Guild Wars 2

@jcbroe – yeah that was a bit overboard, but in general i mean “give us something meaningful on that active”. I myself wonder what it should be. Once i brainstorm something meaningful i’ll drop suggestions here. for now i’m brainstorming;)

I don’t even have a ranger alt.

But I support buffing rangers. It seems like the first of many issues that need to be addressed, but the first regardless.

#buffrangers2014

Ok, after little brainstorming i had few ideas, but they were already in traits in one form or the other…so why not just alter signet of hunt active a bit:

For next 10 seconds all your pet’s non critical attacks do 50% more damage.

I think that would be epic and non game breaking. If your pet is a zerker (or you with signet of beastmater trait) you won’t get much, because crits will not get the boost and by default each crit will be at least as strong as attack of opportunity.

But less critical oriented builds would get a nice damage boost, one that would earn a place in their skillbar, where zerks would normally put some defensive skill. Plus i feel rangers should get more crit buffs then most. This not being one, but a nice way to have damage without going balls to the wall on precision and critical damage (or soon to replacement).

Good read, thanks for your efforts. I do appreciate what you are trying to do, but I remain very pessimistic that you will actually get a response. I actually use to try to drum up attention for this class that I want so badly to love…. I even wrote this over 6 months ago that contains some of the same things you discuss: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions

I never got a dev response, and while we did get a blast finisher after that post (and several others on the ranger forum), noting else has been touched. I have essentially given up on the class and moved on, but if you can get some traction at overhauling the pet part of this class so that we are not so severely handicapped I would come back to the ranger class and forum in a heartbeat. Keep up the good fight.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Ok, after little brainstorming i had few ideas, but they were already in traits in one form or the other…so why not just alter signet of hunt active a bit:

For next 10 seconds all your pet’s non critical attacks do 50% more damage.

I think that would be epic and non game breaking. If your pet is not a zerker (or you with signet of beastmater trait) you won’t get much, because crits will not get the boost and by default each crit will be at least as strong as attack of opportunity.

But less critical oriented builds would get a nice damage boost, one that would earn a place in their skillbar, where zerks would normally put some defensive skill. Plus i feel rangers should get more crit buffs then most. This not being one, but a nice way to have damage without going balls to the wall on precision and critical damage (or soon to replacement).

That’s a really interesting idea and I think it would create some unique builds and gearing options that would work to separate the ranger from other professions.

It reminds me of the old Read the Wind preparation from Guild Wars 1, which makes me like it that much more lol.

Good suggestion!

Khayoss.2019:

Good read, thanks for your efforts. I do appreciate what you are trying to do, but I remain very pessimistic that you will actually get a response. I actually use to try to drum up attention for this class that I want so badly to love…. I even wrote this over 6 months ago that contains some of the same things you discuss: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions

I never got a dev response, and while we did get a blast finisher after that post (and several others on the ranger forum), noting else has been touched. I have essentially given up on the class and moved on, but if you can get some traction at overhauling the pet part of this class so that we are not so severely handicapped I would come back to the ranger class and forum in a heartbeat. Keep up the good fight.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate :/

There are a lot of people who started off as ranger mains that put in lots of time and effort trying to theorycraft and perfect the best builds, as well as being constructive and analyzing the class, who just aren’t around anymore either do to switching professions or leaving the game entirely.

So I’m glad you’re still around and can offer other reference threads and support! The least we can do as players is offer up our honest opinions, criticisms, and analyses, and hope that the effort pays off at some point.

@Everyone;

I appreciate seeing the discussions and support taking place in this thread. Hopefully we can keep the constructive ideas flowing and the conversation going (I rhymed on purpose because reasons lol).

Another problem that people are forgetting about, including myself is that with all these new armor set’s, other classes are gaining in strength. Our pet’s do not gain anything at all from this new armor. Because of this our 30% damage from pet is getting worse because it’s not getting buffed like all the other classes are, only the 70% from the ranger is getting buffed. This again is another handicap that ranger’s have to deal with because of pets. Before ANet does anything with fields and healing and all this crap, they need to fix pets! It’s inability to hit moving targets and the fact that they are becoming stagnant through the times while everyone else is gaining power and damage from new gear.

Good observation there Akisame!

Oh and i made obvious mistake in my last post – that signet active benefits those who are not zerks, while zerks wouldn’t get much of it (fixed that already in original post). It would also give rangers (unless devs think otherwise) an edge in destroying any structures – 50% damage buff that works vs structures.

I also believe that attacks of opportunity we have now (trait one, hilt bash one) should work with crits and the signet one multiplicatively – so ranger, his pet or both, can get a big juicy hit once in a while if they work for it with hilt bash, or interrupt a foe with that grandmaster trait on.

Speaking of which – it’s terrible. Moment of clarity is some sort of mistake. Ranger has got to have one of the worst if not the worst interrupt moves of all professions:

1. greatsword 5: hilt bash – one of the few usable ones…but it already gives attack of opportunity
2. offhand axe – #4: path of scars (pull) – not gonna happen – pull activates waaayy to late to sucessfully react with it to anything that does not have few seconds wind-up.
3. greatsword 4: counerattack – not an interrupt. It pushes back after blocking the attack, so the attack is already done and not interrupted.
4. wolf pet skill – once every 45 secs, and one and a half second windup.
5 hyena knockdown – it’s not under player’s direct control, just gotta hope it happens.
6. bow interrupts are fine…but do they have anything meaningful to take advantage of that attack of opportunity save longbow auto?

Long story short – it sucks.

Yeah, Moment of Clarity seems like a leftover relic from when rangers were being ported from guild wars 1 where there was an interrupt build that was part of every GvG metagame.

However, at some point during development, interrupts were decided to really just not be as big of a part of rangers repertoire as other skill, but the trait was never really changed or removed.

Speculation aside, I have suggested multiple times since launch day the the trait be removed or changed significantly to be much more beneficial than it is currently, especially with there being only one weapon it really benefits (greatsword).

Well while i was away from this thread i had a new idea for signet of hunt active. that is – “recharge all pet skill cooldowns”. Signet cd let’s say 60 secs. Traited with signet of beastmaster it would recharge ranger’s weapon skills as well.

