Guild Wars 2

SB #1 blled needs to work any position. In fact should bleed more than once. SB should also be able to be traited to 1200 range.

Idea: remove barrage and add a preparation. Something like ignite arrows from gw1. Add a little extra aoe dmg to each shot. In 1v1 it wont make the lb OP but image 4-5 rangers with piercing arrows+preparation while shooting a zerg with rapid fire.

First of potentially many post on idea I had been toying around with for a while now.

1- Spirits
I think that spirit need some thing a bit extra in there design as they have a lack of unique identity. As I understand it spirits are mostly cast right before and engagement and with the summon cast time are a bit of pain in pace of combat.

So to address this I was thinking that there should be an effect that goes off at the end of the cast that would encourage the ranger to use the spirit and it summoning in a more tactical way. With the second and a half cast time there would be count play as the ranger ‘glows’ spirit related colors during summoning. So think encourages additional need for timely well thought out interrupts, like do I want to let that ranger get out that spirit or should I save it for the heal that will be coming soon.

Spirit of Nature: after the cast completes X condition are cleanse around the ranger.
Spirit of Water: after the cast complete heal the ranger and the pet for X or perhaps a brief non-regeneration heal over time.
Storm Spirit: Not sure what else to do besides a call lightning effect (lightning as a effect group is kind of odd at best)
Stone Spirit: Also not sure if a repeat of quicksand is a good after cast finish as that style effect is very prevalent on the ranger right now.\
Sun Spirit: after the cast complete perhaps a small aoe bit of damage and a pbaoe blind.
Frost Spirit after the cast complete grants Frost Armor for x seconds.

Secondly I was thinking that the spirits could use a bit more buffing potential in the form of the both a proc on hit mechanic that we already see on all but the elite and a passive while the spirit lives like the elite currently has.

Spirit of Nature add a % chance proc on hit to transfer a condition to the target hit. Place an appropriate internal cool down and it shouldn’t be too strong.
Spirit of Water: (water being a limited effect) may have to pulse a brief regeneration boon. (alternatively it provide a buff to healing power and/or boon duration instead)
Storm Spirit: Redesign the proc to stack vulnerability on hit and have it pulse swiftness
Stone Spirit: (earth is a bit limited in effect range like water) So I am not sure what to pulse (there is falling back on the idea of buffing vitality and/or toughness of those nearby)
Sun Spirit: Added pulsing small amount of might (short duration)
Frost Spirit: pulsing frost armor (short durations moderate interval might work)

Without Barrage, LB would hardly used in these zergfights when NPCs die faster than spawning… This is our only way with the bow to get the loot, even if its just Junk.
(Why can’t they accept RNG is Broken?…nvm)

Pet bonuses from stats are different. If you go 30 into BM your pet gains extra 1500 hp not 3000

Chrispy.5641:

from this thread :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/3667926

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

whether they specifically reference this thread/other threads or not, the influence was obviously felt, since this has long been a complaint from many, many, many posters in these forums.

Cool. Once they get that done they can give me a keybind for active/guard. I’m still mistified on how this has not been implemented… “OH NO!! Using F1-F5!? TOO MANY BUTTONS FOR NOOBS!” So, we are stuck with having to mouse that button. I play with a Nostromo and Naga and keybinding that wouldn’t be an issue for me and I think I’m far from the only person using products such as these that would have the ability to keybind active/passive control on the pet… Then again it might go back to that Dev who said during a STOG interview they don’t want us to have more control over the pet because it’d scare away the ’tardds from the Ranger.

Chrispy.5641:

from this thread :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/3667926

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

whether they specifically reference this thread/other threads or not, the influence was obviously felt, since this has long been a complaint from many, many, many posters in these forums.

unfortunately this is still useless. Until they get the pets to actually be able to hit moving targets and until they can get pets to avoid area effect, effectively keeping them alive for something longer then 2 seconds in WvW Zerg, this ability is USELESS and a waste of time. This solves NOTHING for us at all because the pet can’t make contact with moving targets. We are still at a DPS loss, we are still handicapped until they either fix the pet correctly or remove the stupid thing from the game!

Why do ranger’s have to be penalized with pets? Do thiefs have to wait 60 seconds to restealth if they failed at stealthing? Do warriors have to wait 60 seconds to use an adrenaline move if they failed to make contact with their adrenaline attack? Does any class have to wait 60 seconds to use their class mechanic if they failed using it? No, but ranger’s have to wait 60 seconds to use their class mechanic if we fail to keep the pet alive.

Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage due to poor AI? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being up on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being on the ground while your on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage during the ENTIRE zerg battle in WvW? No, only ranger’s have to live with this handicap.

This update for the f2 is an attempt to quite the masses as ‘look, we’re working on it’ but in reality it does NOTHING for helping us with our core issues! If they where serious about working on pet’s they wouldn’t have wasted their time on this and they would have been finding a way to make pet attack connect with their targets. I still say if they can’t get pets to connect with their targets and avoid area effect’s then they should just remove the pets and give the DPS back to the ranger until they can actually get pets to work correctly, which probably won’t happen for another 3 years from the speed I see ANet working on this class.

