Guild Wars 2

unleashed.8679:

too complicated

Then enjoy your useless pet forever. It’s not even that complicated. Minimal skill additions and the swap-related mechanics are already in the game’s code.

unleashed.8679:

and wont fix anything.

It would give the Ranger more control over the pet. I don’t understand how that isn’t solving the “useless sack of meat at my side” problem.

I personnaly think that the only thing that can make pet viable in pve and not so broken in pvp would be to scale their stat with the master own stats therefor preventing pet bunkers while doing the promotion of actual glass cannon and maybe even of the rampager specialisation. Fools think managing pets and summon is easy… fools think because one runs a minion master or a pet ranger hes actualy using the easy way out. Aint the case at all, pets micromanagement is actualy an active duty as much as is running a full build because not only you need to control yourself you also need to control his movement and action.

Aka why swagg idea is smart because it both help achieve better control on pet and give some play to the ranger based on it.

An AI fix will only help pet in pvp it will in no case make them any more viable in pve. Even if they did dodge the aoes theid still be useless damage wise. I do greatly aprove the increase in the control of the pet. However it will serve no purpose if the pet remains the harmless puppy it is at the moment… our pet NEED better damage. Aka pet stat scaling with master or an actual direct buff.

Id realy like you to keep elaborating on this theory swagg so keep it up

kyubi.3620:

I personnaly think that the only thing that can make pet viable in pve and not so broken in pvp would be to scale their stat with the master own stats therefor preventing pet bunkers while doing the promotion of actual glass cannon and maybe even of the rampager specialisation. Fools think managing pets and summon is easy…

Managing most pets and summons are easy because there is almost literally nothing to manage. It’s not a matter of “Oh no, I should do something!” it’s a matter of “Oh, I guess I can’t do anything.” Pets are brain-dead easy to manage because they’re forced to be that way and they lack any basic customization (for good reason in some cases).

kyubi.3620:

An AI fix will only help pet in pvp it will in no case make them any more viable in pve.

An AI fix is a complicated thing. It would be easier (and more of an active solution in the end) to simply give the player more options to control a pet.

kyubi.3620:

Even if they did dodge the aoes theid still be useless damage wise.

Making pets immune to or actively avoid certain types of damage is entering “Thief Imbalance” territory (I’m a poorly made class/mechanic so I need evasion frames or other freebees in order to deal my damage). It’s not a good design.

kyubi.3620:

I do greatly aprove the increase in the control of the pet. However it will serve no purpose if the pet remains the harmless puppy it is at the moment… our pet NEED better damage. Aka pet stat scaling with master or an actual direct buff.

Pet’s don’t need direct damage buffs. Pet’s need traits and more intuitive player controls to ensure their survival and to customize how they contribute to a battle.

trait to pet?… interesting… this might actualy be even better then a pet scaling system.

I think it wont be better, because you can still build those broken hybrid builds (spirit ranger) dealing full condi damage and a pet that can crit for 3k every few sekonds.

It is an interesting idea. But i think this would need more work than fixing the AI. There have to be traits for at least every pet group, probably not all but at least some should be special. (and there are 13 pet types in GW2)

Swagg.9236:

Then enjoy your useless pet forever. It’s not even that complicated. Minimal skill additions and the swap-related mechanics are already in the game’s code.

It would give the Ranger more control over the pet. I don’t understand how that isn’t solving the “useless sack of meat at my side” problem.

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits
It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons
It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds
…

Just because the ranger gets a third weapon set, wont make the pet better.

Other professions telegraphed attacks are usually attacks that have a great potential to hurt the other player. The less hurtful they are, the less telegraphed they also are…

One of the main reason I love ranger is that it consistently deal damage to the opponent. Yep, some people might wish to avoid a precise ranger’s attack, would it be sword’s frost or SB poison, but these are already telegraphed, and if the ranger half know what he’s doing, the times at which he would make these attacks are pretty obvious… I know I keep SB poison for when my enemy is likely to heal… spamming it is poor gameplay… And I keep SB#3 to save myself, eg, right before being stun between 3 mesmer’s clones… Spamming it does not make sense. Same for the 2 others… they have their purpose, and spamming them does not bring much. 3-4-5 deal the same damage as 1, they only have a little added effect, and 5 is already telegraphed, with it’s spinning arrow.

Now…
GS2 is really well telegraphed – for a reason, because of the damage it deals in comparison to other skills.

I love GW2 dynamic combat mode… You have to be fast, react right on the spot… Making it slower, just for everything to be telegraphed and readable would make it pretty dull…

Rather stay as I am than get some of these so-called ameliorations…

To be completely honest I think ranger is fine for everything other than pet mechanics, but I would LOVE to have a melee mainhand axe.

unleashed.8679:

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It gives the Ranger more control over the pet.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits

The Ranger now gets control over when the pet will use its skills.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons

The 4 and 5 skills will often be associated with quick repositioning, movement or evasion, giving the Ranger a means to mitigate damage on the pet in a high damage environment.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds

That’s why pets should get traits.

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It gives the Ranger more control over the pet.

It is not a problem, that the ranger has not enough control over the pet. You can call targets, change the pets behavior and use its F2 skill. That is enough control for the pet. Why should i sacrifice control over myself to control my pet?

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits

The Ranger now gets control over when the pet will use its skills.

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

And additionally: It is not a problem of control, that the pet misses every attack, it is a design problem! The pet stands still and casts it’s attack. Therefor the fight is 5m next to him, when the cast has finished.

Fun fact: If you want your pet to hit everything, let a mesmer Moa it. Due to the leap of the moas Auto he will hit everything (except of dodges)

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons

The 4 and 5 skills will often be associated with quick repositioning, movement or evasion, giving the Ranger a means to mitigate damage on the pet in a high damage environment.

