at full health, his self-healing does not benefit the team at all.

That's the truth! From a team-play perspective, TR's add only a little benefit to a team.

Curiously enough, TR's are almost like Cheetah's in nature - highly specialized. Survival of the build relies heavily on teams that are not focused on team-play. HAHA, you could say TR's Cheetah all the time!

I agree 100% with you.

As someone previously stated, touchers are only effective in random battles. Actually the build is quite poor as it has no range and its dps is low. However, that said I do believe the build is broken for places like Ft Aspenwood. The reason being all the npcs hanging around that don't have a clue as to what a toucher is. No other build can tear through the NPCs in this mission like a toucher can with no support. Factor in the turtles, hammer warriors and then a toucher or two and its good game Kurzicks your hosed. Doesn't work as well on the flip side because of those fore mentioned turtles and hammer warriors.

In my opinion, don't nerf the build just make a few minor changes to Aspenwood and missions like it. If the NPCs are tweaked so they have more effective skill sets then touchers will be relagated to the confines of random arenas which is where a build like this belongs (build that relies heavily on the skills rather than player skill).

I like how the warriors here are saying they can kill us with KD's. I was fighting exactly that, a KD w/e and an assasin. Both on me, sure I got knocked down a couple times, but I was still able to take both of them out by myself. Not claiming they were the best of the best, but I don't remember ever being killed by a warrior. Those are my targets ; ]

I play my vampire all the time he's great fun, and I'm getting pretty decent at it. Yes there is actually some skill in who you choose to attack and how you react to certain tactics.

An assasin actually had me nervous as he managed to interupt my throw dirt with shock and was doing some good damage for a second there. I realized I hadn't even used whirling lol, then I woke up and put it on and he ran off after a couple bites, eventually only to be caught up with later for death. That did teach me something though, I used to always throw dirt first move but now I might wait a second incase of that shock.

Anyways.. I love the vampire, and the hate I always receive lol. I mean it's almost gauranteed after a victory to hear, noob toucher!! or god I hate touchers, even if they lost with a toucher on their team lol.. I love it, sure there's many occasions where someone is ready for me and I'm the focus of the whole team and I'm killed. But most of the times it's me disabling your warriors and assasins and thumpers, bring em all at same time I dont mind. My teamates are going after your monk as I distract and kill you.

Vampires are god damn generals. Outside of RA I doubt it lol but to me that's the most fun arena to fool around in anyways. No waiting time just right into it. I've yet to try an all vampire squad in TA but I imagine fun times ahead.


All this was unneccessary but so is the whole thread so it fits perfect.

Another build that's decent in disabling (not killing) touchers/casters.

N/W

Flurry
Spinal Shivers
etc...

Weapon: Cold Damage Sword

Basically just cast Spinal Shivers and a cover hex on the toucher/caster and flurry away. Will interrupt most of their touches, if not all. However, you'll have to communicate to a teammate to take them down.

Not the most effective, but extremely fun.

I agree they can be countered, but they are so popular that it is a problem. Not fun if every build you bring into high-touch-ranger areas needs to be a counter to that one build. Not cool at all.

But the good news is that there are tactics for any build to counter a touch ranger (sorry if these have been addressed, only read some posts).
1) Run
2) Leave them alone

Run
Most touch rangers don't heal well if they can't touch things. If one is going after you just run. If they have degen on them, certainly run. Even if you don't have a run skill and they do, you can still reduce the number of touches by running from them. I've been about to kill a touch ranger with apply poison and running (at a W/R), but then an Assasin ally went to fight them and the touch ranger was back in action in no time. So running can be deadly against them. Even if they have troll, it's less healing for them if you run. The problem is, everyone on the team needs to know this tactic for it to work against a decent one.

Leave them alone
If your party can out-heal a touch ranger, outheal the ranger and ignore them. They can only heal themselves. Once the rest of the opposing party is gone, the touchie shouldn't be a big problem to deal with. Remember the run tip mentioned above though. It's so common to see one almost dead and make the vital mistake of thinking you can kill it real quick. Though some people can, far less than half the people who think they can, actually can.

Wither ends as well, but you can bring them down to 0 energy which is helpful. Her skillbar could kill pretty much anything else in ADDITION to touchers.

The whole REASON i suggested backfire for is because they couldn't use OoB to regulate their energy, and if they were stupid and did that would work too. You should pay more attention to the first post.
Not all touchers look at their effects bar before they use their touches, you could even hit them mid cast with it, they don't have to be dumb to be caught with diversion. Even if you cought an evasive stance, or an OoB with it, that would be equally good.
The whole point is ordering your team to attack the touch, then using blackout. Wow, you have no idea how blackout works do you? It disables you for 5 seconds and the touch for 7-8, the touch is disabled for longer than you, he cant heal himself, or manage his energy, your team can kill him in that period.
Do you think evasive stances last forever? Its a matter of target switching. You charge your combo on the touch, he uses evade stance, switch to one of the casters, kill the caster, switch back to the touchie.
ROFL, somone's never done serious gvg. If EVERYONE doesnt kite, your team is doomed from the start, a monk standing and tanking a warrior? GG. Runnign around to mitigate touch damage is a brilliant way to simply ruin their dps, they will give up and chase someone else, who will in turn, kite themselves. Throwing the touchie's dps way off. It seems to me all your arguments depend on the touch in particular being experianced, an experiance ANYTHING ELSE, also pwns, touch rangers are no exception. Also, about 75% of touchies are inexperianced as it were.

