Improve Ranger's Bow AoE

Take a few secs...pull them well...While I don't use my ranger much...I have never had to much of an issue with balling them.


Uhmmm...name one...that can deal as much damage... to an unlimited number within the area...with such a short cycle time and low energy...that doesn't require them to not move for the time of the effect...



He never says use all...just a list of skills that go well with it


ehh except for gdw ofc or one or two on your bar for key skills

Worthwhile compared to what?

You could fit into a physway team, but it is only effective in a such a dedicated setup, even if other characters may profit from the same support, Barrage requires a lot of supportive skills to become effective.

I'd LOVE to see Barrage actually be a... y'know... AOE? I mean the name SCREAMS AoE, yet Incendiary Arrows got it beat. Pretty illogical if you think about it.

Also, go look at that new GW2 ranger video and play the one that says "Barrage".

Now, THAT'S... what Barrage is supposed to be!

Now, look at GW1s Barrage... ..nuff sedd?

/signed for Barrage buff: Remove No-Prep clause and increase aoe range to foes within the area. PvE's s'posed ta be OPd. Just look at hard mode. All monsters are OPd, so why not the players as well? Let players have their fun. Give ranger fans the Love they deserve!

Yeah lets make Cyclon axe +20 and AoE , and now we are at it lets make all sins dual attacks AoE and and <insert mindless overpowered suggestion> ..... just because HM monsters are OP !

/irony off

Whats the point ? everyone using Ranger Heroes with 2 skills ? Barrage , Prep , you with GDW and Ebsoh + Orders Necro Hero = I win button ? cmon ...... lets not make GW even easier for F sake.

/not signed
There was a time when playing GW was a challenge. Just wait for GW2, where every bow attack comes with AoE.

I would have thought rangers would love Barrage and their other multi-attack skills. They offer them a lot of room on their skill bars.

Honestly rangers need a skill update since many of the skills in several attribute lines are just borderline useless and only narrow skill choices for bar creation. If the update targets AOE, awesome, if not, there is always barrage/volley anyway.

Never said Barrage was good independently. But the same can be said for Hundred Blades. And unlike Hundred Blades, it is useful in more than one such setup. GDW is another example that has been brought up (one that I'll have to try sometime ).

Awful trolling regulus x...

Barrage is fine. Options other than barrage for Bow AoE are pitiful.

They just need to change around 4-6 non elite bow skills to better include modest AoE of 2-3 targets per shot and incorporate decent preparations with them well. Wilderness survival is next to useless in PvE. Revert Incendiary Arrows back to its original pre nerf state as a PvE split skill. And maybe change a 1-2 more elite bow skills to a decent AoE functionality.

Would you

1 choose a ranger as your main character

2 or use one to collect all the game titles

3 use one for solo farming either normal or hard mode.

if the answer the above is no then they need buffing.

If your trying to sell a game based on there being 10 character classes people are going to suppose that there are uses for those 10 classes and that none will be significantly weaker than the others.

Players come to these type of games with character ideas based on fantasy films and books.

I assumed after playing the pre-searing that there would always be hordes of undead for me to smite with holy damage.

I assumed that rangers would be superb wilderness fighters well able to survive alone

I was wrong

The original differences between the character classes has narrowed considerably and the main reasons for taking many of them has disappeared.

Warrior Necro Assassin Elementalist Ritualist Mesmer all excellent classes I use them all.

Paragon Dervish Ranger I have them and do use Dervish a little but mainly these three gather dust.

Monk always needed but wouldn't want to be one

My answer is yes for the first two. But not for this I don't think they need buffing. But I still don't see how changing barrage like that would help in anyway.

QUOTE=reaper with no name;5201757]Never said Barrage was good independently. But the same can be said for Hundred Blades. [/QUOTE]

True enough, a valid point of view.

So, you resort to personal remarks rather then offering decent arguments because I somehow don't don't offer arguments? It's always interesting to see how people can become abusive and then blame their victims for their misbehaviour.


Splinter weapon is the skill that does most of the damage, not Barrage. And splinter weapon does that job as well without Barrage. Not a semantic technicality in there.

