Expertise

Another nerf to rangers would result in me going rabid and terrorizing the townsfolk.

While I'm all for the destruction of shitty R/As and such, this issue could be better resolved by:

-Buffing dervs so they aren't useless
-Nerfing the sin skills used by R/As
-Buffing rangers so they aren't forced to rely on either Cripshot or secondary bullshit builds

I don't know where this "lol you got pwnd by a melee ranger tgrhhhddd" bullshit comes from. It's probably just badly executed trolling because you have nothing useful to say and while I would normally not react to such childish attempts, I'll bite.

I'm a main Ranger. I usually play a Crippling Shot bar with Blackout to shut out Monks. Crippling Shot makes melee rangers move slower and since I have Natural Stride they won't even get near me. For that reason, they are the ones getting completely raped, not me.

Now that that bullshit is out of the way, let's get to the main issue. I'll explain why R/As and R/Ds are so bad for balance.

Let's take a look at the Shattering Assault bar. It contains Jagged Strike and Fox Fangs, which are meant to be spammed like no tomorrow, on recharge. Not very hard considering that Jagged Strike recharges in 1 and Fox Fangs in 3 seconds. I think we can all agree that takes no skill whatsoever. A terrible player will be pretty damn effective, almost as effective as a pro frontliner.

Now let's observe a standard Shock Axe build. Things get a lot more complex now. Shock needs to be used carefully to avoid losing too much energy to exhaustion, you have to make sure you don't get too much damage while Frenzy is on but you also have to take risks because you need it to pump out pressure. Then there's your attack skills. You only have one shot at using them properly, then you have to recharge them again. This build takes much skill to play properly and a decent player will perform no more than decent.

You see the problem here? Gimmick builds such as the Shattering Assault Ranger give an unfair advantage against decent players while not having any worth on top levels. No matter how strong or weak you make it, it will either give an unfair advantage against players with your or more amount of skill or it will be completely unusable on every level of play (such as, like, a sword Ranger or something).

This nerf will only affect the worst of these gimmicks. It doesn't even hurt Thumpers and Spearchuckers which can be seen as slightly less bad. The only people that could possibly have any complaints about this nerf are those that like the R/A build which would be a person that needs it to farm Fame in HA or something. Now, why would I have to consider that kind of people again?

No , it will affect the ranger trying to play anything but bows.It will affect gimmicks and anything else that isnt the ranger playing a caster class.Then the only other thing a ranger can play is touch ranger, well woohoo thats really fun.

It individual skills that make primary rangers broken when using other weapons, dont kill the ranger just because one or two skills are inbalanced.

As you see there is no problem with a ranger playing a war or para, why? because there aren't inbalanced skills for them to abuse there.

Wrong. This wouldn't affect Thumpers (for who only Crushing Blow would be negatively affected. 2 more energy, onoez), for example. The only thing this would truly affect are builds that run like 5 attack skills that have an energy cost linked to them (bad build) or a build with a few or so energy attack skills being spammed on recharge (even worse).

I do have a problem with Rangers taking a weapon from another class and abusing Expertise, which is why I suggested this in the first place. I don't know where you got that from. It's true that you need abusable skills to abuse them but I really don't see why we would want to keep the option open. Making balance more complex for no reason doesn't seem logical to me.

Please explain to me, how would this kill Rangers, like, at all? Rangers have never been (viably) used outside of Bow Rangers, Spear Rangers and Thumpers before R/As to begin with and since this change would barely affect those builds (it wouldn't affect Bow Rangers at all), nothing will change. Rangers will still be exactly as good as they were before this nerf.

Last thing, gimmicks aren't "fun". They're incredibly boring to play as you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. Of course, the playstyle isn't why you use these builds, is it? They are easy to play builds that work well even if you have a complete lack of skill and it will make you win without much effort. That's such a bad attitude. I think playing just because you want to win is called bad sportsmanship, I could be mistaken.

In some cases, yes. That's the beauty of the dual-class system. Have you ever seen a primary monk use Mending Touch? No, because it's basically useless for them, and yet it's basically a staple skill for rangers and most X/Mo physical classes. As long as an X/Y is not superior to most (or all) Y/* builds, there is no problem, and this is the case with rangers and expertise; I can't think of a single profession that a ranger "invalidates" by doing everything they can do, but better.

As other posters have mentioned, if you want an example of a profession that has been invalidated by other professions abusing their secondaries, look no further than the dervish. Literally the only thing they can do better than other professions are the Avatars (cute, but not really all that powerful) and orders spamming. Rangers can play some energy-intensive builds better than some classes, but they're not so powerful that they've made the other classes useless.