Point to it is simple – occasional abuse of skills on cd, plus given how ranger doesn’t have any “Ultra damage on long cd” weapon skills, it wouldn’t hurt that much. On the other hand he has a lot going on defense wise there, for example whirling axe. That could be a small panic button.

As for moment of clarity – a simple change from “on interrupt” to “on succesfful block/evade” would rack it up in ranger’s favour.

Man this company shuld hire me pronto, i’m a clear genius;)

Idk I get a lot of use outta MoC. It doubles daze and stun duration’s. A 2 second stun/daze on Hilt Bash really helps me hit that Maul follow-up, if I do get the interrupt that’s just icing on the cake. Plus if you lead with SB #5, swap to GS and Swoop than follow-up with the above combo you get a nice burst which surprises the hell outta of a lot of ppl. As I get better at reading the other classes animations I’ll get better at actually interrupting, and man that is gonna be fun.

Long time ranger here..ill just ask for one thing apart from the great comments so far. Can we get the f3 return to me skill be an evade for the pet and give it some kind of cooldown. Better yet how a about it makes both the pet and ranger evade.

Well jaysin, it’s gonna be a lot more fun when you evade for that moment of clarity, rather then wait on two 25 sec cd or so skills:) 1 hit per 10-13 secs being 50% more power is not what i call grandmaster trait worthy.

Jaysin X.6740:

Idk I get a lot of use outta MoC. It doubles daze and stun duration’s. A 2 second stun/daze on Hilt Bash really helps me hit that Maul follow-up, if I do get the interrupt that’s just icing on the cake. Plus if you lead with SB #5, swap to GS and Swoop than follow-up with the above combo you get a nice burst which surprises the hell outta of a lot of ppl. As I get better at reading the other classes animations I’ll get better at actually interrupting, and man that is gonna be fun.

You’re right, the increased daze and stun duration is extremely useful. I should have been more specific, since I was directing my comments towards the extra damage portion of the trait, seeing as how the only skill that actually truly fits the concept of the trait is Maul on the greatsword.

Neither the shortbow, the longbow, or the offhand axe can really follow up with a “big damage” skill after an interrupt. So, even though having some sort of damage boost is better than nothing, it would be nice to have more combos like Hilt Bash → Maul in order to truly take advantage of the full extent of the possibilities the Moment of Clarity has the potential to provide.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well while i was away from this thread i had a new idea for signet of hunt active. that is – “recharge all pet skill cooldowns”. Signet cd let’s say 60 secs. Traited with signet of beastmaster it would recharge ranger’s weapon skills as well.

Point to it is simple – occasional abuse of skills on cd, plus given how ranger doesn’t have any “Ultra damage on long cd” weapon skills, it wouldn’t hurt that much. On the other hand he has a lot going on defense wise there, for example whirling axe. That could be a small panic button.

As for moment of clarity – a simple change from “on interrupt” to “on succesfful block/evade” would rack it up in ranger’s favour.

Man this company shuld hire me pronto, i’m a clear genius;)

You’ve definitely got some good and interesting ideas.

This is why I enjoy brainstorming threads, it gets out ideas from a bunch of different perspectives.

Let’s just hope that a dev reads through the thread and decides to start taking notes about some of these ideas haha.

Yeah I could have a lot of fun with that MoC isn’t perfect but it’s not just the 50% damage boost it’s also got the 100% stun/daze duration. Maybe a bigger damage boost like 100% after a interrupt could give it that oomph it needs. The SB/GS traited have 20 sec cd on the #5 skills, so I don’t think it could be abused.

Or maybe have it apply after a stun/daze and just remove the interrupt entirely. That could be interesting…
sorry i’m rattling, it’s halftime lol

Jaysin X.6740:

Yeah I could have a lot of fun with that MoC isn’t perfect but it’s not just the 50% damage boost it’s also got the 100% stun/daze duration. Maybe a bigger damage boost like 100% after a interrupt could give it that oomph it needs. The SB/GS traited have 20 sec cd on the #5 skills, so I don’t think it could be abused.

Or maybe have it apply after a stun/daze and just remove the interrupt entirely. That could be interesting…
sorry i’m rattling, it’s halftime lol

Well, back on page 1, some of things suggested and combined together would end up looking like:

MoC: +100% stun/daze duration. Transfer x conditions to foe on interrupt.

and in the master slot:

Carnivorous Appetite: Your crits steal health for you and your pet with ICD.

So it would be trading the damage boost for a little more sustain with removing conditions, and then for a damage boost, the extra damage would come from stealing health, which isn’t effected by armor/toughness in any way, and would also make rangers a little “beefier,” which is directly designed for power builds.

There are many other suggestions out there, I just think that in general, outside of a trap build, the skirmishing lines trait selection needs some love, since the only trait that actually adds any functionality to power based builds is Moment of Clarity.

Not that I don’t like your idea! I just wanted to share my thoughts as well, an increased amount of situations it could be used in and/or more of a damage boost would be very nice as well.

Something to make it better lol.

Well you could mix up the ideas – Moment of Clarity giving attack of opportunity on successful evade and doubling the daze stun durations anyway. As for Interrupts – either:

• also granting moment of clarity on interrupt (they don’t come easy for a ranger),
• giving a solid heal to you and your pet on interrupt (let’s say around 1.5k base with 1.0 coefficient). That’s something grandmaster and once per 10-13 sec worthy to me.
• transferring those 3 conditions – though it’s a bit of a gamble in departament that should be rather reliable if you ask me.

Moment of Clarity would need something silly like you gain it on every evade, dodge, or interrupt before it was even remotely close to being worth a GM trait. I’m also 110% against another 30pt trait being designed as a condi solution for this class. Go with the other suggestions we’ve had in other threads like Quicken Zephyr removes 3 conditions when used. Lightning Reflexes clears immob, chill, cripple. Improve all Ranger Shouts since they’re so awful base to remove a condi and break stun.

The last thing this class needs is 2 30pt traits as the only options to condi cleanse. Now if you want to make Moment of Clarity an Adept Trait (which is all it deserves the way it currently works or a master if you put condi cleanse on it) then so be it. But leaving it GM? Come on…

So many of the Ranger’s 30pt traits are so awful compared to what other classes get nearly ever single one of them needs to be replaced.

