Guild Wars 2

I enjoy playing a ranger and elementalist as my mains and have been since I first started playing Guild Wars 2. With all the support going around for the ranger I couldn’t help myself from flipping out when I heard that the ranger was next for a rework. They definitely need it!

I began thinking about the skills and traits for the ranger and which ones should be fixed, *cough ahem all of them and immediately my elementalist came into my mind.

I thought a great idea for the ranger since pets seem to be a no go and are too dumb that rangers get attunements instead. It would be a nice and refreshing change and would add a LOT more diversity and builds among the class.

Poison – (Green Arrow Effects, Trails, etc.)

1 Poison Shot – You get the just, does what it’s supposed to. Deals a “little” less damage than the basic shot for regular arrows. Procs towards condition damage but power is still there.
2 Smoke Scream – AOE poison field that spreads outwards dealing more damage at the center, less damage on the outside.
3 Nauseating Fumes – Hits target and any nearby enemies. Can spread to other enemies dealing less and less damage until it neutralizes itself?
4 Gas Flask – AOE. Flask does more damage the further it travels. Explodes on the ground. (Green liquid spilling everywhere effect)
5 Wither – Toxin that eats away the opponent and steals their movement speed and grants it to you.

Fire – (Flaming arrows, red, trails, etc)

1 Burning Shot – Deals a “little” less damage than the basic shot for regular arrows.
2 Burning channel – Fires an arrow that leaves a channel of fire on the ground to it’s target area.
3 Inferno – Acts very much like ele lava font. Erupts in a location. AOE burns everything inside it.
4 Flares – Blinds enemies in AOE. Burns.
5 Spark – Teleport to target location.

Frost – (Frozen Arrow effect, trails, etc.)

1 Frozen Shot – Deals a “little” less damage than the basic shot for regular arrows.
2 Icicle – Arrow that is shot into the air and descends as frozen ice in a small AOE. AOE field cannot be seen by enemies.
3 Frostbite – Powerful basic attack.
4 Avalanche – AOE slow, damage over time. Ranger’s are stuck in place like Ele’s when casting Meteor Shower. (Snow falls in AOE effect)

Regular – (Regular Arrows)

1 Arrow Shot – Basic attack. Deals regular damage.
2 Tarnish – Regular attack. Enemies receive 10% more damage from your attacks. Maybe allies as well?
3 Punishment – Powerful Basic Attack that has 30%? chance to stun. Deals 150% damage.
4 Life Flight – Jump backwards and grants 20% increase movement speed for 10 seconds. Immediately wears off if ranger enters combat.
5 Cripple – Does % damage depending on enemies remaining health. Slows healing of enemy hit by cripple for 5 seconds.

This is my first attempt at creating skills like these so please remember that for criticism. I really enjoyed writing this list and hope you all enjoy reading it. It was really fun to create. Definitely feel free to reply.

[Edit 2/16/14] I realize that I did not include whether this would be for long bow or short bow. I am still uncertain myself which one it would be for but probably for long bow.

[Edit 2/17/14] Changing the skills for the long bow and short bow may be a bit too much. After reading the replies in this thread and deciding that having an adrenaline bar might be a little more realistic I decided that instead of having the skills above for the different attunements being permanent futures for the ranger, that they would become the skills you can use for LB & SB when your adrenaline becomes full.

Your adrenaline allows you to change attunements between fire, poison and frost freely for the duration of half a minute or so. Once it expires your adrenaline goes on a 15 second cooldown and can be activated again by staying in combat after the 15 seconds.

It’ll be difficult to rework all the weapons around attunements, though I’d be happy with anything that didn’t involve me relying on AI. I can get behind a version of yours and gawkers idea though. If you had a class mechanic which powered up normal weapon abilities after filling a meter that can have an attunement applied to it through traits, I think that would be fairly entertaining.

Don’t see this happening though since by rework I’m taking it as longbow autos deal 10% more damage etc.

gawker.8340:

So… basically you are proposing that Rangers should use a slightly modified version of the Elementalist class mechanic instead of pets.

Personally, I would like to give Rangers a little bit of each class mechanic.
ex.
Access to weapon kits imbued with attunements that activate when you charge a full bar of adrenaline. Also, a lot more access to Stealth and Fear in utility.

I agree with you. Yes, to your first paragraph. If it is too much like the elementalist, maybe drop one of the attunements or change one or two of them altogether. I think obsidian arrows or something could replace frost in case it was too much like the ele. Obsidian causes bleeding damage.

I 100% Agree with the second paragraph. They cannot go stealth enough. I am not sure about the fear though just because I’m not sure exactly how that works besides causing enemies to flee when they are feared. Like the attunement idea as well after charge.

While changing out weapons skills might be a little much, I would love the idea of Preparations

That way you could prepare your arrows (through a short channel) to apply Poison, Burning or Chill for the next few shots.

Aveneo.2068:

While changing out weapons skills might be a little much, I would love the idea of Preparations

That way you could prepare your arrows (through a short channel) to apply Poison, Burning or Chill for the next few shots.

Yes, or if they had them as skills.

Poison tipped arrows – 15 seconds 25 second cooldown or something along those lines.

Of course an adren bar would be a little more interesting. It fills up and grants you a choice of fire, frost or poison arrows for half a minute. You can toggle between them at will. On a 15-25 second cooldown. Of course time would be adjusted depending on if it made them too powerful or not.