Guild Wars 2

I don’t know what Anet has in mind in terms of changes to Rangers that would make us stronger and/or help bring some interesting dynamic to WvW but I hope it’s soon (like next balance patch).

Right now, Ranger has no role, none, nada, zip. If there was a role it could fill, it would be to man siege because a Ranger on an Arrow cart can still send their pets on single targets which is somewhat OP (sarcasm).

Buff Rangers in a way that make us essential to WvW offense/defense/roaming.

What’s the point of this thread? Discuss suggestions below.

Suggestions:
Give pets the ability to scale walls both up and down (restricted by lease range).
Make pets the most dangerous AI on the battle field (more risk/reward).
Move some objectives into the water where Rangers can win (There’s currently no reason to go in the water to be wtfpwned by a Ranger).
Nerf brain-dead, passive spam-to-win aspect of necros.

I know many strangers on the internet have strange opinions about the state of Rangers in WvW. So I’ll say it right now, if you disagree then lets agree to disagree.

first, i think more raids should use LB ranger to spike the weapons in Towers, which are out of reach for others, the deep barage aoe is really helpful to pressure arrowcart users on sideplaces in Towers.
But yes rangers are in an uncomfortable place for WvW as General, as solo fighter really strong and that is helpful for a zerg too, but not great.
what i cant understand is why so less rangers Play on Spirit in wvw, sure the Spirits die, but right timed the passives Triggers after the death and the actives can Trigger two times while alive and dead. with the buff/nerf of the CD of Spirits i thought a new wvw Spirit meta Comes.
Our current zerg help are healing spring, Call of the wind and Pet F2.

pet scaling is a very difficult Thing for programmers i think, that idea in General was already discussed in cdi.
Everything with pet AI is not useful to discuss, we should celebrate anet for the F2 fix.
When we see new WvW maps with water fights, sure of course that would be epic, but as we saw they deleted the pvp map uncorn with water fights to make the game…more noobfriendly (No! bad anet! xD) we should not expect such a map.
thats a theme what will not help rangers, nerfing others to make the ranger more useful? at end the ranger will still not be accepted in wvw and we applied it to necros as well – no.

My ideas:
Triggering traps: we can activate traps without waiting for a foe, with that we can use the Combo fields for stacking might and frost Aura.
Rangers become the anti-stealth class. With sic´em it was a start, now we Need more revealed skills
I suggest Muddy Terrain for Aoe Revealéd. Moving over mud cause footprints – we can see the foe, he is revealed. That as aoe could cause that just some rangers with muddy Terrain can reveal the half of a zerg when they move through the mesmer skill (sry dont know the english word for it).
Other skill; signet of the Hunt. Passive stays, for active a revealed effect is added. For example the target gains a good amount of revealed.
For the design of the Profession it would make sense or not? the ranger who can see through the darkness of the forest and his sharp eyes can see what others cant see.

gawker.8340:

I don’t know what Anet has in mind in terms of changes to Rangers that would make us stronger and/or help bring some interesting dynamic to WvW but I hope it’s soon (like next balance patch).

Right now, Ranger has no role, none, nada, zip. If there was a role it could fill, it would be to man siege because a Ranger on an Arrow cart can still send their pets on single targets which is somewhat OP (sarcasm).

Buff Rangers in a way that make us essential to WvW offense/defense/roaming.

What’s the point of this thread? Discuss suggestions below.

Suggestions:
Give pets the ability to scale walls both up and down (restricted by lease range).
Make pets the most dangerous AI on the battle field (more risk/reward).
Move some objectives into the water where Rangers can win (There’s currently no reason to go in the water to be wtfpwned by a Ranger).
Nerf brain-dead, passive spam-to-win aspect of necros.

I know many strangers on the internet have strange opinions about the state of Rangers in WvW. So I’ll say it right now, if you disagree then lets agree to disagree.

I take it you’re upset about condition spread good sir. I don’t mean to appear snarky, but none of the medium armor professions really have a “place” in large group fights. You can pick off single people or tag kills. There are four very specific professions running the WvW show and it should not come as a surprise. Even of those four, not all of them are of equal importance.

