Guild Wars 2

hooma.9642:

another suggestion for powerranger:
the knockback on counterattack is unfortune. without knockback and simply a knockdown a powerranger could follow with maul. esp against as example who used blindfield + heartseeker to stealth.

Nah, the knockback is not that bad, because you can LB #5 to try and slow the target down, when he’s half way to you #2 rapid fire, then #4 when he’s up close to you to push him back, switch to 2HS, Swoop on him, Stun him with #5 then maul while he’s stunned to increase your chances of landing the maul. For me this is the best combo I use many times in a 1vs1 situation. Sometimes you can’t use rapid fire because they use a gap closer on you, so you waisted your number 5 and jumped strait into the pushback.

tan.9240:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Great feedback, everyone. Just wanted to let you know that I’ve flagged this thread for the designers to check out.

Thanks for keeping it constructive!

@jcbroe.4329, I must be dreaming.

I know, I’ve been watching this thread for nothing to add to the discussion for a while though, but the color red made my day, especially since I think this thread is a good sample that covers in at very least a general fashion every single conversation the ranger community has ever had in terms of balance.

I also think the best part about the ongoing discussions is that almost every general idea gets thoroughly discussed and at the very least, we have all been trying to approach topics from multiple perspectives in order to reach conclusions.

I think this has been a wonderful effort from the ranger community.

So all I can really say is:

@Thread;

I know I personally have been a bit silent, but I’ve been paying attention to thread. Awesome job keeping the thread moving and the ideas flowing, and I just wanted to say that lets keep the ideas flowing and the discussions going.

I know it’s hard sometimes to avoid throwing in little quips or criticisms about ANet and how they do business or just in general how we feel sometimes as a community, and we’re all guilty of that to some degree.

But I think a pat on the back is in order for everybody for keeping the thread as constructive as possible, and I hope that this post serves as a reminder that being constructive is beneficial to the development team and that ultimately it is the most helpful thing we can do as a community, where as criticism is nothing more than an expression of dissatisfaction that basically demands that your own wants be satisfied, which may or may not give ANet insight to a perspective, but ultimately is much less helpful when gathering feedback in a collaborative manner by making the side receiving the criticism and demands feel attacked.

As justified as some people may think that is, this thread just isn’t the place for that.

Not that I’m accusing any individual of anything, I just like how this thread has gone so far and want people to keep it on track so it keeps going well, and obviously, to keep up the good work

Keep those ideas flowing!

When in game, I hardly ever play dungeons, or pvp, so most of my feedback is centered around playing wvw by roaming and in guild raids. I only take my ranger out for roaming and never for guild raids and this is due to the lack of a role for the ranger in a team based wvw environment.

A good game should cater for rewarding synchronised group play. At the end of the day nothing is more rewarding to me in game then heading out from warcamp with a group of approximately 20 and taking on enemy groups of double or size or more; and coming out on top. In fact it gets really fun when facing an equally skilled and synchronised opponent with even numbers and duking it out. Its really about being a team player and providing support to others, which is what makes a game a good game.

There are a few classes which excel in this synchronised play, however most of the medium armor classes do not fall into this category and there is good reason for this. They have no clear defined role which they can fulfill.

When I look at the ranger, there are hints of a role that is was meant to fulfill, but thats all. To me, it seems that the ranger was supposed to be in charge of crowd control by providing snares, freezes and immobs with areas of effect. Now this is a good idea, because its a role which has not yet been fully developed in wvw. However, the skills that provide these area of effects, either pigeon hole the ranger into having no escape skills (trapper) or provide escape skills with only a single aoe immobilise (survival/signet).

What I would like to see happen to the ranger is that it is given a proper toolkit to provide crowd control, in support of the team such that they can either evade an oncoming push or they can keep a number of enemy in a kill zone.

While I’m sure there are ifs and buts to the following, I would suggest:

• Make muddy terrain a trap and remove the ground targetting.
• Predator’s instinct has its cooldown removed. The cripple it provides is now 5s.
• Change whirling defense such that it pulls an enemy once a pulse, and allow the player to move while channeling.

Small fixes on my personal wishlist:

• Might buff on call of the wild is now 3 stacks instead of 1.
• Make rampage as one a shout.
• Complete overhaul of search and rescue, which is a terrible skill. Personally I would like to see it become an instant cast aoe immobilise for 1s with a 30 s cooldown.

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

It’s one of the more reasonable changes that can be done, and actually wouldn’t even require all that much code to be changed, even with the pet AI being so heavily inherited from the monster AI in PvE.

In actuality, it would just be tedious to go in and change the different attack ranges and then make sure nothing is broken. But that would be about as difficult as it gets.

It’s one of those things that makes total sense in the immediate picture, and I personally would love to see a change like this streamlined because balance isn’t a singular factor when evaluating gameplay experience, so that even if supposing that pets in their current form were 100% balanced, if those pets aren’t perceived as reliable and missing lots of attacks, even if it is numerically balanced, it creates a negative gameplay experience for people that want to see their pets act more reliable and dependable.

So yes, I definitely like this idea.

Three AI companions that I Sodding Loved To Death
…and how I think they could make Pets better

Orianna’s Mulitasking from League of Legends;

• Has the mother of all ‘Go To’ Commands
  I’ve never more felt like I was in two places at once and effortlessly playing two characters at once than when using this champion. The ‘Go To’ Command had a lot of things going for it, but among them was the fact it functioned as movement control and as a general engagement attack simultaneously.
  • Add a Go To Function that allows you perform F2s where you want and not just near the enemy or yourself (which is a massive boon to multitasking all on it’s own). Play around with Hybridizing Attack and Go To Functions. Such as F1 is a targeting reticule that switches to standard enemy mouse selection if it hovers over an enemy. If you click when it’s a reticule, it executes as a ‘Go To’. If you click when it’s Mouse Selection, it executes as ‘Attack’.

Pokemon’s Affection as Deus Ex Machina;

• These games have been trying to include some form of Affection mechanically for some time. But I really think they managed something interesting with the ability of a highly affectionate Pokemon to randomly endure a hit that would otherwise knock it out, and have a higher chance of rarely occurring more powerful attacks.
  • I think keeping a pet out as opposed to frequent switching is an interesting alternative playstyle for our mechanic that has some hints of existing in our traits (master’s bond, natural healing) and could give new life to some utilities (signet of stone). But going that route needs to be more rewarding if it wants to compete. I think if they added some Deus Ex Machina effects like this as a feature to Empathy, it could lower the skill floor/increase the rewards of building this way.