Atherakhia.4086:

Moment of Clarity would need something silly like you gain it on every evade, dodge, or interrupt before it was even remotely close to being worth a GM trait. I’m also 110% against another 30pt trait being designed as a condi solution for this class. Go with the other suggestions we’ve had in other threads like Quicken Zephyr removes 3 conditions when used. Lightning Reflexes clears immob, chill, cripple. Improve all Ranger Shouts since they’re so awful base to remove a condi and break stun.

The last thing this class needs is 2 30pt traits as the only options to condi cleanse. Now if you want to make Moment of Clarity an Adept Trait (which is all it deserves the way it currently works or a master if you put condi cleanse on it) then so be it. But leaving it GM? Come on…

So many of the Ranger’s 30pt traits are so awful compared to what other classes get nearly ever single one of them needs to be replaced.

You’re very right.

My whole thinking behind both the suggestions would be that the healing for my change to Carnivorous Appetite would be strong enough to warrant it being moved into the grandmaster position, while MoC gets moved down to Masters at the very least.

The problem is entirely just the Skirmishing line though. Not even necessarily that traps are “misplaced” in the line, but that there literally is nothing else other than MoC going on that even remotely helps direct damage builds functionality wise aside from the stat bonuses you get from picking up points in Skirmishing.

My opinion is that the entire traitline needs to be overhauled lol. Something that makes direct damage builds better, and as far as I’m concerned, the traitline can keep traps too, as long as there are other competitive in slot options for different build types that don’t use traps. Or, traps could be made into a viable power options as well by upping their base damage.

There are many ways to approach the problem, but ultimately making all of the most needed traits 30 point options is the last thing we need.

Thanks for checking us on that lol.

TuboPana.4710:

Long time ranger here..ill just ask for one thing apart from the great comments so far. Can we get the f3 return to me skill be an evade for the pet and give it some kind of cooldown. Better yet how a about it makes both the pet and ranger evade.

We’ve asked for something like this for a looong time now. Maybe one day, the devs will understand why we ask for this…

I’m not fond of idea of having cooldown attached to “return” command. I like the “always there for you” functionality.

That asides another useless trait i hunted down is in wilderness survival master tier:
“Hide in plain sight” – Applies camouflage when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned. 30 sec cooldown.

So i get invisible for 3 secs but without ability to move while cloaked and most likely without ability to act since it’s not a stunbreaker.

This should be either 6-8 sec camouflage, given for 2-3 secs you’ll be disabled one way or another, or 3 sec stealth, but with insta stun break – so you can run outta heat, while popping a heal.

Then again with martial training and offhand training in the same tier, that trait might have to do better then that still.

The one thing that bugs me with these Ranger threads is the inevitable “Fix AI”.
Do you even understand a lick of programming?

Everyone just expects a magic fix, without really understand what that would entail.
Not that AI isn’t a problem, it is, it’s just not the bloody simple to fix it.

Honestly I think that the AI is only half the problem. The other half being that you have very little in the way of commands for your pet, commands that are usual staples for pet classes in any MMO.
Like simply being able to tell you pet to stand in a given location.

The only way you can do that is via Guard, which means your down one utility just to tell you pet not to stand in the bloody fire.

I’m of the mindset that I would rather have much more commands as part of the F1-F4 keys, that would tell your pet to drop what it’s doing and do the command instead.
(Might as well salvage the Shout commands, and redesign the skills entirely into something a little more useful.)

-

This would probably mean no F2 pet skill and maybe no F4 pet swap either.
I wonder if people would be up for that. More Control vs Diversity.

I’m not a big fan of either the pet skill or swap, because I feel the skill could just be added to the pets skills anyway for most of them, and a second pet wouldn’t really be needed if the first was responsive enough in the first place.
(And maybe had more skills/diversity between pets. Pets are too similar I think)

I’d rather have a single pet that was strong and responsive, then a couple of pets that are little more then glorified utility skills, just much less useful or responsive.

No one thinks it’s an easy fix Yoh… but we think it’s a fix that should have happened within the first year of the game considering the issues plaguing the class have been there since release. This game isn’t new and you have a class that has a core mechanic that has NEVER worked.

Numerous times have we asked for rigged solutions to the problem ranging from simply removing the pet all together to simply making F2 abilities work off the Ranger instead of the pet so they were at least responsive. ANet has ignored everything.

Using your mechanic to simply make F1 through F4 ground targeted abilities that the pet moves to would resolve some of the PvE centered problems, but the pet still has no functional use in WvW or really any engagement even slightly more involved than sPvP (even in PvP, if all 5 are on the node, the pets are worthless).

If the game had only come out a month ago, I’d agree with you that we’re asking for the moon and the stars. The game has been out a year and this class has never had functional pets, a viable power build, or group worth in WvW. A year is more than enough time to expect results.

Atherakhia.4086:

No one thinks it’s an easy fix Yoh… but we think it’s a fix that should have happened within the first year of the game considering the issues plaguing the class have been there since release. This game isn’t new and you have a class that has a core mechanic that has NEVER worked.

Numerous times have we asked for rigged solutions to the problem ranging from simply removing the pet all together to simply making F2 abilities work off the Ranger instead of the pet so they were at least responsive. ANet has ignored everything.

Using your mechanic to simply make F1 through F4 ground targeted abilities that the pet moves to would resolve some of the PvE centered problems, but the pet still has no functional use in WvW or really any engagement even slightly more involved than sPvP (even in PvP, if all 5 are on the node, the pets are worthless).

If the game had only come out a month ago, I’d agree with you that we’re asking for the moon and the stars. The game has been out a year and this class has never had functional pets, a viable power build, or group worth in WvW. A year is more than enough time to expect results.

True, but context matters.
The Ranger wasn’t the only profession that had major balance issues that needed to be resolved. Did you see what the Guardian was like near launch? It was horrible.

And while there were a few large changes, like the ones to Scepter and Staff respectively, it took a more soft touch approach. Lots of little changes over time, that have eventually built up to making the profession very good.
Most of the professions got this kind of treatment over the past year, and for the most part it worked out.

The only other profession that got a major change to it’s core mechanics was the Necromancer with Tainted Shackles, which required a whole new condition to be invented. And even still, it’s just one new skill.

So I understand where Arenanet is coming from on this one, I just don’t think it will be enough this time.

