Guild Wars 2

Hey I did some looking around before I posted this and again I want to recap anyone who has been following my posts here. I’m new I just started a few days ago, and I’ve always been the ranger kind of guy when it came to rpg’s. I just loved em the idea of kiting around my enemy laughing as he tries to catching me etc. Just my kind of play style…

So far the ranger… KINDA does that but eh… this long bow man… I dunno.

I’ve always seen the ranger class as a High risk high reward kinda play style. Tons of damage, the one hitter quitter if you play your cards right…. man the ranger DOES NOT Feel like that at all…

I mean whose idea was it, to give the starting item of the ranger an axe…. that bounces….. Oh and is apparently a boomerang as well? Someone should seed that design over the Link at Nintendo, I’m sure he’d love one. Me on the other hand… I’m a ranger I’m not a f-ing lumberjack?! I don’t cut trees… oh wait apparently I do if I want to be a huntsman…. >_>

So lets talk ranger… what is a ranger… No I’m not talking mighty morphing ranger either. When I think ranger what comes to mind is an out-doorsman, an hunter an early law enforcer. A man who uses cunning and wits to overcome is target(s) A man who ends fights quickly, but can prolong them if he’s out gunned. This is NOT what we have here.

Rangers in this game feel like a substained dps, with bleed and burn effects. I would expect that from the thief or magic casters. Not the ranger….

I would expect a Ranger, to surprise than burst… Lure than trap, finally finish off the target. If the initial attack failed. I don’t see a kit for that. I see a circus performer jumping around. I guess that’s why it was an option to join the circus in the creation menu… really the circus.. who picked that anyway???

The long bow kit is aweful so I have some suggestions to make it more ranger like.

The Longbow was the one of the first siege weapons ever invented, but lets avoid the history lesson and get to the point. Range, and power. Kill before they have time to react, that’s the idea were going for here. I’m going to list the kills by their default key bindings.

(1) Shoot your foe from long range. The farther the arrow flies, the more damage it does.

facepalm how… useless…. So uh… So my MAIN source of damage… my auto attack… does LESS damage as they get closer…. Brilliant! Who the hell came up with this idea.

Solution and rename
Volley
(1) Passive: Every fired shot increases the ranger’s chance to land a critical hit. This passive may reach 100%. The chance to crit is reset when another ability is used.
(1) Active: Ranger raises his bow and fires a single long range shot up to 2800 (50 cd)
Using it’s active does not put auto attacking on cd. The farther the arrow travels the more damage is dealt. If targeted at max range, the attack will still land even if selected champion moves out of abilities max range.

Explanation of skill it’s perks and limitations:
A ranger is a high damage dealer by default, however the use of his abilities should only be used when necessary. Giving him a substantial auto attack with the long bow.
Also the active component, is meant to be a finisher or engaging tool. Making use of the already in game mechanic.

(2) Pinning shot
Immobilizes target for 3 sec causes bleed effect for 5 sec
Pet deals bonus damage during debuff.
(long bows much needed cc)

(3) keep point blank shot this skill is remarkable and the only skill worth using in this kit.

(4) Go for the Heart
Targets vitals, increases targets cool-downs for 10 sec causes cripple for 2

(5) Right between the eyes
Targeted head shot, deals bonus damage based on targets health, deals double bonus damage if critical.

Finally now the ranger skill set is addressed, another final note…

A ranger is a stealthy champion and requires stealth options as well as the thief… HOWEVER with that said, the ranger is also a keen fighter and plays the role of front line supporter. Get in range of a ranger and you can easily kill him with his long cool downs.

Which is why it’s important for the ranger to have some built in stealth detecting utilities.

Man, this is a great suggestion ..

I have kind of abandoned my lvl 80 ranger … I have 6 other 80s to play with (and another one rising) but I wish ranger was more viable using the kitten longbow.

Stealth is a good idea too, but I guess we can’t implement too much of it, as it will be quite op, so if a few utilities (like the mesmer) provide stealth that would be great

+1 all the way and I hope more people see this!!