Elizabeth’s Presentation from Bioshock Infinite;

• Can Take Care of Herself
  • We can’t have invulnerable pets or we’d have no profession resource. But, have pets take care of themselves on the silly stuff; Remove Environmental Damage. (Boulders, Fire, Steep Slopes, etc.)

• Associated with Good Things
  Elizabeth is a Regen Mechanic. But Bioshock didn’t just have your ammo tick up periodically with a little +1 floating UI element, they made sure to highlight who exactly the effect was coming from with exhausting devotion(“Booker Catch!”). Certain mechanics in Ranger also try to associate good things with the AI. They try to evoke a sense of the ‘the pet protecting you’ mechanically (Lick Wounds, Empathic Bond, Protect Me, Natural Healing). But there is no accompanying visual for interaction between Master and Pet. If you knew empathic bond was coming from the pet it was because you read the textbox, if you knew natural healing was coming from the pet it was because you read it on a forum, if you could distinguish Protect Me from Return it’s because you guessed.
  • A pet should Take Credit visually for the good things it does. I should be able to see when my pet gives something to me, and when I give something to my pet.

• Made me feel Grateful
  Elizabeth didn’t just toss you ammo every 5 seconds, you got ammo when you were low on ammo. As a Regen mechanic she could have functioned just fine tossing you little bits all the time, but she gives big bits when you really need them. One of these things makes me feel grateful and implies thought-process and heroism, and the other is cold clockwork.
  • Empathic Bond; big condition removal when you’re boned, not small condition removal all the time.
  • Natural Healing; big heal when you’re/it’s dying, not a small regen all the time.

the latest official post didn’t mention sword 1 auto skill rooting problem, which I remember clearly anet said they could change the rooting problem in live stream.

Did they forget it? or they just simply changed their mind?

Dos.7052:

the latest official post didn’t mention sword 1 auto skill rooting problem, which I remember clearly anet said they could change the rooting problem in live stream.

Did they forget it? or they just simply changed their mind?

On the live stream I believe they said they were looking into it but there were some server-side fixes that need to be made first for it to be possible.

Erro.2784:

While I’m sure there are ifs and buts to the following, I would suggest:

• Make muddy terrain a trap and remove the ground targetting.
• Predator’s instinct has its cooldown removed. The cripple it provides is now 5s.
• Change whirling defense such that it pulls an enemy once a pulse, and allow the player to move while channeling.

Small fixes on my personal wishlist:

• Might buff on call of the wild is now 3 stacks instead of 1.
• Make rampage as one a shout.
• Complete overhaul of search and rescue, which is a terrible skill. Personally I would like to see it become an instant cast aoe immobilise for 1s with a 30 s cooldown.

I do like the idea of turning muddy terrain into a trap but I think traps in general, espacially if untraited, are pretty weak if you look from the CC perspective. They are too small, give too little advantages and have too high cooldown. You are both sacrificing damage and survivability to gain small, short lasting combofields or short lasting conditions.

I also do like your suggestion about Rampage as one, I disagree with your Search and Rescue suggestion. While you’re correct if you claim that the shout is rather weak now, I don’t think it should be changed so drastically. I’ve made some suggestions to shouts myself, since most of them are useless and I hope they get buffed in the future.

Pet being bad in large scale is not hard to fix. So how to fix it?

- Pets take XX% less damage from AoEs. I would say something like 75%, because 50% is still too little. Even 80% would be a good percentage.
A lot of mmorpgs has this, why not GW2?

If it’s 80%, that would require 4 AoE attacks to do the same damage as normal.

Let’s say your skill does 5k AoE. 80% of 5k is 4k, so the rest 20% is the damage, so 1k.
So, it would require four attacks of the same AoE to deal the 100% damage. If there are 12 AoEs coming at the pet, that would result in 3 full AoEs.

Pets will still take 100% from single target attacks.

For some time I had devoted myself to creating thread with suggestions for the Ranger. The result is that I have some work in progress about the greatsword laying around that I will probably never get around to finish. I hope you enjoy the read!

Thank you all for adding to this discussion and taking the time for it.

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

Completely agree. Increased range might do the trick

A start would be to remove the positional requirement on short bow 1 bleed.

Paulie.6215:

A start would be to remove the positional requirement on short bow 1 bleed.

That also is a very good idea. It seems poor that a SB doesn’t really mesh with a condi build. A class like an Elementalist has a bleed on #1 Scepter and #1 Dagger. Scepter has same range kitten so I don’t see any difference (other than Scepter gives 3 bleeds per round)

I want to take some time, and add my personal opinion and ideas about the ranger in the current TPvP scene.
Currently you can find the ranger in a lot of team compositions, but played only as a spirit ranger. The profession has some core issues, denying every other trait setup to be competitive, which definitely needs to get treated as fast as possible.

The Pet
The pet is part of the damage, and therefore you need a reliable pet to fulfill a damage role.
- fully controlling the pet and better controlling the pet skills
- responsiveness of the pet skills

Suggestion: Pets only have three skills now.
1.) Autoattack (f.e. Slash, Bite, Twin Darts). The pet must be able to use this ability while he is following a target / moving around.
2.) F2 The second skill from the Pet: Special Attack, CC
3.) F1&F3 get’s moves together to an overlapping skill similar to the current ‘avoid combat/Guard’, and F3 is the new third skill available: f.e. Defy Pain, Quickening Screech, Brutal Charge, Tail Lash, Tail Swipe, Maul, Harmonic Cry, Brutal Charge (Porcine), Poison Gas.
No more random special attacks from the pet.
4.) Since the pets only have three skills now, the fourth skill gets deleted. f.e. Bite (Bear), Swoop, Crippling Leap, Devourer Retreat, Chomp, Bite, Frenzied Attack, Maul, Entangling Web
So f.e. no more lucky double immo from the Spider due to ‘Paralyzing Venom’ and ‘Entangling Web’ and more control where the Moa will perform his ‘Harmonic Cry’

