Guild Wars 2

That is the one thing I love about Asia’s mmo combat is that it’s all stupidly over the top. Everyone moves crazy fast or has absurd attack animations and equipment. It makes it all a lot more fantastical and enjoyable. It’s one of the things GW2 lacks (unless you play thief) and it becomes dreadfully obvious when you use the same weapon sets for 1000+ hours.

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

Substance E.4852:

runeblade.7514:

Substance E.4852:

Aridia.3042:

This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:

http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s

I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.

Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.

Our ranger looks so slow and clunky by comparison it’s kind of sad. Also, +5 to them for not tethering the stereotypical AI “pet”. Nice to see some game devs are aware it doesn’t actually work as well as it does on paper and definitely doesn’t work in a game with no collision.

On the otherhand, that ranger in the video is just ridiculous. Is he using a machine gun or a bow?

That is the one thing I love about Asia’s mmo combat is that it’s all stupidly over the top. Everyone moves crazy fast or has absurd attack animations and equipment. It makes it all a lot more fantastical and enjoyable. It’s one of the things GW2 lacks (unless you play thief) and it becomes dreadfully obvious when you use the same weapon sets for 1000+ hours.

Good thing GW2 combat is not an Asian MMO combat system.

I would rather not have ranger be degraded into a flying acrobat with a machine gun.

Vox Hollow.2736:

That is the one thing I love about Asia’s mmo combat is that it’s all stupidly over the top. Everyone moves crazy fast or has absurd attack animations and equipment. It makes it all a lot more fantastical and enjoyable. It’s one of the things GW2 lacks (unless you play thief) and it becomes dreadfully obvious when you use the same weapon sets for 1000+ hours.

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

I find most part of this video to be very less ridiculous than BLESS combat and I really think that these combat animation style would really fit in GW2.

• Ranger can melee while wielding a bow, which can fit in GW2.
• The first few arrow shots felt like it has a realistic firing rate.
• It doesn’t have over the top jumping or machine gun bows.
• If the Black Desert Devs get rid of the camera vibration for every arrow fired, it would probably look as clunky and slow like GW2 ranger is.

To implement something like this, All it needs is a minimum distance for bows, then when at melee distance, rangers can use melee attacks. For the part with the point black needling shot, simply make a chain in shortbow 3, Quick shot → Needling shot.

jcbroe.4329:

Okay, so to clarify to some people, Greatsword is the only weapon that actually has “burst” damage for rangers.

The reason why rangers need burst in some form stems more from other game mechanics than anything else. The lack of inherent ability to remove boons like protection (and stability and retaliation to a degree) means that you therefore have to have enough damage to puncture through those boons, or just high defense builds in general.

However, because of the way defensive builds are designed in this game, they are much, much better at handling and bunkering/outhealing sustained damage output than they are at burst damage, because even if the burst damage is reduced as well, it can be less predictable so that when you introduce a players skill factor into the equation, there is actually an opportunity to outplay opponents, where as now, with the lack of burst damage on certain weapons (longbow mainly), it significantly reduces the amount of skill factor needed in order to outplay a longbow user because the damage comes at such small increments and at times is pieced up into so many small hits that it doesn’t ever put out enough damage in a given moment to overwhelm an opponent.

For it’s channel time, Rapid Fire should literally be doing a base of a bare minimum of like 1800 damage (currently it’s 1320). Personally I think it should be a base of 2k damage, since you are firing 10 easily avoidably by side stepping arrows over the course of 4.5 seconds which in that time span means that more often than not you will have to break channel in order to dodge or heal or etc.

More arrows with higher channel time implies a higher risk, harder to land skill (on the spectrum of this game being from like necro marks as the easiest to like long range grenade throwing as an engi being the hardest, which is sad in itself) which should definitely be doing significantly more damage than the autoattack (it does less than 5% more at most, and that’s only in optimal conditions, because interrupting an autoattack with rapid fire is a dps loss).

That or reducing the channel time of Rapid Fire to like 2.5 seconds, which simultaneously makes it better at doing damage but harder to land (faster channel means more arrows missed on dodge), so that the skill resembles more of a “machine gun” burst. Especially since it seems incredibly ironic that Rapid Fire, a skill that has rapid in it’s name, is the slowest channeling skill in the game.

Greatsword also has 2 burst skills, for those that don’t know. You have Maul, and you have Counterattack. A Well timed Counterattack will do just as much damage as Maul will. At higher power levels, it will be about 10% or so less because Maul scales better with power than Counterattack does, but its not that far off. The best thing is, you can catch melee players off guard by timing it just right with Signet of the hunt.

That aside, why do Rangers need more than 1 weapon with Burst? The Longbow is obviously not meant to be a burst weapon, or a skirmishing weapon. With my many hours of playing Ranger, the Longbow seems to be meant to be a long range weapon which you either open battle with, or fight with at long range. Its not meant to be used for the entire battle. You are supposed to be switching weapons, tinkering with your skill rotations, and combining your weapon skills with your utility skills.

If you give the Longbow the equivelant of a ‘Burst’ skill, then you are encouraging Rangers to just stick with the Longbow, and never bother to change weapons, no matter the situation, which I consider to be very dull gameplay!

Now, if you want me to be honest, and say what I think is a problem with Ranger damage (aside from pets), its our reliance on applying stacks and stacks of vulnerability through opening strike and other skills. It is where a large portion of our damage comes from (always somewhere between 10-20% depending on our build). I think that is entirely unecessary because it depends on a tiny set of traits and skills, and a condition that can be easily cleansed, and it should change.

Opening Strike should be a 25% Damage bonus to open combat with, that can be stacked with our other effects and skills, otherwise, the traits don’t need to change. Opening Strike should be an actual Advantage that the Ranger has if they have it, and not just be something that other professions have easy access to anyways. Axe and Greatsword should keep their vulnerability, but Rapid Fire should lose it, and in its place, I have a few suggestions for a Longbow Overhaul:::

(1) – Long Range Shot : Stays the same. It is a skill meant to be used at long range, and at 3000+ a shot at long range in full zerker gear before any vulnerability or signets are used, I’m not going to complain.

(2) – Rapid Fire : I don’t see any problems with the skill. The reason why it exists in its current form is to give you a damage option at any range, since Long Range Shot and Point Blank Shot both change their parameters depending on range. If the skill must change, then it should no longer apply the nearly useless vulnerability, but, I don’t think it deserves a substantial damage buff either. In keeping with the general theme of the Longbow as a whole product (damage and control), it should be quickly stacking on a (better) condition or two faster than an enemy can cleanse it. Alternating between Cripple and Bleeding every other shot is my choice, making for 5 stacks of both total at the end.

