Guild Wars 2

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
Longbow for example: (these are all from the Marksmanship tree)
Eagle Eye : Increases longbow range. Longbow damage is increased (5%).
Piercing Arrows: All arrow attacks pierce targets.
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
and also in the tree is Steady Focus: Damage is increased when endurance is full. (10%)
which is pretty much always going to be something you pick.
and Spotter: Increases precision of nearby allies. which is demanded by most groups in pve/wvw.

so why can we not condense some of these down?
also why do we need to trait for piercing arrows atall?
why can our arrows not pierce by default like an engineer with a rifle?

you could even go so far as to suggest that Eagle Eye, Read the Wind and Piercing Arrows should all be combined into a single grand master trait.

Expert’s Dexterity:
Range Increase 300
Damage Increase 5%
Your arrows pierce and move twice as fast.

before anyone says that it would be too powerful, compare it to engineers “grenadier” trait which effectively increases their damage by 33% and increases range by 300.

and ask if it would be fair to force the engi to trait for one extra grenade and a range increase as 2 separate traits.

I do agree with you to an extent, although it should be pointed out that you will screw some people over by offloading that all into a single grandmaster trait. Currently, if you only do 20 in marksmanship, you can elect to take piercing arrows for use on a shortbow, but now you’ll make it so that they will no longer be able to do that (i.e. can’t do a 20/20/30/0/0 spec or something and have piercing arrows).

I feel it would make more sense to pull down read the wind and combine it with piercing arrows, although I don’t know if we’ll ever see such things anymore due to the new unlocking system.

I agree with the general idea, but not necessarily your suggestion simply because I’m still not sure I could justify taking your trait over Signet of the Beastmaster unless I was planning to run in a zerg and wouldn’t need it. I lose access to every master tier trait with your suggestion which leaves me little real choice.

But generally speaking a large number of Ranger traits make little sense and ANet has their work cut out for them whenever they decide to realize the Ranger class exists.

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

The ranger really needs one or more of these traits to be class inherent.
I have always thought that range should be what makes a ranger’s bows unique.
A thief gets a bounce.
A warrior shoots a pair.
Ranger should shoot farther!

I think it is time to simply put SB at 1100 (a little farther than thief and warrior) and LB at 1500 without a trait.

Combine the 5% damage on LB with Spotter. There ya go.

The only game where rangers are not unique or diverse,, is this one.

When did any professions in any Game, MMO: beside this one, DARE match or equal to, or excel a ranger profession?

see> warrior and thief mechanics and designs
see thief short bow> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_bow
see warrior long bow> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Longbow
see> who has the advantage than ranger
see> Guild Wars 2 Balance Philosophy

see- mmo’s who values and embraces rangers naturalistics without mandatories .

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
…

To be blunt, I just don’t feel that those traits are mandatory. I can understand people feeling this way but they practically aren’t. It is more about making a choice how you want to improve your bow and not to get all at once (theoretical min-maxing).

Your line of argumentation could also justify fusing many traits on other classes just because they are related. The only difference will be that they might be scattered across more traitlines. But does it feel appropriate? Probably not.

Liewec.2896:

Expert’s Dexterity:
Range Increase 300
Damage Increase 5%
Your arrows pierce and move twice as fast.

…

You can’t compare Grenades to the Longbow and in its context this trait would be insanely overpowered. Longbow isn’t that powerful when not traited but it is still pretty decent when compared to untraited Grenades which are utterly useless.

Actually, that is something Engineers have been complaining about for ages now. Grenadier is mandatory when running Grenades and your new trait would be, too. As other pointed out, nobody would pick other traits. Which makes your suggestion causing exactly what you critized in the first place.

Coarr.3286:

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

That is an idea I haven’t heard so far. I like it.

However, you’d probably screw with some builds by changing the secondary bonus of Marksmanship. Some people might actually need the additional condition duration.