Says you. When I play a ranger in PvP, 95% of the time I'm running the standard apply-dshot-mtouch-nat stride bar with interchanging elites. That other 5% of the time, I like to do weird things, like run a thumper or spear chucker (mainly so I have an excuse to use my giant-ass bird, but whatever). I've even tried toucher and daggers; not my personal cup of tea, but the point is that there are people out there who enjoy playing something outside the norm. For them, you're stomping on their fun, and for what? Escape got nerfed a while ago, and LR just got hit too. Dagger rangers are not the "omgwtfbbqNERF" build that they used to be; they're fragile, and now they don't have a near-constant blocking stance to save themselves from your warrior tearing them a new arsehole. You may as well complain about touchers; does anyone still care about that build? No, because we got used to it, and it's just not powerful enough to be worth worrying about.

Why is having 5 attack skills with a energy cost bad?For the most part that is all of the assissins builds.Mindless build does not mean the same as overpowered build.

They are not abusing Expertise, Expertise is always the same, its the skills that Anet changes which are being abused.Change the skills that are being abused and rangers will stop using them and go to something less effective.You leave the option open because the option is not the problem, its the inbalanced skills, you use a scapel to take out a bullet not a chainsaw.You are suggesting they nerf expertise for the simple reason that you dont like the ranger to use another weapon, not because its broken.Im suggesting they fix the actual problem instead of make things worse.

Except they will not be able to play sin or derv, our differences are that you have no problem removing the sin and derv option from the ranger class, where as I would rather they make those options less effective.

I didnt say gimmicks were fun, i thought the "woohoo" was a give away that i was being sarcastic.Even so it does not matter what me or you think, just because YOU see those build as boring and unfun does not mean everyone shares your view.They are indeed very easy builds, the builds will still lose against better people, just because you can not beat them does not mean everyone else also cant.I am pretty sure that playing just to win is called, playing to win.....It is not the persons fault that Anet allows rocket powered shoes to be used.

Mending touch is a posterchild for powercreep. That skill more than any other changed the face of split builds. Cripshot was so powerful back in the day because it applied two conditions at once, only purge conditions gave you a chance to get away once hit with a cripshot. Mending touch lets splits have much more hardiness and allows for many more mistakes to go unpunished. It was also a contributing factor in the movement away from the cripple condition to water snares as the primary snare of choice.

If this is what having a secondary better than a primary means, then all the more support for it never happening.

If that's the case, then why are there fewer a/x primarys than R/A. I haven't seen anywhere in this thread how R/A's have more survivability than a/x because of the stances they have access to. Before the big dagger buff, a R/A was almost a joke because of the poor dps it provided with it's high survivability, kinda like touch rangers. Now that simple dagger chains deal a lot more dps, R/As have became a much bigger problem. If the dagger chains were nerfed, I'd bet you would see a lot less r/as.

Then why not suggest this instead of the idea posted? Anet's "easy" solutions (usran blessing, spirit nerf in pvp, palm strike) have always been terrible for the game.

Oh yeah, it wasnt "you" the one raging against R/A , its a "friend" , sure. Now , its a "i dont like X , nerf an ENTIRE MAIN att line to please me".

And thats how you spell TRUTH. Proofs or nothing . A Ranger is NOT better than a Sin with daggers so your "reasons" end here. A R/A can abuse some build with some effectiveness .... and so ? are you going to QQ about touchers now we are talking about nerfing Expertise ? cmon ......

Sorry, I beg to differ. The only sin build that I used that matches the R/A's constant high dps is with onslaught in RA. Yes, the sin can spike much better/faster than a ranger, but in terms of pure dps and survivability rangers do it better.

Primary sins (can) have better energy management then rangers - or should have - so I don't really see how expertise plays a role.


Mirror, mirror ...

The one who's been childish all along has been you. Let go of the trolling and BS and maybe I'll listen to what else you might have to say and discuss with you.

It's not like as if a r/a can out perform an assassin or a bunny thumper out perform a magebane smash warr . It's for versatility . If you get bored of bows or because you lag and you can't interrupt, you don't have to make a new char . l2 apprciate versatility . That's where fun is . Not using an insanely OPed meta because you get to win . Go learn how to play , who to avoid , who are your targets etc . Makes pvp more fun then just "hi! Good to see you . Sadly youre not gonna be alive for long ." if you don't like the challenge, I'd suggest you quit gw . Sooner or later you'd quit because everything is so easy . Might as well quit now don't you think ?

/not signed

now go and learn to counter them instead of whining on GWG

Try to play the R/A-build as a sin and see for yourself.

/sigh

Mindless builds are the same as broken builds because all mindless builds are broken. I have already explained this to you before: Mindless builds, if they have any effectiveness at all, will give an unfair advantage to terrible players over decent players or even good players playing a proper build (that curbstomps the gimmick on high levels of play), depending on exactly how powerful the build is. That's called an "imbalance". I don't know if you're fine with that but if you are you probably missed the entire point of Guild Wars, being skill over skills.