And now, as far as you are concerend, Ploink.

Just pulling, with a bow is not going to ball them in HM, unless they're all casters. You need someone to manipulate melees. Besides, enemy groups are usually too small to make Barrage worthwhile, or any adjacent AoE for that matter.

The request was for 'nearby', not 'in the area'

Destructive was Glaive - and it has an additional bonus side effect.

You can't time the knock-downs like you can with DS/SS when you need to interrupt specific skills. You can bring DS/SS but you can't interrupt with them when you're spamming skills, like barrage. So it's either spamming barrage and missing the key skills or stop spamming barrage to hit a key skill.

A caster with less frequently used, but harder hitting spells is in a better position when it comes to mixing interrupts with damage skills.

Barrage buff != InstaWin

Do rangers currently see the light of day in PvE? I thought not.

/BuffBarragePvE

This is the dumbest thing I've read on this forum this month. Guild Wars wasn't designed to be a solo game and why would attempt max titles or main a character I don't enjoy as well. Nothing to do with buffs.

So, if Guildwars wasn't designed to be a solo game but - and I assume you imply this - designed to be played in teams of people, then why aren't classes/professions properly balanced so that characters of any class are accepted in those teams of players for which it was designed?

Well...can't help ya if you can't manage to ball foes. But yeah...it can be difficult sometimes in hm



Sorry...bad choice of terms...I mean...in the area to cover aoe spells in general as in ones that have an area affect not thinking about the mechanic involving the word



requires you to be close in battle with a skill intended to be used on a char with 60 armor.... really not going to be used outside of niche farming builds... try again



its a matter of opportunity cost if something...just used the main skill you wanna rupt...and you managed to say dshot it...and it originally had a 5 sec recharge...it will probably be dead before it uses it again so your free to spam however, if something has a spell you need to rupt and its getting close to when it will recharge...be wary about the spamming

no reason you can't be just as good...you just gotta think a bit more then they do

Excuse me while I go in Del-mode. It's because the game has/had balance derp issues and players with bias derp reguardles of this topic. You should already know about people's perception, etc. for someone who joined a GW forum in 06.

derp? Del-mode?

It's perception that decides who can join, and it doesn't matter one bit if that perception is realistic or not.

I still have to learn how to ball three foes together so you can hit 7 of them :P

:P Not really, question was answered and I am not going to dig through hundreds of skills to list those that are more effective, with all the restrictions and bonusses they may have to make selection even easier.

Besides, I specifically choose to interpret your request as 'in-the-area' so that I didn't have to dig through hundreds of 'adjacent', 'nearby' and 'in-the-area' AoE skills and could limit myself to the smaller category of 'in-the-area' :P

But hey, popping in from the top of my head, Death Nova, 5 E, no recharge, some 100+ damage. More damage - even when with some delay - shorter recharge and when properly used it is usually brought to your target(s) so there's no need to walk there yourself.

Well, you know by the time I'm through rupting them so many of them died that the rest ain't adjacent anymore

If it recharges so quikcly it should be nerfed.

Well I often say dumb things lol

What I was attempting to point out is that whatever GW was intended to be it has changed completely from that aim.

Players do go solo in gw, this was inevitable when the rewards were split between characters so the more in the party the fewer rewards you were likely to get.
Once you have completed the pve part of the game the main reason to play the pve is for some other reward, be it titles or materials.

If you have a ranger and you have played right through the game it's very annoying to find your chance of solo farming depends on a spirit spam build.

Other classes are posting how easy it is to blitz the underworld or solo farm raptors and you cannot because the class you invested all your time and effort in cannot do what they do.

Dumb my comments may be but that is no reason not to make all ! character classes viable for all aspects of the game.

No overpowered just viable GW may be a team game but its also a solo game.

yep Ranger is my main, have 3 actually, 2 on one account and 1 on a 2nd account. Ranger was my first character when i started almost 5 years ago. couldnt bring myself to delete him after 2 years when i came to hate the name i gave him so i started another. the ranger is also my main title character with my mesmer, rit, sin and monk in that order. i have one of each profession thats completed all missions in tyria,cantha and elona in NM. the other 5 are my only HM characters. Rangers could use some love but they dont really need alot. just some minor tweaking would be nice and some love to the beastmastery attribute. would be nice to see them remove the after cast or if they wont, eliminate all casting times on attacks that have it, PVE only would be nice for that if they are worried about PvP issues.