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

You will die instead, because you can’t cast a block or something else. You will lose 2s of using skills, just because you swap back and forth between this skillbars.

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds

That’s why pets should get traits.

This will probably make the problem even worse, because now you can spec every pet for this hibrid builds and get even more effective ones. Not only because you can spec your pet into one specific direction, you will also get bonuses (traits) for doing so. This will buff hybrid builds (condition bunker + direct damage pet) and those are the builds, that are broken right now and lead to the bad situation of the ranger. You cant nerf the condition part and you cant nerf the dmage part, because both are fine for them self. It is the combination that makes balancing of the ranger impossible right now.

The only solution to solve this problem is to make the pets stats depending on rangers stats. Which was suggested a lot in this thread, but you seam to ignore this.

unleashed.8679:

It is not a problem, that the ranger has not enough control over the pet. You can call targets, change the pets behavior and use its F2 skill. That is enough control for the pet. Why should i sacrifice control over myself to control my pet?

The pet has 2—typically powerful skills—to which the Ranger never has access. By not having access to those skills, the Ranger loses control of timed usage of a possibly game-shifting ability. The Ranger deserves that level of control.

unleashed.8679:

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

The Ranger has to think about that. Even so, the pet utility skills would have either instant or very short cast-times to allow for quick movement or attacks (since the 1-3 skills would only activate the command to the pet; the pet has a command queue through which the pet progresses on its way to making its next move). Because of the nature of the 1-3 skills, using them shouldn’t be that much of an issue in combat. The brief pause in ranger attacks would also give the opponent a cue to know that the pet might be attacking now.

unleashed.8679:

And additionally: It is not a problem of control, that the pet misses every attack, it is a design problem! The pet stands still and casts it’s attack. Therefor the fight is 5m next to him, when the cast has finished.

Well, I suppose that is an issue that pervades a lot of PvE creatures. Regardless, the pet’s movement speed does keep a lot of pressure onto players despite the fact that players can typically move while making attacks.

Even so, I suppose I can understand the frustration. It’d be something to discuss because just making the pet have the ability to attack on the move would make it very, very, VERY strong in combat since it would never let up on a target, and pets really can contribute a lot of damage when they strike.

unleashed.8679:

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

You will die instead, because you can’t cast a block or something else. You will lose 2s of using skills, just because you swap back and forth between this skillbars.

You aren’t sitting in that kit for seconds at a time, standing still to activate abilities. Moreover, you aren’t stripped of your utilities or dodging abilities while in the kit. FURTHERMORE, as I’ve said before, the 1-3 pet commands are just like the current F2 commands (No cast time). The 1-3 are already instant cast. The 4-5 skills would be quick-snap reaction skills that provide evasion, movement or maybe a combination attack between the player and the pet. These things aren’t long, channeled cast-times that cripple a player’s survivability.

The only issue would be a learn-to-play issue. After learning to play, the Ranger would have a lot more control over and combat options with the pet.

unleashed.8679:

[Traits] will probably make the problem even worse, because now you can spec every pet for this hibrid builds and get even more effective ones. Not only because you can spec your pet into one specific direction, you will also get bonuses (traits) for doing so. This will buff hybrid builds (condition bunker + direct damage pet) and those are the builds, that are broken right now and lead to the bad situation of the ranger. You cant nerf the condition part and you cant nerf the dmage part, because both are fine for them self. It is the combination that makes balancing of the ranger impossible right now.

The only solution to solve this problem is to make the pets stats depending on rangers stats. Which was suggested a lot in this thread, but you seam to ignore this.

Not a bad point. I’m still not in favor of simply buffing pet stats in line with Ranger stats, though.

OOHHHH, RIGHT, that was another thing:
I forgot that when I first proposed Ranger pet traits, I also proposed that once pets get said traits, their hp levels be reduced to pre March 2013 levels (when a lot of them were literally doubled).

Your “more control”-approach wont help, because it doesnt matter when your pet activates his skills. Most of them wont hit anyway. So you do nothing while your pet misses all his “gamechanging/strong” attacks.

I think I said this here before and unleashed said it, too. A pet transformed into a moa (by mesmer ulti) hits every of his attacks. So then lets look at the different abilities:
250 basic range vs 130 of our pets
1/4 s Autoattack vs 1/4-1/2 second
600 leap vs 300 leap

Its not wonder that our pets miss their target, if they attack slower with a lower range. Then you can have as much control as you want, they will still miss.

Increase their attack range to 250 and everything would be fine. Ok, the damage needs to be lowered a bit, if they hit more often.

whyme.3281:

Your “more control”-approach wont help, because it doesnt matter when your pet activates his skills. Most of them wont hit anyway. So you do nothing while your pet misses all his “gamechanging/strong” attacks.

I think I said this here before and unleashed said it, too. A pet transformed into a moa (by mesmer ulti) hits every of his attacks. So then lets look at the different abilities:
250 basic range vs 130 of our pets
1/4 s Autoattack vs 1/4-1/2 second
600 leap vs 300 leap

Its not wonder that our pets miss their target, if they attack slower with a lower range. Then you can have as much control as you want, they will still miss.

Increase their attack range to 250 and everything would be fine. Ok, the damage needs to be lowered a bit, if they hit more often.

This only solves the DPS problem of the pet too don’t forget. Even if they adjusted pets to use this attack on every ability, the F2 (and the eventual control of the other ability) still isn’t responsive enough to ever use reliably.

But it would solve at least one more problem than swaggs suggestion.