(3) – Hunter’s Shot : In my opinion, Stealth on Hunter’s Shot is useless because of Barrage. It prevents you from Stealthing if you already used that skill. There are also traps to worry about if you are using those as well. I like time and skill management in my games, but that’s too much. If we want it to be useful, we have to make to many gameplay decisions, and are forced into certain builds. Stealth is a neat mechanic, but there are too many factors that don’t make it very useful for a Ranger other than “Rangers have Stealth?….Coooool!” Hunter’s shot should change to where it rips a boon off of your enemy and gives it to you and your pet. If the enemy doesn’t have a boon, then it should either deal more damage, or give you and your pet Opening strike, regardless of whether its traited or not.

(4) – Point Blank Shot : This Skill should be the opposite of Long Range Shot. Not only should it push enemies back, but it should deal more damage and punish them for getting closer to you, since the whole point of this skill is to keep enemies away from you. The maximum range of the skill, and distances at which various Knockbacks occur should change to reflect this. And if it does 3000+ damage at point blank range in Zerker gear, and its a control skill? I’m not going to complain!

(5) – Barrage : I have no problems with this skill, like Long Range shot. You are sacrificing 2.75 seconds for 12 seconds of sustained damage and cripple. That is more than a fair trade. If damage must be increased, then the Cripple should be removed to balance it out. If it absolutely must have a condition, then I suggest a 1s immobilize on the first wave, so that way the enemy will atleast get hit by 2 waves of this attack.

And that’s it. Yeah, there’s a damage buff, but it doesn’t just get given to you on a plate. You actually have to be smart about using the skills.

@Chrispy;

I think that you’re absolutely right in that no weapon in the game should be able to “cover all of it’s weaknesses” so to speak.

The reason why I didn’t include Counterattack as a burst mechanism is because the damage isn’t on demand, and requires that the opponent attack you, however, I can definitely see why it was wrong for me to leave counterattack out because the damage is in fact applied as a “burst” of damage, and I should have clarified and classified Maul as a on demand, and I appreciate that added information and clarification.

I agree that it is truthfully only my opinion that the longbow needs to be more of a burst weapon. Without reiterating any of the combat mechanisms that lead me to believe that the weapon, and ranger power weapons in general, are better suited for burst damage versus the mechanics that exist in the environment like protection.

I’m just going to say that in response to you thinking that I’m suggesting the weapon be an all purpose weapon, I figured that the autoattack is still so off-putting that with the changes I suggest be implemented to rapid fire, the sustain of the weapon overall would actually get reduced, as opposed to just tacking a burst option onto the current sustain, which I figured would still be enough for longbow to be a suboptimal weapon in closer range situations and any situation that requires maneuverability or defense tactics, since the longbow really doesn’t offer either of those utility functions, and loses such damage at close range along with enemies being able to outposition you and force cancel rapid fire, that there would still be more than enough reason to weapon swap.

However, my opinion on how rapid fire should be changed aside, I overall think that rapid fire needs a significantly different function than firing more arrows but doing the same damage that autoattacking does in the same time frame, regardless of whether that functionality is a burst mechanic or not.

That’s all. At the very least, it makes for bland gameplay when the most interesting skill on the longbow is barrage in terms of function (the rest of the skills are just “shoot some arrows” that only vary in speed at which they are shot and have basically no discerning animations or effects).

To add to where my opinion is coming from, I also believe that autoattacks in this game are much too powerful across the board and need to be reduced in order to make skill combinations and weapon skills with cooldowns more valuable, so that I’d basically rather trade damage from the autoattack to rapid fire, than to leave them in their current form.

Thanks for the good discussion and the suggestions, I appreciate it

@Thread;

That goes for everybody, awesome discussions and suggestions. I apologize that I don’t have the time to go through every single individual suggestion and discuss them, I just find it fascinating that no matter what the suggestion, they all in some way relate back to the general overview I discussed in the OP (which was taken from a sample of the community and refined before the Profession Balance subforum existed to begin with).

So great effort all around, I do have to say that I really enjoy the amount of creativity everybody has and how it helps me to shape or reshape my own ideas and perspectives, and I hope that it is having the same effect on any dev that stops in and decides to have their jaw dropped by the effort everybody is taking to discuss and suggest and be constructive.

Keep it up everybody

Please change all the skills that revolve around ‘kitten our pet’. At present time the GW2 Ranger is some kind of sadistic being who revels in animal cruelty for the sake of his own selfish needs. If anything we need changes to the skills that sacrifice/torment our pet.

Some quick suggestions:

• Shared Anquish – Change to “Incoming disabling conditions are transferred to your Foe instead.”
  Alternate suggestion: “Incoming disabling conditions Entangle your Foe.”
• Empathic Bond – Change to “Periodically cure conditions from you and your pet.”
• “Protect Me” – Change this to also grant Protection, Retaliation, Swiftness and Regeneration to the pet for the duration
• Signet of Renewal Active – Change to “Your pet cures conditions from nearby allies”

Some of these may sound potent (although they all fall in line with similar skills from other classes), but then again the Ranger has waited for over a year to get some more potency in my humble opinion.

of all thing just give pet power critical damage and condition damage scaling already and reduce all those base stat by a small ammount to compensate and avoid a to large gain.

loose 25% base damage untraited and ungeared
Gain 25% bonus damage over the previous build when traited and geared appropriately

Other thing we could use is a beast mastery trait that proc aegis to pet when the player dodge and a relocation of the trait signet of the beast master to the beast mastery traitline.

Im not asking those change for pvp but for pve sake. You dont have to worry that much about the damage pet deals in spvp if you just keep the pet stat separate as you already doing right now. As for WVW… ill just remind you our pet dies so quickly from aoe they arent a menace to begin with and that anyone may at worse just kite it to avoid all incoming damage.

Please make longbow damage viable, especialy rapid fire wich just isnt worth the use both in pve and pvp.

Waded through walls of text, and realised that 90%+ of this thread is still about the pet. With everyone’s varied suggestions (from recoding the entire game to claiming there is nothing wrong) the only workable solution is the one that’s been advocated for since launch.

Make the bleeding pets optional. Have stow result in the pet going away, and your weapon skills and traps all do 30-40% more damage.

This would result in the least number of skills to change (signets and shouts, primarily, though you could ignore shouts as being specific to pet builds) and changing traits that are “you and your pet” so that the effect you regardless of the pet’s being active or not.

Once you’ve done that, and made the ranger actually playable for most, you can (probably never, but maybe) put some effort into actually fixing the mechanic.

Also, there is something hideously wrong when the biggest desire I have for my main character’s mechanic is to simply have it go away.

Aridia.3042:

This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:

http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s

I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.

Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.

interesting video.. and right the skills look awesome and balanced.. i hope that games comes in english!

actual powerranger needs a hard hitting skill. and no not maul. and a opportunity creator like bullsrush as example.
the big problem we always will have is that with the pet we will get a dmg reduction and are never on top with other burstclasses even if they fix some weaponskills and give us more +dmg traits and better reasonable traitlines and more/better utilities. so we need also more sustain.. in the class philo. of anet they said ranger should be a little like a thief.. evasive. with 25% endurance regen and such little source of vigor we are lacking that evasion. another problem of powerrangers. but aside of that we need a niche to fill. a reason to pick a lower burst class with no teleports, stealht or instant gapclosers like other classes builds provide. and nearly no disengage. i would say with the other thread in mind that thief completly shut down other roamer like mesmer and eles that a trait granting the possible. to ignore stealth would give us a roll to play in tpvp to shut down thiefs and providing cover for a mesmer or eleroamer.. remember this game has no bodyblock! that would mean counterplay but no complete buildwars.

hooma.9642:

Aridia.3042:

This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:

http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s

I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.

Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.

interesting video.. and right the skills look awesome and balanced.. i hope that games comes in english!

actual powerranger needs a hard hitting skill. and no not maul. and a opportunity creator like bullsrush as example.
the big problem we always will have is that with the pet we will get a dmg reduction and are never on top with other burstclasses even if they fix some weaponskills and give us more +dmg traits and better reasonable traitlines and more/better utilities. so we need also more sustain.. in the class philo. of anet they said ranger should be a little like a thief.. evasive. with 25% endurance regen and such little source of vigor we are lacking that evasion. another problem of powerrangers. but aside of that we need a niche to fill. a reason to pick a lower burst class with no teleports, stealht or instant gapclosers like other classes builds provide. and nearly no disengage. i would say with the other thread in mind that thief completly shut down other roamer like mesmer and eles that a trait granting the possible. to ignore stealth would give us a roll to play in tpvp to shut down thiefs and providing cover for a mesmer or eleroamer.. remember this game has no bodyblock! that would mean counterplay but no complete buildwars.

One of the problems I think we have with Vigor is that unlike the equal traits that other classes have, that gives Vigor on Critical Hit, we instead get Vigor, only when we are Critically Hit

You could argue that it is infact balanced because of how many ways we can access the boon, but, I just don’t see how it fits into the theme of Ranger at all, where you would put yourself in harms way, just to get an advantage. It makes no sense.

Rangers are more about survival, not sacrificing their life for an advantage (their pets, sure, but not themselves). That’s what Necromancers are in this game for (who have no access to vigor),….not us.

How would I balance it, and fit the skill to be more in line with the theme of the Ranger?

Either, make Primal Reflexes the same as other Vigor giving traits (vigor on crit), or change it into something totally different. One of these ideas could work since we have access to vigor already by several other sources:::

(1) – Primal Reflexes instead makes all your evades last longer, including dodges and weapon skills. (10%?)

(2) – Primal Reflexes gives you an increased Endurance Regen rate when you don’t have Vigor, and it gives you a damage boost when you do have Vigor. (10% each?)

(3) – Primal Reflexes changes to where it lets you ignore movement based conditions, such as one instance of Immobilize, Chill, Fear, or Cripple, with a cooldown.

(4) – Primal Reflexes applies Vigor when you sucessfully evade an attack, with a cooldown. (dodges, utility skills, and weapon based evades)

Edit – Other, slightly more overpowered ideas include :::

(5) – Your Pet gains Blur when you dodge, and you gain Blur at the end of your dodge(.25s)(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blur) (alternatively, and not overpowered…., You Pet gainst 1 second of Blur when you dodge, (meaning it evades whenever you dodge))

(6) – You and your Pet Gain Health when you sucessfully evade an attack (500 + 25% of healing power)

(7) – Primal Reflexes becomes a Buff like Opening Strike, that reduces damage from the first hit you or your pet recieves to 0. Moment of Clarity should get a new effect, that reapplies this trait when interrupting an enemy.

(8) – Primal Reflexes reduces the Recharge of Lightning Reflexes by 30%, which combined with Wilderness knowledge, makes the total recharge time 20 seconds. (10 seconds of vigor, a stun breaker, and an extra 3/4 second evade every 20 seconds? Yes please!!!!)

Aveneo.2068:

Please change all the skills that revolve around ‘kitten our pet’. At present time the GW2 Ranger is some kind of sadistic being who revels in animal cruelty for the sake of his own selfish needs. If anything we need changes to the skills that sacrifice/torment our pet.

Some quick suggestions:

• Shared Anquish – Change to “Incoming disabling conditions are transferred to your Foe instead.”
  Alternate suggestion: “Incoming disabling conditions Entangle your Foe.”
• Empathic Bond – Change to “Periodically cure conditions from you and your pet.”
• “Protect Me” – Change this to also grant Protection, Retaliation, Swiftness and Regeneration to the pet for the duration
• Signet of Renewal Active – Change to “Your pet cures conditions from nearby allies”

Some of these may sound potent (although they all fall in line with similar skills from other classes), but then again the Ranger has waited for over a year to get some more potency in my humble opinion.

Yes to all.
Likewise, when activating “Search and Rescue”, your pet should also gain protection, regen, swiftness and retaliation. Furthermore the pet should AoE revive in a small area since the skill is bugged if your pet can’t get directly on top of your ally, which would put the skill on cooldown without doing anything.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

Haha I was gonna post some Black Desert beta footage but I figured people would QQ about how OP it is, cuz I’ve seen clips of where it looks like the auto attack has strafe dodging build in for the archer.

And I’m confused about people’s concern over “realism” in class design, cuz little gremlins and people that can create clones are realistic? Do they not realize you can jump and shoot in this game? That’s like the antithesis of realism for a shooter…

Aridia.3042:

Vox Hollow.2736:

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

Haha I was gonna post some Black Desert beta footage but I figured people would QQ about how OP it is, cuz I’ve seen clips of where it looks like the auto attack has strafe dodging build in for the archer.

And I’m confused about people’s concern over “realism” in class design, cuz little gremlins and people that can create clones are realistic? Do they not realize you can jump and shoot in this game? That’s like the antithesis of realism for a shooter…

seems awesome..
just reading the faq brings tears in my eyes… i think if this game hits the market anet dont need to consider a release in asia.. and if they come to western world i see nothing left for gw2.