You say Ranger builds using different weapons are not always broken. I challenge you. Give me one Ranger build that uses another weapon that isn't mindless and that would be affected by this change. Just one. I'd like to see you try. If you can't, can you please be so kind to remove yourself from this topic?

Oh and stop the "lol u cant bet m nub" crap. I've already explained why this is false. Cripshot >>>>>> gimmicky melee Rangers.

And it's exactly Cripshot that shows oh-so-well why Expertise as a whole needs to be trashed.

It's not very smart for a primary assassin to play that build while they have access to Critical Strikes and the associated skills. Thought it might explain where you got that idea from.

/doh
Okay, let me reword it in a way even you can unterstand it: Try to spam Jagged Strike, Fox Fangs and Shattering Assault as a sin without running in energy problems. If you have accomplished that try to add the same amount of utility (snare and interrupt) as a R/A. Now, try to have the same survivability as a R/A.

For Shattering Assault Ranger's you don't need to nerf Expertise, just make Shattering Assault unblockable and remove enchantments only if your critical strikes is 3 or greater, it's the skill's effect that is the problem, not expertise that makes it more effective on Rangers.

there is also the fact that rangers don't have to stop spamming skills because energy is't a problem, and they can constantly put out pressure with little to no drawback.

Last time I checked Critical Strikes returned energy on a critical hit. With proper attributes you get about .95 attacks per second, 1/3 of which would be crits, each returning 3 e .... nets you about 1 e per second or 3 pips, for a grand total of 7 pips - without any additional skills. Add in Critical eye and you get 1/2 crits/sec for 4E each, or 2E/sec for a grand total of 10 pips. Compare this to the Ranger's 3 pips - which nets to about ... 7 when taking expertise into account.

Maybe the assasin's primary attribute isn't so bad afterall when compared to that of other professions.

Good, and now let us calculate how much energy expertise saves:
Jagged Strike, Fox Fangs and Shattering Assault can be used about every 5 seconds, Leaping Mantis Sting and Exhausting Assault can be used about every 9 seconds. In a time frame of 10 seconds you can use the first combo twice and the second one once, with 14 expertise that's 30 energy saved, or 9 energy pips for a total of 12 pips.
Now, keep in mind we're talking about PvP here where your opponents might block or blind you; expertise reduces the cost of the attack skills no matter what, but with critical strikes you actually have to hit in order to gain energy.

If you suck at theorycrafting you shouldn't try to use it as an argument.

the fact that you don't see expertise as a problem could also be a demonstration of your own intellectual deficits. really, it's all a matter of opinion. tbh op isn't any dumber than someone asking for 7 hero parties.

I did.

It's rather stupid to waste energy on attackskills while you're blinded. Not a very usefull argument

Fox Fangs and Shattering Assault can't be blocked.


See below.

(Edit, I was out of line, apologies)

Khmm:
Bolded the important part.

So? Allright, my mistake, 3 combo's second one twice, not two

(Edit: recalc below - get's out of order otherwise)

Sorry I guess I should have bolded more then:
We are dealing with the energy saved over some 10 seconds when using certain skills.

It's not usefull to start with, if you spend 20 E on them, you need 20 seconds to recharge that energy.

You forgot to multiply the 20 (the cost of the first chain) by 2.
Bolded the mistake.

Right, lets recalculate:

2 x (5 + 5 + 10 ) + 10 = 50. they'll cost 2 x (2 + 2 + 4 ) + 4 = 20 (yes you 'save' 30).

So, 3 combo's, 8 attacks, 3 of which are duals, that is 11 hit's and another 2 from double strikes. The sin will get about 4 crits in those and thus 12 E back

In 10 seconds the R/A regenerates 10 E, the A/x 13.

So, after these 10 seconds, the net energy spending of the ranger is 10E (20 in attcks, 10 regen). It will require 10 seconds (auto-attacking) without skills to recover that energy.

The assasin spends 50, 25 is returned from crits and regen in the attack combo's, another 9 from crits and 13 from regen in the 10 seconds the ranger needs to recover. So, when the ranger is back to full energy, the assassin is still lacking 3 E.

Is that such a big deal? R/A will burst/spike for less energy, prolonged it's about equal. Not to mention that Critical Eye would more then make up for the difference.

The assassin has an energy pool of 25.

He'll get energy back while executing the chains, and he'll get energy back while simply auto-attacking. The second combo is the one intended to be repeated, Leaping Mantis and Exhausting are 'for the occasion'.

Sorry for the comment about theorycrafting, that was unnecessary.

Another weakness of critical strikes is that the energy gain is random; you might have three critical hits when you're nearly full, and don't have any if your energy is low.