Pet controll is ok as it is now, it has little to high delay, but its ok.
With more controll over the pets abilities, the pet will not magically start dodging boss hits in PvE or run out of AoE damage in WvW. It will give me a bit more controll to the pets leap (dogs) or immobilize (spiders) but thats it. But it wont change anything at the problems a ranger has with his pets.

Not to mention the several seconds I am losing for giving my pet commands.

whyme.3281:

I think I said this here before and unleashed said it, too. A pet transformed into a moa (by mesmer ulti) hits every of his attacks. So then lets

Just out of curiosity (and because I think it would be literally the most hilarious thing ever), do Moa pet accuracies increase when they’re Moa’ed?

But yeah Moa Morph 1 has the slight forward leap like Kick has. Maybe that’d be cool I dunno.

Havent tested it, but I think they will improve too, because of the 130 to 250 range increase.

whyme.3281:

Havent tested it, but I think they will improve too, because of the 130 to 250 range increase.

Making all of the pets guarantee hits with their attacks would be very, very powerful. They’d need an hp decrease for something like a 250 range auto-attack. That’s a huge range. That’s why I’m taking the more control route.

Simply pushing buttons to make numbers go up and down isn’t the best way to fix a broken mechanic. The mechanic has to be completely improved upon; we can’t just buff damage. We already buffed hp (literally doubled the base hp in many cases) and look how useful and intuitive that made Ranger pets.

It should be clear, that if the pet hits more often, its damage needs to lowered (rebalanced).

Rangers are designed, with pets, that deals part of their damage, if they cant hit properly, than this is a broken mechanic and needs to be fixed.

How do we balance the pets as they are right now? 100% hit chance on static targets or <30% chance on moving targets? Thats a huge difference (theoreticly 3 times more damage).

So why dont fix this obvious broken mechanic (as we see with morph)? And I can ask you again, what do you want to control, if this stupid pets misses anyways?

Pet HP are the second design issue, because they cant evade automaticly, they are lifesponges now. More control wont fix this either.

Btw. I made some suggestions fix the whole pet problematics on page 1 of this thead, but you completly ignored it.

whyme.3281:

It should be clear, that if the pet hits more often, its damage needs to lowered (rebalanced).

Rangers are designed, with pets, that deals part of their damage, if they cant hit properly, than this is a broken mechanic and needs to be fixed.

How do we balance the pets as they are right now? 100% hit chance on static targets or <30% chance on moving targets? Thats a huge difference (theoreticly 3 times more damage).

So why dont fix this obvious broken mechanic (as we see with morph)? And I can ask you again, what do you want to control, if this stupid pets misses anyways?

It’s a good point, but just giving Ranger free DPS without any investment feels very brain-dead, especially with the hp level of the pet (and even worse if the Ranger is toting Signet of the Wild).

whyme.3281:

Pet HP are the second design issue, because they cant evade automaticly, they are lifesponges now. More control wont fix this either.

One of the biggest control issues with the Ranger pet is that the pet queues commands 1 by 1 instead of prioritizing anything. This means the player has to constantly press the “Return to Me!” F-skill before giving the pet commands. The best way to fix this would be to make any player-input commands interrupt the pet’s current attack queue and prioritize the player command. This would make more pet-related commands a good thing.

whyme.3281:

Btw. I made some suggestions fix the whole pet problematics on page 1 of this thead, but you completly ignored it.

I apologize. I’ll look at it today. It’s been a bit of a challenge to manage 4 threads (soon to be 5).

thefantasticg.3984:

Taku.6352:

Posting huge walls of texts isn’t going to do anything. Devs are more likely to ignore the whole post eventhough it might have good ideas simply because they don’t have enough time to plow trough all of it.

As a reminder. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Posting-Guidelines/first#post3476816

Exactly. I skipped it except for the 1st paragraph.

Same. Skimmed thru the rest though. The shortbow auto cast time made me cringe, the rest were just unsightly. Sword 2 cooldown increased 8 → 10 secs and Healing Spring cast time increased to 1sec are a couple that would make me delete my Ranger if any of those ever happened. I’ll take bug fixes, tool-tip corrections, and pet band-aids before I accept some of these suggestions. No offense OP, your heart is in the right place… somewhere.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Same. Skimmed thru the rest though. The shortbow auto cast time made me cringe, the rest were just unsightly. Sword 2 cooldown increased 8 -> 10 secs

Non-targeted, leaping gap-closers were getting a tiny nerf across the board. Although, since [Hornet Sting] doesn’t deal tremendous damage and it sets up the telegraph for [Monarch’s Leap], the combo might escape any nerfing.

Moreover, it’s 2 seconds. It’s not like the 2-second increase to [Blurred Frenzy] made that skill any less viable.

Wondrouswall.7169:

and Healing Spring cast time increased to 1sec

Healing Skills should be things that incur risk on the player using them because they often have as much of an impact on a battle as powerful offensive skills. To that extent, powerful skills need cues/cast-times to break up combat. Besides, 1 second is pittance, and [Healing Spring] is not the only skill to receive cast-time increases within the scope of these threads (and those to come).

Wondrouswall.7169:

Exactly. I skipped it except for the 1st paragraph.

Also, I’ve said this before, but this game needs a lot of work. I’m willing to help, but I can’t make the workload any smaller.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Same. Skimmed thru the rest though. The shortbow auto cast time made me cringe

Soon, you and I can live in a Tyria where Rangers don’t win encounters by auto-attacking targets to death, but rather have to actually invest their time in activating and aiming their other skills.

To resume what would actualy fix ranger pet once and for all

1. Slightly Quicker attack casting time with improved hit box
2. Stat scaling with master (the end of the physical/condition damage hybrid and the endless QQ of player who are mad at it)
3. high damage reduction from area of effect.

