The Ranger - Skill Changes

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

You guys are really going the wrong way. Rangers are inferior to other classes right now because other classes are overpowered. Hard Mode is easy mode in PvE. It's a joke. Why do people who play PvE want to play a game that basically wins for you? All you do is load 3 PvE only skills + whatever overpowered damage skills you have on your bar (usually SoS), take 7 heroes with a wiki build out into a zone and then smash your face against the keyboard until everything dies (takes about 10 seconds per mob). However, if you are a ranger or an elementalist, it takes about 15 seconds per mob, so the obvious solution is to buff rangers and eles to the point where a full team of them could kill a mob in 5 seconds... and everybody will cry tears of joy at how awesome they are.

f****** brilliant.

Originally Posted by Swingline

This more or less turned into screwing around with skills and not being serious.
3 Things I do want are...

1. Better pet AI
2. 1 Sec spirits for pve
3. 1 Sec preps

I would be a happy camper.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

You guys are really going the wrong way. Rangers are inferior to other classes right now because other classes are overpowered. Hard Mode is easy mode in PvE. It's a joke. Why do people who play PvE want to play a game that basically wins for you? All you do is load 3 PvE only skills + whatever overpowered damage skills you have on your bar (usually SoS), take 7 heroes with a wiki build out into a zone and then smash your face against the keyboard until everything dies (takes about 10 seconds per mob). However, if you are a ranger or an elementalist, it takes about 15 seconds per mob, so the obvious solution is to buff rangers and eles to the point where a full team of them could kill a mob in 5 seconds... and everybody will cry tears of joy at how awesome they are.

f****** brilliant.

Originally Posted by chuckles79

I saw some individual skills that were either too low on energy but I like the balancing. The one major problem I saw is that you are way too kind on recharge times. You have stances that recharge before the stance ends.
Anet seems to stick to a 33%-66% of recharge time rule.
BTW, I love your suggestion for Barrage. I would recommend making Volley keep the prep removal though, otherwise who would need Barrage?
Some individual gripes:

Barbed Arrows
Energy: 10
Activation Time: 1 Seconds
Recharge Time: 8 Seconds
Preparation. (36 seconds.) Your arrows inflict Bleeding condition (3...21...25 seconds)

So basically it's like apply poison, only costs 5e less, recharges in 8 sec, and causes great degen.

Make it 15e, make it last 20 sec. and have a 25 second recharge (suggestion would make it the only preparation that is ever used.

Dust Trap
Energy: 25
Activation Time: 2 Seconds
Recharge Time: 30 Seconds
Trap. (90 seconds.) Affects nearby foes. Deals 10...22...25 earth damage every second (5 seconds.) Inflicts Blindness condition (3...7...8 seconds) every
second (5 seconds).

First off, you just made HM devourers in the Crystal Desert stronger than Aatxes. Lower damage to (8...14...16) every second and have it only afflict blindness at the beginning for 4-9 seconds.

Glass Arrows
Energy: 5
Activation Time: 1 second
Recharge Time: 8 Seconds
Elite Preparation. (24 seconds.) Your arrows deal +5...17...20 damage and inflicts Bleeding condition (10...18...20 seconds).

Increase to 10e, recharge to 25 seconds (one second w/o is still generous) and bleeding condtion 8-16 seconds (perma-bleeding a little silly)

A few other nitpicks but those were the ones that stood out.

I really like the ideas you had for individual bow attacks, you should focus on those.

Originally Posted by chuckles79

I saw some individual skills that were either too low on energy but I like the balancing. The one major problem I saw is that you are way too kind on recharge times. You have stances that recharge before the stance ends.
Anet seems to stick to a 33%-66% of recharge time rule.
BTW, I love your suggestion for Barrage. I would recommend making Volley keep the prep removal though, otherwise who would need Barrage?
Some individual gripes:

Barbed Arrows
Energy: 10
Activation Time: 1 Seconds
Recharge Time: 8 Seconds
Preparation. (36 seconds.) Your arrows inflict Bleeding condition (3...21...25 seconds)

So basically it's like apply poison, only costs 5e less, recharges in 8 sec, and causes great degen.

Make it 15e, make it last 20 sec. and have a 25 second recharge (suggestion would make it the only preparation that is ever used.