The problem with this (as well as every other profession) is the fact that there is no dedicated anything. I understand why you would want Ranger to be the way you described, but most people would tell you to just run berserker gear. Guild Wars 2 has a problem of limiting its professions’ capabilities due to the restraints of its balancing mechanics, i.e. allowing any class any role. It’s an idea that looks good on paper, but I’ve said it many times and will continue saying it:

Making every class as balanced as they are (in PvE) does not leave each class feel equally contributing, but equally useless. Unless you’re a Mesmer or Guardian you have no place in a group that won’t be filled by the next.

RE: Gnat

Maybe you are right about how Mesmers and Guards might be more “desirable” (also my experience as I main both of them), however this is not what the thread is about.

I was just saying that what the OP posted was a good idea – and that is, to “change” how viable the longbow is. You see for aesthetics and other various reasons, we are discussing the Ranger. Now, if a ranger is kitten at using a longbow (which some may argue that it is), that wouldn’t be appealing to play the class, for some. I know there are a lot of rangers using axe/torch, warhorn and other weapons, but I would PERSONALLY (and from what I have already gathered the OP and a lot of other people) prefer to use a Longbow. Shortbow is ok at the moment, but like I said this is specifically about the longbow.

The stealth mechanic is interesting, but at the moment I would like to see a longbow change and what the OP has offered seems interesting and could actually work as it is quite realistic.

On the other hand, what you are suggesting or what other people are saying, is for people to run using berserker gear. I don’t like that, simply because one might NOT want to run berserker gear. This is out of the question as it pigeon-holes people to use certain gear, which means that they have no choice. This would suck, as people might want run with other gear, for build purposes or for survival, etc.
Making people get gear to be viable or be ing the “meta” is not a good move. In fact it is quite a turn-off.

IMO it is much easier to just “fix” the longbow, again one example would be what the OP suggested.

If/When this happens I would be more compelled to play my ranger.

No hard feelings

Besides, how does your argument about the “dedicated anything” add to the topic? I fail to understand that. Please clarify

Curly I understand your frustration completely.

I main Necromancer :/

Alright, so right off power one doesn’t make sense. How do you have a passive autoattack? The idea of autoattack is that it is actually activating automatically so you don’t have to. The power, then, also doesn’t make sense. It bumps up your crit change to 100% until you use a power other than it? I don’t get it. I could accept a low% change of granting fury for a handful of seconds, that could make sense.

You’re then removing rapid fire for an immobilize. I’m not ok with that since rapid fire is our main attack, effectively. I would also prefer rapid fire to the “active” component of your (1) power and your immobilize bleed power. If I was actually going to give it up at all, though, it would have to be for the longer range big hitter power, not a CC.

Now this is where it gets confused. Point Blank Shot is your skill 4, not 3. Hunter’s Shot is still 3. So we’ll operate under the impression the you’re keeping Point Blank Shot in skill 4, that leaves us with the immoblize bleed from skill 2, or the proposed skill 4 where Point Blank Shot is staying. Lowering cooldowns isn’t that worthwhile to me, and cripple is nothing compaired to immobilize, but 10 stacks of vulnerability is nothing to shake a stick at. I think I would be happy to replace Hunter’s Shot with Pinning shot though, it’s a really good match to Point Blank Shot. Knock them back, or down, then immobilize while you move, yeah, I can live with that. I would much rather see this, though as not doing immobilize, nor bleed, but imposing a single debuff that has both of these effects, as well as increasing the damage of pets. It could easily be traited too to give pets more bonuses while this debuff is inplace. It would allow for more coordination amongst Rangers to keep this debuff on a target so everyones pets do more damage to it.

This is where I have a serious problem. You’re proposing to replace a wide area placed AoE with cripple for a single target one shot variably high damage attack? No, that’s not something I’m ok with. You have one view of Rangers, but I have an entirely different one. I’m not in this for sniping one shot kills, I’m in this for area suppression, and that is what Barrage is. You stop an entire group in one shot, then you have their way with them.