I do aprove ranger needs to stop basing their dps on auto attack and more on a chain of spell. So longbow and axe would definitively be due for a change, Sword could use a less rewarding AA damage spam because lets be honest this weapon is specialised into evading the hits and not dealing them, Maybe they could actualy increase the damage on the utility moves for some variation to it.

kyubi.3620:

2. Stat scaling with master (the end of the physical/condition damage hybrid and the endless QQ of player who are mad at it)

I really thought about this more, and I do actually think that it would probably in the end be a better and ultimately solution than adding pet traits. As people have said before in the thread, pet traits could do more harm than good in allowing rangers to run super tanky condition builds while making a super DPS pet that players can’t deal with due to passive pet healing.

kyubi.3620:

3. high damage reduction from area of effect.

This kind of suggestion speaks volumes on the issue of the Ranger pet mechanic right now in GW2. Like I said before, I do think that this problem can be solved by additional pet commands (making F2 a weapon swap into a pet-based command set). Having a lot of defensive commands at the ready for the pet could save the pet’s life and also make pet management a more active role for the Ranger. Controlling a pet’s positioning with instant-activation queue commands would light the Ranger up as an interactive and engaging class instead of the skill spammer that it is right now.

Because I’m not going to hunt down every single profession change thread you made and put them side by side to see the scope of all of the changes and how they interact with each other, my next few comments might be coming from that perspective, and I apologize in advance if the scope of all of the changes ends up being totally different than my initial reaction.

I read over them, and I actually do like quite a few of the changes, especially with utilities. However, I feel like the ranger in the current context of the game is taking an overall hit in it’s damage output with a lot of the other changes.

Now, I’m all for scaling damage capabilities off of risk/reward, that’s essential for balance. It just seemed to me that the shortbow, for instance, may be losing some damage capabilities while getting some more unique and harder to use skills. The weapon doesn’t need that type of reduction.

It does need to be retooled to not have it’s highest DPS be attained through autoattacking though, so full agreement there. But I find it curious then that you only addressed that shortbow, when the longbow also reaches it’s highest DPS potential from just autoattacking. As a matter of fact, rapid fire is less than a 5% increase in DPS, and a loss of DPS if it interrupts an autoattack. So I found it odd that no changes were offered up for the longbow as well (unless they were further down from the initial posts).

Besides that, I just generally don’t like the changes to the axe. Mainly because right now I think that the axe is probably one of rangers better weapons in terms of having to actually do something other than autoattack, and the risk/reward factor is there (you have to get point blank to do damage, and without the offhand dagger, the axe has no defensive skills to “forgive” getting caught at point blank range).

Nothing overall too serious I guess. One of my criticisms stems from my own personal opinion about how I currently feel about the axe. You don’t even have to address that in a response because ultimately one players opinion never kept a necessary change from taking place, and if other people like it, I’d adapt.

The shortbow, however, just doesn’t really seem like it really does anything other than lowering attack speed and overall weapon speed (aka I think it makes the weapon more clunky), and making poison volley more AoE based.

For pets though, I’m also one of the people that thinks that a good band aid fix for pushing out completable tasks in a reasonable time from would be to increase the attack range of the pets to 230. However, that isn’t to say that the damage values wouldn’t have to be rebalanced either. It’s just that I think that perception wise, people would prefer to perceive their pet as hitting more reliably and therefore associate the pet with being more reliable, even if that pet has the same damage output as it does currently, because with the increased range, it would at least appear that it isn’t missing so many attacks.

Small changes that can be made like that are invaluable in the short term, and would band aid the issue, hopefully making players feel like the pets are in a better place, which would relieve some of the complaint threads from the forum and ease community tension with the devs on issues so that the devs can work on bigger changes for the future and sift through suggestion threads for other issues without having to see the same critique and fix being pushed on them over and over by the community.

So… yeah. My 2 cents. Just honest feedback.

Swagg.9236:

Part 2 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

RANGER: "SPAM TO WIN!”
Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them. Across the board aside from a very select few skill, the Ranger’s offensive repertoire is loaded up with whimpy, throwaway, short cool-down, short cast-time attack skills. Most of the time, it’s very difficult to detail what the Ranger is doing until after the effects have hit you (unless they’re just auto-attacking). This sort of spammy blur of attacks is the kind of offensive paradigm that is unhealthy for GW2 because it undermines active damage mitigation such as dodges and single blocks. Because none of the Ranger attacks really have any “oomph” or are telegraphed particularly well, the Ranger just sort of throws skills at opponents which have to guess at random when they should maybe dodge or block.

By removing RNG passive procs while better defining and adding a little more power to individual ranger attacks, their presence on the battlefield will be less of a spam-bot and more of a mobile attack platform with unique, well-cued and potentially game-changing attacks.

part of the point of the class is to hit you with lots of smaller attacks, not really supposed to be slow powerhouses.

phys.7689:

Swagg.9236:

Part 2 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

RANGER: "SPAM TO WIN!”
Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them. Across the board aside from a very select few skill, the Ranger’s offensive repertoire is loaded up with whimpy, throwaway, short cool-down, short cast-time attack skills. Most of the time, it’s very difficult to detail what the Ranger is doing until after the effects have hit you (unless they’re just auto-attacking). This sort of spammy blur of attacks is the kind of offensive paradigm that is unhealthy for GW2 because it undermines active damage mitigation such as dodges and single blocks. Because none of the Ranger attacks really have any “oomph” or are telegraphed particularly well, the Ranger just sort of throws skills at opponents which have to guess at random when they should maybe dodge or block.