For your last post, the difference between counterablility and balance isn't too great. If a build is as EASILY counterable as this one, it is balanced. Touchies being clever coming up with a cross-class build:
The World: ZOMGZOMG IM SO NOOBY I GET PWNED BY TOUCH RANGERS!!! ANET, NERF, NERF, NERF THE TOUCHIES LIKE YOU DID EVERY OTHER GOOD BUILD ANET PLEASE HELP THE NOOBS!!!!!!!!!

Must've been extremely crappy then. All you have to do is spam healing signet and touchers cant, well, touch you.

You guys have got it all wrong.

The REAL solution to touch rangers is: Donuts.

It's a known fact. Rangers love donuts. If a you meet a toucher, just toss a few donuts the other direction. The toucher will lose focus, scramble off to grab the delicious donuts and you'll be free to go about your business.

yes touchies are effective but any monk tank combo can take it down i just use hamstring to keep it away from monk and keep choping and when does anyone say hey how bout i go take on this touch ranger 1on1 with more then 2 ppl around touchies always get beat thats why i wont play one in ab because their no good for capping because there are always lots of ppl they can just run around picking off the odd person

real solution = anet nerfs them. Its the IWAY of faction battles. Sure theres many ways to counter it, but you have to change you build so you are basically anti touch instead of what would actually help agasint real builds, so you cant counter them unless you specificly set up to do so. Prot spirit does not reduce the dmg, dark escape doesnt reduce the dmg, nothing reduces the dmg from them, and every noob who cant find a real build uses touch. Its almost inpossible to kill them solo because they can dodge all your attacks, all the dmg they do heals them, and they just run away if u get close.

Just nerf it

QFT


still, it seems the paragons will only help touchies... maybe the dervish can take um down

The solution is vampiric bite shouldn be a 'skill'

You don't hear mesmers complaining about touch rangers, nor from a good necro/ranger who can keep distance with touchies and happily degen away. In my opinions, touch ranger is a great way to keep population of noob warriors in alliance battles in check, or else AB will be overrun by melee classes. They also give mesmers and degen necro a reason to play in AB, so it's actually healthier for AB's ecosystem to have touchers.

It seems you haven't any clue on Focus swap. Touchies have generally a +15 energy staff and a -5+ energy thing. That make 20+ energy swap. They focus swap, get rid of malaise, and have still 20 energy to use.

I paid attention and what you say is nonsense. Backfire has a 10 sec unincreasable duration for a 20 sec recharge. They will use OoB between the end of the hex and its recharge. And during all this time you won't shutdown them at all.

Like I said, you assume Touchies are crappy players.

I will repeat myself, as I doubt you understood my post. 1) Blackout is useful to call spikes (I said this). 2)You gain 2-3 secs over the touchie. Sorry, it's not a big deal. 3) You're assuming that you are organised with your team, with something like Vent, or that anybody will follow your call on the Touchie over squishy targets. That's exactly what I said, touchies need team communication and organised play to be countered, and need nothing to be played.


And while this time, the touchie will be fully healed. Notice that touchies hunt warriors, that's not the contrary. Your warrior will be killed before he is able KD chain the touchie. Worst. A good Touchie will wait your first KD attack and hit an evade stance only at this moment.[/QUOTE]

I don't know what kind of GvG you do. But in my case, disabling an ennemy skillbar by simply forcing him to run and still doing damage is a brilliant move.
Kiting is the best damage mitigation way, as it don't ask you to put any skill on your bar. Still, you cannot cast while moving.
That's why you see so much warriors in the GvG metagame. That's why also you see warrior hate. But general warrior hate don't work against Touchies.


You're making a fool of yourself. I wouldn't say the build is EASILY counterable as you say. Vamp damage is unavoidable. Stances forbid any way of direct killing. And crippling skills need to be followed and understood by the whole rest of the team, an impossible thing in AB and RA. A crippling shot ranger will see all its work useless if the Touchie use plague touch a non-kiting opponent. A mesmer will see its work useless if a monk or an ennemy mesmer remove your hexes or, being a priority target, die first.

I'm done with this thread.

LMAO!!!

Curious thought, to any touch rangers out there:

If you were in the middle of touching someone and they decided to drop an ecto and run away, what would you do?

A. Stop and pick up the ecto.
B. Kill them in the hopes that your teammate would not go after the ecto.

Also, what's the lowest drop that would make you stop touching someone? (Blue, Purple, Gold, Green, Rare Material, Holiday Item, Ale, Shard, etc...)

ehhh.... touch rangers not my favorite people too see in a alliance battle. I think the reason people hate them is because there overused. I'm a lux and I was defending Kanaii (sp)? Canyon last week suddenly a whole touch team appeared XD I believe situations like this cause people to hate touchers. I'm a Me/Mo (with a build designed to take down warriors) if i have full enrgy and health I can usually (kinda) take a toucher but if I have 3/4 health and 3/4 energy the toucher will destroy me =( my biggest fear however is NON NOOB assasins.... eeee....

Alot of people believe touchers will soon be nerfed (I for one am not sure about this situation... but wouldn't be terribly dissapointed if they were) so here's my question do you think touchers will be nerfed?

LMAO donuts huh well I think I speak for mesmers when I say I would run for the donut. And hmmm if someone dropped an ale I'd go for that tooo I collect stuff that gets u drunk in the game.

Greeeeeeaaaat. Yet ANOTHER thread to incite the whole touch ranger debate. *sigh*