-

They probably would want a soft touch to fixing this problem, smaller minor changes that build up to an overall fix. However, I and others do think that this problem is a little more systemic in nature, a core functionality problem that goes to the very essence of what makes this profession what it is.

Which would I think require a large change to fix, which also makes it a very risky change, one that you can’t just rush into no matter how badly you may want to just get it done and over with.

So I can understand them wanting to take their time with it and get it right, rather then rush in and be back to the drawing board six months later.

-

The only thing I would like is a little more communication of Arenanets part as to where abouts they think they are in fixing this issue. Because silence only breeds speculation and suspision.
(Fortunately they are getting a lot better at this as of late.)

Yoh.8469:

The Ranger wasn’t the only profession that had major balance issues that needed to be resolved.

I wouldn’t simply define the issues with our pets as balance issues, even though that comes as a ‘bonus’ to the problem.

In the current game, ranger is the only class that have such major issues with its core mechanic. Most semi-casual, open world pve rangers never notice this, or even cares.

This has been the case since release, and will most likely be the case for years to come, maybe for the entire running course of this game.

It’s too difficult to fix it seems, so they don’t even bother. Instead, tossing some numbers around, swapping places with traits,, that’s what the classes in this game can expect on patch day.
Nothing really seems to really improve, only thing happening is that they overbuff/overnerf one or more of the classes, meaning a new fotm build/class after each patch.

jcbroe.4329:

Changes incoming.

At least that’s what the livestream said.

Not that outside of the bug fixes/nerfs (they are bug fixes that result in lesser capabilities than what is currently available) any information was actually given.

The devs seemed excited though. More excited about ranger changes than I have seen them look and react since launch and the state of the game streams. Hopefully that implies good things.

Some teasers would have been nice, but ehhh, the upcoming patch notes will speak for themselves. Hopefully some of the issues mentioned in this thread are addressed and/or some of the suggestions are taken. It would be nice to see.

I have absolutely 0% hope that this is going to end well. Let me stress that again: 0% hope this is going to end well. Especially given the patches since launch.

It is a well proven fact Anet will nerf something to make something else look better by comparison. We’ve seen that with the shortbow and now with the dps builds. “Hey! IDEA! Let’s nerf DPS builds to make the support/condi builds look better!” … May have not been what was said but that is what their actions have communicated quite well. So yeah, I have absolutely zero hope they are going to make the Ranger better. Infact, given the recent developments on the livestream I have been convinced by Areanet Devs they will not fix the pets or give us options purely out of laziness thus not wanting to tackle the problem of writing new code for the pets. So, my Ranger will stay where it is relagated to doing world bosses, node farming, and being a mule in general.

What Anet has really done in the past six months is nerf my want to play their game and buy gems to the point I don’t even want to log on to GW2 when I get home for anything other than talking to my guildmates… Thats about the only reason I want to log on when I get home. That is it. Anet is just giving me reasons to play other games and pay more attention to my other hobbies.

thefantasticg.3984:

jcbroe.4329:

Changes incoming.

At least that’s what the livestream said.

Not that outside of the bug fixes/nerfs (they are bug fixes that result in lesser capabilities than what is currently available) any information was actually given.

The devs seemed excited though. More excited about ranger changes than I have seen them look and react since launch and the state of the game streams. Hopefully that implies good things.

Some teasers would have been nice, but ehhh, the upcoming patch notes will speak for themselves. Hopefully some of the issues mentioned in this thread are addressed and/or some of the suggestions are taken. It would be nice to see.

I have absolutely 0% hope that this is going to end well. Let me stress that again: 0% hope this is going to end well. Especially given the patches since launch.

It is a well proven fact Anet will nerf something to make something else look better by comparison. We’ve seen that with the shortbow and now with the dps builds. “Hey! IDEA! Let’s nerf DPS builds to make the support/condi builds look better!” … May have not been what was said but that is what their actions have communicated quite well. So yeah, I have absolutely zero hope they are going to make the Ranger better. Infact, given the recent developments on the livestream I have been convinced by Areanet Devs they will not fix the pets or give us options purely out of laziness thus not wanting to tackle the problem of writing new code for the pets. So, my Ranger will stay where it is relagated to doing world bosses, node farming, and being a mule in general.

What Anet has really done in the past six months is nerf my want to play their game and buy gems to the point I don’t even want to log on to GW2 when I get home for anything other than talking to my guildmates… Thats about the only reason I want to log on when I get home. That is it. Anet is just giving me reasons to play other games and pay more attention to my other hobbies.

See, it’s unhelpful comments like this that is a waste of everybodies time and energy.
Your lack of hope doesn’t actually get you much in the end. If you need to take a break, take a break.

Thou I do wish Anet weren’t so coy with the Ranger balance changes, because otherwise we get people like you who have a panic attack over it.
Try GW1 if you haven’t already done so, I think they did a very good job with the original Ranger. I kind think the new version could stand to take a couple of pages from it, thou I say that about most professions.

I take a break every 3 weeks for 3 weeks thanks to my job… which is why I’m on the forums instead of playing the game or engaging in one of my other hobbies.

Unlike many in the Ranger subforum I have held hope much longer that things would get better for the Ranger specifically regarding the pet but the Devs have squashed that.

You can hate me all you want for spelling it out like it is but that doesn’t change the fact that what I have said is true. And your accusation of me having a “panic attack” because of the failed state of the Ranger is far from the truth. You are putting way more emtion into the text I put up than what I put into it when I was typing it. What I said was based on past actions, not what Anet hasn’t said or been so “coy” about.

And no, I won’t be trying GW1. I won’t be giving Anet any more of my money until further notice.

Leaving pets aside (least for this post), i just realized it would be epic if we could trigger our traps manually, especially given they’re supposed to get more combo fields on them.

Imagine i place a fire trap and activate it for fire combo field, then my party starts blasting it. Sure there’s bonfire, but not everyone wants a torch in their offhand for every dungeon.

Or an ice field from frost trap. I set up the trap, party stands in it, i pop it and we start spamming chilling bolts or using blasts for ice aura on us.

Would sure make traps a lot more useful in pve, i say!