Remember, you're facing intelligent beings. Your opponent will try to blind/blurred you right in the middle of your chain so that you're wasting at least one or two attacks; but due to the low recharge of the attack skills this argument isn't really convincing.

That's the time when blind/blurred/cripple/blocking kicks in, you're more than likely not be able to hit with 9-10 attacks to regain 9 energy due to crits.
Also you're fighting moving targets, then add target switching and one attack every two to three seconds is more realistic.

The problem is that for the assassin to actually execute the chain we talked about here - he needs to fully regen his complete energy pool to be able to even FINISH the chain.
The ranger on the other hand is able to pull of the whole chain and as he is doing that - he is already regenerating energy for his NEXT chain.

Not that I want to get involved with this argument, but I didn't see one thing mentioned, and one thing I think may be important. Ranger would not be able to use Zealous Daggers as easily as an Assassin, and in combination with Critical Strikes, the Zealous Daggers give back a ton of energy. Now, before you argue it, I do know you will get blocked/blinded and miss at times, and I also know you will want/need to use Vamp, Elemental, and possibly other mods (like condition extending). But weapon swapping is not hard if you know how to do it, and swapping to Zealous when you need energy can be a nice boost.

But I also think it is silly to assume a R/A would use the same build as an A/x, or that an A/x would use the same build as a R/A. Of course there are benefits to one over the other. And there are builds that an A/x can run better than a R/A, but those may not be in the meta when you want to use them.

NP.

Yes, not hitting is a serious downer for Critical Strikes, be it from blind, blocking or chasing a target. This particular build plays well with a Ranger primary, it's listed as 'Great' for a reason, but besides this one R/A there are also 5 A/x PvP-builds listed as Great, which tells me R/A is not replacing A/x. There's also a R/W melee ranger between 9 W/x, and a R/D. Ranger primaries aren't replacing the melee primaries.

That's partially true, he needs the 5E before he can activate the skill while the ranger only need the 2 E it costs with expertise. One chain (JS/FF/SA) costs 20 E but the Assassin gets energy while attacking so he doesn't need to be fully charged before starting a chain. He does need to (auto)attack to recover energy while the Ranger can just hang back, or chase, or miss.

The builds are pretty uncomparable.

The most prominent Assassin builds aren't builds that spam their chain every 4 seconds, they're builds that have a chain with a somewhat long recharge that deals a lot of damage while knocklocking your opponent. They are probably best comparable to Hammer Warriors, although they're a lot easier to play and less effective in the hands of good players.

Builds that spam a chain every 4 seconds are really best on Rangers because they're better at managing the energy cost. For that reason, Assassins that DO use a build such as this one have to take additional skills to be able to keep up their energy. On Rangers, these skill slots are filled with additional survivability, such as Lightning Reflexes.

Add the fact that Rangers already have 100 armor against Elemental Damage as opposed to an Assassin's 70 and you can conclude that Rangers get to have a shitload of armor and defense as opposed to Assassin's... What, again?

This is of course looking purely from a build-to-build perspective, which is pretty irrelevant to why this nerf to Expertise is needed. Neither build is acceptable. They both lead to mindless play and the Ranger's one even more so because it sucks up much more damage and thus allows you to pretty much ignore incoming Warriors.

Removing Expertise doesn't actually invalidate melee Rangers, it just invalidates Rangers using Expertise to spam short recharge chains AND have a great survivability. The R/D Wounding Strike Spammer (a build that makes me throw up, but hey) would still function: You'd have to watch your energy more but it wouldn't suffer very much from a nerf like this.

Warriors typically are strong with physical damage against which rangers have the same armor as assassins.

The builds don't have to be comparable to show the point, primary assassins have their place and are in no way threathened or outclassed by R/A's.

Have you read nothing? There are no R/A builds that allow repeating a dagger chain every 4 seconds, even expertise can not yield that much efficiency. Daggers could, especially with the Critical Strikes related buffs like Critical Eye.

Melee rangers have played their part since the early days, and have seen complaints similar to yours, but never did they outperform the melee primaries. The use of secondaries has been part of GW since the beginning, and is even encouraged, as can be seen in skills like Way of the Master. You may wish that to be different.

Removing expertise would make rangers impossible, 3 pips is insufficient to even feed 5 E skills, let alone the 10 and 15 E that are usually present in most builds. Removing expertise only from melee attacks may not hurt bow rangers, but it woul invalidate melee rangers, if you feel 4 pips + critical strikes are insufficient for assassins then how insufficient would 3 pips + nothing be?

The honorable RaO build wouldn't really suffer tbh. and if you really care if brainless button mashing dagger rangers get nerfed you're probably just baed.

If a build is brainless that not because of expertise. it's because of the skills from that build

the expertise allows the brainless build to function. pretty sure that point was well established in this thread already, but don't worry, it's ok to not read, then post something asinine like that.