Dealing damage as a ranger
There are two topic I would love to talk about specifically:
- pet scaling
- condition damage / trapper

1.) Pet Scaling: With which source do you want to deal damage with? Investing in the Beastmastery line should result in the same amount of damage increase, as if someone would spent the points in the first or second trait line.
Let’s take for example a ranger with thirty points in Wilderness Survival. If he now wants to deal condition damage, he hast to invest into the Skirmishing line for traps. The same should be true for pets and the Beastmastery.
Suggestion: Reduce the amount of damage a pet is dealing without investing points in Beastmastery, but at the same time increase the amount of damage a pet is dealing with investing in the beastmastery.
Let’s put this into numbers:
Currently (Pet+Ranger=100% damage): Ranger: 70%, Pet: 30%
Change to the Pet and the Traitline:
- without Beastmastery: Ranger: 90%, Pet: 10%
- with Beastmastery: Ranger 50%, Pet: 50%

Or in another situation: Currently a tanky ranger will still deal a high amount of pet damage. With the change to the pet & traitline the ranger has to invest points in Beastmastery (therfore can not invest them f.e. in Nature Magic) to deal the same high pet damage. If he wants to stay as tanky as the wants, the damage will suffer.

2.) Condition Damage:
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of traps, and I love their damage potential, but a poison field will not change anything. The problem is, that to use the traps you have to spent 30 points in the Skirmishing trait line, a line which does not provide any passive stats for conditions, and at the same time use your utility slots, which otherwise you could have used for survival-ability or team support. The amount of investment necessary to even play with traps is just too high.

Suggestion: Add a new weaponset, special designed for traps, with the current traps on 2-5, similar to the necromancer staff.

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

This still doesn’t solve the issue of the pets dieing in two seconds in WvW zergs and keep battles (defense and offense where your pet can’t run up or down the walls, or the birds can’t fly up or down the walls) In these three instances the ranger’s are handicapped by 30% because our pets are useless.

Akisame.9508:

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’ve seen, the main problem everybody has with pets is that melee cannot hit worth a kitten . I’ve seen pets actually do reliable damage while Moa Morphed, and it’s because the Moa attacks have a 250 range, compared to the pitiful 130 melee normally has. This is the key to fixing the pet, increase that melee range of the pet to 250. They’ll hit more reliably, and they will be easier to balance for in terms of damage because you’ll see more consistent hits. If this means changing the range of all the similar creatures in the wild (brown bears, jungle stalkers, jaguars, etc) to the same thing, so be it, it’s about time PvE got a little more challenging.

This still doesn’t solve the issue of the pets dieing in two seconds in WvW zergs and keep battles (defense and offense where your pet can’t run up or down the walls, or the birds can’t fly up or down the walls) In these three instances the ranger’s are handicapped by 30% because our pets are useless.

Agree, but pretty much every class is useless on keep defense. You stand on wall without stability and you are gonna get pulled off.

That’s not the point. Ranger’s entire profession mechanic is literally unusable in some areas of this game. It even becomes more of a LIABILITY than a strength at times, since we are the ONLY class that has a tremendous penalty for having to wait a whole minute for the mechanic to kick in once the pet dies. Warriors miss their burst, their adrenaline isn’t consumed. Guardian virtues have potency whether or not you use them. Mesmers have 4 shatters, Mind Wrack having an incredibly short cd and illusions being capable of being spawned on a tower or keep unlike pets (for whatever reason).

I still don’t understand why we just don’t have a stagnant 20s cooldown on pet swap whether the pet dies or not. Having to burden ourselves with bad AI is bad enough. Every decent ranger I know understands that we need to press F3 -> F1 in order to smooth out the attack signatures of pets. We’ve been used to working around bugs for so long, it’s almost taken for granted… and that’s kind of sad.

Having just come back to GW2 recently, I’m certainly surprised and happy to see these issues finally being addressed. As someone who ONLY plays ranger, I’ve been anoyed by many of these problems since day 1, and they have caused me to stop playing not once, but twice now.

The one thing I’d like to add (and I’m sure it’s been stated already) is the fact that stat improvements from things such as ascended trinkets are underwhelming when compared to every other class, and yet our pet receives no bonus from better armor/trinkets.

I try to look back at GW1 for what Rangers were back then:

The kings of interrupt, with only mesmers able to beat them at it
Excellent at maintaining either poison, cripple, or burning, etc. (sometimes a combination of two) on their enemy
Great with AoE on a spammable Barrage.
A pet that you truly worked with, as opposed to just using as a condition soak.

It was my love for Rangers in GW1 that caused me to roll one here. Most classes became far more dynamic in the transition to the sequel… but not the Ranger. The Ranger got more boring.

A consideration about signets: I don’t understand why 3 of 4 signet skills affect only the pet and not the Ranger as well, that’s not fair at all.

We need to invest 30 points in Marksmanship in order to use 3 skills properly (talking about “Signet of the wild”, “Signet of stone” and “Signet of the hunt”).

Personally, I would eliminate “signet of the beastmaster” trait (XI) and make all signets affect Ranger AND pet by default;
if this is not possible at all, I think that ADDING the effect “maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them” to “signet of beastmaster” trait would at least compensate the unfairness of Ranger’s signet skills compared to all the other classes’ signets.

Or, Anet could make warrior’s “signet of rage”, “dolyak signet” and another signet only working actively by spending 30 points in “Strength” trait line like Rangers need to do. Would warriors like to have to do so in order to use 3 of their skills?

my answers
1) we will not see a Change in the next few months, probably not even 2014. We could say, thats no bug, ist a Feature. The only Thing we can do is to accept it or bring specific ideas how anet could improve this. Until today i never read how anet could do it. just simple “fix this anet” is very very helpful +1
What could help is realizing how the F2 attacks work. As Jcbroe told us the F2 will be a part of the Action chain of the pet. When the pet will activate the F2 is not easy to say, except we are able to see permanent what the pet is doing, but most rangers want to watch the foe. I think what could help is a Little window in the pet bar that Shows the next attacks of the pet. In the pet menu we can see Icons for the 3 normal attacks and a 4th Icon for the F2. The Icons should Flash like our Autoattack chains. With that Little Feature we are able to say more precise when our Special attack Triggers. Not only the F2! We can see when our pet trys to trigger the knockdown or the AoE poison field and so on. Its not the full control of our pet that we want, but with that we are able to time our Actions better with our pet.
That would be a great buff IMO with just a Little UI window!