Check #33. BM is a bad designed att , it shouldnt be an att in the first place. I dont see Warriors or Paragons having to spend skill slots to use a Spear right ? well , thats what the pet is , a weapon. And if you use that dumb slow attacking weapon you have to sacrifice your damage ( yeah , because ranger damage is soooooooo big lol ) and skill slots. Bad bad bad .
Good thing is they learned , in GW2 things will be diff.

Funny how I see a lot of ranger farming builds on PvX. You're saying a profession that is used to farm a lot is bad at farming, even when there is far worse professions for such.

Agreed. Pets have absolutly no synergy with bows in any way, shape, or form. Not only that, but the way that pet skills work greatly slows dedicated bm builds down from doing noticable dps, EVEN IF the pet AI was perfect (which it is not). The only reason pets were ever used was because they could inflict daze, and even with the IAS skills added Nightfall and on, the damage is still lackluster.

Rangers can farm UW just as effectively as rits can, and the R/A SF varient of whirling defense farms faster than A/E can. Rangers, however, can no longer rely on builds such as splinter barrage and trapping to farm and instead must resort to gimmicks. The builds mentioned are located here, and have been derived from guru in the farming forum section:
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Any/Rt_Spirit_Farmer
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:R/A_Whirling_Farmer

You should actually start reading the forums before you post.

Oh I am quite willing to be wrong about ranger viability if fact I hope I am totally utterly wrong.

I do remember rangers trapping and being very good at it and also remember teams of barrage rangers usually with animal companions.
Haven't seen them for a while and haven't heard of anyone doing much ranger hard mode.
I have seen loads of assassins primary and secondary and I have seen many spirit spam characters some of whom were rangers.

I do care about the ranger it was my first class though I started a Ranger Necro and Mesmer within a week of each other and played all three for many hundreds of hours, of course there were some great parties in those days and we didn't have guildwiki telling us that this and that build was the only way to play.
We were ignorant of what was good or bad and just played for fun.

Maybe its just that I am so focussed on what's missing from rangers I find it hard to get to grips with them.

They are one of the oddest classes in the game.
They are a combat weapon using class they have no skills based on adrenaline.
They have what are effectively damaging skills/spells they have to use a weapon to cast them.
These weapons affect the range damage and speed of some of these skills.

Their armour is excellent especially vs elemental damage.
They have lots of skills that enable them to move quickly and avoid damage.

They can damage interrupt spread conditions they can also use other class skills to great effect to boost their own skills, Im thinking of splinter shot conjure element etc.

They in fact do many things quite well but nothing better than any other class, jack of all trades master of none.

I will check out the farming builds and see if they are still usable.

edit

Just checked out the two links posted by the Drunkard

build 1 uses 2 ranger skills 4 assassin skills and 2 deldrimore skills.
Its a shadowform build using ranger as a base.

Build 2 is a spiritspam build.

Ok I agree I am totally wrong about rangers you can play a great all singing all dancing ranger character as long as you dont use a bow or ranger skills hmm.

Anyway am off to check out builds as I said.

exactly. the one thing ive always wondered about rangers and the beast mastery attribute. why is there no Bow that requires beast mastery or a beast masters staff, mainly the staff. or a bow that requires expertise or wilderness survival. that way you dont have to spec into marksmanship to do damage should you choose to be a beast master and maybe carry a trap or 2. i was reviewing the stuff in beast mastery recently, it does need help, there even a few things that truely should be in wilderness survival or expertise. only problem is that this late in the game i doubt we could be successful getting any changes made

the team builds that ran that died when Anet made the change that pets no longer leave a corpse. i think that was due to PvP but not sure. as for Rangers in HM, with the speed clearing mentality and the push for AoE damage, but mainly its due to everyone wants to do things as fast as possible. yeah Rangers dont get much love when it comes to getting into a group unless its guild or alliance teams.