The AI on pets is more then just half the problems we’re having. Traits and everything else can be easily fixed if Anet can get their heads out of their kitten. However, everyone has failed to remember that ANet has already stated that they WILL NOT touch pet AI anymore. They refuse to do anything to pet AI out of fear that they may mess up the AI for NPC’s in the game. This includes any of the F abilities. This leaves us with two choices…or both.
1.) remove pet damage and give full damage to ranger. Leaving pets in as a utility.
2.) rewrite pet code so it’s not leaching off of game AI so changes can be made without it affecting NPC’s.
I say both because they can implement #1 while they are working on #2, then revert the changes of #1 once #2 is complete. They claim they want a pet class in the game and they chose us for it, can’t they just see the necro’s as the pet class and leave us the kitten alone? I’m getting so tired of this crap. The pet is completely useless in WvW. The pet always dies within the first few seconds of the battle. And for those who say, oh you don’t know how to control your pet, keep him by your side and don’t send him in. blah blah blah. Question for your geniuses, What good is it to keep 30% of your damage next to you doing NOTHING! The hole idea is to have your pet in there doing the 30% damage that ANet claims they do for you!

But you know what kittenes me off even more then all of this. The fact that Warrior’s got a response to their thread. Thief’s got a response to their thread. Engineer got a response to their thread (although Engineer’s are not as great as warrior and thief but they are not as bad off as we are). Even Mesmer got a response to their thread although it was more of a generic question for any class with blast finishers. We haven’t seen a single response from a dev and we are bottom of the barrel while those classes are the best in the game. And all the stuff they mentioned in that chat the other day, all but one of them is NERF! I should have known we where the red headed stepchild when the first balance patch came out when the game began last year and ranger’s didn’t get one single bullet point in the patch notes. Then we where lied to saying that they had to pull all the changes for more testing, we where given a list of the changes, told they will be in on next patch and guess what, tool tip fixes is what we got, nothing that was promised. We should have seen this coming, it’s depressing.

I’m sorry to be venting but it just kittenes me off when ANet admits that our pets are broken and that we need help, yet they come on here and give attention to classes that are overpowered like Warriors and Thiefs! And then they saying in the pod cast that many things are coming for ranger’s just reminds me of that first patch when the game came out last year. Sorry, I won’t be holding my breath again!

Akisame.9508:

The AI on pets is more then just half the problems we’re having. Traits and everything else can be easily fixed if Anet can get their heads out of their kitten. However, everyone has failed to remember that ANet has already stated that they WILL NOT touch pet AI anymore. They refuse to do anything to pet AI out of fear that they may mess up the AI for NPC’s in the game. This includes any of the F abilities. This leaves us with two choices…or both.
1.) remove pet damage and give full damage to ranger. Leaving pets in as a utility.
2.) rewrite pet code so it’s not leaching off of game AI so changes can be made without it affecting NPC’s.
I say both because they can implement #1 while they are working on #2, then revert the changes of #1 once #2 is complete. They claim they want a pet class in the game and they chose us for it, can’t they just see the necro’s as the pet class and leave us the kitten alone? I’m getting so tired of this crap. The pet is completely useless in WvW. The pet always dies within the first few seconds of the battle. And for those who say, oh you don’t know how to control your pet, keep him by your side and don’t send him in. blah blah blah. Question for your geniuses, What good is it to keep 30% of your damage next to you doing NOTHING! The hole idea is to have your pet in there doing the 30% damage that ANet claims they do for you!

But you know what kittenes me off even more then all of this. The fact that Warrior’s got a response to their thread. Thief’s got a response to their thread. Engineer got a response to their thread (although Engineer’s are not as great as warrior and thief but they are not as bad off as we are). Even Mesmer got a response to their thread although it was more of a generic question for any class with blast finishers. We haven’t seen a single response from a dev and we are bottom of the barrel while those classes are the best in the game. And all the stuff they mentioned in that chat the other day, all but one of them is NERF! I should have known we where the red headed stepchild when the first balance patch came out when the game began last year and ranger’s didn’t get one single bullet point in the patch notes. Then we where lied to saying that they had to pull all the changes for more testing, we where given a list of the changes, told they will be in on next patch and guess what, tool tip fixes is what we got, nothing that was promised. We should have seen this coming, it’s depressing.

I’m sorry to be venting but it just kittenes me off when ANet admits that our pets are broken and that we need help, yet they come on here and give attention to classes that are overpowered like Warriors and Thiefs! And then they saying in the pod cast that many things are coming for ranger’s just reminds me of that first patch when the game came out last year. Sorry, I won’t be holding my breath again!

Yeah, i agree with you.. seems the devs are pretty bad & i honestly don’t know why don’t they hire better ones.. probably they don’t have enough money though – many people quit the game already in the past year
That’s the only logical thing i can think of as a reason for such failure.

Bad debs are bad. All mmos are plagued by bad devs. Gw2 is no different. If they had an idea how to fix this they would have.

I wouldnt hold my breath.

patch came & guess what .. a failure once more. no balance changes no sigil changes no rune changes NOTHING !

I had some little hope left but it’s totally dead now… I don’t know where did they get those clowns on the stream on friday but they need to go NOW !

Sasajoe.1509:

patch came & guess what .. a failure once more. no balance changes no sigil changes no rune changes NOTHING !

I had some little hope left but it’s totally dead now… I don’t know where did they get those clowns on the stream on friday but they need to go NOW !

It was the Living World content update. It would have been nice if there was an ETA or a confirmation or denial on whether or not the actual balance patch would be today, but I had my doubts considering ANet has probably only had about 3-4 actual weeks now with Winter vacations and such to actually work on balance, and with that considered, it means that the most recent balance patch probably feels extremely recent to the balance team, so much so that they haven’t been able to get a good footing on the next balance patch yet.

That being said, they really could have skipped the balance preview before a patch if the patch isn’t going to contain any balance fixes, especially with a “no ETA” policy.

I would at least wait to see what the actual balance update is going to look like before breaking anything. 3-4 weeks really isn’t a whole lot of time to be doing all of the fixes that were discussed, even just re-purposing and bug fixing all of the runes and sigils is going to take a lot of man hours and fine tooth combing, and from an admittedly (on their part) small group of personnel working on these balance patches.

@Yoh;

To the pet AI fixing, it is definitely not an easy issue. Especially due to the understanding I get from some of ANets posts in the ranger subforum that suggests that the pet AI and mechanic inherits heavily from the open world monster AI and mechanics. Essentially, ANet would have to recode pets from the ground up, in order to not break the rest of the games AI, which would involve creating whole new sets of functions and more than likely redoing all of the pets animations to be in line with the new functionality. Not to mention having to code to allow a new type of object to exist in the current environment.