2) okay what should i say almost all ranger build are x/x/30/x/x. Just power ranger works with 30/30/10/0/0. Its just true we Need EB or BS for our builds, but all classes have the same Problem.

3) Yeah WvW is not really made for rangers in WvW when we just look at the pet.
Most ranger in WvW choose the pet regarding their F2 ability. What could work is to make pets invulnerable when they r on passive and in a Special radius around u. without that radius i could imagine a exploit to let them make dmg without getting hurt.
So we can activate the F2 for the zerg and let them passive after that without the fear that they die seconds later.
Other idea could be that pets Trigger like champs in an Event.
I have heard that champs in Events gets stronger the more foes are around. Maybe pets could work in zerg fights the same just with toughness and vitality. Maybe toughness is enough

4) mmh i think with the actual System that every skill class has 4 skills there will be ever a skill that is weaker then others.
We can only choose 3 skills for a specific build. Spirit rangers are using usually Storm instad of Frost. tank signet rangers use more Stone then Wild. Other builds rather use LR then Sharpening Stone because we have enough Access to bleed.
Buff one skill and in General another skill becomes weaker in comparison.

5) i see no Problem with our weapons. some of them are good in viability. Just the Longbow is more used for powerbuilds but the dmg is okay, we can make a 8K burst in PvP with Berserker, that absolutly okay.
Power: LB, SB, GS, 1H-S, WH
Defensive: GS,1H-S, A(off), D
Condition: SB, 1H-S, A(main), D, T
Control: SB, LB, GS, A(off)
What do People Need to see with bow? we can shoot arrows. Thats what Bows were made for. In comparison they are boring because swords and other melee weapons can do more and have more possibilities to fight with. I just cant understand what u mean with boring.

6.) Rangers live i an symbiotic Lifestyle with their pet. We feed them, we heal them, we love them. The pets love us, heal us and and revive us.
The Ranger builds a Team with their pets. Thats teamplay nothing else. A good ranger doesnt let the pet die.

7.) Thats okay +1

8.) that theme is discussed enough and i have the Feeling we will see more in next Balance patch.

9.) i think we can be good supporter, tanks and damage dealer. Control is okay i think.
The cool difference to other classes are our pets who can bring Special effects for the Team like jungle Stalker, the Moas, birds, on swap effects.
But yeah more Team Support outside the Spirit genre would be nice

snow.8097:

5) i see no Problem with our weapons. some of them are good in viability. Just the Longbow is more used for powerbuilds but the dmg is okay, we can make a 8K burst in PvP with Berserker, that absolutly okay.

I understand what you say, I agree with you for something. Ok you can make 8K burst with LB, you can also make 6k with maul, it is possible: the fact is that it is very unlikely to happen; potentially you can make lots of damage, thruth is that maul is dodged 80% of the times, only a few arrows from rapid fire actually hit and so on…So what is the point in having a good burst if you can’t land it?

I agree with you about the support role of the ranger, it a really good support class, both for PvP and PvE but I think power builds aren’t good enough to be competitive in PvP and WvW, that’s what I would like to see (but this is just my wish).

Where in the world are you getting 8k burst? You mean 8k with Rapid fire? You do realize that is a 4+ second channel right? That’s 2k a second which is about what auto attack is. That’s not burst.

Power options for the Ranger class will never work until the class is given real burst. Maul is burst, but it’s also on a weapon with nothing else to offer. If the class had a Fast Hands trait like Warriors do, Maul could actually act as a burst skill. But it’s just so unreliable because it is THE most telegraphed skill in the entire game.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

or ANet has to buckle down, separate the normal NPC AI from the pet AI and move the petcontrol to the client.

I don’t know what exactly what needs to be done, but the argument that the ai of our pets are bound to the normal pve trash mobs around the world is about as bad of an argument as it gets.

Rework the pets from scratch if that’s what it takes. Harder than to toss some trait numbers around? Yeah, I would think so, but that type of balancing simply won’t do anymore.

Also, pets should be able to track targets in stealth. Get rid of the pretty worthless boon you added to Sic’em, stealth is so spammable and is most likely the no#1 thing that turns ppl away from pvp/wvw – it needs better counters, and a rangers pet would fill that role just fine imho.

when u cant make enough damage with rapid fire, then ist not the fault of the Balance Team, just ur fault when u use it random.
Immobilze the foe or knock them down with Point blanked shot and then u can use rapid fire.
Its about making ranger balanced and not making him OP, which Player wants to Play a OP class? who wants to hear after a fight we won " u r just another OP ranger. nothing else"
And the most posts i read from u Atherakhia, have less to do with Balance, i am sorry

Alright guys, I see the discussion is heating up, just remember to keep it constructive and fact/opinion based without attacking each other.

I wanted to chime in on the longbow discussion happening, particularly with rapid fire, and say that even if numerically the skill is balanced, the perception of the skill is still the problem, because mathematically, it ends up working out that autoattacking does the same amount (or greater) damage, and every instance that rapid fire may outdamage autoattacking has been well calculated on the ranger forum and has come up with rapid fires damage being a near insignificant damage increase that requires that you use it at the exact time, aka, not interrupting an autoattack, otherwise, you lose damage.

That gets chalked up to being a weapon design problem, simply because a players perception is that a cooldown skill should be doing more that an autoattack, not just firing more arrows and doing the same damage in the same time frame (while adding vulnerability, which was previously on a different skill to begin with).

I don’t think anybody is intentionally asking for the ranger to be improved to the point where it is above a balance equilibrium. I think that with the longbow, players are simply requesting that the damage be less focused around sustained output, and instead, incorporate some more burst damage to improve the “flow” of gameplay and make the weapon “feel” more interesting to use.

Rapid Fire truthfully “feels” okay but numerically doesn’t perform how it “feels” like it should, offering a skill that only equals the sustained output but “feels” like it should be doing more damage in the time frame it channels in to provide burst damage, which is why many players are either suggesting numerical increases to damage, or an entire re-functioning of the skill.