By removing RNG passive procs while better defining and adding a little more power to individual ranger attacks, their presence on the battlefield will be less of a spam-bot and more of a mobile attack platform with unique, well-cued and potentially game-changing attacks.

part of the point of the class is to hit you with lots of smaller attacks, not really supposed to be slow powerhouses.

Except that doesn’t win battles. Burst/spikes win battles. Small packet spam is what conditions are for, not physical attacks, especially not when confusion and retaliation exist. Using a short bow and getting more retaliation damage than my own attacks are dealing is absurd.

Dealing 10000 damage over 5 seconds is always better than dealing it over 15 seconds especially when our power builds have little in the way of sustain. We could build for regen tanking but then your dps goes down the toilet and you might as well just condition spam which is more powerful in pvp than a pure power build at the moment anyway.

phys.7689:

part of the point of the class is to hit you with lots of smaller attacks, not really supposed to be slow powerhouses.

While hitting repeatedly with small attacks that are difficult to distinguish is a property of best reserved for an auto-attack. Basing an entire play-style’s skill-set around that sort of principle just turns every attack into something that resembles an auto-attack. This kind of play-style vastly reduces combat legibility for opponents because there’s little way to distinguish between individual attacks. This makes it difficult to know when to dodge, block or reposition (if the opportunity presents itself), which undermines what is supposed to be the cornerstone of survivability across all classes in GW2.

Also, about Ranger [Long Range Shot], you’re right in how the damage it deals is pretty high for an auto-attack given its range, projectile speed/reliability and its overall attack rate. I’ve reduced the damage there, but something vastly more important is the situation of [Hunter’s Shot].

[Hunter’s Shot] is effectively a wasted skill slot on Ranger longbow. It’s a spammy, throaway skill that inflicts minimal damage with a minimal cast-time. It’s stealth aspect is a bit paradoxical because while it is overpowered (33% uptime on stealth), a Ranger really can’t take advantage of 3 seconds of stealth well enough for [Hunter’s Shot] to really define a play-style. This throwaway skill that grants a bonus on which the Ranger can’t really capitalize makes the 3 slot on Ranger longbow effectively a wasted slot.

[Hunter’s Shot] needs a functionality change to bring longbow up (especially after a proper auto-attack nerf). Got any ideas? I’ll open that question up to the thread at large too.

Some additions: a few signet updates and an update to [Lightning Reflexes].

I think ranger dps is better than the average in most situations, situations where you can make use of your pets dps. Rangers aren’t suppose to be the spike damage class. Warriors, thieves and mesmers are for spike. Rangers pressure damage is in a good place right now. There biggest weakness is that there use in a group. There support and control ability are none-existant.

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

I think ranger dps is better than the average in most situations, situations where you can make use of your pets dps. Rangers aren’t suppose to be the spike damage class. Warriors, thieves and mesmers are for spike. Rangers pressure damage is in a good place right now. There biggest weakness is that there use in a group. There support and control ability are none-existant.

Alright.

Do you have any suggestions to fix that?

How about [Hunter’s Shot]? [Hunter’s Shot] is a garbage skill if I’ve ever seen one and a functionality change for that slot it is easily the most obvious key to making longbow into a more competitive weapon. That’s currently my task at hand for the Ranger right now.

Swagg.9236:

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

I think ranger dps is better than the average in most situations, situations where you can make use of your pets dps. Rangers aren’t suppose to be the spike damage class. Warriors, thieves and mesmers are for spike. Rangers pressure damage is in a good place right now. There biggest weakness is that there use in a group. There support and control ability are none-existant.

Alright.

Do you have any suggestions to fix that?

How about [Hunter’s Shot]? [Hunter’s Shot] is a garbage skill if I’ve ever seen one and a functionality change for that slot it is easily the most obvious key to making longbow into a more competitive weapon. That’s currently my task at hand for the Ranger right now.

Hunter’s shot is fine; the stealth can actually be a really nice help and it synergizes well with renewed opening strikes. Rapid fire, and even the autoattack are much bigger problems for longbow.

Black Box.9312:

Hunter’s shot is fine; the stealth can actually be a really nice help and it synergizes well with renewed opening strikes. Rapid fire, and even the autoattack are much bigger problems for longbow.

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Also not sure about rapid fire but I think it’s a bit weird that it applies vulnerability with each shot, makes the uptime kinda dorky.

Sarrs.4831:

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Having a “role” based on auto-attacking is a terrible design that promotes spammy, throwaway skill game-play that doesn’t provide opponents a clear sense of when to attempt counter-play maneuvers.

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Having a “role” based on auto-attacking is a terrible design that promotes spammy, throwaway skill game-play that doesn’t provide opponents a clear sense of when to attempt counter-play maneuvers.

Except that LB 1’s core mechanic offers clear incentives for when and where to use it, how to neuter its output, and is complemented by the other skills on the weapon. It’s probably the most legible and most interesting Ranger weapon with this in mind.

Sarrs.4831:

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Having a “role” based on auto-attacking is a terrible design that promotes spammy, throwaway skill game-play that doesn’t provide opponents a clear sense of when to attempt counter-play maneuvers.

Except that LB 1’s core mechanic offers clear incentives for when and where to use it, how to neuter its output, and is complemented by the other skills on the weapon. It’s probably the most legible and most interesting Ranger weapon with this in mind.

That doesn’t change the fact that its damage is very high for an auto-attack. The function of an auto-attack should be as a lull in combat or maybe possibly as a means to prime another skill’s attack (although we really see none of that in GW2 unfortunately); the auto-attack should not be the primary source of a weapon-set’s damage. Due to the auto-attack’s nature as a skill that can constantly be spammed, making it into the apex source of DPS on a weapon-set drastically narrows the window for clutch counter-play on part of the opponent. In the case of a ranged auto-attack—since the auto-attack doesn’t stop—it pretty much limits the counter-play options to CC chaining the user, projectile reflection, line of sight, or an extended block/invulnerability. None of those types of responses are particularly engaging for either the auto-attacker or the opponent nor do such defensive responses (outside of line of sight) have short enough cool-downs that can compete against the auto-attack’s pressure.