It would require lots of work and testing. It is extremely doubtful that ANet even has the resources to take on such a task currently, but at the same time, in order for the game to reach its highest possible quality, it may eventually reach the point where this needs to happen. It probably should have never been coded the way it was in the first place.

But either way, here we are now. Nothing we can do other than to suggest bandaid fixes while letting the devs know that the pet having its own functional AI system would be nice, and hope for the best.

jcbroe.4329:

Sasajoe.1509:

patch came & guess what .. a failure once more. no balance changes no sigil changes no rune changes NOTHING !

I had some little hope left but it’s totally dead now… I don’t know where did they get those clowns on the stream on friday but they need to go NOW !

It was the Living World content update. It would have been nice if there was an ETA or a confirmation or denial on whether or not the actual balance patch would be today, but I had my doubts considering ANet has probably only had about 3-4 actual weeks now with Winter vacations and such to actually work on balance, and with that considered, it means that the most recent balance patch probably feels extremely recent to the balance team, so much so that they haven’t been able to get a good footing on the next balance patch yet.

That being said, they really could have skipped the balance preview before a patch if the patch isn’t going to contain any balance fixes, especially with a “no ETA” policy.

I would at least wait to see what the actual balance update is going to look like before breaking anything. 3-4 weeks really isn’t a whole lot of time to be doing all of the fixes that were discussed, even just re-purposing and bug fixing all of the runes and sigils is going to take a lot of man hours and fine tooth combing, and from an admittedly (on their part) small group of personnel working on these balance patches.

@Yoh;

To the pet AI fixing, it is definitely not an easy issue. Especially due to the understanding I get from some of ANets posts in the ranger subforum that suggests that the pet AI and mechanic inherits heavily from the open world monster AI and mechanics. Essentially, ANet would have to recode pets from the ground up, in order to not break the rest of the games AI, which would involve creating whole new sets of functions and more than likely redoing all of the pets animations to be in line with the new functionality. Not to mention having to code to allow a new type of object to exist in the current environment.

It would require lots of work and testing. It is extremely doubtful that ANet even has the resources to take on such a task currently, but at the same time, in order for the game to reach its highest possible quality, it may eventually reach the point where this needs to happen. It probably should have never been coded the way it was in the first place.

But either way, here we are now. Nothing we can do other than to suggest bandaid fixes while letting the devs know that the pet having its own functional AI system would be nice, and hope for the best.

Pff they only think of excuses to delay the inevitable fleeing of players away from this game & also they SAID balance changes would be next update – which is today january the 21st. go re-watch the video from the stream.

I just hope some of the new coming mmos comes faster at this point (at least this seems more likely to happen than an actual balance of gw2 lol .. pathetic)

@Sasajoe.1509;

I’m disappointed too, and yes, there does seem to be an extreme issue in communication when it comes to clarity at times.

But me expressing that disappointment or even outrage on the forums in a nonconstructive way isn’t going to make the balance magically drop today, or tomorrow.

The only thing it will do is lead to more infractions, and ultimately derail the purpose of this thread, which is to make the devs lives easier by having a place where the community can brainstorm constructive and positive ideas to help with the development and balancing process for the game.

At the end of the day, I would rather be the “better man” in this situation, knowing that I’ve done everything I can as a community member to be constructive and necessarily critical in order to voice an opinion that may be taken into consideration as the game progresses.

If the dev team fails at utilizing us community members as a resource, then at least I get to walk away from my experience with this game knowing that I did everything I could to try to salvage my gameplay experience, while at the end of their day, they have to live with the realization that any time they don’t commit to fulfilling some of the more reasonable desires and suggestions of community members, that ultimately all the game is left with is a fleeting playerbase.

@Thread;

With that in mind, let’s try to get this thread back on track and keep the constructive ideas flowing. The balance patch hasn’t dropped yet which means that there is still the chance that any number of suggested ideas here in this thread can be taken and used for the next balance patch.

Keep it up everyone

Given the often childish, vitriolic and accusatory responses people give towards Anet on this topic, no wonder they don’t want to comment.

Thou I wonder if silence on the dev’s part just makes the problem fester even more so.

jcbroe.4329:

@Yoh;

To the pet AI fixing, it is definitely not an easy issue. Especially due to the understanding I get from some of ANets posts in the ranger subforum that suggests that the pet AI and mechanic inherits heavily from the open world monster AI and mechanics. Essentially, ANet would have to recode pets from the ground up, in order to not break the rest of the games AI, which would involve creating whole new sets of functions and more than likely redoing all of the pets animations to be in line with the new functionality. Not to mention having to code to allow a new type of object to exist in the current environment.

It would require lots of work and testing. It is extremely doubtful that ANet even has the resources to take on such a task currently, but at the same time, in order for the game to reach its highest possible quality, it may eventually reach the point where this needs to happen. It probably should have never been coded the way it was in the first place.

But either way, here we are now. Nothing we can do other than to suggest bandaid fixes while letting the devs know that the pet having its own functional AI system would be nice, and hope for the best.

Agreed on the first part, not so much the second.
I’m not convinced that fixing AI is really necessary, because as you said it is one heck of an undertaking, one that isn’t that likely to happen.
So isn’t it more productive to think of possible solutions that don’t require an AI fix?

Such as having more direct commands over your pet.

lol keeping this thread clean and constructive wont do duck. LET YOU RAGE OUT PPL… FART ANET AND THEIR BROKEN PROFFESIONS… u all should go laugh at the Fruity mesmers crying cuz 1 of their traits it getting nerfed poor swimmers.

Agreed on the first part, not so much the second.
I’m not convinced that fixing AI is really necessary, because as you said it is one heck of an undertaking, one that isn’t that likely to happen.
So isn’t it more productive to think of possible solutions that don’t require an AI fix?

Such as having more direct commands over your pet.

I’m of the opinion that it is a yes and no type situation, which directly relates to the content you’re playing.

Having more control over the pets skills would definitely be of some benefit, especially pets that have access to AoE, combo fields, and finishers. The drawback would be that the response time for the skills wouldn’t be much improved, if at all, over the already existing F2 command.