Not to sound rude but even as part of the “anime crowd” as some call it, I wouldn’t rush to hype up any Asian-made MMORPG. Use extreme caution with those games. I’ve played quite a few in my time, and while they do on occasion offer some very intriguing gameplay, more often than not they are loaded with systems that don’t favor active positioning (Ie. auto-aim/semi-auto-aim, ‘left click and hit f-keys to kill’ mechanics that automatically move/attack skills that automatically teleport your character to your target when you hit your skill key, etc. ), “Buy to Win” cash shops that enable people to effectively spent $1000 dollars and become unparalleled in PvP systems by virtue of gear alone, PvP systems that often (and unnecessarily so) involve the possibility of dropping gear unless otherwise mitigated with cash shop items that prevent gear drops (cash cow pvp systems as I call them) and an extremely massive over-saturation of “Cash shop gamble items/Fortune packs” (Probably due to the popularity of the “luck/fate=luck” based theme prevalent in many Asian cultures and religions) These items often cost a good margin to merely offer a 0.03% chance or so at some really good items and a almost 45% chance of some piece of crap. (Which while you can say isn’t a problem because it’s of the player’s on volition to buy them, as you should already know from the problems in Vegas.. gambling addiction can become an equally present problem when such enticements are added in too great numbers with too much extreme rewards into MMORPGS. People love to be set on the thought and thrill of the possibility of gaining great fortune at little cost, and are all to easily enticed into throwing vast amounts of money at the wallet-devouring machine that is cash shop gamble mechanics.)

In other words, if ArenaNet ever takes a page out of the book of such MMOs, ONLY look at the combat system, assuming it lives up to its hype. For the love of God though keep the combat systems that are free of line of sight issues, massive amounts of gambling enticements, buy to win cash shop gear enhancements, moon obliterating obnoxious Final Fantasy like over the top “super skills”, laughable gear drop cash cowing pvp setups.. where they belong, in the MMO gutter. If anyone said a game with such systems was better than Guild Wars 2, I’d puke in my mouth. I mean no offense by this post to those coming from such culture, however again… I’ve played a lot of such MMORPGs, and these are issues that classically plague them. I’m by nature hesitant with them now, because so many of them boast youtube promos that look like skilled combat but in-game fail to live up to expectations.

runeblade.7514:

Substance E.4852:

runeblade.7514:

Substance E.4852:

Aridia.3042:

This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:

http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s

I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.

Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.

Our ranger looks so slow and clunky by comparison it’s kind of sad. Also, +5 to them for not tethering the stereotypical AI “pet”. Nice to see some game devs are aware it doesn’t actually work as well as it does on paper and definitely doesn’t work in a game with no collision.

On the otherhand, that ranger in the video is just ridiculous. Is he using a machine gun or a bow?

That is the one thing I love about Asia’s mmo combat is that it’s all stupidly over the top. Everyone moves crazy fast or has absurd attack animations and equipment. It makes it all a lot more fantastical and enjoyable. It’s one of the things GW2 lacks (unless you play thief) and it becomes dreadfully obvious when you use the same weapon sets for 1000+ hours.

Good thing GW2 combat is not an Asian MMO combat system.

I would rather not have ranger be degraded into a flying acrobat with a machine gun.

lol, yes, much more honor in being tethered to a defunct AI and having to rely on cheese passive regen builds to win all our fights.

Most of the issues has been address by players, so I will be addressing to pet and their issues in pve and wvw and visiting some traits that are not used or that needs rework.

1. Main problem of the class is pet AI and its responsiveness, this is a system issue we all know that. So this has to be done by ANet for us to get better responses from our pet.

2. Pet survivability in dungeons and wvw has been another major issue for Rangers, health improvements to pet has been a good step, but unfortunately in large scale wvw and insanely damage burst dungeons, pet is usually dead and we lose 30% of our damage just like that.

Traits

For Beastmastery the idea that I am trying to get across is pet-friendly to both and nearby team mates.

Live example so far and best ones are: Mighty swap and vigorous training

Stability Training. This does not make sense at all. Why not make this on pet swap for ursine and porcine grants stability to nearby allies when activated.

This would promote these type of pets that are underused in game, more aimed towards porcine. It will also promotes smooth game play and support to surrounding allies.

Master’s Bond. Most underused and probably one of the broken traits in Ranger. Should totally consider reworking this trait or changing it entirely to benefit the pet and the player to maybe * your pet has a bond with you that increases its over all stats by 10% (or 7%) base on player stats.*

Overall I just wish the Devs would just look at these traits that Rangers currently have, what needs rework and which ones should be swap on a different tree line. What Im giving above are just pure example of which ones are underused and does not make sense at all in a game play perspective. Cheers

Some very good ideas and observations.

To put it most simply for me. I have been trying to play a power LB spec in WvW. I think it is a slap in the face that I have to have pet on passive standing beside me. There has to be a way to stow pet if we want to and get a stat boost.

My Take on Rangers – Yes, I have one.

GS needs love
1) Maul to be turned into a Blast Finisher.
2) The Damage Co-coefficients on #1 to be increased.

Fortifying Bond
1) “Any Boon or Attribute from skill use is shared between both pet and player”.

IE: Bear invulnerability would apply to player as well – opening up more than 30pt in Signets for a invulnerability when it comes to Melee.

Beastmasters Might
Grants you and your allies….

Pets
Make them more Utility Based and less part of the overall Damage. Maybe something to the extent of giving them a “Pack Mentality Aura” (200 ish) that increase survivability to those around it.

Pet’s need to do less damage but be able to stay in the fight longer. The Current issue is that they do great damge, so if you give them more survivability, they’ll be OP. Take the Damage out of the equation and turn them into Utility.

Outside of that, response rate on Ranger Weapons seem much much slower than other classes between swap’n out weapons and first ability use.

EDIT: Please take a look at the White Lion from WAR.

I agree with Amins. I played the Ranger briefly before giving up on the class (just after the BM bunker nerf). I get how the devs wished the pet would be sufficient enough to do ample amount of damage and make the class reliant on the pets but it really only cripples it.

Allow pets to do 10-15% of Ranger’s damage but bring more utility for the ranger and his group.

I agree with neither of you. Beast mastery should be a damaging school in its own right the same way minion master or phantasm spammer is. If they are to reduce the pet base damage to 15% i hope they make it so that pet gain the double or 3 time the current stat when traited appropriately.

While i do agree the pet of non beastmaster ranger should hit like crap at best and have some utility i think beastmaster specialist should be rewarded more for running a build based on their pet.

My beastmaster curently feels more like a fight as one build then as an actual animal tamer controlling a furry killing machine so here is what i propose.

Reduce pet base damage by 75% and add it more utilities for those falconer archer who just want to have some small buff
Quadruple the pet stat benefit from running the beastmastery trait line for those cat and bear user who wants to run some kind of pet based DPS so to compensate for the stat drop.
Add a stat scaling system based on the master total stats.

Aridia.3042:

Vox Hollow.2736:

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

Haha I was gonna post some Black Desert beta footage but I figured people would QQ about how OP it is, cuz I’ve seen clips of where it looks like the auto attack has strafe dodging build in for the archer.

And I’m confused about people’s concern over “realism” in class design, cuz little gremlins and people that can create clones are realistic? Do they not realize you can jump and shoot in this game? That’s like the antithesis of realism for a shooter…

Okay, lets give Warriors the ability to fly on their Greatsword that leaves a trail of rainbows with yakety sax music and the enemies are flying pandas from outer space that uses a rainbow friendship cannon because we don’t like realism.