In all honesty I have very little faith that pets will ever be unbound. And I don’t mind that. I would however like, the very least, some changes to the current proffession skills (pet control F1-F4) by combining some of them as listed below:

F1 – Attack & Guard
F2 – Pet skill
F3 – Return to me & Avoid combat (while in combat) / Stow (while out of combat)
F4 – Swap

I don’t get why we got a proffession skill with no key assigned which you gotta click if you need it when they can be easily integrated in other proffession skills they are already similar if not identical to (at least to me).

If anyone is unclear with what I’m trying to say here let me know and I’ll try to explain it better…hopefully that’s not the case.

Now, about the ranger itself. The official ANET description of the ranger is:
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

As it stands, Ranger is currently the least adaptable of all proffessions. Rangers are very situational, which is why all the hate of other players towards them.

Unparalleled archers, again, they are not. I could see a big improvement in longbow if Barrage were changed so that you can move while casting it, for example. Also, I’d like it to add Weakness on hit besides Cripple.

Shouts are sub-par compared to their counterparts from Warrior/Guardian through their effects, let alone their unusually long cooldowns.

What other proffession requires you to go 30 points into a traitline until their own signets affect them?

Traps… I’d like to see a shorter cooldown on Frost Trap. Maybe 5s cooldown reduction.

There’s so many things to be said, so many things to add but everytime we try I get the feeling that our doleances aren’t getting through, so most people just quit the class alltogether.

One last thing, I’d like to see more access to other conditions, like torment, weakness for the weapons we have, or why not, in the future…access to more weapons (ie. dagger main-hand, sword off-hand)

I don’t know why they didn’t go the WoW route with pets in the beginning and made them take like 90% less damage from all AOE. Such a simple solution. That literally solved a huge portion of Hunter problems there, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t do the same here.

The ONE change the dev listed isn’t going to be the only change. And it’s far from a useless one. It’s welcome (albeit a little late) and surely won’t fix the pet altogether but it will improve gameplay. It’s not helpful to downplay the little improvements we get. Most of what we are talking about here are little changes that will add up to dramatic quality of life improvements.

Keeping expectations low, Lobo, is a good idea.

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

Akisame.9508:

Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage due to poor AI? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being up on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being on the ground while your on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage during the ENTIRE zerg battle in WvW? No, only ranger’s have to live with this handicap.

Mesmer’s and their clones are not in a much better position…
I kill mesmer’s clone with my fire trap :o effectively taking off a big chunk of it’s DPS… And clones are useless in themselves, only use fotr them is through F1-F4, and they die so fast in some settings that they are next to useless I’d even say more than pets in WvW, cause at least I can try to avoid melee and AoE to keep my pet alife and use it’s special ability, I can Use a shout to keep it off the battlefield – though loosing DPS, I’d gain support… They cant’t send their phantasms and clones away to still benefit from them…
Even ranger’s untrainted spirits give more advantages in a siege fight that memser’s clones…

I’m not saying we are in a good spot, but we are not the only class who’s class special ability is useless in bus… If mesmer didn’t have portal/veil/time warp, they’d be pretty much where we are at…

Back to ranger :
I do not feel like our damage is the problem (except on GS AA). Overall, it’s ok… I feel that the problem is that developers so much wanted the ranger to have a synergy with the pet, that it’s blocking us in too many areas…
I do not feel that the pet in itself is holding us behind – though I agree that pet is the problem.
Removing some traits specific on the pet, to make them more team friendly would go a long way. Beastmasters traits should go with pets, that’s a given, but other traits in other branches, such as “critical hits grant XYZ to your pet” should be “to your pet and allies”.
+ none of our skills should apply its effect to the pet only.
EG: shouts : pets get to do something, master gets advantage, traits allows for advantage to be shared with team
signet – untraited, apply to ranger, traited (in adept) to the pet; traited (in GM) half of their active effect apply to allies…

But, more skills should affect the pet also – in terms of the synergy… Like traps, it can be that poison trap heals the pet, spike gives it swiftness, ice gives it quickness, and so on.

Just plain taking the pet off and giving us the damage cannot work without a great rework of the class – because most traits are based on the pet being there… If I wanted to play an ranged class with no pet, I would take a petless class. Lots of work needs to be done to make ai-based classes viable in large-scale fights… for me, the first step to do that is to give those classes some ways to not have to rely too much on AI.

The big pet changes I’m going to be gunning hardest for in this upcoming CDI discussion are massive improvements in attack accuracy. The first two are the primary changes I want to see.

“10 second cooldown Long-range distance closer skill added to all melee pets.” (Anti-kiting utility, just as any melee character has to have to succeed in this game.) Ie. a charge covering approximately the same range as the greatsword 3 swoop skill.

“200 unit range pounce/teleport effect added to the auto attack on melee pets to include a that pulls them into the closest range of the enemy character model center” (This while functioning as a partial distance closer is mainly to help quell the “Stop to attack at maximum range” issue that make the pets so susceptible to side-steps. You shouldn’t be able to dodge so many pet attacks just by means of holding down your a,d keys for half a second.) This attack would effectively pull them straight into absolute point blank range before their auto attack goes off, rather than having them auto attack from the maximum possible range.