And you’re ok with that Oakwind? That a game has 8 playable classes but only GWEN have a use?

You forgot to add the portal-bots for effect. But no, as a matter of fact I’m not at all okay with that. I’ve had very long and arduous debates about this, and on a personal level I detest the melee trains.

Just so you know, my favored professions are Engineer, Necromancer, Mesmer, Ranger, and at least three other Engineers, because I’m too lazy to change builds all the time. It’s painfully obvious they don’t really belong in WvW zergs. I do get my fun, but that’s mostly because I’m confident in the professions I play.

On the other hand, the medium professions are great at other tasks, like scouting, securing supplies and harassment. Unfortunately the game’s reward model makes those activities less than lucrative. It’s not just about gameplay balance, but a structural problem.

EDIT: Added another thought.

And of the classes that don’t belong, which do you feel has the least to offer to WvW currently?

I also question some of of the roles you feel these classes excel at.

You mention scouting, but Warriors make the best scouts. You mention yak slaying and camp taking, but every class can solo those. So even in these side tasks, it seems we’re better off with GWEN filling those roles too, no?

What about spotter and spirits? Pretty sure they would be helpful to a zerg. :P

Not to be taken as anecdotal evidence, but in my opinion Ranger. Not only are they weak because their typical PvP tools (spirits, trapper) don’t really work in large scale PvP, but also because their pet is extremely hard to keep alive. It’s got small-group synergy though.

EDIT: As spoj pointed above, and I sort of glanced at the topic; Spotter is a great effect, but Spirits get easily taken out unless you skirmish really carefully. At that point you’re really on your own. All the medium armor professions fit the profile of a skirmisher really. Short of an ineffectual super-bunker build, I don’t see how you could run with the train and feel meaningful as a Thief, Ranger or Engineer.

out of the classes that can use stealth … thief / mesmer / engi / ranger ….

ranger should have more stealth than mesmer and engi …

but it has the least amount of stealth …
it could be pretty nice and help the class

i mean if u r a hunter how do u hunt with out your camouflage XD
u dont u get eaten by a bear lol XD

I’d like a shout that reveals 5-10 enemies in a range around the character (or pet). A trap or pet f2 that strips boons would be nice, and a blast finisher for greatsword 2.

reveals can be really op
but we do have sickem . but it takes some luck for the AI to land it :S

but a boon strip/ steal would be nice….
same goes for blast finishers

caveman.5840:

reveals can be really op
but we do have sickem . but it takes some luck for the AI to land it :S

but a boon strip/ steal would be nice….
same goes for blast finishers

I thought sickem reveal happen at the of the cast and didn’t require the pet to hit with?

I think more skills to reveal stealth characters would be very nice. This can be a new role within a group/team.

Put sic em on F1, guard on F3 and put a effect ICD on both. Then give ud rwo new shouts. One that grant aoe stability (4-5sec tops) and protection (4-5 sec tops) on a reasonable cooldown. And another one that coverts 2 boons into cripple and weakness on up to 3 enemies.

Then nerf signet of the wild by removing stability, but increasing duration of damage buff to 12 sec.

New pet commands F1 and F3 is changef so that every 15 seconds, you can perform a buffed command that count as a shout and grant the old shout bonuses. Sic’em is changed so that the next 5 pet attacks does +40% damage and pet gains 10 sec swiftness.
Guard on F3 applies 8 seconds protection, stealth and heals pet and only pet, for 2.5k hp flat.
This way we get a “pet heal”.

That is all i want.

Dunno, i’ve just moved across from my Necro to my Ranger and i’m loving it… the AOE is lacking somewhat, but the range and DPS on the longbow, combined with the greatsword and some of the pet utilities is great.

I think they could merge a couple of the longbow traits so ranger could get piercing as well as the 1500 range – this would make the class the perfect sniper. I would love it if A-net could make this change!!!!

caveman.5840:

out of the classes that can use stealth … thief / mesmer / engi / ranger ….

ranger should have more stealth than mesmer and engi …

but it has the least amount of stealth …
it could be pretty nice and help the class

i mean if u r a hunter how do u hunt with out your camouflage XD
u dont u get eaten by a bear lol XD

Rangers have more Stealth then Engineers.