- speed training should be 20% and after thinking again i think i shoudl be merged with commanding voice maybe
- master bond should remove the stack if the player or pet goes down and not if he changes the pet.. the stack should be somewhere pet unrelated but always applied to actual pet

stack should remain until player itself goes down not the pet.

I been into GW2 and GW2 only since its release but recently i tried TERA and i love the archer there, wish i could enjoy the ranger here but i don’t, is my main and all but is just bad.

I am sorry for not having the physical time to read the entire trait, so sorry if I am repeating something already said. My main and most beloved class in this game is ranger

1. First I want to mention the specific skill rangers have – Opening strike. There is a grandmaster trait Remorseless Regain (Opening Strike whenever you kill a foe or gain stealth.). While is PvE and WvW that is useful non the less, in sPvP, there is nothing good about it – 1 crit hit with vulnerability and that’s all, since you have 1 skill with longbow that make you invisible, and killing enemy is not that often, I just don’t think its worth it.

2. Active effects of signets also affect you – How does this work with the Signet of Renewal’s Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself??? So my pet pulls all the conditions to himself, so do I?

3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.

4. Pet’s Prowess Pet do more damage on critical hits. That is not visible in pet tab (so is Expertise Training: Pets deal extra condition damage.)

5. Traps build is super fun and very strong, as long as there are no Puppet masters or Spirit rangers or Mesmers – because hey -5- man AOE cap is kind of !? kittens. Also I remember a promo video about the class, showing how to use traps in PvE, but its absolutely no use for it since mobs are mainly scatared all over maps standing 1 by 1 alone (so weird to see entire army standing about 2-3 meters from eachother).

6. When u have Shared Anquish and Hide in Plain Sight at the same time which one procs first??? IF they do both at the same time, why?

7. There is only 1 trait connected with Axes – why? Since they are for both main and off hand, that seems kind of – Don’t use axes msg You send.

I wish the ability to choose to have or not to have a pet was something you consider, but I highly doubt it, because this will mean a total remake of the class. But the ability to hide the pet on command is something doable. We must have the option to just hide it and not to be able to pop up when u take dmg. Also why is the 4th skill connected with pet not assign with a key F4? I will skip sword inability to dodge, I know you are working on that. I agree on combining Commanding Voice and Speed Training into 1 trait.

I second keeping 100% damage on ranger and some utilities on pet. And going down the beastmaster trait gives the pet damage.

runeblade.7514:

Okay, lets give Warriors the ability to fly on their Greatsword that leaves a trail of rainbows with yakety sax music and the enemies are flying pandas from outer space that uses a rainbow friendship cannon because we don’t like realism.[/quote]

I think Anet met you half way already.

Do you remember complaints about Ranger viability before Longbow, Shortbow, and quickening zephyr nerfs? No? That’s because there really wasn’t a balance issue compared to other classes.

In fact we were having fun killing things, just like the other professions.

Back then all we complained about was the pets.

TheFallenAngel.1320:

1. First I want to mention the specific skill rangers have – Opening strike. There is a grandmaster trait Remorseless Regain (Opening Strike whenever you kill a foe or gain stealth.). While is PvE and WvW that is useful non the less, in sPvP, there is nothing good about it – 1 crit hit with vulnerability and that’s all, since you have 1 skill with longbow that make you invisible, and killing enemy is not that often, I just don’t think its worth it.

2. Active effects of signets also affect you – How does this work with the Signet of Renewal’s Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself??? So my pet pulls all the conditions to himself, so do I?

3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.

4. Pet’s Prowess Pet do more damage on critical hits. That is not visible in pet tab (so is Expertise Training: Pets deal extra condition damage.)

5. Traps build is super fun and very strong, as long as there are no Puppet masters or Spirit rangers or Mesmers – because hey -5- man AOE cap is kind of !? kittens. Also I remember a promo video about the class, showing how to use traps in PvE, but its absolutely no use for it since mobs are mainly scatared all over maps standing 1 by 1 alone (so weird to see entire army standing about 2-3 meters from eachother).

6. When u have Shared Anquish and Hide in Plain Sight at the same time which one procs first??? IF they do both at the same time, why?

7. There is only 1 trait connected with Axes – why? Since they are for both main and off hand, that seems kind of – Don’t use axes msg You send.

Here’s a few answers and comments….

1. Opening Strike, Remorseless, etc. are all together weak traits, and I have given my opinion before about how it is probably a reason why we do less overall damage compared to other profession (besides just our pets). Hopefully we can get the chance to talk about it in Monday’s CDI thread before all the pet and longbow comments drown it out.

2. Signet of Renewal only affects your pet, regardless of whether or not you have Signet of the Beastmaster. It would kind of suck to pull conditions from Allies to yourself, especially if you are stacked with conditions as it is.

3. It might seem weak at first glance, but, that trait isn’t meant to just be used by you and only you, and with only 1 signet. It also gives might to your pet. If you pop 3 signets, you have 9 might, and your pet has 9 might, if you have the Fortifying bond trait, your pet actually gets 18 stacks of might because of boon sharing. If you have the Stalker out, you can stack on 5 more might on you for 14 total, and 10 more on your pet, for 28(25 max.) total. A Stalker with 25 stacks of might, for 15 seconds, is freakishly strong, and will probably out dps you unless you are running full zerker gear. This trait isn’t more powerful because its too easy as it is to stack might with the right combination of traits and pets. You also need to consider the benefits the active portion of the signets give you as well. (Rangers should have some access to might that isn’t tied to our pets in some way, but, that is a weakness of our class that should probably stay a weakness, because if we remove too many of our weaknesses, we will just get nerfed all over again)

4. Open the pet panel when you are in combat, and check the stats then. That seems to be the only time pet’s gain the bonus.

5. yup, 5 man aoe cap is dumb. Skills like traps and barrage should be hitting every single living thing that is dumb enough to enter that red circle!

6. I have seen both go off at the same time before, and it is kind of annoying because the camouflage I gain disappears immediately if I am moving around. It should be one at a time instead. This is another issue that we should probably bring up before pets and longbows drown out everything else. (its been awhile since I’ve had both traited, so maybe its fixed, maybe not)

7. In Fairness, we have 2 traits connected to axes. Offhand Training doesn’t just affect axes, true, but it affects all offhand weapons the same, which the increased range and decreased cooldown makes it a very powerful trait, even if it affects just one of our weapons. Its not as bad as Necromancers, who get only 1 trait for axes.

Ranger will be the next topic for the Profession Collaborative Development.
Source

Chrispy.5641:

TheFallenAngel.1320:

3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.

Here’s a few answers and comments….