I will hammering for BOTH to be added, not one or the other. Because again, they each answer to different issues. The first one enables pets to deal with the kiting eles, mesmers, (ironically rangers), bow spam warriors and other challenges they face where distance creator skills are frequently used in the same way any melee build character has skills to counter these. This is NOT overpowering them, it’s simply equipping them with the tools to do a job they are unfairly expected to accomplish at the current time.

The auto-attack pounce is because I perceive there will probably be some technical issues cited defending a potential inability to “make pets able to move and attack simultaneously”. If this is technically unfeasible with the animations system/massive AI overhaul that takes months… then this can be added in as little as one month and function as a reach around to enable melee pets to effectively land more hits.

The two others I want to see happen:

Cleaving effect added to ALL melee pets. I know some rangers are going to whine about this making the drake seem less special, but this is one of the effects that play a key role in making pets already highly telegraphed and predictable attacks less vulnerable to players mindlessly smash a,d keys while auto attacking. Other classes get a lot of mileage out of their auto attacks, in time we got ours. Since our pet plays a roll in that, it needs to contribute much more than it currently does.

Massive increase in projectile speed of all ranged pet’s attacks. These skills already have a very highly telegraphed build up, medium-slow projectile speed is simply unfeasible.

*Please note that I’d still like to see pets/pet to ranger damage ratios as an optional, rather than a forced decision if possible. These are merely suggestions to make pets viable and contribute the damage that they are already expected to contribute but fail to do so due to mechanical issues. *

The Spiral King.2483:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

as long as pets’ responsive and survival not improve, the entire beastmaster trait is almost worth nothing. and shout need to redesign not reduce cd.

spirit active skills
despite the spirits’ survival problem, their active skills also annoying.
It is hard to control spirits’ active skills since you can’t pinpoint their location in order to cast their skills. even with traited spirit it is just too hard to do it.
I suggest make their active skills can be ground target, like barrage, and reduce their casting time to 1/2 second

The Spiral King.2483:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

Oh wow…

Those are all really kind of not good, like, at all. It’s hard to believe the devs are even playing the same class as us if these are the types of changes they are considering.

Honestly, until the devs realize that power builds won’t be nearly as strong as they should be without the ability to remove protection (and regen and etc), then the only thing updates like this do is increase a players ability to kill trash mobs in PvE.

Until the devs realize that every single PvP and non-zerg build (if you are building intelligently/efficiently and not running glass. I consider glass a zerg build though so yeah) is going to run Empathic Bond for condition removal because the rest of the options for removal are ineffective, there won’t be any build diversity.

Kudos for them at least trying to improve pet responsiveness (I won’t believe it til I see it). Maybe now I won’t break my keyboard every time I want my pet to do their F2 skill exactly at the right moment I need them to (normally I have to F3 then F2, but that method isn’t as instantaneous as I need it to be).

Those types of notes (assuming they are accurate, which the ones I’ve seen usually are) are clear indicators of why we need the devs to actually read threads like these and interact with us, which hasn’t happened so far, so hopefully the CDI will force the necessary communication through.

Saw this on a suposed upcoming patch note site… no idea if its troll or not but if longbow realy gets a 33% chance to proc might on critical hit i easily see myself running that weapon as a BM might stacking build

183.
Marksmanship III—Keen Edge: This trait is now listed as a Survival skill.

184.
Marksmanship VIII—Piercing Arrows: This trait no longer affects Hunter’s Shot.

185.
Marksmanship X—Eagle Eye: This trait now grants a 33% chance on critical hit with a Longbow to gain one stack of might for 10 seconds.

186.
Marksmanship XII—Remorseless: This trait now also grants opening strike to your pet if they gain stealth.

187.
Skirmishing 5—Tail Wing: This trait now grants 9 seconds of swiftness, up from 5 seconds.

188.
Skirmishing IX—Honed Axes: This trait now reduces the recharge time on main hand axe skills by 20%.

189.
Skirmishing XII—Moment of Clarity: This trait now applies the Moment of Clarity effect to you and your pet on interrupt and now grants 200% damage on the next attack, up from 150%. This trait is now able to stack with the Attack of Opportunity effect for a total of 250% damage. This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.

I still think a chance to gain might on critical with longbow is nice… however that should be a 100% to begin with.

