Expertise

Issue: Builds abusing this to fuel melee style builds.
Fix: Remove attack skills from the list.

Not hard. PvE/P split to keep PvE-ers from whining.

NOTE: Ranger Attack Skills are obviously unaffected by this nerf. Anyone who has the capability to read would have seen this the moment they saw Expertise's description: it clearly states that all Ranger skills are affected. Removing Attack Skills from the list would not remove that.

Taking out Expert in Expertise, eh?

There is no primay artribute with PvE/PvP split. Why now? Why only rangers?

/not signed

LAWL, so rangers would only be allowed to use preperations and stances?

You forgot that rangers also have attack skills,you know things like Disctracing Shot.....

Will you also make the energy gained from E Storage and Soul Reaping apply only to elementalist and necromancer spells, respectively, have Fast Casting only impact Mesmer abilities, remove the boost to bone minions from Soul Reaping, make Critical Strikes only impact daggers, stop Leadership from drawing on warrior shouts, and make Dervish enchantments the only ones that impact Mysticism?

Primary attributes having an impact outside the prof's skills is nothing new.

Oh , someone is hurt about rangers versatility when they play melee builds. QQ because of rangers asking a split to avoid QQ from PvE rangers ..... yeah.

Thats not an issue , get over it .

/Notsigned

Issue: I get owned in RA all day.
Fix: Make me lvl 32 and give me health potions.

thats what you mean?

I disagree with you. It may be possible for Anet to make Ranger attack skills work with Expertise but not other attack skills. However, I believe you are referring to the description of Expertise itself.

"For each rank of Expertise, the Energy cost of all of your attacks, Rituals, touch skills, and Rangers skills are decreased by 4%. Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise."

I believe that was added in because of skills like Symbiotic Bond and Pounce. They are listed as Shout and Pet Attack, which is not covered by "your attacks, Rituals, or touch skills". And when you consider not having Expertise helping to use skills like Savage Shot, Pin Down, or Crippling Shot, a Ranger would be hurting for energy fast.

I see this as pointless. Would hurt the Ranger using a bow. I believe you want to just make it function for Ranger skills only, but even that isn't needed.

Critical strikes should only affect daggers, yes (do you know how much damage an assassin can pump out with a scythe? They beat warriors by 20 dps, despite having to burn a PvE slot for IAS! And they don't even know how to swing the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing weapon properly!). The energy storage and soul reaping are impossible to implement (though it would be nice). The FC thing would kill mesmers.


When you're doing something better than the profession which is supposed to be doing it, yes, it's an issue. Remember, whenever you do something better than a profession, that's another option you're "taking away" from them.

Synergy is one thing. Utilizing it is why secondary professions exist. However, secondary professions were never intended to be more powerful at utilizing a primary profession's skills better than the primary profession itself. That is something completely different, and the inability to distinguish between these two things is the root of many of GW's balance problems.

This doesn't extend only to rangers, but they are one of the guilty parties here. Anything that helps to fix this gets a thumbs-up in my book (though I really think this should be a PvE change as well).

/signed for a little more balance to the game.

You're funny. Also sadly mistaken.

Sorry, that part was for PvE. I should have specified it.

I somewhat disagree with you on this one. I won't go into detail on a lot of the options available, but consider a 'basic' example. Mending Touch. Monk's can use this quite well, but only if they are on a team with all mid or back line players, or if they are using Draw Conditions. Using it on a Warrior, Dervish, or Assassin in melee combat with Blind on them would be a bad idea. However, those same Warriors, Dervishes, and Assassins would be making splendid use of such a skill. I see far more use for a skill like Mending Touch from an x/Mo than I do from a Mo/x.

No. It actually supports my point.

Using one skill better than a profession is not the same as doing another profession's job better than it. A Ranger with mending touch is not going to be removing conditions from the party with the same effectiveness as a monk. Nor is it going to be healing or protting as well. It's just going to be using that one skill (mending touch) better.

Another example: Wild Blow. This is a skill that was clearly made with the intention that warrior secondaries would be making better use of it than primary warriors. However, note that wild blow does not make assassins better warriors than warriors.

These are examples of synergy. One profession slaps on a few skills from another profession, and becomes better than it would have been otherwise.

Examples of a profession stepping on another's toes would be Enduring Scythe, Crit Scythe, Crit Barrage, ER healers, and N/Rts pre-spirit buff.

I don't recall the intentions are written down anywhere, but combining skills and attributes from primary and secondary classes is undeniably an important part of this game.

Now, as to being better at the secondary as the primary itself, I don't think this is true for any secondary to the Ranger primary. A/x > R/A, D/x > R/D and W/x > R/W and since they nerfed Expertise with the release of Nightfall, P/x > R/P. And R/D, R/A and R/W can not choose another secondary to improve upon the /D, /A or /W - which the primaries can.

I'd have to agree with reaper at this point. I remember reading a guide talking about SoS (using this as my example, yes I know it's a skill not a primary ability - work with me on this one), and the statement was "You're not a Rit...unless you are actually a Rit"...and it went on to say more to the same effect about other things. Don't try to be something you're not.

When a group is looking for a certain ability, that is the primary ability of one class, they shouldn't be snubbing the primary profession because Bubba who is a X/the ability the group is looking for is better at it (not talking about playing ability here). They shouldn't be better at it - hence game balance. This happens all the time.

I'd sign any change that eliminates secondaries at this point...(end rant).

All of which aren't examples of primary attribute problems, but of professions not being good at what they are supposed to be.

Dervishes, for example, need better reasons to use Mysticism to make them better than their counterparts.

Rangers need better skills with the expertise line to boost their bow abilities, because there are too many that are either stances or preps, and therefore don't stack.

ER needs to limit its function to elementalist skills only, or monks need actual energy management capabilities.

Etc.

The stuff you are discussing has less to do with the primaries than it does skill synergy, and could best be addressed by making the primary attribute skills help each profession excel at the roles it was meant to play.

Not signed... Expertise is nice but it don't need a nerf. Especially after the nerf to ranger spike skills...

Wrong , dont be mistaken. Rangers using melee builds are not an issue , if your D , W or A cant do something better than a Ranger using that its a D, W or A issue , not Rangers fault.

You are not "taking away" nothing , not even using those " " because a Ranger using daggers is NOT better than a sin usin daggers. The thing is that a Ranger using X build with <insert melee prof> skills is viable and can make it work and that is not an issue .

Wrong way , blame the game , not the player .

ummmmm, no? -_-

A ranger playing one or two builds better then the profession whos weapon he is using does not make the ranger better then that profession, it just makes the ranger better at using that one build.

Class dualing is one of the great things about GW, the way you can play warrior as a ranger and still knockdown like a war and still be quiet effective, or how a necro can go healer and still keep red bars up, or a mesmer can go ele and still nuke pretty well.When the secondary class does everything the weapon class does but much better then we have a problem.

That means as a R/W or R/A spiking before the heals can be used.
I dont hear you complaining about how necro's primary is better for spamming spirits, you wont hear me complain either.