Hunters Shot alone can keep a Ranger in stealth 1/3th of the time, no Engineer can come close to competing with that.
Where the options are blasting worthless utility skills for a short stealth every minute, or using an elixir for a short stealth every minute.
Out all the stealth bearing professions its the engineer is the one with the least of it.

A lot of professions lack a purpose in zergs. Ranger isnt the only one, saying you got nothing to do in a zerg just shows a clear lack of imagination and understanding of the profession.
There is always something you can do, always. It might not be the best thing, but thats irrelevant and certainly more then “nada, zilch, nothing”. Atleast a Longbow ranger has great wall-clear that only one other profession can rival.

Rangers dont need special help to fit in the zerg meta, the zerg meta needs to be broken. Guardians and Warriors are far to prevalent, combining tankiness, with CC spam, with CC immunity. Thats a recipe for imbalance if i ever did see one.

A little change that would do wonder for bow ranger:

-make the ranger shot to the parallel of the ground when there is no target. Currently in zerg its just impossible to shoot where it would be the more effective cause you obviously can’t use auto-target, and managing to click on the right character when there is like 40body within 3m² is just impossible (and if you click on an ally (which happend like every time) you’ll be shooting in the ground …)
There is one trick to manage this, its to put your camera to the parallel of the ground and then left click to have a good camera orientation, but then, you can’t moove easily since you’re in left click.

I think spirit could work in zerg, i never saw someone try it out. The radius of the spirits’s buff is pretty wide, you can stay on the merge of the battle and free dps whith the bow.
Trap is pretty decent too, but as said for like years, related trait needs to be moved in the right trait line.
Shout are lackluster and really need buff. Just make them AOE and stop with selfish shout, its the only shouting class that have selfish shout XD
Survival skills are for melee ranger, we don’t see many of them cause they’re weaker than any other melee class and they don’t bring something that only them can bring (like an ele can provide water field as exemple). But don’t forget that survival skill got a nice buff though the new trait, i think a nice way to improve would be by making 1 out of the 2dispell into an aoe dispell (i don’t think i put it very clear, i suggest that the ranger got 2dispell, and his allies get 1)

About spirit
We tested spirit in guild, and it was just not worth it.
It basically give a 6 seconds boost to few allies before dying, and below 50% uptime, the passive was not deemed worth it.
What is important in fights is to put the good field at the right place. Random activation by death does not cut it. And placing the spirit in the right spot for it’s activation also was nearly impossible.
Plus spirits in zergs need to move and have their death trigger their active. The increased chance is also nice.
That means giving up an whole branch for vitality and boon duration.
We don’t give much boons to allies, thus points in that are not best used.
Taking 3 spirits traits mean we don’t have access to the vitality to power one, which is a great trait for both damage and survivability.
To max on spirit traits, we’d take 3 spirits, thus no survivability option, thus have to go get it in traits and runes, thus less damage again, for less survivability…

Overall, there was nothing going for it in big scale conbat…

About non-GWEN
Never saw “no thieves, engies, mesmers” in guild posts, but 9/10 states no rangers.
Thieves are great for bursts, for scouting around the bus for ennemies, to impede enemies’ casters work, and, of course, they have an insane amount of explosions).
Engies grant useful boons (stability? Protection?), have a great amount of explosions and fields (@Terrahero: which is why they have more stealth uptime), deal great damage while being tanky, can easily switch from melee to distance and also have a water field…
Mesmers As much as I feel sa for mesmers, at least they have a purpose. being a veil / portal / boons bot might not be funny, it is nonetheless great for the bus.
Rangers Though somewhat better off with the last update, they have top build to do anything. Spotter is useful for the bus, but very few rangers take it because they play with bow and need the traits. Their traited control options are way below those of an untraited staff necro (chill – 4 seconds every 20 seconds, plus the necro can stack weakness, which is way stronger than our vulnerability), untraited sword war (up to 4 sec immobilise every 10 seconds). Most of our shorter durations are due to the facte we have pets that are supposed to add to our ability, which, even with careful management, is dead (plus it’s mostly single target).