Likely ill run 30 20 0 0 20 after patch for constant 10 vuln stack every 12 second and if i add in rapid fire we might even get a 20 :P

kyubi.3620:

I still think a chance to gain might on critical with longbow is nice… however that should be a 100% to begin with

LOL, what? You would get 25 stacks of might and maintain 25 stacks of might, whenever you use barrage on a group of enemies in zerker gear. thats too powerful.

besides, you should get some nice big might stacks if you combine this trait together with this sigil:::
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Strength

Chrispy.5641:

kyubi.3620:

I still think a chance to gain might on critical with longbow is nice… however that should be a 100% to begin with

LOL, what? You would get 25 stacks of might and maintain 25 stacks of might, whenever you use barrage on a group of enemies in zerker gear. thats too powerful.

besides, you should get some nice big might stacks if you combine this trait together with this sigil:::
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Strength

Yea but i think they should just reduce the duration and give it a better happening percentage instead. While this effect do make using longbow rapidfire and barrage somewhat worthwhile you wont proc it more then once every 3 strike or about and beside those two cooldown longbow is a very slow weapon. I aprove on pet regaining oppening strike on stealth however

They seriously need to add in a buff to eagle eye trait… in addition, give SB +300 range… make it a 1200 weapon + bleeds from any position, than im considering it as a serious option… right now hardly anyone uses it…

Seriously, this a RANGER. and ALL the bows have no viability other than stay at range and just press 1 over and over and over.

jcbroe.4329:

The Spiral King.2483:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

Oh wow…

Those are all really kind of not good, like, at all. It’s hard to believe the devs are even playing the same class as us if these are the types of changes they are considering.

Honestly, until the devs realize that power builds won’t be nearly as strong as they should be without the ability to remove protection (and regen and etc), then the only thing updates like this do is increase a players ability to kill trash mobs in PvE.

Until the devs realize that every single PvP and non-zerg build (if you are building intelligently/efficiently and not running glass. I consider glass a zerg build though so yeah) is going to run Empathic Bond for condition removal because the rest of the options for removal are ineffective, there won’t be any build diversity.

Kudos for them at least trying to improve pet responsiveness (I won’t believe it til I see it). Maybe now I won’t break my keyboard every time I want my pet to do their F2 skill exactly at the right moment I need them to (normally I have to F3 then F2, but that method isn’t as instantaneous as I need it to be).

Those types of notes (assuming they are accurate, which the ones I’ve seen usually are) are clear indicators of why we need the devs to actually read threads like these and interact with us, which hasn’t happened so far, so hopefully the CDI will force the necessary communication through.

I particularly enjoy the completely uncalled for Guard nerf and how it wrecks my build. kitten me for thinking out of the box trying to make a melee power build retain enough mobility, regen and condi removal and physical burst damage/CC to be viable at solo roaming right?

guard wasnt designed as a mean for self buff you know… i guess they just caugh on to how often it is easy to spam for shout procs and decided to nerf it. However we could use a major dps upgrade on our weaponry and puting pierce in the same traitline as invis reproc to opening strike is outright silly. whos gunna get piercing Arrow to begin with? just remove that trait from the game and give bow shot the ability to pierce by default like enginer do or merge it with the eagle eye trait.

kyubi.3620:

guard wasnt designed as a mean for self buff you know… i guess they just caugh on to how often it is easy to spam for shout procs and decided to nerf it. However we could use a major dps upgrade on our weaponry and puting pierce in the same traitline as invis reproc to opening strike is outright silly. whos gunna get piercing Arrow to begin with? just remove that trait from the game and give bow shot the ability to pierce by default like enginer do or merge it with the eagle eye trait.

So your saying Guard and shouts only purpose in existing should to be buff 30%- of your character that is tied down by bad AI, predictable attacks and a whole variety of other problems, and needs a GRANDMASTER trait to even be worth using at all? And without proper cooldown effectiveness, returns to being just another useless pet skill?

All the while your character’s cast/animation execution time on them exposing you to interrupts and attacks?

If that’s what you think shouts should be, then you go enjoy that. Because I guarantee shouts will return to the gutter of disuse they were at before Nature’s Voice made them viable if those changes are real.

Attacking various ranger survivability methods is NOT the answer to toning down easy mode condi spam and run bunker builds. Nerfing condition damage output is a much better solution. The level of survivability we can achieve is NOT the problem and still far, far less to what you can achieve passively on a warrior or actively playing skillfully on a thief.

And I seriously think you know nothing of what makes many of us use guard. Stealth, Protection and regneration on our pet ups its survival rate drastically which is a godsend in a world filled with massive cleave damage, AoE spam that is to poor AI controlled pets unavoidable (Engineer mines and grenades). In other words, nobody rolled with Guard just for the regen and swiftness or soldier rune condi remove alone. If that was all it dead, it wouldn’t of been worth the skill slot. It was for how these things could be added to a utility that effectively increases pet survivability by leaps and bounds. With a reduction in the effectiveness of these added perks, Guard simply doesn’t become worth it anymore. There are other, better, ways to get regeneration and increased speed.. involving runes and trait combos.. and you only need 15 in nature to share that with your pet.

I can’t see how you fail to understand just how bad and uncalled for this change really is, if it’s true. These nerfs to guard if real effectively delete it as a skill. It will again no longer have a place in any ranger build. And for no reason, it was not overpowered to begin with.

kyubi.3620:

Saw this on a suposed upcoming patch note site… no idea if its troll or not but if longbow realy gets a 33% chance to proc might on critical hit i easily see myself running that weapon as a BM might stacking build

183.
Marksmanship III—Keen Edge: This trait is now listed as a Survival skill.

184.
Marksmanship VIII—Piercing Arrows: This trait no longer affects Hunter’s Shot.

185.
Marksmanship X—Eagle Eye: This trait now grants a 33% chance on critical hit with a Longbow to gain one stack of might for 10 seconds.

