Guild Wars 2

Specific Game Mode
<PvP in general, not specific to either WvW or sPvP>

Proposal Overview
<Change Skirmishing VII Carnivorous Appetite to “Pet and Player gain health on critical hit”, reduce healing to flat 200 and remove scaling with healing power>

Goal of Proposal
<To allow for the potential for sustain and survivability in Rangers built for Power and Critical hits not currently found in game.>

Proposal Functionality
<Currently, one major issue with the Ranger class when specced for power builds is the lack of sustain. We have many reasons to spec for high crit chance, but little to help such a build survive combat in the way a build built around healing power and nature’s voice can. This change would lend sustain to power builds while the crit requirement would ensure that it would not strengthen already powerful regen tank builds that neither build for critical chance, nor use the Skirmishing trait line at all.>

Associated Risks
<I feel the high critical chance and inability to scale with healing power would ensure that it doesn’t become too powerful although I obviously lack the ability to test such an idea. Such a trait would make it impractical to take Agility Training which is often necessary to enable pets to hit kiting targets.>

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Revert Shortbow range from 900 to 1200.

Goal of Proposal
To give shortbow users some means to stop a fleeing enemy. As of now, if you run a typical shortbow and sword/torch condition setup you have no way to stop someone from running if they manage to make it out of the 900 range, which is all too easy for almost any class.

Proposal Functionality
Current shortbow functionality at 1200 range.

Associated Risks
None

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Enhancing the effectiveness and sustain of power builds through trait changes and skill updates.

Goal of Proposal
Currently Ranger power builds lack the sustain of their condition counterparts because their primary weapons (Longbow, Greatsword) do little to buff the ranger or keep sustained damage on their target.

Proposal Functionality
Two things that would boost sustain of Ranger power builds would be increasing the amount of boons available to them through weapon skills and utilities and making the Poison condition more available to both of these weapons. This would not only allow them to be more durable, but also output more damage and with the help of Poison, whittle down enemies.

The Dec 10th Two-Handed training trait was a good idea, but power builds can’t afford to invest 20 points into Nature Magic due to the rangers reliance on Empathic Bond.

I would propose to add more access to boons like protection, regeneration, and fury in the talent trees (Marksmanship, Skirmishing) that offer more to power builds, as well as possibly adding a trait that gives a chance to cause poison on critical hits to one of these trees.

Associated Risks
Overdoing it. Condition rangers are already incredible at small skirmishes, so adding buffs to compensate power rangers might make the condition builds even stronger.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Damage distribution from pet to ranger => 80% ranger, 20% pet.

Goal of Proposal
Shift pet damage to ranger as perma-stow is a non-option and pet AI is lackluster at best.

Proposal Functionality
Current pet functionality with damage re-distribution in place. This will allow the pet to transition into a more utility role while making the ranger almost as powerful as other classes. This way when the pet misses—which it will—the ranger still has a fighting chance.

Associated Risks
None

Atherakhia.4086:

Another thing that needs to be discussed with this class is what’s wrong with it in WvW? If you ask people to rank the classes from most to least useful the Ranger is always ranked 8th out of 8th. If you listen on a team speak the commander has a role for every class to fill but the Ranger. Why is this?

Every time this question is asked it’s a mix of ‘well the class simply doesn’t DO anything’ to ‘the class soaked up all the terribads from every other class’.

So what’s ANet’s opinion of this? Why do they feel the Ranger is consistently ranked 8th of 8th place in WvW?

I think it’s because other classes do what the ranger can do, but they can do it better… That doesn’t mean though the ranger is useless (in my views), apart from the way to weak pet.

Build:
Longbow, choice+warhorn, 2 or 3 traps (traited for ‘cast on click’), healing spring.
You use the warhorn to get your team around faster and blast for might or w/e. Then on fighting you use barrage and traps, if you want to truly be mean you team up with 4 other rangers and 1 shot called targets with long range and rapid fire.

It’s just that, because there is no monk = ‘which target to call’ there seems to be no prime target to go for. Other professions have speedbuffs, waterfields and blasts (though for skirmish the self-combo’s can be really valuable), which tend to be somewhat better then the one the ranger has. And seeing the chances are high that other professions are around and those score better on their ‘profession niche’ as skills valuable to the whole, the ranger as a ‘master’ of all, comes in last. It like ’when does a pocket knife come in handy, when you are just wearing clothes. if you go by truck you better off taking your toolbox with you… and seeing the nature of WvW is like the truck, the pocket knife is outclassed by all the professional tools instead.