The best option would be to just readjust the damage and funnel the subtracted damage into other skills. I’ve been thinking of making a chain skill for [Rapid Fire] in order to fill the void left by a [Long Range Shot] damage nerf.

Updates to [Hunter’s Shot] and axe skills.

Swagg.9236:

That doesn’t change the fact that its damage is very high for an auto-attack.

Its damage isn’t that high if it’s in the mid-range, and it’s pretty pathetic in the sub-500s. It’s not fair to judge an ability purely by its peak.

The function of an auto-attack should be as a lull in combat or maybe possibly as a means to prime another skill’s attack (although we really see none of that in GW2 unfortunately); the auto-attack should not be the primary source of a weapon-set’s damage.

Due to the auto-attack’s nature as a skill that can constantly be spammed, making it into the apex source of DPS on a weapon-set

Define: Primary source.

Is it the highest damage rotation in optimal conditions?
Is it the highest contributor to damage in optimal conditions?
Is it the highest damage rotation in general conditions?
Is it the highest contributor to damage in general conditions?

Because at the moment, it’s only the second one. Assuming we’re talking about sPvP, it will never be possible to achieve optimal conditions unless the other team is either AFK or are completely new to the game. Seriously; if you’re letting a ranger stand back and plink with their auto-attacks, you deserve to be taking that damage.

drastically narrows the window for clutch counter-play on part of the opponent. In the case of a ranged auto-attack—since the auto-attack doesn’t stop—it pretty much limits the counter-play options to CC chaining the user, projectile reflection, line of sight, or an extended block/invulnerability. None of those types of responses are particularly engaging for either the auto-attacker or the opponent nor do such defensive responses (outside of line of sight) have short enough cool-downs that can compete against the auto-attack’s pressure.

We’re not talking about generic ranged attacks. We’re talking about Long Ranged Shot. There’s a pretty easy and fantastically effective way to neuter Long Ranged Shot’s damage and that’s getting up nice and snuggly with the ranger. There’s no cooldown on moving forward.

The best option would be to just readjust the damage and funnel the subtracted damage into other skills. I’ve been thinking of making a chain skill for [Rapid Fire] in order to fill the void left by a [Long Range Shot] damage nerf.

It is fine. Leave it alone. By doing this, you’re completely altering the weapon to something less than it currently is.

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Having a “role” based on auto-attacking is a terrible design that promotes spammy, throwaway skill game-play that doesn’t provide opponents a clear sense of when to attempt counter-play maneuvers.

Except that LB 1’s core mechanic offers clear incentives for when and where to use it, how to neuter its output, and is complemented by the other skills on the weapon. It’s probably the most legible and most interesting Ranger weapon with this in mind.

That doesn’t change the fact that its damage is very high for an auto-attack. The function of an auto-attack should be as a lull in combat or maybe possibly as a means to prime another skill’s attack (although we really see none of that in GW2 unfortunately); the auto-attack should not be the primary source of a weapon-set’s damage. Due to the auto-attack’s nature as a skill that can constantly be spammed, making it into the apex source of DPS on a weapon-set drastically narrows the window for clutch counter-play on part of the opponent. In the case of a ranged auto-attack—since the auto-attack doesn’t stop—it pretty much limits the counter-play options to CC chaining the user, projectile reflection, line of sight, or an extended block/invulnerability. None of those types of responses are particularly engaging for either the auto-attacker or the opponent nor do such defensive responses (outside of line of sight) have short enough cool-downs that can compete against the auto-attack’s pressure.

The best option would be to just readjust the damage and funnel the subtracted damage into other skills. I’ve been thinking of making a chain skill for [Rapid Fire] in order to fill the void left by a [Long Range Shot] damage nerf.

swag, you’re way out of reality with the majority of your “suggestions” for this game. for example, you are trying to make a case against the profession wide design and use of auto attack, but seem to target the ranger profession as the only one that is “spammy”. You want to increase cool downs to 15+ seconds on most other attacks, but that only serves to make players even more reliant on using auto attack. Might as well remove auto attack completely, make all attacks have a 5 second charge up with a 15 second cool down that forces the player to stand still and cast, and a floating text above the enemies head with the name of the attack that is being cast…

while you may identify with a couple of real issues plaguing the meta, you have 0% clue as to what would be healthy changes for professions and combat in this game. At this point, I’m starting to think that these threads are just to annoy players by spamming the profession balancing forums with this stuff.

Sarrs.4831:

Black Box.9312:

Hunter’s shot is fine; the stealth can actually be a really nice help and it synergizes well with renewed opening strikes. Rapid fire, and even the autoattack are much bigger problems for longbow.

What’s wrong with the auto-attack? IMHO it’s in a reasonable place and gives the weapon a role, but I’m not really a ranger, so I can’t really tell.

Also not sure about rapid fire but I think it’s a bit weird that it applies vulnerability with each shot, makes the uptime kinda dorky.

Rapid fire is just horrendous DPS due to how long it takes to channel, and adding vulnerability to it did almost nothing because it stacks up so slowly that by the time you’re done channeling the skill the first few stacks you put on are already almost gone. Honestly they just need to rework the skill entirely, because even with the vulnerability there’s still very little reason to use it unless you’re stuck with a longbow in very close range, which should never happen.