186.
Marksmanship XII—Remorseless: This trait now also grants opening strike to your pet if they gain stealth.

187.
Skirmishing 5—Tail Wing: This trait now grants 9 seconds of swiftness, up from 5 seconds.

188.
Skirmishing IX—Honed Axes: This trait now reduces the recharge time on main hand axe skills by 20%.

189.
Skirmishing XII—Moment of Clarity: This trait now applies the Moment of Clarity effect to you and your pet on interrupt and now grants 200% damage on the next attack, up from 150%. This trait is now able to stack with the Attack of Opportunity effect for a total of 250% damage. This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.

I still think a chance to gain might on critical with longbow is nice… however that should be a 100% to begin with.

Likely ill run 30 20 0 0 20 after patch for constant 10 vuln stack every 12 second and if i add in rapid fire we might even get a 20 :P

-Marksmanship X

if u have ever played with http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forceful_Greatsword (ok only 5s might but 100%) u know that this trait isnt so good like it sound. esp if consider.. we have nearly no fury source outside of bugged trait and horn and the low speed of longbow.

- Skirmishing IX
doesnt make the weapon any better.

- Skirmishing XII
still bad. even the internal cd makes no sense. we have 1 interrupt on gs (25secs). maybe u are lucky and counter interrupts too (15secs). but i would not count for that. then u have 1 interrupt on short bow (25secs) and 1 on longbow ( 15secs).
all channel skills arent usefull. so u have only counter with (1.3) or maul with (1.5) on gs or axe 4 with ( 1.2) as somehow usefull skills that are worth using during 250% more dmg. but maul. good luck with that. counter needs a stupid enemy. all i see is maybe a few days where it will work as one trick pony against noobs. but honestly i dont need that, cause i can beat them atm too. this all doesnt make powerranger stronger in higher play.

- ur build will maybe work. but u loose the protection and only get 5s of vigor. so the mainproblem of powerranger is still the same.. not enough activedefense. nothing against condis. no real fury source. no usefull +dmg traits like 20% for ppl under 50% or such stuff.

on the same time they killed condi ranger without traps. ranger is the only class with not reliable condiapplication on autoattack + the worst trait for crit bleed procs.

oh and btw i hope u have read all and asp the massive buffs to engi and thief. have fun shooting a engi with magnetic aura 40% of the time. or good luck with hitting with maul on engi with a stunbreaker on 10s cooldown. good luck fighting an engi melee with 100% uptime of fireshield (gives might and burns). on thief with Deadly Arts VII—Improvisation i see a lot of maybe overperfoming builds. so u see even the slight buffs we get arent nearly as usefull as u think in the full picture.

Detharos.3157:

kyubi.3620:

guard wasnt designed as a mean for self buff you know… i guess they just caugh on to how often it is easy to spam for shout procs and decided to nerf it. However we could use a major dps upgrade on our weaponry and puting pierce in the same traitline as invis reproc to opening strike is outright silly. whos gunna get piercing Arrow to begin with? just remove that trait from the game and give bow shot the ability to pierce by default like enginer do or merge it with the eagle eye trait.

So your saying Guard and shouts only purpose in existing should to be buff 30%- of your character that is tied down by bad AI, predictable attacks and a whole variety of other problems, and needs a GRANDMASTER trait to even be worth using at all? And without proper cooldown effectiveness, returns to being just another useless pet skill?

All the while your character’s cast/animation execution time on them exposing you to interrupts and attacks?

If that’s what you think shouts should be, then you go enjoy that. Because I guarantee shouts will return to the gutter of disuse they were at before Nature’s Voice made them viable if those changes are real.

Attacking various ranger survivability methods is NOT the answer to toning down easy mode condi spam and run bunker builds. Nerfing condition damage output is a much better solution. The level of survivability we can achieve is NOT the problem and still far, far less to what you can achieve passively on a warrior or actively playing skillfully on a thief.

Also, you think those of us who use Guard are successful with it because of how it affects us? You are sorely mistaken. Its main use has and always will be strengthening the pet’s defenses, and now the frequency of that occurrence is down. If this the direction this company wants to go with rangers, then I have to demand that pets become optional.

Indeed the spell likely was designed that way. However i agree guard could use some buffing to compensate for the fact its only used as an ‘’condition clear and regeneration spam’’ utility. They need to make guard actualy worthwhile for the base purpose to begin with, like idk give pet retaliation and might stack gain for as long as he stand in his ’’guarded’’ area. Protect me simply put is a ‘’die for me’’ move and should be redesigned otherwise while Sic Em could use a increased attack speed buff to its effect. Btway i use Sic em in my build constantly despite the fact it is considered as ’’useless’’. Guard and protect me along with search and rescue however needs a beefing up. If SAR CD was reduced by 30 second and given to actualy work 100% of the time it would definitively become a must have in dungeon runs.