In any competitive setting, anyone would take what’s giving them more for less. And we unfortunately don’t fit in that
Our only argument is that while we do it, others don’t have to. Best example is Ele that build for damage, when they go in water, it’s a DPS loss for the group, while we only have to be there to lay our field, without stopping pressuring the ennemy. And our immobilise is distant, thus better in some situation than the war’s immob. And our rez spirit might prove to be better than war’s banner, when traited to activate on death (even untraited, CD is lower… but we all know war’s banner sometimes fail, when the to-be-revived-ally is getting lots of damage, the banner don’t heal to full – two spirit charge would…).
____________

With the right build, rangers can be quite tanky while dealing decent damage (6/0/2/6 – signet /survival build with the vita to power trait), giving a boon that noone else can (spotter = +7% crit chance to 15 players), distant control option that can help set the pace of a fight (muddy terrain placed to trap the casters, so they are separated from the melee – to help form a spaghetti, instead of a ball), can help mitigate damage (send the bear in foe’s AoE), can help DPS uptime (DPS Ele don’t have to go in water).
But it just don’t cut it.

I believe that the simple addition on “and allies” on some of our traits would help a lot. (That, and the need to trait signet.)
Examples :
Beastmaster’s bonds : you and allies get might and fury when your pet’s health drop below the treshold
Alpha training (might be too strong) (pets and up to five allies also have opening strike(maybe “precise strike” don’t apply to allies))…
Signet of the beastmaster: half active effects of signets also applies to allies…
Strider’s defense : you and allies have a chance to destroy projectiles
Vigourous renewal : you and allies gain vigor when you use a heal skill
And so on…
These would not be direct buff to solo rangers, but would help us find a place in a large fights setting…

Reikou.7068:

Zero Day.2594:

Cool I guess it’s fair that we only get to do one thing and one thing only, while other classes can do multiple things.
And on top of that, we’re getting called OP in every aspect including those that we can’t really do.
Let me guess, I should roll another class if I want to do something else?

“Let me guess, I should roll another class if I don’t want to play thief.”

well… yes?

Reikou.7068:

Zero Day.2594:

That makes sense….
I should probably roll a Warrior then, so I can roam, zerg, and be viable in any PvE/PvP situation. And only play a thief when I want to roam or be called OP even if I suck (honestly I’m not good, decent at best) but they suck more (and they don’t realize that).

Well if you want to do what a warrior can do, then yes, you should lol. Likewise, if you want to do what a Necro can do, you should roll a Necro, etc.

Kinda logical I would think.

Kind of relevant to OP….
Essentially he’s suggesting:
If you want to do something other than what your class can do, re-roll another.

The fact that some classes are more-or-less locked into one role or are kitten in most roles while certain classes (starts with a “W” and ends in a “arrior”) can do pretty much w/e they want… is kind of beyond some people.

@Jocksy.3415:

About Engineers: They do not grant Protection nor Stability to allies. The only things they can provide for a party are Regeneration and Swiftness. Bomb Kit has some solid fields but commanders rarely understand them, and rather have an Elementalist do theirs. The Water Field on Healing Turret isn’t worth mentioning because it only appears on overcharge, and is subject to the 3-second cycle timer that resets if there are no friendlies in the healing area. Elementalist and Ranger are way better for when you need a Water Field. Engineer is also very trait-dependent to the point where you have to trait for e.g. Grenade Kit to make it truly useful. It’s not easy to fight at all ranges, and the Engineer is very weak at range if the targets are moving fast.

Nothing in the game really prevents one from putting on tanky gear and running with the zerg, but that doesn’t mean you’re useful. Ranger is pretty much the only one that can emulate what warriors do with a reliable on-call stability in Rampage as One. Even then, the GWEN meta is largely due to how good the hammerspam is, which none of the medium armor professions can emulate. That’s why I made the mental association to skirmishers.

