Zyreva.1078

Yea, stab surely helps a lot against a spec that just corrupts it into fear and against a spec that usually doesn't use a lot of cc and just kills you anyway ... Harb and WB should not be an issue for druid. Generally, if you want ranger to be better, you should ask for less stab across the board, not more, since ranger is a fairly cc heavy and cc reliant class and suffers quite a bit from how much stab and resistance is out there. Less boon spam is what we need, not more of it.

Hu, i'm seeing way more sword necros and staff warriors than any other of the new weapons (and also not that many dagger mesmers) ...

K+D isn't an accurate measurement of player numbers, because players can do more than die or kill other players (eg "ppt/pvd"). High k+d and high ppt is a strong indicator of superior total numbers tho. Total player activity also doesn't neccessarily translates well into "fight numbers" for similar reasons and especially servers with "pretty" kdr have a tendency to stack all at one spot (often eb/sm), allowing them to outnumber in fights even without population advantage (tho ppt tends to suffer in that case). Personally i don't understand the appeal, looks incredibly boring to me.

I said slb gets easy perma prot and i had fights were i ended up with 20s+ of prot on slb. I also said druid comes close and in my video i have like 80-90% uptime thanks to constant reapplication. It's basically always up when i need it and only drops for more than 1-2s if i don't have to dodge, but then i also don't need prot.

I haven't played much since the patch and didn't met any good axe thief so far, so i can't give any specific advice. Against scepter it is usually best to play agressive and pressure them as much as possible, so they can't freecast on you (ca 3 is good to interrupt their 3 skill). If you are pressured, try to stack some stealth to recover. Played a bit yesterday with unchanged setup and cleanses felt still ok. If neccessary i might end up adding a cleansing sigil tho, just have to test some more. You can also look into the new cleanse on pet swap trait. Edit: Just fought an axe thief (cele i assume, not sure how good) and it ended up being a stalemate. I couldn't kill him because of the usual stealth + blind spam, he couldn't kill me, because of sustain and stealth. My only cleanses were Evasive Purity and CA skills (+ LR to clear immob, but no WK). No. Too much effort for no gain.

Hacking has absolutely nothing to do with bad balance. That's two completely unrelated topics.

Do you have any proof that it actually had no cd? A video? A combat log screenshot? Anything? No? Ofc not, it's always the same with threads like this.

Fresh Air tempest can spam air overload ... Also i don't think there is any "impossible" boon-class combo left. I mean, boon steal is universally aviable via sigil, so is condi to boon conversion via relic, so that already covers pretty much every single boon in the game (not 100% uptime ofc, but still).

I do. And i can beat 99% of cele harbs in a 1vs1.

Last time i ran into someone that felt impossible to 1vs1, it was when cata was completely broken beyond anything else, but it has been toned down and now there's nothing and nobody that feels like an impossible matchup for me on ranger. This doesn't mean i never lose 1vs1, but if it happens - and it happens very rarely - it's pretty much always because i messed up or got outplayed. Also i do not avoid any fights because i'm scared of losing. If someone beats me, i'll always come back and try again (and often end up winning). So yes, if i can beat (or at least survive) anyone despite not being the best player out there, then those that struggle to do the same have to be either worse players or playing a worse build (or both). Don't see any other explanation.

You don't have to invest any utilities or specific weapons. Just some gear and traits that offer lot's of additional value anyway, and not just on the defensive side (25 stacks of might for example). Both cele druid and cele slb can kill like ~ 95% of players in WvW just fine, and those that don't die also won't die against most other classes. And the majority of classes have to invest just as much for perma prot or don't even have that much access to prot to begin with. Asking for even more "free" prot on ranger is ridiculous.

You can dodge a lot more than once or twice every 25-30s (with WS + vigor + dodge food you can get to +100% endurance regen for a dodge every 5s, and could even add energy sigils if you want for even more dodge spam). And your pet gets all the boons that you can copy onto yourself twice with WHaO and Fresh reinforcement and Invigorating Bond also grants prot. I never use moa stance (and always preserve protect me for when i need it instead of wasting it just for prot) and can maintain prot just fine with aforementioned setup. (Also you assume ~50% boon duration, but you can very easily get up to 75-80% - without moa stance mind you)

Wasn't too long ago that you disagreed even on that part, but well, guess we made at least some progress ... Oh, i'm absolutely getting carried by cele. But it's not like i'm the only one playing cele, and i never have to face other cele builds and in cele vs cele it's hardly cele that is the carry factor. I also don't know how you come to the conclusion that i think "ranger is the best class in the game". I said it's good, because it can abuse cele quite well, better than some, but certainly not all other classes. Combined with the access to stealth and mobility that makes it a decent roamer. And when it comes to burst, yt is full of videos of (mainly) slb blowing up people and while most of them might be older, OWP was never a neccessity for big numbers and that's the only thing that has been nerfed (and more than compensated for with sword buffs). So big burst is still absolutely there, among stealth and mobility, which are crucial for a "burst roamer" and something that many classes lack. Ranger might not be at the top of the food chain in every single aspect, but it might be the most versatile roamer that can be adapted to pretty much any sort of playstyle, from cele bunker 1vX to full glass ganker, or a more "sustainy" power build for duels - all very much viable options. Other classes like ele or necro might excel with cele, but are weaker with a power setup for example, while thief might not be as good at abusing cele and spamming aoe for outnumbered fights, but ofc has the advantage of stealth spam and mobility to pick of weak targets one by one. So as long cele is meta, ranger can abuse it well, and if cele ever gets nerfed, i'm confident that ranger would be fine too (in it's current state anyway).

I've ran into all of those builds plenty of times too and they don't do anything vs a somewhat decently played cele build. Same as power ranger. And against squishies ranger (slb especially) still has plenty of burst with many ways of killing someone in 2-3 seconds. Doesn't even need OWP for that, so those nerfs aren't even that relevant. WB is probably the only class that is actually better than ranger on power builds (and i'm confident a decently played power ranger can still win, so not an impossible matchup), the other's are about even or worse.

Not true, other classes have to invest into defense too to get decent amounts of protection. Nobody gets perma prot while going full glass. Also both WS and NM do provide some offensive value too, and that cele "bunker" ranger isn't far off from other cele "bunkers" in terms of dmg.