Ranger indeed should get some improved condition removal but i dont see it coming from our shouts.

The way that the eagle eye trait change is worded the might stacking would completely replace what the trait once did.

I wish Anet would give up on this mythical idea of a GS Maul build. Such a build doesn’t fit into anything, WvW, sPvP, PvE, and as a heavy burst style build, it is completely outdone by other classes such as Thieves/Warriors. It just wont work. Ever.

Best way to fix the class is to bring up its ability to kite, which would bring bows back into the picture. And the best way to do that would be to give the class some access to faster weapon swapping.

I.E. If the damage boost on moment of clarity was replaced by a weapon-swap reset when you interrupt.

It’s dumb that a Warrior can outdo a Ranger on the ranged kiting game simply by being able to swap to GS and spin away every 5s.

Changing the role of the pet

As it currently stands, we’re looking at roughly a 75/25 split in damage between ranger/pet.

This is a problem. A combination of poor pet AI, lagged f2 casting and generally defensively weak pets means that 25% of our damage is far too easy to disappear.
Rather than saying “oh just fix pet AI”, perhaps we need to take a step back and look at changing the role of the pet.

Proposal: what if the pet was made much weaker in terms of physical DPS, changing the ratio to around 90/10 or even 95/5, and instead shifting the pet focus to being a provider of boons and much more defensive?

The ranger itself would require a physical damage boost to fill in for the reduced pet damage, allowing us, the players, to take more control over our DPS. This is something desperately needed. The pet on the other hand would become more tanky and provide either multiple boons or single, strong boons depending on the pet.

Shifting the pets to a support-focus would not only increase their general usefulness and heavily reduce the need for improved AI (e.g. We’re not tearing our hair out because the fact that we need the jaguar to chase the target to provide damage no longer matters much), but it would also pave the way for more build diversity and a better role in dungeons.

Naturally this would require a re-work of some pet skills, and the replacement of some of the pets’ auto-chain damage-based skills with boons. General themes shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with (e.g. feline pets could have a might & fury-based boon set).

I think many who main the ranger profession (and who have done since launch) feel that a fairly substantial overhaul of the profession mechanics like this are going to be required to give the Ranger a positive perception amongst the GW2 community. ‘Till now, all we have seen from the devs (apart from unwarranted nerfs) is gimmicky, underwhelming buffs to particular skills and traits. There appears to be no recognition of what the players truly want to see changed, and it doesn’t help that the devs give absolutely no feedback as to why they have or haven’t included particular changes every patch.

kyubi.3620:

Detharos.3157:

kyubi.3620:

guard wasnt designed as a mean for self buff you know… i guess they just caugh on to how often it is easy to spam for shout procs and decided to nerf it. However we could use a major dps upgrade on our weaponry and puting pierce in the same traitline as invis reproc to opening strike is outright silly. whos gunna get piercing Arrow to begin with? just remove that trait from the game and give bow shot the ability to pierce by default like enginer do or merge it with the eagle eye trait.

So your saying Guard and shouts only purpose in existing should to be buff 30%- of your character that is tied down by bad AI, predictable attacks and a whole variety of other problems, and needs a GRANDMASTER trait to even be worth using at all? And without proper cooldown effectiveness, returns to being just another useless pet skill?

All the while your character’s cast/animation execution time on them exposing you to interrupts and attacks?

If that’s what you think shouts should be, then you go enjoy that. Because I guarantee shouts will return to the gutter of disuse they were at before Nature’s Voice made them viable if those changes are real.

Attacking various ranger survivability methods is NOT the answer to toning down easy mode condi spam and run bunker builds. Nerfing condition damage output is a much better solution. The level of survivability we can achieve is NOT the problem and still far, far less to what you can achieve passively on a warrior or actively playing skillfully on a thief.

Also, you think those of us who use Guard are successful with it because of how it affects us? You are sorely mistaken. Its main use has and always will be strengthening the pet’s defenses, and now the frequency of that occurrence is down. If this the direction this company wants to go with rangers, then I have to demand that pets become optional.

Indeed the spell likely was designed that way. However i agree guard could use some buffing to compensate for the fact its only used as an ‘’condition clear and regeneration spam’’ utility. They need to make guard actualy worthwhile for the base purpose to begin with, like idk give pet retaliation and might stack gain for as long as he stand in his ’’guarded’’ area. Protect me simply put is a ‘’die for me’’ move and should be redesigned otherwise while Sic Em could use a increased attack speed buff to its effect. Btway i use Sic em in my build constantly despite the fact it is considered as ’’useless’’. Guard and protect me along with search and rescue however needs a beefing up. If SAR CD was reduced by 30 second and given to actualy work 100% of the time it would definitively become a must have in dungeon runs.

Ranger indeed should get some improved condition removal but i dont see it coming from our shouts.

Look, I’m sorry for the rude tone I’ve been leaking out. (Especially having read this quotation after I edited my post to make it specifically more rude, which I now regret but am too lazy to edit out/cover up.