To be honest I only read the first page and I know how quickly these types of threads grow so I’m not going to read every post before my suggestion, however I’m most likely going to list things that have been said since beta and release for rangers.

All that being said, here are a few of my suggestions in no particular order:

Specific Game Mode : PvX due to them being addressed as overall lack of continuity in the Ranger’s mechanics not just a division.

Proposal Overview
Combine Intimidation, Stability, and Rending training and move into the GrandMaster minor (BeastMaster).

Goal of Proposal
It’s obvious that these are just cheap cop-outs of what should be more serious slots of skills. They don’t encourage across the board pet variety as they should and are seldom, if ever, used as a Master point.

Proposal Functionality
If a Ranger wishes to delve so deep into Beastmaster they should be able to innately prove that they are the master of beasts. By moving it into the grand-master minor slot it lets them show proof of just that.

Associated Risks
None really, as noted before none of these are ever rarely actively used due to the meagerness of benefit that they offer per the Major slot. The only slight nerf I could see if the canine slow to be changed from 6.5 second to maybe 3.5 seconds, the other two don’t really benefit all that much due to the low impact that they are. Work will have to be done to make up the lost useless majors though here is some quick suggestions:

3 Beastmaster Major runes that would be a great welcome addition from GW would be the following:
Predatory Season: All healing is reduced by 20%, but you and your pet get a siphoning type strike based on master’s healing, not split between master/pet.
Feral Aggression: You and your pet gain quickness for 2 seconds on criticals (40 second internal cool down).
Toxicity: Damage is enhanced to poisoned/diseased (if they introduce it)/tormented targets by 5%. – This may give the Vipersnest trap some more play.

Suggested Proposal Format:
Specific Game Mode : PvX due to them being addressed as overall lack of continuity in the Ranger’s mechanics not just a division.

Proposal Overview
Re-design Master’s Bond to persist through pet swap.

Goal of Proposal
This was an odd choice to include on a class where constant switching of pets was not only a necessity but encouraged through many other runes.

Proposal Functionality
Have it persist through pet swap, simple.

Associated Risks
It will give some use to an most otherwise useless tier 1 major slot, I still think the other tier ones will continue to out-class it even if it persists yet will give pure beast master’s something to hold onto.

Suggested Proposal Format:
Specific Game Mode : PvX due to them being addressed as overall lack of continuity in the Ranger’s mechanics not just a division.

Proposal Overview
Purely cosmetic, allow pets to grow out of their infant stages in life by the time they hit lv80.

Goal of Proposal
To allow people to feel like they have an actual companion and comrade in battle rather than a secondary collector pet standing next to Garm (they are so tiny! XD)

Proposal Functionality
Allow pets to start small but level to the same size as their wild counterparts by lv80.

Associated Risks
There maybe some complaints of pets being too big and blocking site, but many have been asking for this minor change since beta. At the very least allow it to be a select-able option in the game settings if it’s too much of a commotion.

I’m going to stop there for now, I’m reading other suggestions (though I said I wouldn’t lol) and alot are already covered, things like poison usage, combining out-dated traits, off-hand skills.

I would love to see more GW skills brought back, but that is wishful thinking.

I would also like to see some further love for some of the lesser used off-hands, like the torch and dagger
and perhaps some neater animations on the other weapon lines like that attached to the sword and g.sword, as I absolutely love the serpent bite and bees on sword. Heck, even the axe line is cheaped out on and uses some cheap default axe skin during throwing phase unless you paid for a special item shop skin or have a legendary. I suggest putting the default axe skin only if game details are on lowest level, the rest should throw the axe in hand.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Add the ‘leaf swirl’ animation currently on the ‘end tonic’ to the ‘summon pet’

Goal of Proposal
Currently the pet just ‘pops into existence’ adding an animation could increase the visual appeal of changing pets into more of a magical skill than just something that pops up out of nowhere.

Proposal Functionality
If you switch a pet out, the ‘leaf swirl’ animation plays just as the pet pops into existence.

Associated Risks
Nothing but some resources use I guess.

Nuzt.7894:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Nuzt.7894:

I can see your concern here but, the option to have the pet as such an integral part of the class is one of the largest faults of the class. Could it not be optional to have the pet as an option, basically if you spec wilderness survival your pet becomes a larger part of the class, if you choose to spec in something different to be more valuable to your group then either you don’t have the pet or it has minimal impact on the class.