As for the autoattack, I’m personally of the opinion that basing damage on your distance from the target is just a terrible mechanic. It makes the weapon virtually worthless in PvE, and in PvP it gives people the idea to prioritize relative position from their target rather than more important things like who to focus on, what to avoid, and where you need to be positioned regardless of where your enemy is.

OP I find it hard to take you seriously when you use statements like “spam to win” and “useless pets”. Do you even play ranger? Their a lot of tricks you learn after a while like deselecting your target before casting fear or cc’ing your opponent before activating a pet skill to ensure it hits. And If you’ve ever fought a good thief or mesmer you’ll learn how unspammy the longbow is. You can’t miss any HSs or PBS or you’re dead…
I like to cast PBS right after my wolf’s fear to chain cc them. HS is very useful to ensure an un-interupted heal and to activate my elite skill. A lot of rangers I see do spam their skills and thats why they’re usually a corpse on the ground 5 seconds later.

@Swagg.9236, some really bad idea’s you don’t main ranger or seem to have good understanding of the class as a hole.

Stop making these balance threads for classes, unless you played the class into the ground you have no real idea what your talking about. Go make your own game if you wanted to design classes.

Sorry @Swagger.1459 your name is so close to OP I got confused.

Sol.4310:

@Swagger.1459, some really bad idea’s you don’t main ranger or seem to have good understanding of the class as a hole.

Stop making these balance threads for classes, unless you played the class into the ground you have no real idea what your talking about. Go make your own game if you wanted to design classes.

You know that Swagger isn’t the author of these threads right?

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Sol.4310:

@Swagger.1459, some really bad idea’s you don’t main ranger or seem to have good understanding of the class as a hole.

Stop making these balance threads for classes, unless you played the class into the ground you have no real idea what your talking about. Go make your own game if you wanted to design classes.

You know that Swagger isn’t the author of these threads right?

My Bad…… Fixed there names are so close I got confused in heat of the moment.

Black Box.9312:

Rapid fire is just horrendous DPS due to how long it takes to channel, and adding vulnerability to it did almost nothing because it stacks up so slowly that by the time you’re done channeling the skill the first few stacks you put on are already almost gone. Honestly they just need to rework the skill entirely, because even with the vulnerability there’s still very little reason to use it unless you’re stuck with a longbow in very close range, which should never happen.

Yeah, I do think that Rapid Fire’s kind of a weird ability. Not every ability should be optimal DPS and I won’t say I’m particularly bothered about exact numbers, but I’m more worried about how abilities feel and play- And Rapid Fire’s Vulnerability application does feel really weird, and overall, I preferred the vuln on Hunter’s Shot.

Black Box.9312:

As for the autoattack, I’m personally of the opinion that basing damage on your distance from the target is just a terrible mechanic. It makes the weapon virtually worthless in PvE, and in PvP it gives people the idea to prioritize relative position from their target rather than more important things like who to focus on, what to avoid, and where you need to be positioned regardless of where your enemy is.

PvE worthlessness is kinda ehhh and hinges on entire encounter design. Being unable to benefit from your allies’ buffs at the range you need to be at, and being unable to give those buffs to your friends, isn’t good- But I don’t think changing the range-is-good dynamic is a net gain.

Rather than? Those things are still important. If people are being bad and ignoring those mechanics, to their detriment, then that’s their fault. If being a long-ranged operator allows you to ignore them, then… Isn’t that kind of the point of being a ranged class; so that you can pay less attention to, or potentially completely ignore, melee combat factors? There’s still the fairly easy means to remove someone’s ranged combatant advantages and that’s getting up in their face.

law.9410:

OP I find it hard to take you seriously when you use statements like “spam to win” and “useless pets”. Do you even play ranger? Their a lot of tricks you learn after a while like deselecting your target before casting fear or cc’ing your opponent before activating a pet skill to ensure it hits.

Using CC to make sure that an attack lands is not a “trick;” it’s a very common strategy across all professions. Deselecting a target in order to amplify certain attacks is also not something that only the Ranger does.

law.9410:

And If you’ve ever fought a good thief or mesmer you’ll learn how unspammy the longbow is. You can’t miss any HSs or PBS or you’re dead…

It’s hard to miss them given their cast-times.

law.9410:

I like to cast PBS right after my wolf’s fear to chain cc them.

Again, this is just basic combat strategy. Chaining skills together to improve a sustained assault’s overall effectiveness is not something special.

law.9410:

HS is very useful to ensure an un-interupted heal and to activate my elite skill.

Healing and elite skill cast-times are supposed to be moments during which the player is vulnerable. This forces the user to think a few steps ahead before the actual moment when he/she needs to pop the healing. Thinking ahead ensure the player has a play to reposition to a safe spot in order to buy time for healing or elite activation. [Hunter’s Shot]‘s stealth mechanic takes this thought out of the equation. It’s not healthy for game-play.

Moreover, a 25% up-time on Stealth is relatively overpowered to begin with.

Furthermore, the Ranger (aside from getting off a free heal or elite; examples which I’ve already discussed are unhealthy for the game) doesn’t really have too many options with which to really take advantage of 3 seconds of stealth. It’s a shoe-horned mechanic that doesn’t do much for the Ranger aside from eat up the number 3 slot on longbow which could be used for something that could deliver more impact with a better cue.

To finish, additional CC on the longbow would function just the same as a means to get off a heal or elite except that the new [Hunter’s Shot] would be much better telegraphed and have a more visceral effect on the enemy. Moreover, since it would be a targeted pull, the new [Hunter’s Shot] could be an enormous asset to team-play provided that the Ranger used the skill chain properly and the opponent doesn’t have stability.

Sol.4310:

@Swagg.9236, some really bad idea’s you don’t main ranger or seem to have good understanding of the class as a hole.