I also believe that mathematically speaking, either of those changes is entirely justified.

this is what I posted a few days ago about LB and GS changes I would like to see (or something in this direction) in the next balance patch:

LONGBOW:
• 1 (Long range shot): adding a few more damages at max range (1000+) would be nice (5-10%?)
• 2 (Rapid fire): due to the fact that the cast time is insanely long (4½ sec) and the skill is incredibly easy to dodge, I would add a 2-3% increase damage per hit, at least.
• 3 (Hunter’s shot): why not adding some effect to the skill? Like gaining N stacks of might for N seconds on a successful hit while invisible after the use of this skill (only with this skill, not everytime stealth is gained)?
• 4 (Point blank shot): making this skill hitting all targets in a straight line will make it too OP?
• 5 (Barrage): it would be awesome to use this skill while moving or at least having the cast time reduced a bit, no?
GREATSWORD
• 1 (Slash – chain): adding some effect on a successful hit? Like 1or2 seconds of Vulnerability or Weakness maybe?
• 1 (Slice – chain): same as above?
• 2 (Maul): maybe reducing the visibility of the animation or the cast time (from ¾ second to ½ second for example) would help to land the strike because it is very easy to dodge by now.
• 3 (Swoop): why not adding a N seconds swiftness boon after the leap (even if it does not hit a target)? Would give a lot more mobility, no?

Zoid.2568:

Pet being bad in large scale is not hard to fix. So how to fix it?

- Pets take XX% less damage from AoEs. I would say something like 75%, because 50% is still too little. Even 80% would be a good percentage.
A lot of mmorpgs has this, why not GW2?

If it’s 80%, that would require 4 AoE attacks to do the same damage as normal.

Let’s say your skill does 5k AoE. 80% of 5k is 4k, so the rest 20% is the damage, so 1k.
So, it would require four attacks of the same AoE to deal the 100% damage. If there are 12 AoEs coming at the pet, that would result in 3 full AoEs.

Pets will still take 100% from single target attacks.

Not singling you out, but just the general idea that you brought up because it has been brought up numerous times, so I figured I would make it a point to address my thoughts on it.

Should pets take less AoE damage, or is AoE damage too strong to begin with? For instance, if there is any difference between single target damage and AoE damage in this game, it is so miniscule most of the time that it would be hard to say “take the single target damage dealer over the AoE damage dealer,” when all other things are equal.

Traditionally, you would imagine that single target damage deals more damage than AoE damage. Like, significantly so, to the point where you have to make active decisions to do more damage to one target, or do less damage but hit multiple targets.

I think that in this game, AoE damage is so close to single target damage that it ends up being the true problem, that it’s just too strong, and not only does it present the idea to “stack” AoE to win in group vs group type settings, making single target damage less significant, but it encourages it to the point where pets and other creatures (ranger spirit, other AI summons in this game) simply don’t stand a chance at a certain point in the environment that is being created by AoE damage not being weak enough.

As a matter of fact, December of the games release year during a State of the Game, the devs even mentioned AoE damage being too strong and wanting to tone it down, but we never saw a direct change occur during the balancing process up until this point.

I’m just curious as to whether the problem is how strong AoE damage is, or if pets really do just need an AoE damage reduction (versus reducing AoE damage as a whole), or if it is a mixture of both those issues? Thoughts anyone?

Akisame.9508:

hooma.9642:

another suggestion for powerranger:
the knockback on counterattack is unfortune. without knockback and simply a knockdown a powerranger could follow with maul. esp against as example who used blindfield + heartseeker to stealth.

Nah, the knockback is not that bad, because you can LB #5 to try and slow the target down, when he’s half way to you #2 rapid fire, then #4 when he’s up close to you to push him back, switch to 2HS, Swoop on him, Stun him with #5 then maul while he’s stunned to increase your chances of landing the maul. For me this is the best combo I use many times in a 1vs1 situation. Sometimes you can’t use rapid fire because they use a gap closer on you, so you waisted your number 5 and jumped strait into the pushback.

without the knockback:
lb5, lb2, gs4, gs2, gs3, gs5, gs2, lb4

if the knockback would be a knockdown u could land reliable maul.

snow.8097:

when u cant make enough damage with rapid fire, then ist not the fault of the Balance Team, just ur fault when u use it random.
Immobilze the foe or knock them down with Point blanked shot and then u can use rapid fire.
Its about making ranger balanced and making him OP, which Player wants to Play a OP class? who wants to hear after a fight we won " u r just another OP ranger. nothing else"
And the most posts i read from u Atherakhia, have less to do with Balance, i am sorry

lol, so rapid fire gets a better skillcoeff if enemy is immob. or knockdown? or the ranger have now +dmg when enemy immob or knockdown?

nice trollattempt

Sometimes I wonder if RF should be reworked and become the autoattack and Long Ranged Shot be reworked to become a burst skill and therefore, people who want to play sniper can enjoy doing so.

BTW shortbow needs a revamp imo, but let’s stick with longbow for now.

jcbroe.4329:

Traditionally, you would imagine that single target damage deals more damage than AoE damage. Like, significantly so, to the point where you have to make active decisions to do more damage to one target, or do less damage but hit multiple targets.

I think that in this game, AoE damage is so close to single target damage that it ends up being the true problem, that it’s just too strong, and not only does it present the idea to “stack” AoE to win in group vs group type settings, making single target damage less significant, but it encourages it to the point where pets and other creatures (ranger spirit, other AI summons in this game) simply don’t stand a chance at a certain point in the environment that is being created by AoE damage not being weak enough.

As a matter of fact, December of the games release year during a State of the Game, the devs even mentioned AoE damage being too strong and wanting to tone it down, but we never saw a direct change occur during the balancing process up until this point.

I’m just curious as to whether the problem is how strong AoE damage is, or if pets really do just need an AoE damage reduction (versus reducing AoE damage as a whole), or if it is a mixture of both those issues? Thoughts anyone?

AoE is dealing waaay to much damage compared to singletarget in this game, that’s a fact (and for the record, I include cleave attacks as aoe as well).

However, even if aoe would be toned down significantly, I’m pretty sure there would still be issues when it comes to our pets. I’m not sure aoe damage reduction is the solution either, but it would probably be a first step in the right direction.