That is completely valid feedback that I will relay to the designers. Thanks for taking the time to share it!

I can’t just stand around when something like this is passed to the devs, so here’s my counter-feedback.

The ranger is a class specifically designed around teamwork with pet who is to be ranger’s equal partner and not an expandible minion. Said teamwork is something unique to the ranger profession and spot on.

So if a pet fails at the role of ranger’s euqal partner due to sloppy defense/offence/Ai, then it is the dev’s job to up it’s game to intended standard, and not sweep it under the rug, reducing it’s impact on the ranger to a point where you have to trait for it to become an accual pet and not a visual aid.

I’ve already thrown you guys a few bones how to get the job done in this very thread.

And what about those people who like the Class but not the pet aspect of it ? Should your opinion trump theirs ? What I was suggesting was basically having the option to stow the pet permenantly if YOU choose to do so. The pet would be more powerful if you traited for the pet to be powerful, just as the Guardians Virtues are more powerfull if you choose to trait them that way, same can be said for every other class in the game.

Its a suggestion I through out there and I am more then entitled to suggest it. This is suppose to be a thread about our suggestions on how to fix or elevate the class, as stated it is not here for you to shut down other peoples suggestions because its not what you want.

You have the right to make a suggestion, why not try that instead of attacking other suggestions. There are plenty of suggestions here that I completely dissagree with but its not my place to tell those people or the Devs that they are wrong.

The pet is the defining feature of the class though, its entirely designed with a pet in mind. I think they should have something different for people like you who want something thats not pet based, but gives you the ranged combat/adventurer/tracker class. Ranger isnt really that, even if you take away the pet.

Proposal Overview – [PVE] Longbow Range Damage Modifier Removal
I propose that the Ranger’s Longbow have its range tiers for damage removed.

Goal of Proposal
Currently the Ranger’s Longbow has its damage determined by the range you use it at. This functionality damages its ability to be used properly in group situations or worse, it encourages players to use it at the detriment of the party and the player loses the benefit of buffs from his party. Removing the ranged tiers and simply allowing the full damage will allow the ranger to use the Longbow like any other ranged weapons increasing party viability and allowing the ranger to be more flexible in group situations.

Proposal Functionality
Even at max power, the Longbow is still weaker than other melee weapons and is relatively risky to use in close combat. This fits with the melee/range dynamic of GW2.

Associated Risks
I feel that this is a low risk proposal. In PvP/WvW, while the longbow would be more damaging in close range due to its autoattack, it lacks longlasting defensive utility in close range. This proposal should have relatively little impact on fights where the enemy can close the distance.

Proposal Overview – [PVE] Integrate Signet of the Beastmaster/Fortifying Bond as inherit traits of the Ranger Class
I propose that the ranger should automatically have the functionality of “Signet of the Beastmaster” and “Fortifying Bond” as part of their base class functionality. The trait functionality of the aforementioned traits should then be repurposed to expand on the base functionality, perhaps expanding affects to allies and the like.

Goal of Proposal
The current problem with these traits is that to allow the ranger to have basic signet functionality or to allow the pet to receive boons especially given that they share a large portion of our damage, we have to trait 30 in Marksmanship and take “Signet of the Beastmaster” and 15 in nature magic respectively. This limits build options and given that the ranger and his pet are described as two units working together as one. It strikes me odd that we would have to trait so specifically just to use signets ourselves or have the ranger/pet both benefit in a group or party. This proposal opens up signets for use by any ranger build at any level and allows any ranger build to benefit from boons equally.

Proposal Functionality
Since the Ranger now benefits inherently from these traits, balance no longer has to be considered for only rangers who took these traits. The class theme now makes far more sense, since we now work with the pet in both signet use and boons from the get go instead of being restricted to traiting for it specifically.

Associated Risks
I feel that this is a low/medium risk proposal. Balance should be considered carefully when buffing specs that don’t rely on power or the like(Condition for instance). Depending on what you do with the original traits, and what you change could move balance in different ways.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Give pets more activated abilities. Increase responsiveness of activated pet abilities (E.G. lower cast time significantly)

Goal of Proposal

Strengthen ranger pets not passively, but by increasing their utility and function for active, mindful, skilled players. Give ranger builds access to a larger range of abilities to bring them on par with other classes.

Proposal Functionality

Add another activated skill to each pet. Rework f1-f5 controls. Lower cast time of pet abilities. Rework Beastmaster Line.