3. It might seem weak at first glance, but, that trait isn’t meant to just be used by you and only you, and with only 1 signet. It also gives might to your pet. If you pop 3 signets, you have 9 might, and your pet has 9 might, if you have the Fortifying bond trait, your pet actually gets 18 stacks of might because of boon sharing. If you have the Stalker out, you can stack on 5 more might on you for 14 total, and 10 more on your pet, for 28(25 max.) total. A Stalker with 25 stacks of might, for 15 seconds, is freakishly strong, and will probably out dps you unless you are running full zerker gear. This trait isn’t more powerful because its too easy as it is to stack might with the right combination of traits and pets. You also need to consider the benefits the active portion of the signets give you as well. (Rangers should have some access to might that isn’t tied to our pets in some way, but, that is a weakness of our class that should probably stay a weakness, because if we remove too many of our weaknesses, we will just get nerfed all over again)

Sorry but I desagree with you: this trait is not only useless, it’s counterproductive!!!

First of all you can’t afford to WASTE all your 3 utility at the same time just to buff 9 might to you and 18+ to your pet.

Secondly: buffing a never hitting and “so easy killable” pet with 25 stacks of might is as good as having no might; there’s absolutely no point at all in investing traits or skills in a pet with a so terrible A.I., never ever!!!

There is not a single situation (in Pve, PvP and WvW) that is worth to use 3 (48 sec CD each and only if traited) utility at the same time for so little bonuses, not even for a glass cannon build, especially for a ranger dps build. I’m sorry but no one can change my mind about this since I tried what you suggested. There’s no way you’re gonna stay alive against any kind of opponent if you use this “combination” (unless your opponent is AFK).

Dave Pare.2069:

Chrispy.5641:

TheFallenAngel.1320:

3. Beastmaster’s Might Activating a signet grants might. Since every signet has 60 sec cd(besides 1) and with the 20% reduction that is 48 sec. So every 48 sec I get 3 stacks of might for 15 secons, considering other might giving traits and abilities, that seems so weak to me.

Here’s a few answers and comments….

3. It might seem weak at first glance, but, that trait isn’t meant to just be used by you and only you, and with only 1 signet. It also gives might to your pet. If you pop 3 signets, you have 9 might, and your pet has 9 might, if you have the Fortifying bond trait, your pet actually gets 18 stacks of might because of boon sharing. If you have the Stalker out, you can stack on 5 more might on you for 14 total, and 10 more on your pet, for 28(25 max.) total. A Stalker with 25 stacks of might, for 15 seconds, is freakishly strong, and will probably out dps you unless you are running full zerker gear. This trait isn’t more powerful because its too easy as it is to stack might with the right combination of traits and pets. You also need to consider the benefits the active portion of the signets give you as well. (Rangers should have some access to might that isn’t tied to our pets in some way, but, that is a weakness of our class that should probably stay a weakness, because if we remove too many of our weaknesses, we will just get nerfed all over again)

Sorry but I desagree with you: this trait is not only useless, it’s counterproductive!!!

First of all you can’t afford to WASTE all your 3 utility at the same time just to buff 9 might to you and 18+ to your pet.

Secondly: buffing a never hitting and “so easy killable” pet with 25 stacks of might is as good as having no might; there’s absolutely no point at all in investing traits or skills in a pet with a so terrible A.I., never ever!!!

There is not a single situation (in Pve, PvP and WvW) that is worth to use 3 (48 sec CD each and only if traited) utility at the same time for so little bonuses, not even for a glass cannon build, especially for a ranger dps build. I’m sorry but no one can change my mind about this since I tried what you suggested. There’s no way you’re gonna stay alive against any kind of opponent if you use this “combination” (unless your opponent is AFK).

So, if you know that pet AI sucks right now and doesn’t work, and you are unwilling to find creative ways to work around that limitation, why would you even try a combination of skills that mainly affects your pet?

Feyd Rautha.7298:

Do you remember complaints about Ranger viability before Longbow, Shortbow, and quickening zephyr nerfs? No? That’s because there really wasn’t a balance issue compared to other classes.

In fact we were having fun killing things, just like the other professions.

Back then all we complained about was the pets.

The LB is stronger now than it has ever been post-beta. I do agree on the QZ/petswap and SB nerfs though. The very fact that people even defended the SB nerf as a good thing made me ashamed to be playing the same class.

in every war soldiers with ranged attacks was the most valuable units. in this game rangers are nothing with or without ranged attacks. i understand the idea behind the ranger profession. we have opening strike, flanking damage, extra damage at full endurance and nearly full health, extra damage signet for one shot, big range and more damage for the more distance.
a tipical one shot setup. but this game is not support the sniper style, except if a are a warrior with rifle. we can reach the top damage if we trait on pets and micro management it. the problem is: pets can attack only single, not moving targets, and only if they are alive.
our damage against multiple or moving enemys is very low. im a wvw player and i fight against multiple moving enemys. we need an option to ignore our pet.
what i suggest is something like elementalist attuments. one for the actual beastmaster setup, one trap kit (engi have 5 cool bombs or granades for 1 utility slot) one lonely wolf mode with high dmg and one team support.

1h sword has to be reworked (rooting issue as well as the skills)
Evade should at least make bleed or torment for greater use not poison!

Also you have to be able to walk while doing ur offhand axe reflect whirling attack
and that one drake needs the reflect skill on command aswell above ground like already used in underwater combat.

(I posted this on an other thread on the Ranger subforum)

This has been on my mind for some time already, so here goes.
To improve trappers!
Utility:
Sharpening Stone removed. It’s a trash skill, we all know it.
It will be replaced by another Survival Skill, Bag of Traps, which contains our 4 current traps (no changes to them) and a new fifth trap, Smoke Trap, that dazes foes on the initial hit of the trap and then blinds foes, creating a smoke field (which we can blast for stealth yay!).

Now instead of Trap utilites, we get Preparations back from gw1. You can only have 1 Preparation active at a time. I’m sure some people can come up with some good Preparation ideas, I can’t think of any now.

Now trapper rangers can get some utilities that help them survive, instead of loading their utility bar full of traps. Stuff like Lightning Reflexes or Signets.

But then comes a problem (I think). There will be 2 traits just for 1 utility skill (the traps). I don’t think any other profession has a trait just for a specific utility.

What do you think? Too OP?

Chrispy.5641:

hooma.9642:

Aridia.3042:

This is how a bow user is suppose to operate. They’re meant to kite:

http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=30s

I’m more convinced than ever that this class should get a Fast Hand trait like warriors. I’d actually argue that should be no swap cool down for this game across all classes but that’s for another thread. Again, every class has gap closers, range, and CC options. There’s zero need to disable kiting as it’s a L2P issue, not a balance one.