I’m just frustrated at this point that my build, which isn’t even OP in any sense of the term and already one in a million may be getting a massive nerf on account of what I know are tweaks meant to take condi builds down a notch. I just wish ArenaNet would address the mechanics that those builds have exclusively, rather than the same mechanics that we power builds are able to benefit from but get far less mileage out of.

hooma.9642:

… u know that this trait isnt so good like it sound. esp if consider.. we have nearly no fury source outside of bugged trait and horn and the low speed of longbow.

You dont have even slightest idea what you are talking about, do you ?
fyi rangers have top tier if not highest fury access across all classes;
Furious grip, Rampage as one, Call of he wild, Furious Screech, Beastmaster’s Bond

Furious grip alone is 50% uptime …

I’ve been working on some ranger trait suggestions for a while now and the leaked patchnotes (let them be real or not) wasn’t quite what I hoped for. I was planning on waiting and linking these suggestions to the ranger CDI thread, but as it got delayed (and delayed again), I’ll just link them here first. Check them out if you are interested!

Link to trait suggestions Warning: wall-of-text

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• More impactful & supportive grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

incoming change with next patch maybe.
decrease shortbow bleeding radius.

rly amazing things for ranger, i like to have zero bleeding in 1vs1.

Undertaker.7451:

hooma.9642:

… u know that this trait isnt so good like it sound. esp if consider.. we have nearly no fury source outside of bugged trait and horn and the low speed of longbow.

You dont have even slightest idea what you are talking about, do you ?
fyi rangers have top tier if not highest fury access across all classes;
Furious grip, Rampage as one, Call of he wild, Furious Screech, Beastmaster’s Bond

Furious grip alone is 50% uptime …

lol
- furious grip is bugged. it should 9 seconds.. 50% uptime only if u change your weaponsets as soon its recharged atm
- call of the wild is mentioned from me and only 1 weaponset.
- fs is a pet skill on a useless pet for a powerranger. knockdowns or immob. are more important than a useless pet + fury ( that maybe doesnt get applied to u)
- beastmaster bond is 10s on a 60s recharge and only if pet is nearly dying.. so another trait against the classmechanic.. u find that good?
- rampage as one is a elite.

- so yeah we only have rampage as one as only build unrelated fury source
- except warhorn and rampage we have no on-demand fury. yeah u could start your fight with the wrong weaponset for buggy furious grip. but thats not possible in all situations.

maybe u should stop looking just wiki for counting fury sources and hear more to players that gathered some experience.

Oidmetala.8426:

incoming change with next patch maybe.
decrease shortbow bleeding radius.

rly amazing things for ranger, i like to have zero bleeding in 1vs1.

i know its sarcasm but the leaked patch note are indeed sad. good bye last viable build (spirit ranger)

Every “buff” they’ve ever done has been about trading dps for “survivability.” This has led to the prevalence of the spirit master builds or pet builds. Now that the pet builds have all been killed off, no wonder that spirit rangers are so prevalent.

I want to know why they are so content with leaving bows at such a bad place dps/condition wise, while at the same time providing an absolute laundry list of trait almost needed to even make them viable. ie: MM bow traits need consolidation, not potency improvements!

Potency improvements on the bows, consolidation on the MM bow traits.

Don’t get your hopes up. Leaked patch notes have ranger nerfs

Sanduskel.1850:

Do t get your hopes up. Leaked patch notes have ranger nerfs

Yea, I like how if those are correct they have traded an increase of damage on longbow for might stacking which can be stripped and removed the increase of range making the shortbow range vs longbow range argument obsolete by removing the added range as an idea altogether. sarcasm That’s totally how we wanted shortbow to feel improved.

Miflett.3472:

Sanduskel.1850:

Do t get your hopes up. Leaked patch notes have ranger nerfs

Yea, I like how if those are correct they have traded an increase of damage on longbow for might stacking which can be stripped and removed the increase of range making the shortbow range vs longbow range argument obsolete by removing the added range as an idea altogether. sarcasm That’s totally how we wanted shortbow to feel improved.

hasnt u seen how they fixed the firerate with engi turrets? they just changed the description.

thefantasticg.3984:

If I want to do damage on my Ranger the GS is never a viable option. Period.

It was an option during the BWEs, until Anet destroyed greatsword skill #1 with a 50% damage nerf “Because it was too good with 100% faster speed quickness and old RaO” They nerfed the last two, too, but never bothered giving back a much needed damage boost on the Gs.

Lévis.5489:

thefantasticg.3984:

If I want to do damage on my Ranger the GS is never a viable option. Period.

It was an option during the BWEs, until Anet destroyed greatsword skill #1 with a 50% damage nerf “Because it was too good with 100% faster speed quickness and old RaO” They nerfed the last two, too, but never bothered giving back a much needed damage boost on the Gs.

And now they’re nerfing Martial Mastery, so now we won’t be able to use all of those lovely skills as much. It’s like Anet is just throwing darts at a board instead of actually playing the class through all the content. Get an intern if you have to Anet, you don’t have to pay interns anything!