Burst with ranger is absolutely possible but requires a lot more effort than most classes

first of all, quickening zypher is absolutely required in order to burst.
That 5 sec quickness gives you the ability to seriously pull some damage.

The bad thing is, that is literally the ONLY way rangers can burst atm.
quickness → rapid fire + pet skills → point blank shot for knockdown → start meleeing (swop/maul or sword/axe skills, w/e you got)

thats about as close of a burst rangers get lol.
absolutely works on people have spent less than 1hour in a pvp situation lol or have no clue how to dodge.

Vilkata.4725:

Dos.7052:

the latest official post didn’t mention sword 1 auto skill rooting problem, which I remember clearly anet said they could change the rooting problem in live stream.

Did they forget it? or they just simply changed their mind?

On the live stream I believe they said they were looking into it but there were some server-side fixes that need to be made first for it to be possible.

oh god please make it happen.
only 3 things I wish changes for my ranger
1. sword 1 rooting problem improvement
2. pets/spirits survival and responsiveness
3. bows (long and short) damage

I will keep my eye on this post daily, and make everyone knows, ranger is the class that need improve the most in gw2

jcbroe.4329:

Zoid.2568:

Pet being bad in large scale is not hard to fix. So how to fix it?

- Pets take XX% less damage from AoEs. I would say something like 75%, because 50% is still too little. Even 80% would be a good percentage.
A lot of mmorpgs has this, why not GW2?

If it’s 80%, that would require 4 AoE attacks to do the same damage as normal.

Let’s say your skill does 5k AoE. 80% of 5k is 4k, so the rest 20% is the damage, so 1k.
So, it would require four attacks of the same AoE to deal the 100% damage. If there are 12 AoEs coming at the pet, that would result in 3 full AoEs.

Pets will still take 100% from single target attacks.

Not singling you out, but just the general idea that you brought up because it has been brought up numerous times, so I figured I would make it a point to address my thoughts on it.

Should pets take less AoE damage, or is AoE damage too strong to begin with? For instance, if there is any difference between single target damage and AoE damage in this game, it is so miniscule most of the time that it would be hard to say “take the single target damage dealer over the AoE damage dealer,” when all other things are equal.

Traditionally, you would imagine that single target damage deals more damage than AoE damage. Like, significantly so, to the point where you have to make active decisions to do more damage to one target, or do less damage but hit multiple targets.

I think that in this game, AoE damage is so close to single target damage that it ends up being the true problem, that it’s just too strong, and not only does it present the idea to “stack” AoE to win in group vs group type settings, making single target damage less significant, but it encourages it to the point where pets and other creatures (ranger spirit, other AI summons in this game) simply don’t stand a chance at a certain point in the environment that is being created by AoE damage not being weak enough.

As a matter of fact, December of the games release year during a State of the Game, the devs even mentioned AoE damage being too strong and wanting to tone it down, but we never saw a direct change occur during the balancing process up until this point.

I’m just curious as to whether the problem is how strong AoE damage is, or if pets really do just need an AoE damage reduction (versus reducing AoE damage as a whole), or if it is a mixture of both those issues? Thoughts anyone?

AoE’s are waaaaaaaay too powerful for the recharge/cast times they have. They could balance this if they had kept the energy reasource in but that’ another matter.

It’s just easier to give pets damage reduction than to go in and recalculate every single AoE skill in the game. It also would help immensly in pve with “dodge out of this red circle to not die” mechanics.

I would also favor a system that increases the pets armor value proportionally to the amount of hostiles in a radius. It allows for the tanking needed to survive large WvW style conflicts while not letting them become unkillable jugernauts in small scale or 1v1 fights.

In regards to burst. Yes, I think you can get burst damage with Ranger …but at an extreme cost. I have been watching a bunch of videos of different classes recently. What I have noticed, and especially with Thieves, is their target selection. You can watch them click on target after target in a zerg situation looking for the perfect victim. You can almost see their eyes light up when they find a Ranger ….and especially a Ranger with the Opening Strike icon.

It’s game over for that Ranger if he is “bursty”. Not only is he glass, but he is standing back from the crowd using his range IE a perfect victim.

If you go burst as a Ranger you have to be alert like a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Forzani.2584:

In regards to burst. Yes, I think you can get burst damage with Ranger …but at an extreme cost. I have been watching a bunch of videos of different classes recently. What I have noticed, and especially with Thieves, is their target selection. You can watch them click on target after target in a zerg situation looking for the perfect victim. You can almost see their eyes light up when they find a Ranger ….and especially a Ranger with the Opening Strike icon.

It’s game over for that Ranger if he is “bursty”. Not only is he glass, but he is standing back from the crowd using his range IE a perfect victim.

If you go burst as a Ranger you have to be alert like a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Playing a pvt/knight build in wvw and watching the thieves die because they though I was an easy meal and smacked into a 2900 armor wall and “Sick em!” gets pretty funny.

Substance E.4852:

Forzani.2584:

In regards to burst. Yes, I think you can get burst damage with Ranger …but at an extreme cost. I have been watching a bunch of videos of different classes recently. What I have noticed, and especially with Thieves, is their target selection. You can watch them click on target after target in a zerg situation looking for the perfect victim. You can almost see their eyes light up when they find a Ranger ….and especially a Ranger with the Opening Strike icon.

It’s game over for that Ranger if he is “bursty”. Not only is he glass, but he is standing back from the crowd using his range IE a perfect victim.

If you go burst as a Ranger you have to be alert like a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Playing a pvt/knight build in wvw and watching the thieves die because they though I was an easy meal and smacked into a 2900 armor wall and “Sick em!” gets pretty funny.

Not to sidetrack this excellent thread too much. What you described isn’t a burst/glass build. In a zerg scenario yes, a Thief that meets up with something he can’t kill quickly will just stealth away.

pet boon mechanism is so funny
It is funny, when you attacking with a bow/axe and you have a pet that applys boon. do you know what need to do when you want to get that boon? you pull your pet back or you run all the way close to your pet, why? because rangers bow is either 1200 or 900 range and pet buff range is only 600.