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
Longbow for example: (these are all from the Marksmanship tree)
Eagle Eye : Increases longbow range. Longbow damage is increased (5%).
Piercing Arrows: All arrow attacks pierce targets.
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
and also in the tree is Steady Focus: Damage is increased when endurance is full. (10%)
which is pretty much always going to be something you pick.
and Spotter: Increases precision of nearby allies. which is demanded by most groups in pve/wvw.

so why can we not condense some of these down?
also why do we need to trait for piercing arrows atall?
why can our arrows not pierce by default like an engineer with a rifle?

you could even go so far as to suggest that Eagle Eye, Read the Wind and Piercing Arrows should all be combined into a single grand master trait.

Expert’s Dexterity:
Range Increase 300
Damage Increase 5%
Your arrows pierce and move twice as fast.

before anyone says that it would be too powerful, compare it to engineers “grenadier” trait which effectively increases their damage by 33% and increases range by 300.

and ask if it would be fair to force the engi to trait for one extra grenade and a range increase as 2 separate traits.

Building is about making choices. one might prefer range and velocity in some instance, peircing and range in others, and so on. All proffessions have to make choices either in one trait line, or across many.
Arguably we have to make choices between somewhat meaningless traits on their own, and one not worth it without another (eg: velocity in not worth much below 1200 range, most sidestepping happening over 1 00 range).
But it is still, and always, about making the best choices for the gameplay/situation, and not about being ready for everything…
And as stated by Xaylin “Grenadier is mandatory when running Grenades and your new trait would be, too.”
From genera observations, a trait that gives a great increase by traits often brings some decrease of the untraited weapon… weaker traits often brings better untraited weapon.

Coarr.3286:

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

and what about people putting points in marks without playing bows? and where would you put condi duration? (somewhat power build with + condi duration for immobilizes helps our pet hit, or helps to keep foes at bay for some time)
and since condi duration needs to be at least a 50%, hopefully 100%, and there isn’t much ways to add it to a build in order to reach the duration… (40 with food – that also gives condi damage, which is unneeded in power build, 10 with some stones, 30 from traitline and 20 if wielding two one-hand weapon, plus some runes that can help, though once again, with side stats that are not all that useful…)

I’d better see some consolidation by way of all ranged weapon have or all two handed weapons or else along those lines (eg: why can’t SB range be increased?) than consolidation that makes a trait mandatory in a given build…

Xaylin.1860:

Coarr.3286:

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

That is an idea I haven’t heard so far. I like it.

However, you’d probably screw with some builds by changing the secondary bonus of Marksmanship. Some people might actually need the additional condition duration.

yep. that is the risk.

the biggest problem is our class mechanic. every single class has the same + stats on the trait lines in different order. we get + stats for our pet. for me as a wvw player the + stats for the pet is absolute useless. change the class mechanic from pet stats to increase bow range.

eg:

Marksmanship | + 10 Power | + 10 Range ( new Class Mechanic, works with both bows, axe( 1,2,3,4 ), horn ( 4 ) and dagger ( 5 ) )
Skirmishing | + 10 Precision | + 10 Ferocity
Wilderness Survival | + 10 Condition Damage | + 1% Condition Duration ( traps need to go here )
Nature Magic | + 10 Vitality | + 1% Boon Durartion
Beast Master | + 10 Healing Power | + 10 Toughness

Xaylin.1860:

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
…

To be blunt, I just don’t feel that those traits are mandatory. I can understand people feeling this way but they practically aren’t. It is more about making a choice how you want to improve your bow and not to get all at once (theoretical min-maxing).

Your line of argumentation could also justify fusing many traits on other classes just because they are related. The only difference will be that they might be scattered across more traitlines. But does it feel appropriate? Probably not.

Liewec.2896:

Expert’s Dexterity:
Range Increase 300
Damage Increase 5%
Your arrows pierce and move twice as fast.

…

You can’t compare Grenades to the Longbow and in its context this trait would be insanely overpowered. Longbow isn’t that powerful when not traited but it is still pretty decent when compared to untraited Grenades which are utterly useless.