Just a heads up, Allie made a statement that the linked notes that people have started to discuss are fakes. Something that hasn’t been done in the past with notes that turned out to be true.

So it probably doesn’t have any merit to continue discussing them.

jcbroe.4329:

Just a heads up, Allie made a statement that the linked notes that people have started to discuss are fakes. Something that hasn’t been done in the past with notes that turned out to be true.

So it probably doesn’t have any merit to continue discussing them.

If we continue to discuss them, real or not, Anet might have to lock this thread, which I’m sure that none of us want to happen. Aside from that…

Taushullu.6180:

I’ve been working on some ranger trait suggestions for a while now and the leaked patchnotes (let them be real or not) wasn’t quite what I hoped for. I was planning on waiting and linking these suggestions to the ranger CDI thread, but as it got delayed (and delayed again), I’ll just link them here first. Check them out if you are interested!

Link to trait suggestions Warning: wall-of-text

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• More impactful & supportive grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

I looked at it, and, I don’t like it. I automatically don’t like any suggestion that removes Nature’s Wrath as a trait.

Chrispy.5641:

jcbroe.4329:

Just a heads up, Allie made a statement that the linked notes that people have started to discuss are fakes. Something that hasn’t been done in the past with notes that turned out to be true.

So it probably doesn’t have any merit to continue discussing them.

If we continue to discuss them, real or not, Anet might have to lock this thread, which I’m sure that none of us want to happen. Aside from that…

Taushullu.6180:

I’ve been working on some ranger trait suggestions for a while now and the leaked patchnotes (let them be real or not) wasn’t quite what I hoped for. I was planning on waiting and linking these suggestions to the ranger CDI thread, but as it got delayed (and delayed again), I’ll just link them here first. Check them out if you are interested!

Link to trait suggestions Warning: wall-of-text

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• More impactful & supportive grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

I looked at it, and, I don’t like it. I automatically don’t like any suggestion that removes Nature’s Wrath as a trait.

They did make one good suggestion at least though, replacing crappy downed state quickness with pet gaining aegis on dodge roll. I’d much rather it just cause a flat out evade for the pet though.

I’m not an expert ranger by any means but I really agree on the fact that the pet AI should be enhanced to hit accurately. Longbow need a buff in term of burst since dpswise it’s fine.

Barrage replace #2 functionality changed : shoot arrows at the target and up to 4 foes near it (radius the same as old barrage) 6 sec cool down 0.8 ratio.

That would mean that over the course of 30 sec, a longbow ranger would be able to use 5 aoe attacks for total damage approaching old barrage.

Rapid Fire replace #5 : fire 5 arrows in rapid succession at your foe, each one apply 3 stack of vulnerability. 20 sec cool down 2 sec channel time 4 total ratio.

The longbow get the needed burst ability dealing two time the damage you would with auto attacks, plus an increase in sustained damage after that thanks to the vulnerability.

Somehow nearly all the games with specified Bow-user class (aka "unparelled archers) have strong burst, and none of them complained about the range advantage, which almost not exists when the AI isn’t that easy to exploit (even if the player’s are so chained not to do so…)

Most of the games allow us to fire mutch mutch faster, and the projectiles are nearly instant. So its not trouble for them…

jcbroe.4329:

Just a heads up, Allie made a statement that the linked notes that people have started to discuss are fakes. Something that hasn’t been done in the past with notes that turned out to be true.

So it probably doesn’t have any merit to continue discussing them.

lol, oh boy I hope they know what a can of worms they opened up by doing that. Now we can just assume leaks are real unless they explicitly say they aren’t.

lack of stability boon support
comaring with other professions, rangers have very poor abilities to support them with stability boon, which is rather vital to pve and pvp situation.

the only reliable resource is elite skill rampage as one, which has 2 minutes cool down. doesn’t cope frequent use.

the other one, signet of wild, provide considerable boon duration and cd, but sadly, it requires the marksman XI , which limit the build selection to rangers.

considering stability is a very important boon that for players to cope both pvp and pve situations. please provide certain skills to provide rangers sensible stability.

sigil of the wild should work both rangers and pets as default setting, not be traited
pets and rangers, not doubt, ranger is the main part of this profession. but funny thing is: without marksman XI, rangers cannot enjoy most of sigils’ active effect. this is a very broken setting and I cannot understand, way in order to use a signet’s active effect, rangers has to sacrifice lots of choice to get marksman XI? rangers’ traits doesn’t have too many choice, and this setting does make the situation worse.

I suggest, make marksman XI as a default setting of all signets, or at least, make it works for rangers, then traited to affect pets, no one way around.

The Spiral King.2483:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

According to Dulfy those notes are fake. The poster just took the currently known changes to make them look legit and made up the rest.

Aveneo.2068:

The Spiral King.2483:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Let’s hope that CDI works. Otherwise, we may be in trouble.

According to Dulfy those notes are fake. The poster just took the currently known changes to make them look legit and made up the rest.

Not just dulfy, Anet personally stated those notes were fake, something they have never done before now. Meaning it’s most likely fake.