Guild Wars 2

I feel Anet needs to come up with a way to keep pets from dieing so easily in dungeons while also creating a way for pets to contribute outside of just fighting.

GuyWithTroll.5197:

Dante.1763:

Einlanzer.1627:

Mesmer Greatsword has the same mechanic. It’s meant as an abstraction for how Longbows are meant for long distance and therefore awkward at close range, and I sort of like it.

I’m not raining on your parade, your post was well written and well thought out, just trying to be informative.

wouldnt a longbow do more damage at close range than at far range? i mean to me it seems that the wound would be more gruesome the closer the target is, plus you will be more accurate the closer a target is..therefore allowing easier targeting of weakpoints(the eyes,crotch,shoulders,knees etc)?

No. The arrow builds up momentum as it flies through the air, so a hit from 10 yards might penetrate the skin, whereas a hit from 30 yards is likely to pass through the body (assuming the arrow doesn’t hit a bone or become lodged in the chest cavity). It is really just simple physics.

I don’t want to derail this discussions, but… there’s no way that’s correct. Projectiles don’t build up momentum as they move! Aristotle made that up.

Nice to see ranger suggestions still alive and kicking.

Just wanted to make a quick announcement for anyone that became even remotely interested in theorizing new and/or improved ranger traits. I’ve been updating my own Dream Traits here at the ranger forums little by little and having a lot of fun with it. So I’d like to encourage everyone to share your own “dream trait” suggestions either here at the suggestions section or feel free to post them in my Ranger Dream Traits thread behind the link above. I’d really like to see some discussion surfacing from the ranger community. If something doesn’t feel right… you should leave feedback!

This is by far the most comprehensive post i have seen. I’m hoping Anet balance team can take a look at this but is highly improbable.

I’ll throw this in here since it’s kinda fitting as a (partial) fix to the Ranger’s current issues. Also, I said I’d be back to this thread when I had thought about it some more.

So, here’s the Ranger Longbow fix suggestion:

What are the problems with a Ranger’s longbow?
-bad power scaling (as with all weapons, because of the pet)
-lack of utility
-inability to stay at range
-general clunkiness

Proposed solution:
a)Adjust traits in the Marksmanship line.
Major traits:
-Merge Signet Mastery with Beastmaster’s might. For a somewhat powerful trait, move to Master tier. This is mainly to allow more traits in this line that help the longbow.
-Move Spotter to Adept tier (Warriors have Empower Allies at adept, Guardians have Strength in Numbers at adept). This is at best an Adept-tier trait.
-This frees up one space at the Master tier, fill this by adjusting Remorseless to be a Master-tier trait (it’s not Grandmaster-worthy, it’s just too weak)
-Further change Remorseless to: Remorseless – you have a 33% chance of regaining Opening Strikes on critical hit. Cannot regain Opening Strikes from their own crit.
-New Grandmaster trait: Longbow Mastery – add 0.5, 1, 1.5 sec of cripple to the Longbow basic attack (>1000 -> 0.5 sec, 700-1000 -> 1.0 sec, <700 -> 1.5 sec). Further increase Longbow damage by 20%.

Ok, so what these should do is: compress traits needed to run signets (while retaining the basic flavour of having to go deep into Marksmanship for signets to affect you, too – those effects are pretty good, if only the Ranger weapons were good…) while also freeing up one space in the Grandmaster tier for a longbow specialization trait. I’ve been inspired for this from the Thief Trickery line, ironically, where there is a grandmaster trait that further reduces CD on the class mechanic by 20%. Well, the basic idea of that Grandmaster trait is to really specialize into something. So is this. I do not, for a second, doubt that the trait sounds really powerful – it is. That’s why it’s a Grandmaster one. I also do not for a second doubt that other weapons and other professions need a similar trait for their signature weapons. What those might be is not the point of this suggestion, though.

OK, so with regards to the problems with the Ranger longbow: what this does is improve the ability to stay at range without needing to use up precious utility slots. It also helps the power scaling of the Longbow, but only if you want to specialize in it.
This leaves the other 3 bullet points, which should be adressed by actual skill changes on the Longbow.

b) Change the longbow skills to allow more control over the range of the fight.
Here is my proposition for the skill changes:
1. Long Range Shot – decrease cast time by 0.15 sec. Coupled with the trait changes, this should allow the autoattack to feel sufficiently powerful.
2. Rapid Fire – obsolete skill, replace with Hunter’s Shot. Change Hunter’s Shot to “Hunter’s Shot – Fire an arrow to make your foe vulnerable and immobile for a short time (0.75 sec immobilize) Your pet gains swiftness.”. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 2 skill.
3. Point Blank Shot – move to slot 3. Change skill to: “Point Blank Shot – push back your foe. The closer they are, the more damage they take and the farther they’re pushed back” Maximum damage increase of 75% over autoattack, goes down in increments of 25%, same range requirements as currently. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 3 skill.
4. New skill – Keen Arrow. “Keen Arrow – you have a +50% chance of landing a critical hit. Remorseless has a 50% higher chance to trigger. Apply bleeding to your foe (2 stacks, 4 secs). 0.25 sec casting time, 0.35 sec aftercast, 18 sec cooldown.” As a spike skill, this needs a reasonably high damage coefficient – however, this should never be an instakill.
5. Barrage – remove the selfroot on cast. Adjust it to a slightly longer cripple duration. Allow this one skill to hit up to 10 targets. Fix the damage scaling (I seem to have read it got a nerf to damage in the last patch).
[cont in next post]

Follow-up post, because the last one got gobbled up by 5000-char-limit:

Ok, so what’s the rationale here: as with the Shortbow, which was arguably a good weapon (and still is, unless you want to chase down other people), the Longbow needs it’s autoattack to not feel lackluster. It should be the main source of damage, not a skill on a 10 sec cooldown (which is currently Rapid Fire). The other skills should give you utility. Some of it is already present in Point Blank Shot, but only some. The problem is, the Longbow needs tools to stay at range due to the nature of the autoattack. With this, the supplementing skills provide a good measure of very short CC. With the removal of Rapid Fire, I felt the Longbow lost it’s one and only “damage spike” skill. This is being reinstated on a longer cooldown with Keen Arrow, which adds a flat 50% chance to crit (short bleeding is there for good measure, but isn’t really needed). This makes it a reasonably chanced critical hit, which would synergize well with the new Remorseless (I felt the need to increase the chance for Remorseless to trigger on this one skill – more vulnerability is good if you pick this over increased Longbow range, right?).

And finally, Barrage. Ah yes. The thing is – the other skill(s) I can think of that apply AoE CC and/or AoE damage can hit more than 5 targets. Ele staff air field comes to mind, or meteor shower. The cripple on Barrage is so short that if you are in a situation where you want to be hitting a large group of foes (and this is mostly WvW only – maybe it needs a split with regards to the number of targets it can hit?), the cripples don’t last anywhere near long enough to matter on any particular target.

I feel that shortbow’s auto attack should always apply bleed (like you said) and apply a different condition if shot from the side or back (such as vulnerability)