I totally under stand anet doesn’t want to overpower rangers’ pet boon, but there is limit already, “it only apply to 5 person” so why there is also a so-small buff range?

when I am doing tequatl , I always need to pull my pet back in order to get that boon, and yet , cos too many players around me, it is so normal that I can’t receive that boon!

therefore I suggest, either increase pet boon range into 1200 or pet boon will directly apply to ranger, the other 4 players who are in range.

Dos.7052:

therefore I suggest, either increase pet boon range into 1200 or pet boon will directly apply to ranger, the other 4 players who are in range.

totally agree with this. Making the pet buffs apply to ranger even if he isn’t in range and to other 4 players in the range would be a great thing. The problem is that this is not the only change ranger needs, there are so many things: skills, traits, mechanics….almost everything needs to be adjusted or rebalanced.

STEALTH on LB#3 is way too “hit or miss”…. LITERALLY.

I dont think there needs to be more stealth on ranger!!

But the ability to achieve it is really random atm. I’d like to see LB#3 either stealth on use (instead of hit) OR be unblockable and not require a firing arc so it could be used while running and less nuisance misses.

Other random suggestions and observations:
- Axe damage could be made less random by allowing a friendly bounce
- F2 pet abilities that are boons can be very tempermental, can these not be made instant?
- Idea to have an option for pet to be a passive boon giver has been suggested
- Some traits should be re-arranged; GS no longer does any condition damage so martial mastery could be moved from condition line, for instance
- Lightning reflexes would benefit a lot from immob. removal

After my limited play on my ranger, I am truely convinced that the ranged weapons didn’t get the required attention in the development phase.

I know this two are completely different games and it is not very healty to compare them, but my expectations of Ranger was high from original Guild Wars. On GW, we have 5 kinds of bows with different range options and animations and almost all of them are needed for a ranger. A ranger can kite a melee character rather easily and rangers have active role in both pve and pvp. In GW2, Ranger can hardly do anything at all. Sword deals some nice damage, but it turned my asuran ranger into a master yoda wannabe, jumping around and often falling down in narrow spaces…

What I want to offer is,
1) Lets give longbows a pasive %10 armor penetration like hornbow in GW.
2) Both longbow and shotrbow skills should be redesigned considering the fact that every melee class has multiple gap closers and it is imposiible right now to survive against a melee.
3)Archer’s signet and Apply Poison from GW1. For any viable condition build, we deffinitely need them in my opinion.

Remove the positional requirement for bleeds on sb1

Pudding.8756:

After my limited play on my ranger, I am truely convinced that the ranged weapons didn’t get the required attention in the development phase.

I know this two are completely different games and it is not very healty to compare them, but my expectations of Ranger was high from original Guild Wars. On GW, we have 5 kinds of bows with different range options and animations and almost all of them are needed for a ranger. A ranger can kite a melee character rather easily and rangers have active role in both pve and pvp. In GW2, Ranger can hardly do anything at all. Sword deals some nice damage, but it turned my asuran ranger into a master yoda wannabe, jumping around and often falling down in narrow spaces…

What I want to offer is,
1) Lets give longbows a pasive %10 armor penetration like hornbow in GW.
2) Both longbow and shotrbow skills should be redesigned considering the fact that every melee class has multiple gap closers and it is imposiible right now to survive against a melee.
3)Archer’s signet and Apply Poison from GW1. For any viable condition build, we deffinitely need them in my opinion.

What do you think about this idea:

Longbow
The Longbow has one of the longest ranges ingame but due to the damageloss of the pet and the range combined with the fact that most classes in PvP or WvW can simply blink to you, the weapon is nearly useless.
My suggestions are focussed around durability, so you can atleast hold your distance to your target.

Longbow #1:
This should be an attackchain like any other melee weapon autoattack.
The 3. attack should cripple your enemy, so you can maintain your distance.
Longbow #2:
Should be a channeling shot. As longer you channel, as further the arrow flies, as more damgae it deals and roots or knockbacks the enemy.
Longbow #3:
This needs a massive damage increase. Since stealth is pretty useless in PvE and the damage is below the weakest autoattack, there is no point where you want to press 3.
Longbow #4:
I’m debating wether it should be a root or a knockback.
The knockback is a nice way to get rid of defiant stacks. However the root would synergise more with other weapons. Should have the opposite effect of the LB #2.
Longbow #5:
This attack is ok but it would be nice if you could cast it while running.
Another nice idea is that you can cast barrage without groundtargeting, so you can shoot it over walls in WvW.

Forzani.2584:

Substance E.4852:

Forzani.2584:

In regards to burst. Yes, I think you can get burst damage with Ranger …but at an extreme cost. I have been watching a bunch of videos of different classes recently. What I have noticed, and especially with Thieves, is their target selection. You can watch them click on target after target in a zerg situation looking for the perfect victim. You can almost see their eyes light up when they find a Ranger ….and especially a Ranger with the Opening Strike icon.

It’s game over for that Ranger if he is “bursty”. Not only is he glass, but he is standing back from the crowd using his range IE a perfect victim.

If you go burst as a Ranger you have to be alert like a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Playing a pvt/knight build in wvw and watching the thieves die because they though I was an easy meal and smacked into a 2900 armor wall and “Sick em!” gets pretty funny.

Not to sidetrack this excellent thread too much. What you described isn’t a burst/glass build. In a zerg scenario yes, a Thief that meets up with something he can’t kill quickly will just stealth away.

My point was that they think we all run glass %100 of the time and it’s hilarious when it blows up in their smug faces. Considering the rangers I encounter though, they aren’t too wrong to assume this generally.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Longbow[/url]
The Longbow has one of the longest ranges ingame but due to the damageloss of the pet and the range combined with the fact that most classes in PvP or WvW can simply blink to you, the weapon is nearly useless.
My suggestions are focussed around durability, so you can atleast hold your distance to your target.

Longbow #1:
This should be an attackchain like any other melee weapon autoattack.
The 3. attack should cripple your enemy, so you can maintain your distance.
Longbow #2:
Should be a channeling shot. As longer you channel, as further the arrow flies, as more damgae it deals and roots or knockbacks the enemy.
Longbow #3:
This needs a massive damage increase. Since stealth is pretty useless in PvE and the damage is below the weakest autoattack, there is no point where you want to press 3.
Longbow #4:
I’m debating wether it should be a root or a knockback.
The knockback is a nice way to get rid of defiant stacks. However the root would synergise more with other weapons. Should have the opposite effect of the LB #2.
Longbow #5:
This attack is ok but it would be nice if you could cast it while running.
Another nice idea is that you can cast barrage without groundtargeting, so you can shoot it over walls in WvW.