Notice also the channel time of the skills. Fast and furious, or slow and powerful. This is what’s missing from the ranger longbow along with the lack of CC. Lightning reflex doesn’t cut it with the long cool downs.

interesting video.. and right the skills look awesome and balanced.. i hope that games comes in english!

actual powerranger needs a hard hitting skill. and no not maul. and a opportunity creator like bullsrush as example.
the big problem we always will have is that with the pet we will get a dmg reduction and are never on top with other burstclasses even if they fix some weaponskills and give us more +dmg traits and better reasonable traitlines and more/better utilities. so we need also more sustain.. in the class philo. of anet they said ranger should be a little like a thief.. evasive. with 25% endurance regen and such little source of vigor we are lacking that evasion. another problem of powerrangers. but aside of that we need a niche to fill. a reason to pick a lower burst class with no teleports, stealht or instant gapclosers like other classes builds provide. and nearly no disengage. i would say with the other thread in mind that thief completly shut down other roamer like mesmer and eles that a trait granting the possible. to ignore stealth would give us a roll to play in tpvp to shut down thiefs and providing cover for a mesmer or eleroamer.. remember this game has no bodyblock! that would mean counterplay but no complete buildwars.

One of the problems I think we have with Vigor is that unlike the equal traits that other classes have, that gives Vigor on Critical Hit, we instead get Vigor, only when we are Critically Hit

You could argue that it is infact balanced because of how many ways we can access the boon, but, I just don’t see how it fits into the theme of Ranger at all, where you would put yourself in harms way, just to get an advantage. It makes no sense.

Rangers are more about survival, not sacrificing their life for an advantage (their pets, sure, but not themselves). That’s what Necromancers are in this game for (who have no access to vigor),….not us.

How would I balance it, and fit the skill to be more in line with the theme of the Ranger?

Either, make Primal Reflexes the same as other Vigor giving traits (vigor on crit), or change it into something totally different. One of these ideas could work since we have access to vigor already by several other sources:::

(1) – Primal Reflexes instead makes all your evades last longer, including dodges and weapon skills. (10%?)

(2) – Primal Reflexes gives you an increased Endurance Regen rate when you don’t have Vigor, and it gives you a damage boost when you do have Vigor. (10% each?)

(3) – Primal Reflexes changes to where it lets you ignore movement based conditions, such as one instance of Immobilize, Chill, Fear, or Cripple, with a cooldown.

(4) – Primal Reflexes applies Vigor when you sucessfully evade an attack, with a cooldown. (dodges, utility skills, and weapon based evades)

Edit – Other, slightly more overpowered ideas include :::

(5) – Your Pet gains Blur when you dodge, and you gain Blur at the end of your dodge(.25s)(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blur) (alternatively, and not overpowered…., You Pet gainst 1 second of Blur when you dodge, (meaning it evades whenever you dodge))

(6) – You and your Pet Gain Health when you sucessfully evade an attack (500 + 25% of healing power)

(7) – Primal Reflexes becomes a Buff like Opening Strike, that reduces damage from the first hit you or your pet recieves to 0. Moment of Clarity should get a new effect, that reapplies this trait when interrupting an enemy.

(8) – Primal Reflexes reduces the Recharge of Lightning Reflexes by 30%, which combined with Wilderness knowledge, makes the total recharge time 20 seconds. (10 seconds of vigor, a stun breaker, and an extra 3/4 second evade every 20 seconds? Yes please!!!!)

Evasive purity was supposed to heal one condi each dodge, but Anet thought it would be op……

Chrispy has a point about the buffs in a sense. Although TBH though, might on your pet isn’t that good; if its melee its liable to miss upwards of half its attacks on a moving target and even more if the target’s kiting.

For builds outside the realm of condi bunker spam builds, if you want to make your class work at all in the current game you need to build around supporting the pet with shared buffs. Namely protection and passive healing(Regeneration, Signet of the Wild or whatever else.)

That said, even thinking out of the box it is completely true the pet still holds you back with its low hit ratios. Even with permanent swiftness it just can’t keep up with moving targets, and kiting memers/pistol thieves/other rangers/engineers(especially engineers with their AoE spam) is a nightmare for the ill-equipped mentally inept pet with no distance closers. And frankly, that you have to trait spec just to share protection or regeneration with a TARGETABLE, KILLABLE pet that your own phyical damage is nerfed in order to support… is horrible design. It’s like having one of your own arms operate separate of your body. Protection, Regeneration, Aegis.. defensive buffs should be shared with your pet by default.

Hopefully rangers will finally get the attention to the areas they truly desperately need it; it’s core class mechanic. If it continues to be so unreliable, then it will simply have to be removed to make this class close to equally viable in all aspects of the game across all builds. Despite going against my own instinct in this, I have high hopes now. It’s no mystery our only ranger representative has not been a part of the balance team for quite some time. With a united agreement from all rangers and even with support of countless players maining other classes, the developers should have no choice but to face the reality before them, assuming they listen to the community, in this upcoming CDI discussion. That the broken part of this class is core and basic fundamentals, and not a matter of mere utility and trait tweaks. The class needs attention in every area, and simultaneously and not bandaid fixes.

The SB nerf was warranted at the time. Before the nerf, SB did more damage than the Longbow at everything but the very max range and provided much better overall utility than the longbow. There was simply no reason for the Longbow to exist back then.

Even today, the raw damage of the shortbow is about even with the longbow at mid range, but still better at short. But now that the weapon has a stealth it can somewhat compensate for the other utility advantages the shortbow had.

The longbow is still a terrible weapon though and certainly isn’t a primary weapon for the class. It’s a support weapon much like the greatsword is which is a shame because the stronger power builds available to this class use greatsword+longbow… 2 support weapons.

No matter what, the Longbow needs a burst skill attached to it. Without it, there’s no hope for a power option to ever exist at range for the Ranger class. The barrage skill also doesn’t fit very well with the weapon and would make much more sense as a utility skill. At least as a utility skill it can be modified in a way to provide a utility, power DPS, and condi DPS fairly easily so it’s attractive to all specs of the class.

Before we worry about crunching numbers or fixing traits though, this class doesn’t even have the basic tools to keep it a contender in this game.

It needs some form of burst.
It needs some form of AE.
It needs F2 responsiveness.
It needs pets to work in larger group settings.

No reason to even worry about how half the traits are awful or how the vast majority of our utility skills aren’t worth using until you invest 30 into a tree until the class itself has the tools it needs to function.

I am glad to see rangers are getting so much love right now because THEY DO need some help. I wanted to throw in my 2 cents real quick because I know it’s only a matter of time before they get changed or fixed and I wanted others to see it from my perspective.