Where this is a problem is against other players. Since the pet shares the same AI with monsters, including pathing patterns and “stop to attack” animations, a player that knows how to “beat” the AI with movement alone is going to severely reduce the impact that the pet has in combat, so much so that it appears devastating to your performance as a ranger player.

That being said, yes, outside of just redoing the whole system of AI, there are many, many different small fixes that can be made in order to make the pet system more reliable without having to code a new AI.

The problem that I can foresee is that if ANet ever decides to revisit how AI functions for normal monsters, it has the potential to break every single other fix that gets implemented for the pets as long as pets and monsters share their functionality.

So at this point, no, I see ANet as being very happy with how their open world monsters exist and interact. But if there is ever a point where they become dissatisfied and there are a bunch of ranger pet fixes that would get broken in the process, then all they’ve really done is prolonged when the “heavy lifting” work needs to get accomplished.

But no, I guess it isn’t necessary that they redo the AI, so long as ANet remains happy with how their open world monsters function and are content with implementing other ranger pet specific changes knowing with full certainty that they never need to be revisited.

Personally, if I was the one coding it, I would like the safety net of knowing that if I needed to change something, it wouldn’t break so many different things I may as well be coding from scratch again, but hey, if they are so certain that nothing will ever be changed to that degree, more power to them.

I wonder if we would be better off with a command like Guard, that overrides the pets current action to stand where you want it to be, would in the long run be better then the F2 skills, because again they have delays.

I think the F2 skills would probably end up working just as well if the pet itself cast them as part of it’s skill bar. Well, for most of the skills, there are a few skills like the Drakehound Immobilize that is useful to be cast manually, but most skills are so bland and ordinary, you don’t really gain much of anything from being able to cast it manually.

Simply giving us more control of the pet doesn’t solve anything but ‘maybe’ allowing us to avoid things better with our pets.

The reason the AI needs to be revised is that our pets can’t hit moving targets reliably. No amount of UI changes is going to resolve this problem. The pet must stop to attack and thus the problem.

The next problem is the responsiveness issue. ANet doesn’t have a thread waiting for the F2 command fromt he players so the pet simply sits there puts the attack in queue and when it gets there, it triggers. At least this is what I gathered from the 12/15 thread. While a solution to this is possible, ANet has said the problem is lining up the attack animations and thus they’ll never change it.

Suggestions have to work around these 2 problems without a complete do-over of the AI system. And even with a complete AI overhaul, this still doesn’t resolve the very basic problem of pets being near worthless in WvW due to stray AE.

So simply giving us more control of the pet or allowing us to choose places on the ground for the pet to move to or attack from really don’t solve these problems.

So what can we do to resolve these issues without a complete AI overhaul?

Well the hitting thing is easy… you just trivialize the pet where its damage is so insignificant you don’t care if it hits or not. You effectively just turn it into another DOT that we fire and forget. Make all pets identical in damage and health and make it so they hit once a second for 600 dmg. Now they’re effectively a 3 to 6 stack of bleeds.

To resolve the responsiveness issue you do what I mentioned earlier. You simply make the Ranger itself cast the ability much like a Warrior would Arcing Slice or a Thief would steal. The Ranger simply pushes F2, a spirit of a <insert pet you have selected here> and .5 seconds later, the pet does whatever graphic (howl for example) and the effect triggers around the ranger. If it’s an offensive attack like rending pounce, a spirit cat spawns near the ranger and roars, .5 seconds later it turns into a a spirit lance (the guardia’s down state #1 animation) hits the target, and does whatever.

Now are these ideal solutions? Obviously not… if you trivialize the pet to this degree why bother having it in the first place? But on that same point… if you have a pet problem that you know exists at launch and don’t fix it for a year despite nonstop feedback from the ranger community, why have the pet in the first place?

Atherakhia.4086:

Simply giving us more control of the pet doesn’t solve anything but ‘maybe’ allowing us to avoid things better with our pets.

The reason the AI needs to be revised is that our pets can’t hit moving targets reliably. No amount of UI changes is going to resolve this problem. The pet must stop to attack and thus the problem.

The next problem is the responsiveness issue. ANet doesn’t have a thread waiting for the F2 command fromt he players so the pet simply sits there puts the attack in queue and when it gets there, it triggers. At least this is what I gathered from the 12/15 thread. While a solution to this is possible, ANet has said the problem is lining up the attack animations and thus they’ll never change it.

Suggestions have to work around these 2 problems without a complete do-over of the AI system. And even with a complete AI overhaul, this still doesn’t resolve the very basic problem of pets being near worthless in WvW due to stray AE.

So simply giving us more control of the pet or allowing us to choose places on the ground for the pet to move to or attack from really don’t solve these problems.

So what can we do to resolve these issues without a complete AI overhaul?

Well the hitting thing is easy… you just trivialize the pet where its damage is so insignificant you don’t care if it hits or not. You effectively just turn it into another DOT that we fire and forget. Make all pets identical in damage and health and make it so they hit once a second for 600 dmg. Now they’re effectively a 3 to 6 stack of bleeds.

To resolve the responsiveness issue you do what I mentioned earlier. You simply make the Ranger itself cast the ability much like a Warrior would Arcing Slice or a Thief would steal. The Ranger simply pushes F2, a spirit of a <insert pet you have selected here> and .5 seconds later, the pet does whatever graphic (howl for example) and the effect triggers around the ranger. If it’s an offensive attack like rending pounce, a spirit cat spawns near the ranger and roars, .5 seconds later it turns into a a spirit lance (the guardia’s down state #1 animation) hits the target, and does whatever.

Now are these ideal solutions? Obviously not… if you trivialize the pet to this degree why bother having it in the first place? But on that same point… if you have a pet problem that you know exists at launch and don’t fix it for a year despite nonstop feedback from the ranger community, why have the pet in the first place?

Curiously I wonder if ranged pets have as much problem hitting their target as melee pets. I haven’t had enough experience in that regard.

However for melee, I would think having their base attack use a cone shaped arc, the sweeps anything in front of them might start to elevate the problem. Slowly increase the size of the arkittenil it’s just right.
Part of the issue I notice is that pets stop when they attack for a brief moment, which adds to the problem.

I wonder if they could use the AI from Centaurs, you know the ones that charge and knock you down, just minus the knock down. So each base attack could function like a charge, hitting anything that it runs into.