Engineers can toss Elixir B to give group stability. It’s annoying to use but that is another issue. And barring all of that, there’s regenerating mist which is basically just a throwaway skill. Also, elixir gun offers 2 low cooldown group condi removal skills which I think is competitive with guardian condition removal unless the guardian goes all out via 6 honor/4+ virtues. And note guardians usually have to burn out a lot of cooldowns to get those condition removals going.

Obviously, so called GWEN meta exists for a reason though I somewhat scoff at the idea of optimizing for zergs. Still, let’s not deny that these 4 are better at zerging. I just don’t share the notion they are useless just because some “zerg experts” think they are. Remember, that meta used to be called GW….

Engineers and rangers share the same problem and that is their stability uptime is awful, they need to invest a lot of trait points just to get certain things working, and thus need to be carried by guardians granting them stability if they want to hang with the front. Engineers have bomb heals… Rangers have umm, well they can be there. Sword if you actually now how to use it gets you out of trouble of mostly anything. This includes being bonked by a dozen hammers.

But in most situations, that leaves many of them stuck pew pewing at 1500 range which is actually useful from towers or terrain or something. Still, the engineer remains better off since grenades do aoe damage while poor rangers are stuck with lol barrage. Rangers also only have 2 uses of stability, both are very expensive… one is an elite and the other requires 30 points to invest in signets. Engineer stability is nonexistent I suppose. This all boils down to mass CC being too absurd.

Still, open field fights while often good to use to stroke one’s ego is hardly all of wvw’s big fights. When dealing with elevation, this changes greatly.

Now none of what I said doesn’t stop some skilled rangers and engies sniping out stragglers and bursting down priority targets. It’s just arguable that they would be able to do more on another class with less effort. But that’s difficult to prove. I’ve used stuff like Muddy Terrain and Elixir Gun to good effect and I feel I must have accomplished something as opposed to me not being there or dead on the ground but I certainly would be better on my guardian. But since guardian is my main, this remains all just an anecdote.

Back to rangers, I think that shortbow could use a bit longer range and either bow needs to pierce by default.

For ways of thinking the change, we can look at the necro. The necro is terrible at support, is completely weak to CC, and conditions can easily be negated or changed, but the necro is able to flash certain things (plague forms, corruption) that can instantly turn the tide of battle and making minimal sacrifices so they can still do lots of damage.

Jocksy pretty much nailed the spirits issue in WvW. +1

Support ranger is really weak right now in WvW. Invigorating bonds helps, but their ults are really weak. Buffing radius to 1000 on Spirit of Nature helps. Spirit of Nature should also scale with Heal. pow. Making Entangle ranged 900 would be pretty good as well.

I also feel like the only spirits worth taking are frost and water for their passives. Additionally, spirit actives besides SoN are really bad. If the ranger had some control over spirit actives’ AoE, it’d be fairly useful.

caveman.5840:

out of the classes that can use stealth … thief / mesmer / engi / ranger ….

ranger should have more stealth than mesmer and engi …

but it has the least amount of stealth …
it could be pretty nice and help the class

i mean if u r a hunter how do u hunt with out your camouflage XD
u dont u get eaten by a bear lol XD

Camouflage should not be a passive trait…it should be an active skill. Rangers should be able to blend in with their surroundings…and as long as they stay still should be near impossible to find.

Basically ranger is balanced in the area of AOE spam unlike other classes.

great idea, should be a signet active buff, like an ele’s Glyph of Elemental Power, 45 second cd, buff duration lasts 30 seconds.

One with Nature: gain camouflage (10s) when you stop moving (30 second cooldown)

or something to that effect…

shadowpass.4236:

great idea, should be a signet active buff, like an ele’s Glyph of Elemental Power, 45 second cd, buff duration lasts 30 seconds.

One with Nature: gain camouflage (10s) when you stop moving (30 second cooldown)

or something to that effect…

camouflage should trigger after a dosge roll. So you’ve a little control about it.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

camouflage should trigger after a dosge roll. So you’ve a little control about it.

hmm, I like it :] this should proc remorseless too, make us a vulnerability bot :P

like a 3 second camouflage on a 15 second cd

Zefrost.3425:

Basically ranger is balanced in the area of AOE spam unlike other classes.

We’re balanced because we dont have any?