Guild Wars 2

My main character is a 80 ranger who I also do a decent amount of spvp on. I have a couple of things that really bother me about the class that I would like to see changed slightly.

-Lightning reflexes: I would really like if this ability cured movement impairing effects (cripple/chill/immobilize). It is the main stun break/escape utility that rangers get, and the fact it does nothing vs Immobilize is highly frustrating, especially in pvp.

-Signets: I’m not sure about other players but aside from signet of stone, I rarely (never) activate my other signets when using them. I really think the cooldowns/active abilities need to be looked at to make them more attractive to activate..

-Shouts: These are all very poor skills in general. Aside from protect me, none of the other shouts have any lasting practical application, or are completely underpowered and underwhelming. For example “Sick Em” shout which makes your pet run faster+deal more damage, actually does less dps than Quickening Zephyr on your pet, and that doesn’t even include the fact Quickening Zephyr affects the ranger as well.

-Under performing Traits:

~Sharpened Edges (skirmishing): chance on crit to get a 2 second bleed which is much worse compared to similiar traits from other professions.

~Moment of clarity (30 pt skirmishing): Gives your next attack a 50% damage boost after you successfully interrupt. This is just plain poor all around considering the criteria to activate the trait and how little the bonus is, on top of being a master trait.

~Companions Might (skirmishing): The might it grants to your pet only lasts 2 seconds long. It’s a complete waste of a trait considering you cant even keep more than 1-2 stacks of might up on your pet even with shortbow in a high crit build.

~Pet family specific traits from beast mastery, should be consolidated into one trait.

Overall/general: I’m not a fan of how powerful and build defining a lot of traits are. Things like Trap potency, Signet of the Beastmaster and Spirit related traits in nature magic are all but required if you plan on using any of the related utility skills. I think a lot of these effects, such as moving spirits, signets applying to yourself as well as the pet should just be given to the ranger by default and these traits should be reworked some. I think it would dramatically improve the usability of the utility skills and increase the amount of good builds for ranger.

Thank you for reading, I know that I listed pretty much all major buffs to the profession but I really think most of these changes would make Rangers a lot more enjoyable to play.

while I agree that yes, many of these traits are underwhelming, the main disadvantage rangers with pets have in sPvP is that pets cannot attack and move at the same time. Fix this, and rangers will be by far the most balanced class in sPvP

teviko.6049:

the main disadvantage rangers with pets have in sPvP is that pets cannot attack and move at the same time. Fix this, and rangers will be by far the most balanced class in sPvP

That is certainly a problem, but it isn’t nearly the only issue with the class. Most of their weapons are either underpowered or wonky. And (as the OP stated) Rangers tend to pick the exact same utilities due to the abundance of useless ones. At the moment, there are literally 2 decent Ranger builds. That is completely unacceptable in a game supposedly about choice.

Ganpot.3879:

teviko.6049:

the main disadvantage rangers with pets have in sPvP is that pets cannot attack and move at the same time. Fix this, and rangers will be by far the most balanced class in sPvP

That is certainly a problem, but it isn’t nearly the only issue with the class. Most of their weapons are either underpowered or wonky. And (as the OP stated) Rangers tend to pick the exact same utilities due to the abundance of useless ones. At the moment, there are literally 2 decent Ranger builds. That is completely unacceptable in a game supposedly about choice.

only two viable builds for sPvP, true, mainly as you said, to traits/skills not really viable for the kind of PvP that is sPvP.

HOwever, many of these abilities are invaluable in PvE, where pets shine a little more. However…pets need to attack and move at the same time.