I imagine increasing the range of the attack won’t really fix anything. The pet would just stop further away (max range for the attack) and then miss. Perhaps if they made it so the max range of the attack was 300 but the pet didn’t attack until 100 that would solve some of the problem, I don’t know. People have said our pets, if Moa’d don’t suffer this problem so if that’s true, perhaps just making pet attacks a leap would solve the problem too.

jcbroe.4329:

7)

• Move Trap Potency down to Master tier
• Remove Trapper’s Defense
• Move Trapper’s Expertise down to adept tier
• New Grandmaster trait, choose from:
  -Traps transfer x conditions per pulse
  -Activating a signet removes x conditions
  -Interrupting a foe either transfers or removes x conditions

While i would kill to have a condition cleanse for traps i dont think it’s the best place for that, I think those type of abilities are better in defensive oriented trait lines.( I would love a buff to Evasive Purity)

If traps traits are in a precision/crit damage line they have to make sense for those stats, right now they make use for the high crit chance via Sharpened Edges, but only for the Condi Trapper.

Traps would be viable in a non condi build if:

1) Make all of them pulse 3 times (so 4 ticks with the initial one)
2) Make all of them do damage each tick; a little more than fire trap as a base but with a good power scaling.
3)Add a trait in Skirmishing that triggers on crits with no internal CD that: apply vulnerability or do extra (non condi) damage or weakness or flame blast or thunder strike or whatever

So we can have a 600 range AoE, unblockable that ticks for damage (100min -500max) and can slow down opponents (Spike-Frost). And we can trait to do extra stuff on all those crits (wich can be applied by our crits too).

Will this bring a viable non-condi trap build? probably not, but at least they will have a sense in the trait line.

Pets should scale with ranger stats and dont have their own. Thats the biggest issue in my opinion, why rangers will never be balanced.

with pets having their own stats we have strong PvP hybrid builds and WvW roaming builds, but damage builds and support builds are defective. But if you push those damage or support builds, the hybrid ones would get overpowered.

The second issue is, that pets dont hit moving targets and dont dodge attacks.
Hitting moving targets can be improved by increasing the attack range, so that you need swiftness to outrun their attacks, not only normal movespeed.
Damage reduction is a bit tricky, because it can make them OP or completly useless with small number changes. AOE damage reduction could work wonders, a dodge/evade/block every 10 seconds could help in PvE, but not in WvW Zerg fights. Increasing HP would make them OP in 1v1 situations.

I would suggest, to start with ranger balance, we should overhaul the pets:

• let pets scale with ranger stats
• increase pet hit range (melee pets) and projectile speed (ranged pets) to properly hit normal moving targets
• give them XX% damage reduction to AOE, when a spell hits more than one target
• a damage block every ~Yseconds
• Lower their base stats (because of scaling)

This will be the only way to go, to balance rangers. You can change traits, skills and even base stats, but this wont fix the ranger, one build will stay op while others will be underpowered.

I disagree on pets stats being tied to ranger ones. Least the primary ones.
Pet having separate stats from ranger is what makes up for diveristy and ability to do things others can’t like being both dps and tank (bear pets), or condition applier and dps (melee ranger, condition pet).

However it’s another issue with secondary stats. Pets with 0 healing, crit damage, condition duration, boon duration etc are no fun. While traits aim to fix that a bit they for most part fail miserably. Traits giving healing and condi damage are a joke (350 or so?) compared to what healing and condi damage a ranger may get himself (2k if he wants to).

50% more boon duration is best of the bunch, but pet buffs themselves need some love. Fury moa is great, but moa’s protection is laughably short even with every possible buff to it, also i don’t like that bird pets casts swiftness without my control – i pick bird for a fast kill, not to see it dance around in air casting swiftness while my rear gets sniped. Some work is needed there to make them matter.

50% condi duration is great for non damaging conditions (immobilize, fear, cripple, chilled etc), but not so hot for bleeds because of the pathetic condi damage for pets. I would say work on those traits, or make them semi tied to ranger for example 800 condition damage + 0.5 of ranger’s condi damage.

Another bone i got to pick with pets is the return command and offhand axe. when i use whirling axe i expect to protect anything that’s right next to me from projectiles. Least when traited with offhand training for reflection bubble size increment. Needless to say in such a scenario when my ranger orders his pet to return i want to it to HEEL right at my HEEL. Not 5 meters in front of me. It’s supposed to stand 10 centimeters next to me, so i can protect it, or so it won’t pull any aggro that i myself wouldn’t.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I disagree on pets stats being tied to ranger ones. Least the primary ones.
Pet having separate stats from ranger is what makes up for diveristy and ability to do things others can’t like being both dps and tank (bear pets), or condition applier and dps (melee ranger, condition pet).

Maybe I didnt wrote this specific enough, every pet should scale different with the stats.

For example a bear should scale good with defensive ones, medium with power ones and bad with condition damage.
Cats medium with defensive, good with power and bad with condition damage.
spiders medium with defensive, bad with power and good with condition damage.

So bears would still be tanky, but not make your build a completly different one. If you build tanky and take a cat for example, it wouldnt be that effective, than taking a bear.

Right now, we have the problem with “condition-bunker-spirit-ranger-with-cat” build. due to spirits you dont need precision to apply your conditions, you only need condition damage, the rest of your stats can be tanky ones. But with the cat you still have high burst crits (~30% of a berserker build). The cat completly changes the whole build and making it overpowered compared to other condition builds.

On the other hand a spider or bear in a power build will make this build less effective. Because you loosed 30% of your damage while getting no benefit out of it.

The last example is a tank build with a cat. The tank ranger is hard to kill, while still dealing 30+% of the damage of a berserker build because of his pet.

All these 3 examples get completely different benefits out of the pets, but every one is most effective with a cat and not with the pet, that suits to armor stats.

Let me summarize my ranger thoughts very quickly. Rangers need to be the masters of long range attacks.

Buffs Needed:
Short bow skills
Long bow skills
Pets

Nerfs Needed:
Spirit rangers
Melee evade specs

Melee evade should remain the acrobatics thief speciality. Simple

kyubi.3620:

Melee evade should remain the acrobatics thief speciality. Simple

we’re fine with melee evade, Thief’s already have invis and spamable abilities with no CD’s.