I enjoy playing ranger and have a lvl 80 ranger. I remember joining The Edge of the Mists, half a week ago and I couldn’t help but feel like I was… UNBEARABLY useless in any team fights. My pet was insta dead due to AOE’s and he/she wasn’t even in the fight yet, my damage was pathetic, and I had no crowd control besides my barrage which isn’t going to stop anyone from getting on top of you and to make matters worse had no flee’ing capabilities to escape once the enemy was. I just had to wave goodbye to my comrades with the convenient escape abilities and be bait. I think I just figured out what they’re good at! Dying and Baiting!

Now, I want to get into another topic. This time I want to talk about spirits and traps.

Traps – I understand how traps work, they are barely convenient and can be sort of helpful; however, in wvw they do not contribute enough damage or cc for a fight. To add, when these traps are triggered they cannot make game changes in a fight. To finish with traps, I am ok with a few ranger skills being traps… Ahem, wouldn’t mind if they removed them completely; however, since it is a ranger class and traps are bound to stay I think they should remove most of the traps and have only 2-3.

Spirits – Now onto spirits. WHY?! They contribute nothing astonishing to a team fight and are dumbed with health and aoe utility. In my opinion, DESTROY them and remove them from the game. Rangers should be long range assassins and not be in the “middle” of a team fight placing spirits. I thought they used a bow, not scepter and focus. Same goes for traps.

Pet A.I. – Not much needs to be said here. Everyone is already talking about it.

Now if anyone disagrees with my reply just understand now that this is a personal opinion from my personal hands on experience with this class.

This is all I can think of right now but if more comes to mind I will be sure to edit this post.

[Edit] I just read Atherakhia’s post. I have to agree with his last 3 paragraphs.

“Before we worry about crunching numbers or fixing traits though, this class doesn’t even have the basic tools to keep it a contender in this game.
It needs some form of burst.
It needs some form of AE.
It needs F2 responsiveness.
It needs pets to work in larger group settings.
No reason to even worry about how half the traits are awful or how the vast majority of our utility skills aren’t worth using until you invest 30 into a tree until the class itself has the tools it needs to function.”

I agree with his entire reply but these last 3 paragraphs couldn’t be more true!

I think it is debatable that SB needed a nerf. Still, I find it silly that I can throw an axe or dagger further than SB range.

At minimum SB should be able to be traited to 1200 units.

I agree with a lot of the things you say Crispy, but the Bows needs to be changed. Maybe they don’t need to be an insta-win weapons but as it is now is just silly.
You yourself say longbow should be a sniping weapon only and switched out of should that condition change. Why is it then that Rapid Fire (which does even less damage than the AA) impede movement, the centric idea of combat? Isn’t less damage already a punishment for using the weapon out of ideal or specialized circumstances? If so, why does that skill fail even more so at longer ranges as well, making it always bad to use? Why is it even there then? Why does this supposedly specialized sniping weapon fail to hit long range on anything moving slightly off a strait course? Why does every skill on the shortbow apart from the AA deal terrible damage and still have terrible utility? That sacrifice isn’t enough? Why can I not reflex dodge on sword simply because of the lazy development that didn’t bother to change the skill after the knockback was removed(answered my own question)? Why does Axe have such pathetic damage? Because it can hit 3 targets or even the same one twice? Cleave hit 3 targets. Should I be punished for not hitting the same target twice when doing so would mean I was already out-numbered?

I could keep going but the fact is that even starting with bows, my alternate weapons which I should be encouraged to switch two are almost all just as impeded by silly short comings as the bows. You say compressing rapid fire’s damage would be akin to compressing hundred blades…really? Really? No. Topping it all off, why the hell is my slow firing, power sniping weapon (as you call it) have a skill that just aimlessly fires tons of arrows? That’s what the Shortbow is for. Was that all they could come up with? “Rapid Fire: Simulate shooting a Shortbow for several seconds while moving much slower.” Just No. No.

Hell, a lot of the problem is also from a lack of actual utility from both traits and utility skills AND the pet. The whole thing we call Ranger needs complete re-development because you cannot honestly sit there and tell me tweak this, tweak that (akin to “balancing”) when every single thing is so ridiculously out of sync or focus.

Castaliea.3156:

Hell, a lot of the problem is also from a lack of actual utility from both traits and utility skills AND the pet. The whole thing we call Ranger needs complete re-development because you cannot honestly sit there and tell me tweak this, tweak that (akin to “balancing”) when every single thing is so ridiculously out of sync or focus.

I like this last paragraph and AGREE 100%! Ranger needs to be completely remade.

I like the idea of fire, poison, ice arrows. I was expecting this when I looked into the ranger but was disappointed by “spirits” and “traps”!

I like the idea of pets but if they are going to reduce MY damage I would rather not have them at all.

yup. rangers need a complet remake. optional pets, 5 traps in a kit, remake of spirits (they should work as guardians f1-3), weapon remakes. no root for ss, decent dmg, aoe, cc for other weapons, less selfish utilitys, real shout skills and good traits. now we need to spend 30 points in any trait if we want to use any skills…

That should be on the CDI post.

Choose 1

A. Have use of a pet but lose 30% damage for your Ranger
B. Stow pet and get full damage for your Ranger

Answer should also clarify what game play IE PvE, Dungeons, PvP, WvW

Choice man, it’s all about choice. Why not give Rangers the choice to use a pet or not?

My own patch-note - part1: power weapon skills

From a spvp perspective.

GS :
#1 Remove evade from 3rd strike, add opening strike to ur pet
- Fenrir mentions that removing the evade from auto would hurt zerging fights.
#2 If the target is dazed/stunned, will do a short knock-down, slight radius buff
#3 Add a short-evade
#4 Speed-up and add evade to the counter-attack frame
#5 Blast finisher

LB :
#1 Improve missile speed, add vulnerabilty
#2 New one - sniper shotS: works like mesmer GS#3(which also need love:p); SOLID dmg, small targeted area, remove 3 boons, tweak CD (LB need a rewarding skillshot, please!)
#3 Unblockable if the target is ’vulnerable’
#4 Charging shot - the longer the better dmg / KB
#5 Allow movement, reduce channeling time, tweak numbers

1hSword:
#2 Allow animation canceling from 1st strike (also affects the dodge part obv) by tapping the key again, remove cripple from 2nd strike and add a 1sec immo(already got crip from #1)
#3 Fix the animation so it matches the evade time

OH-Axe:
#4 Improve missile speed
#5 Allow movement, reduce channeling time, tweak numbers/cd

i’m so excited about the cdi and “awesome things for rangers” patch coming soon!

Swagger.1459:

i’m so excited about the cdi and “awesome things for rangers” patch coming soon!

“soon”

….need I say more?

i hope they finally really look at the ranger and its issues, is my main and all but i just dont enjoy it. Bad signets, bad skills overall, pet just so many thing. Shortbow and greatsword are my 2 favorite guns, shortbow been the first due to speed so i hope they give something more to the shortbow, more damage for power builds or i dont know. Lets hope this time is not just like the aquaman patch lol