Dust Trap
Energy: 25
Activation Time: 2 Seconds
Recharge Time: 30 Seconds
Trap. (90 seconds.) Affects nearby foes. Deals 10...22...25 earth damage every second (5 seconds.) Inflicts Blindness condition (3...7...8 seconds) every
second (5 seconds).

First off, you just made HM devourers in the Crystal Desert stronger than Aatxes. Lower damage to (8...14...16) every second and have it only afflict blindness at the beginning for 4-9 seconds.

Glass Arrows
Energy: 5
Activation Time: 1 second
Recharge Time: 8 Seconds
Elite Preparation. (24 seconds.) Your arrows deal +5...17...20 damage and inflicts Bleeding condition (10...18...20 seconds).

Increase to 10e, recharge to 25 seconds (one second w/o is still generous) and bleeding condtion 8-16 seconds (perma-bleeding a little silly)

A few other nitpicks but those were the ones that stood out.

I really like the ideas you had for individual bow attacks, you should focus on those.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

You guys are really going the wrong way. Rangers are inferior to other classes right now because other classes are overpowered. Hard Mode is easy mode in PvE. It's a joke. Why do people who play PvE want to play a game that basically wins for you? All you do is load 3 PvE only skills + whatever overpowered damage skills you have on your bar (usually SoS), take 7 heroes with a wiki build out into a zone and then smash your face against the keyboard until everything dies (takes about 10 seconds per mob). However, if you are a ranger or an elementalist, it takes about 15 seconds per mob, so the obvious solution is to buff rangers and eles to the point where a full team of them could kill a mob in 5 seconds... and everybody will cry tears of joy at how awesome they are.

f****** brilliant.

Originally Posted by Miteshu

Seeing how Necros and/or Mesmer and/or Ritualists can do that.

It does seem like a good idea.

Originally Posted by Aldric

1] Damage
Nothing massive, just a small increase on damage for skills and preps to give a slight dps increase.
Maybe some functionality changes to give a bigger +dam if foe is suffering from xyz conditions, maybe help encourage condi builds more.

Originally Posted by Aldric

2] Preparations
A suggestion by someone in the Ranger forum i really like was to have preps last a certain number of shots like "IatS" instead of just 24 secs. Something like 15-20 arrows (i know this is more than 24secs / refire rate) would be nice and I'd also couple that with Barrage not removing them. Recharge times set so standard single shot builds can perma upkeep preps but barrage builds have a reasonable downtime.

Originally Posted by Aldric

3] Rituals
Rework them to even up their cast times/recharge times with rit spirits at a minimum. If possible some functionality/effect/damage changes to make them worthwhile more often than for just the occasional ultra niche foes as they are at the moment.

Originally Posted by Swingline

- All skill changes are for PvE only since I retired from GvG a very long time ago and I am not familiar with the current meta. Anet can split skills between PvE and PvP so there should be no problem.

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

The ability to split skills should never be used as an excuse to outright refuse to attempt balancing a skill for both formats at the same time.



What's wrong with cross-profession combos?



Why though? Crit barragers aren't really that much of a problem and don't compete that much with ranger barragers in the first place, last I checked.



This skill is already tied to Expertise, so the only profession it really benefits is the ranger. You say before that you don't want these changes to benefit the assassin more than the ranger, but then you go out of your way to nerf this skill which is exclusively beneficial to the ranger, and could even be a single skill to define why a ranger barrager would be preferred over an assassin one.

Besides, in taking this skill, you drop the cost of Barrage to something like 4 or 5, but you lose the potential to take other preparations which would probably have a greater impact in this situation, like Ignite Arrows or Apply Poison. It allows for a choice between a cheap elite or a powerful one, but this revision of yours just sucks in comparison to how much benefit other preparations can give. The choice no longer exists. That's not a good change.



It's beyond me why you believe removing Glass Arrows' ability to "hit" targets that block your arrows is such a buff that the cost needs to be increased and the skill can't be maintained permanently. Coupled with your change to Melandru's Arrows, and you're asking to remove a somewhat unique mechanic for the ranger that's not necessarily useless.



It's like an awful version of Frenzy for rangers. It's probably still good enough though (see: recharge, duration) that it would become an essential spiking skill for rangers in PvP, and any period of rangers strutting raw power in PvP tends to backfire later on. Additionally, I see nothing wrong with the current revision of Lightning Reflexes, especially in PvE, and even more so when used with Dwarven Stability.