Hey Orcax!! I’ll give you my opinion about your thoughts:

LB skill 1: would be very nice to have cripple there, good suggestion.

LBskill 2 and 4: if there will be any improvement to Rapid Fire damage i would be cool with skill 2 and 4 as they are right now, but, reworking these skills in the direction you thaught would create a new way of playing LB more synergetic between Ranger weapon skills in general. I like that.

LBskill 3: just adding something more to the stealth would be the solution imo: for example an effect that grants you N stacks of might for N seconds after hitting with the first strike while in stealth due to LB skill 3.

LBskill 5: you’re thinking of a very WvW orientated change here, I like this skill to be graundtargeting. Casting the skill while moving would be the perfection but I think reducing the cast time from 2 ¾ to 2 or 1¾ sec would be enough as well.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Pudding.8756:

After my limited play on my ranger, I am truely convinced that the ranged weapons didn’t get the required attention in the development phase.

I know this two are completely different games and it is not very healty to compare them, but my expectations of Ranger was high from original Guild Wars. On GW, we have 5 kinds of bows with different range options and animations and almost all of them are needed for a ranger. A ranger can kite a melee character rather easily and rangers have active role in both pve and pvp. In GW2, Ranger can hardly do anything at all. Sword deals some nice damage, but it turned my asuran ranger into a master yoda wannabe, jumping around and often falling down in narrow spaces…

What I want to offer is,
1) Lets give longbows a pasive %10 armor penetration like hornbow in GW.
2) Both longbow and shotrbow skills should be redesigned considering the fact that every melee class has multiple gap closers and it is imposiible right now to survive against a melee.
3)Archer’s signet and Apply Poison from GW1. For any viable condition build, we deffinitely need them in my opinion.

What do you think about this idea:

Longbow
The Longbow has one of the longest ranges ingame but due to the damageloss of the pet and the range combined with the fact that most classes in PvP or WvW can simply blink to you, the weapon is nearly useless.
My suggestions are focussed around durability, so you can atleast hold your distance to your target.

Longbow #1:
This should be an attackchain like any other melee weapon autoattack.
The 3. attack should cripple your enemy, so you can maintain your distance.
Longbow #2:
Should be a channeling shot. As longer you channel, as further the arrow flies, as more damgae it deals and roots or knockbacks the enemy.
Longbow #3:
This needs a massive damage increase. Since stealth is pretty useless in PvE and the damage is below the weakest autoattack, there is no point where you want to press 3.
Longbow #4:
I’m debating wether it should be a root or a knockback.
The knockback is a nice way to get rid of defiant stacks. However the root would synergise more with other weapons. Should have the opposite effect of the LB #2.
Longbow #5:
This attack is ok but it would be nice if you could cast it while running.
Another nice idea is that you can cast barrage without groundtargeting, so you can shoot it over walls in WvW.

Not a fan of most of your suggestions. Here’s how I look at how the LB should be changed.

#1: The range power thing needs to be dropped and instead changed to critical rate. Higher crit rate for the further away you are.

#2: Damage needs to be higher or the attack needs to be faster…possibly both.

#3: This move needs a 10-20% damage increase for the next 5 attacks attached to it along with the stealth. That makes it more useful to use even if you don’t need the stealth.

#4: This needs to be a charge-up attack like the snowball PvP slingshot. That way we have a burst move on this power weapon, plus it synergizes well with #3’s stealth.

#5: The only problem I see with this move is that you can’t use it while moving. Other than that, this is pretty solid (though I’d love to see bleeding on this as well~).

RyuDragnier.9476:

Not a fan of most of your suggestions. Here’s how I look at how the LB should be changed.

#1: The range power thing needs to be dropped and instead changed to critical rate. Higher crit rate for the further away you are.

#2: Damage needs to be higher or the attack needs to be faster…possibly both.

#3: This move needs a 10-20% damage increase for the next 5 attacks attached to it along with the stealth. That makes it more useful to use even if you don’t need the stealth.

#4: This needs to be a charge-up attack like the snowball PvP slingshot. That way we have a burst move on this power weapon, plus it synergizes well with #3’s stealth.

#5: The only problem I see with this move is that you can’t use it while moving. Other than that, this is pretty solid (though I’d love to see bleeding on this as well~).

Hrm, I disgree with some of this.
#1: I think current LB 1 is fine. They could stand to even out the damages more so the weapon’s primary damage skill isn’t invalidated at sub-max range.

#2: Change to a charging burst-damage skill. Say, 2 second max charge. At max charge it would deal damage on par with other burst-damage skills. So probably in the 10k-12k damage range with a critical hit. That puts it roughly on par with Kill Shot, maybe a bit weaker.

#3: Needs something other than simply stealth and an interaction with Remorseless (if you even took that trait.) Damage amp, move speed buff, cripple/immobilize, bleeding(?); just needs something.

#4: I’m fine with it as is.

#5: Needs help. Its a soft control skill that requires your target(s) to already be under some form of control to be truly effective. Moving while cast would be nice, as would the damage/cripple application being instantaneous rather than delayed.

Just my thoughts on LB.

Atherakhia.4086:

Where in the world are you getting 8k burst? You mean 8k with Rapid fire? You do realize that is a 4+ second channel right? That’s 2k a second which is about what auto attack is. That’s not burst.

Power options for the Ranger class will never work until the class is given real burst. Maul is burst, but it’s also on a weapon with nothing else to offer. If the class had a Fast Hands trait like Warriors do, Maul could actually act as a burst skill. But it’s just so unreliable because it is THE most telegraphed skill in the entire game.

Ranger should get a Fast Hand trait not for that reason but for the fact that it could open up to real kiting.

Every class has range, snares and gap closer options. If a ranger could swoop/monarch leap and range attack continuously, it’s a purely L2P issue on the part of the kitee and not a balance one.

The lack of a quick swap trait is bad for this class and the game in general. It limits the kind of counter play that could occur, and the types of builds also.

They need to revert the range on shortbow… that change was stupid.