Then you aren't even looking.
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_UW_Trapway team
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:R/Me_UW_Trapper solo
And those are just trapping, as they have other builds. You're a ranger, you should know this.

I am well aware of those builds don't forget many of the builds there are well outdated some still work some do not.
Also many are specialised around farming a single boss or one specific area.

Anyway I don't want to keep drawing the thread away from the original posters thoughts about buffing Barrage.

Rangers are ok they could be made a little better traps should be looked at and nature spirits as many are just too limiting.

I think someone suggested the detrimental effects should just effect the enemy and the beneficial effects just affect the party.
Area effect damage works this way as do necro wells otherwise we could never use them as we do.

Anyway we are all entitled to an opinion and I am done explaining mine.
Will be back with more comments after the next ranger skill rewrites.

I really wanted to stay out of this one, but, I got too curious.

Overall, ranger skills that are AoE are pretty weak, but what else is new? If you increase AoE range, it has to be counterbalanced, likely by energy cost and recharge; that can negate what's gained. I'd personally rather have cheap/spammy over wider AoE. For example, put Shadow of Fear and Meekness side by side.

Really, Barrage is in a tough spot. It can be abused to great effect with the right gimmicks now, but outside of that (and buffs) it falls short. So in other words, it's like a ton of other skills in the game.

Personally, I ran it for a long time, and other than a revival for Battle for LA, it collects dust. I ask myself: if it had a slightly wider range (at an adjusted cost), would I take it? The answer is still a no. I don't see a way to expand it without breaking it. It's either going to be great for a narrow application or just mediocre.

I personally wouldn't mind having my 1sec skills back.

uh, searing flames?

yeah, those are not so viable atm. why run a slow farm like trap when you can just spam spirits? and when was the last time youve seen a trapway group being formed?

Yesterday. And if you have ideas to make them viable, you are always able to edit them on that site.

From the ratings page the first gets a "Too slow. Not even close to efficient compared to the best builds out there currently "
The second is a solo farm build, both are targetting UW.

You had better be running alot of energy management

not to mention...you'll probs want mark of rodgort or every third spam wont do damage...



my mains an ele...theres a reason why I don't use SF...I'm better off healing -.-'

Pull another group then...that and...why are you outside ascalon?

next if theres only 3 then aoe in general will suck making this all irrelevant



I still have yet to see an effective skill

I was giving you any chance possible to come up with a good skill...

Requires something to die...you could use minnions...but its almost pointless on a human cause you have to select a dying minion or spam on all of them and hope your heros don't waste time healing them.
sooo still not a reasonable replacement :\



if they are dead by the time your done rupting then why rupt death is a much better rupt than any other rupt skill i can think of...



your comment makes noooo sense in context with what I said

The burning from SF deals about as much damage as the direct (conditional) damage. MoR doesn't really help SF.

But, since your main is an elementalist, you already know this.

Unless you are in an all human team henchmen can take care of (most of) the healing part.

Collecting two groups and balling them up takes time, time your team is not doing damage. Time ignored when mentioning the 1 second recharge of Barrage.

Remember when I said you had to design teambuild and tactics around Barrage to make it good?

When (linked) groups become larger then 6 they also become more diverse, and casters and melee don't ball up in the same spot (at least not when you're on a bow).

Probably why Discordway is so popular. If you catch 3 in an adjacent AoE you'd be happy in most area's. Which is why a nearby/in-the-area range for Barrage is a reasonble suggestion.

I mentioned one - two actually - and someone else another one. You just keep changing your question

Not a big deal, minions die easily and serve other purposes as well. It's not elite to compensate.

Death Nova makes mobs melt away in PvE.

1) Ask the human minion masters.
2) I don't recall you mentioning human players

You are changing your question?

Because some of their skills can be sooo annoying - before they die. H&H tend to ball up around me and simply rupting AoE's from mobs is faster then flagging my H&H.

It did, but I might have been too brief; if mobs have skills that recharge before they die, those skills should be nerfed (by having their recharge increased).