Stop making these balance threads for classes, unless you played the class into the ground you have no real idea what your talking about. Go make your own game if you wanted to design classes.

Sorry @Swagger.1459 your name is so close to OP I got confused.

I forgive you, just don’t let it happen again!!!

Swagger.1459:

swag, you’re way out of reality with the majority of your “suggestions” for this game. for example, you are trying to make a case against the profession wide design and use of auto attack, but seem to target the ranger profession as the only one that is “spammy”.

Looking at all of the Ranger’s offensive weapon skills in a line up, we see that only one sixth of them (6/36) have a cast-time at or above 1 second (I’m not counting [Counterattack] because it’s a block skill); and most of the skills at that below that threshold have cast-times of 1/2 second or less (especially the ones that activate from range). Having the vast majority of your skills activate very fast drastically reduces the amount of viable clutch counter-play options and it also takes a lot of the thinking out of when or where to use a skill because the vast majority of them pose no risk to the user for activating them. A 1/2 or 1/4 second cast-time is pittance. Anyone can get away with that. By making all of one’s attacks skills with such short cast-times, it sets the the weapon-set on a path to skill spam. Then, with the addition of passive, RNG, instant-activation procs, the entire system turns into a stream of poorly defined attacks that provides little clutch counter-play opportunities for an opponent. In a game without a dedicated healer, this is not an ideal design.

Swagger.1459:

You want to increase cool downs to 15+ seconds on most other attacks, but that only serves to make players even more reliant on using auto attack.

This is actually where I may have gone a little overboard. I’m actually looking at addressing a few key skill changes that do in fact go too far on the recharge.

Swagger.1459:

Might as well remove auto attack completely, make all attacks have a 5 second charge up with a 15 second cool down that forces the player to stand still and cast, and a floating text above the enemies head with the name of the attack that is being cast…

Now you’re the one going overboard. One of this game’s most defining features is its cast-on-the-go design for most of its skills. I would never dream of taking that away.

Even so, this game would indeed be a lot better if auto-attacks weren’t actual 1 skills; but rather universal, low-damage attacks made with the weapon. However, it’s far too late for that.

Swagger.1459:

while you may identify with a couple of real issues plaguing the meta, you have 0% clue as to what would be healthy changes for professions and combat in this game. At this point, I’m starting to think that these threads are just to annoy players by spamming the profession balancing forums with this stuff.

I’ve said it before, but due to the nature of GW2 (primarily stemming from its lack of a dedicated healer class), there is a very simple set of rules that govern how combat is balanced. It’s actually a much simpler design than a game that would have a dedicated healer. All of my changes are based around those simple ideas. If you want, I could repost them for you, but until then I’ll continue to take this site’s feedback in order to craft and recraft my suggestions.

I gotta ask you Swagg. How many hours have you actually played the Ranger in Guild Wars 2?

Swagg.9236:

Swagger.1459:

swag, you’re way out of reality with the majority of your “suggestions” for this game. for example, you are trying to make a case against the profession wide design and use of auto attack, but seem to target the ranger profession as the only one that is “spammy”.

Looking at all of the Ranger’s offensive weapon skills in a line up, we see that only one sixth of them (6/36) have a cast-time at or above 1 second (I’m not counting [Counterattack] because it’s a block skill); and most of the skills at that below that threshold have cast-times of 1/2 second or less (especially the ones that activate from range). Having the vast majority of your skills activate very fast drastically reduces the amount of viable clutch counter-play options and it also takes a lot of the thinking out of when or where to use a skill because the vast majority of them pose no risk to the user for activating them. A 1/2 or 1/4 second cast-time is pittance. Anyone can get away with that. By making all of one’s attacks skills with such short cast-times, it sets the the weapon-set on a path to skill spam. Then, with the addition of passive, RNG, instant-activation procs, the entire system turns into a stream of poorly defined attacks that provides little clutch counter-play opportunities for an opponent. In a game without a dedicated healer, this is not an ideal design.

Swagger.1459:

You want to increase cool downs to 15+ seconds on most other attacks, but that only serves to make players even more reliant on using auto attack.

This is actually where I may have gone a little overboard. I’m actually looking at addressing a few key skill changes that do in fact go too far on the recharge.

Swagger.1459:

Might as well remove auto attack completely, make all attacks have a 5 second charge up with a 15 second cool down that forces the player to stand still and cast, and a floating text above the enemies head with the name of the attack that is being cast…

Now you’re the one going overboard. One of this game’s most defining features is its cast-on-the-go design for most of its skills. I would never dream of taking that away.

Even so, this game would indeed be a lot better if auto-attacks weren’t actual 1 skills; but rather universal, low-damage attacks made with the weapon. However, it’s far too late for that.

Swagger.1459:

while you may identify with a couple of real issues plaguing the meta, you have 0% clue as to what would be healthy changes for professions and combat in this game. At this point, I’m starting to think that these threads are just to annoy players by spamming the profession balancing forums with this stuff.

I’ve said it before, but due to the nature of GW2 (primarily stemming from its lack of a dedicated healer class), there is a very simple set of rules that govern how combat is balanced. It’s actually a much simpler design than a game that would have a dedicated healer. All of my changes are based around those simple ideas. If you want, I could repost them for you, but until then I’ll continue to take this site’s feedback in order to craft and recraft my suggestions.

I wasn’t going overboard, it was a parody on your suggestions and the route you want to take professions and combat.

thanks, but I don’t need you to repost your poorly thought out vision, concepts, assumptions and ideas that do nothing to make any meaningful improvements.

again, while you may identify with a couple of real issues plaguing the meta, you have 0 clue as to what would be healthy changes for professions and combat in this game.