I’m not entirely against your ideas, but I really think you need to play the class longer. Does Longbow need more damage? Yeah, it could do. Does it need to be completely redesigned? Not necessarily. I’ve been playing my Ranger since early access, I got a Longbow immediately and I’ve stuck with it because I like how it works. The only other weapon I like is the Greatsword, which works out, so I would not be happy to see the Longbow turned into something else entirely, as you are proposing.

What I would LOVE to see, however, is a fairly old suggestion, lost in the depths of the threads. The proposal was for weapons to have alternate powers, just like skills. So while out of combat you could change what power was in each of the slots. Then you could have your Right Between the Eye and I could have Barrage, while we both had Point Blank Shot.

I like my necro too, but at the moment I just use a guardian and a mesmer mostly.

I am glad that you see the frustration

I love the Guild Wars series and have played the fist game (with all of it’s campaigns) for 6 years. Man I wish they fix this stuff soon. A little off topic, I am sure you would agree that necro needs a better UI for minions (an example out the top of my head, but you could probably think of more as you main it).

So yeah if anyone at ANet sees this,
P L E A S E D O S O M E T H I N G

Love your game, but no harm in “improving” certain things (certainly no harm in talking about ’em)!

Man I can talk forever about GW1 Necro compared to this guy we have in GW2, but I don’t want to hijack this thread haha

RE: Kal Spiro

I like to have Barrage too. I was just about to ask op about how he/she thinks this “active”/“passive” auto attack would work as I can’t see it.

Now, I also agree that we need rapid fire (along with Barrage) and point blank shot.

Again, I was about to say that “some” of the op’s ideas are good and some need polishing. I can acknowledge that different people have different play styles, but I was talking about the “whole” of the longbow. I think that if each auto attack increases crit chance by 5% and caps at 60 or something, then that would be useful, as if you think about it, if that chance resets if any other skill is used, that would not be overpowered, but at the same time it will be useful.

curlydim.8461:

RE: Kal Spiro

I like to have Barrage too. I was just about to ask op about how he/she thinks this “active”/“passive” auto attack would work as I can’t see it.

Now, I also agree that we need rapid fire (along with Barrage) and point blank shot.

Again, I was about to say that “some” of the op’s ideas are good and some need polishing. I can acknowledge that different people have different play styles, but I was talking about the “whole” of the longbow. I think that if each auto attack increases crit chance by 5% and caps at 60 or something, then that would be useful, as if you think about it, if that chance resets if any other skill is used, that would not be overpowered, but at the same time it will be useful.

I suppose my question is, does a power with a similar mechanic exist. If not, it’s possible they don’t have the game set up to accomodate such things. That’s why I propose just having a % change to gain Fury for X seconds. I get why he’s saying to 100% because that guarantees a crit on your next nonauto attack power before the reset. To do anything less than 100 means you might reset the power for nothing, making the reset a serious gamble and ultimately making the whole mechanic rather worthless. At the same time, bumping up your crit to 100% even for just the Auto Attack is a bit over the top.

A possible other way to do it would be for Auto Attack to grant a special Ranger Buff that gives X% crit (stacking) for 5 seconds. Meaning you could get it up to 5 stacks at any given time. Or even 100% change of Fury for 2 or 3 seconds So you only really have enough time to get 1 or 2 attacks in while the Fury is up.

I don’t really know that it matters. Ranger isn’t designed to be a burst damage class, it’s a sustained damage class. I’m more interested in Power and Might than Crit and Fury.

With the exception of that crazy-op auto-attack-double-the-range of anything else in the game move, that’s pretty much a shortbow, speargun and axe hybrid. No matter how much I love people trying to buff my 3-5k unbuffed sustained dps, I think you just need to try a different gearset with lb or a different weapon for your purpose. Maybe try a chill/poison build.