Possibly as ripe for abuse as your revision of Lightning Reflexes in PvP, if not worse since most of the damaging skills for rangers are non-elites anyways. It would be really easy to create a series of turret rangers with a change like this. It's even worse that it's tied to Expertise, so now I can increase my attack speed, decrease recharge on my bow attacks, and reduce their cost all with one attribute.



We already have two skills which grant energy on striking a foe with a condition, and this suggestion pales in comparison to each of those and its current form due to its pitiful energy return.

What's this about Forked Arrow inflicting cracked armor?





Martial professions should not be applying cracked armor because their being the best damage dealers means they get the most benefit, and it is such a significant boost to their damage that it is extremely unsafe to be giving them the ability to apply it and benefit from it themselves. The dervish is the unfortunate exception here, not the rule.

The current revision is similar to Dual Shot in both mechanics and power, so I would not object to seeing it changed, but this is not the way to do it.



Won't (or shouldn't) see play with the Lightning Reflexes change.



Hell, why even bring interrupts anymore? Just load up Practiced Stance, Volley, and this skill, and you can just spam gas on a backline all day. What's your incentive for making Choking Gas recharge so quickly? You're giving casters no kind of downtime in which to react against a ranger which could be shutting down all of their spells.



The skill is still awful and nobody will end up using it because your revision of Lightning Reflexes is worth taking the hits, and is also a stance.



The damage conversion is laughable. It's like bow strings don't exist that can change damage types. The unconditional damage boost is extremely scary, especially since this prep can be easily maintained and can be coupled with stuff like your revision of Lightning Reflexes. Even the current revision of Lightning Reflexes could make this an extremely dangerous skill.

In closing, it was really hard to read though these changes because of how they were sorted. I would recommend that you group together similar changes in the same section. Like, all the traps in one place, all the spirits in one place, all the preparations in one place, other skills getting related changes bunched together, etc.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Prepared Shot, Sundering Attack, Penetrating Attack, Hunter's Shot, Read the Wind, "I am the Strongest!", Drunken Master, Optional

This has more DPS than any other attack class in game. Making builds is hard.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Rangers are too tanky to make them deal thousands of damage per second like this. Preps + Barrage + Splinter + Orders = EXPLOSION and then throw in the fact that they are unkillable... that's a good balance right?

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Here's an idea. How about adding res signet to every single NPC foe in the entire game. That suddenly makes frozen soil vastly more effect no? Then give NPCs more defensive protection enchantments. NR Tranq is a lot better too (assuming you spec your party with ritualist weapon spells and heals instead of monk enchats). This is the kind of balance GW needs, not "Make skill X more powerful by making it a brain dead fire and forget explosion of damage". You can make skills more or less powerful simply by adapting the meta around it. It's called thinking outside of the box.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Ritualist spirits are the most imbalanced thing in the entire game right now. So what do we do to solve this? Add more imbalance. Good idea. Don't tone down rit spirits though... that's unconscionable

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

In response to pets, I actually like the idea of buffing them in PvE. Pets are a fun novelty and I think having them be useful is a fun idea.

Originally Posted by Aldric

I noticed that by the sheer volume of prep shot turrents i encounter.......

Originally Posted by Aldric

The prep change was a mechanism change with the same result as extending prep uptime either of which i think should be done, don't really see when i ask for super-op-ness, however Barrage+preps could too strong be if not implemented right.

Originally Posted by Aldric

Again, not looking for super-op-ness, but a useful attrib line as opposed the the current situation whereby other than the odd occasion no-one uses them at all. If that means changing foes or environment to make them useful that is very cool, if not then change the mechanics to make them work somehow. They are shit in the current incarnation and should be fixed.

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Fixed that for you.

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

You made it less accurate. In GToB I can average 80 DPS over 20 seconds against the Master of Damage. Find another build that can do that much sustained damage per second. I have yet to find one. And just to add insult to injury, also make it as tanky as a Ranger with Lightning Reflexes and 100 armor against ele damage. And then on top of that, make it ranged and unable to be kited or dodged due to Read the Wind.

I think my point has been made. People just like to complain.

Originally Posted by Aldric

an R/P spearchucker/pet will do 80dps+, whether or not that qualifies on your final point of being un-dodgable is up to you...