Actually, that is something Engineers have been complaining about for ages now. Grenadier is mandatory when running Grenades and your new trait would be, too. As other pointed out, nobody would pick other traits. Which makes your suggestion causing exactly what you critized in the first place.

Coarr.3286:

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

That is an idea I haven’t heard so far. I like it.

However, you’d probably screw with some builds by changing the secondary bonus of Marksmanship. Some people might actually need the additional condition duration.

Agree. For example I have never traited Piercing Arrows. Better options.

Forzani, do you WvW? I personally find piercing arrows to be mandatory in WvW so I can count on my shots actually hitting the target I have selected. For PvP and roaming it’s less useful.

I also agree with the above discussion about a trait tree is supposed to offer choices and the ability to specialize in something, but do you guys honestly think Marksmanship is doing a good job at this?

To me, the ability to specialize in something and make choices between traits often leads you in 2 different directions. Take skirmishing for example. You can either specialize in traps and make those choices, or you specialize in something else and choose entirely different traits.

Marks doesn’t do this. It offers you a selection of bow traits that you’ll want regardless of longbow or shortbow, and then several other traits on top of this for longbow in particular. There’s no real alternate design behind the marks tree. Nothing to truly specialize in. It’s just all bloated with poorly designed traits imo.

If Marks was split into 2 branches, one to specialize in shortbow and the other to specialize in longbow, I’d be fine. But that’s not the case. We have 5 traits for 2 spots and that’s not even considering SotBM.

Actually, I see Grenadier as a very problematic trait due to being too strong and too required for using the grenade kit. It’s not good to make more traits like that.

Atherakhia.4086:

Forzani, do you WvW? I personally find piercing arrows to be mandatory in WvW so I can count on my shots actually hitting the target I have selected. For PvP and roaming it’s less useful.

…

If Marks was split into 2 branches, one to specialize in shortbow and the other to specialize in longbow, I’d be fine. But that’s not the case. We have 5 traits for 2 spots and that’s not even considering SotBM.

Does Marksmanship have to be divided this way? You said it yourself: Piercing Arrow is good for WvW. For roaming or PvP not so much. But other traits are. While the tree isn’t divided based on weapons it can be divided into different playstyles which fit different game modes or situations. You also left out Signets.

I agree, though, that Marksmanship overemphasizes Longbow over Shortbow.

It doesn’t have to be divided by weapon and could certainly be divided like you said. I was simply trying to point out that some choice is reasonable, but the marksmanship line goes beyond what’s reasonable imo.

We rangers must not put ourselves in the same category as other classes having choices.

We rangers are Nature archetype, not an archetype by man choices. We do not seek wisdom from man but of nature, “Rangers are usually associated with the wisdom of nature”

“We are nature’s beauty: what is natural to nature is natural to us*.

What is natural?

“Natural means that which exists without intervention of the human species”.

why are rangers nature are being punished?

Why are rangers are prevented from being natural?

why are rangers forced to be enslave by this system choices?

This mandate choice system only forces rangers to go against their natural nature

The true nature of this mandate choice system is to unnaturalize, enslave exterminate our nature

It would indeed make the trait like the engi granader trait.

That’t not really a good thing. One thing I hate about my engi is being shoe horned into grenades and going 30 in that line all the time. I know there are plenty of other good builds… but for dmg on an engi nades are pretty much the best practice.

Then again its not like anyone using a longbow now on a ranger would go less then 30 in that line very often anyway I guess. Still at least its an option now.

I guess Anet also seems to want to kill off hybrid stuff as much as possible… so your idea has a lot of merit from that angle.

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
……
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
…….

How is a trait that doesn’t exist in the game yet Mandatory?

Chrispy.5641:

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
……
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
…….

How is a trait that doesn’t exist in the game yet Mandatory?

What do you mean… my s-d/gs ranger is going to slot this pronto.