One of the main reasons Elementalists and Engineers have been so strong in PvP/WvW is because of their access to many unique situational abilities at any given time, which allow them to address a wide range of scenarios. Given that pets only have 1 active ability each and that said abilities often fail, Rangers have access the fewest abilities at any given time (Warrior abilities actually land, and thieves don’t have weapon cool-downs).

An easy way to strengthen rangers and their pets, without making passive, balance disturbing buffs is to give pets another activated ability and further improve their ability to be effectively micro-managed.

Specific Game Mode – PvE

Proposal Overview -
If Ranger pets will always be a persistent component of their class, they must always be viewed as an asset instead of a liability. Pets should not interfere with bosses, draw undue aggro, and should have otherwise predictable behavior.

Goal of Proposal
There shouldn’t be scenarios where you need to stow pets. Activated pet skills need feel active and effective, instead of something that you simply hit once in a while, so should be integrated with a player skill and would benefit from being tied to a resource instead of a recharge. Pets shouldn’t take damage and be downed like most other characters, as most strong PvE monsters can down a pet very easily, which can significantly affect DPS. Pets should stick to your single target very quickly, and attack at a reliable clip, and as such build a resource in unison with the player Ranger.

Proposal Functionality

• Pets no longer use their skills – instead have a steady, fast acting auto-attack.
• Add a new resource meter – Animal Bond – if you and your pet land three attacks each on one target, this enables your “Active Bond” attack on that target. Animal Bond points are tethered to a single target.
• New Active Bond function – Once activated, you gain control over your pet, gaining their skills for about four seconds. Your ranger character plays out an automated leap attack or ranged attack (for example, sniper killshot on longbow, rapid fire shortbow, multiple short heartseeker-style leaps for the axe, etc), depending on their equipped weapon. This function replaces the active pet skill function. After, this skill goes on a short recharge. Traits handles recharge time, protection when you activate these abilities, added damage, etc…
• Changes to Pet motion – Pets now move very fast, 200% of their current speed, and stick to your target very quickly. Some can shadow step directly to the target, if up on a ledge or on low ground.
• Changes to Pet downed state – Instead of being completely disabled when on recharge, pets instead do half damage, and earn only half Animal Bond points per hit when on recharge. Pets take significantly less damage from any foe with the Defiant buff.

Associated Risks
This would require a large balance pass on every animal and animal skill. There would be a need to invent new Active Bond skills for every primary weapon of the Ranger, and would require many traits and most signet skills to be entirely re-worked.

It would be worth it.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview

Improve ranger condition cleansing slightly

Proposal Goal

Reduce dependence on Empathic Bond

Proposal Functionality

Minorly improve current condition cleanses both active and passive (e.g. Lightning Reflexes, Signet of Renewal, Evasive Purity, etc.). Add another active and/or passive condition cleanse/stun break.

EVERY competitive build has had to put 30 points into Wilderness Survival for Empathic Bond—this severely limits the number of possible builds.

Specific Game Mode : PvX

Proposal Overview :
Dual wield skills for ranger

Goal of Proposal
Improve the skirmishing flexibility of the ranger in her/his no-pet aspect side

Proposal Functionality
Make a Dual-wield skill in the number 3 key of the weapon skill bar when ranger use two wepons. It would work in two fases like thief Dual Skill Flanking Strike – Larcenous Strike but without the spameable capability of the iniciative thief system.

Associated Risks
Long time to create and test the new skills for balance.

Note: I always were wandering why this system was not put in ranger skills first side? It feels more fit in its lore even that for the thief, or probably i had played too much D&D. Who knows?

zumu.6795:

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview

Improve ranger condition cleansing slightly

Proposal Goal

Reduce dependence on Empathic Bond

Proposal Functionality

Minorly improve current condition cleanses both active and passive (e.g. Lightning Reflexes, Signet of Renewal, Evasive Purity, etc.). Add another active and/or passive condition cleanse/stun break.

EVERY competitive build has had to put 30 points into Wilderness Survival for Empathic Bond—this severely limits the number of possible builds.

About that, I would like to see Rangers be the condition hate class. Instead of condition removal, I want to see a -33% condition duration. This is so that it feels very rangerish.

Game Mode
WvW

Suggested change
To give Rangers a place in WvW, give them something to either increase the sustain of the group. Like giving them a trait to make spirits invulnerable. Or create a water field. Or a low cool down blast finisher. Also active condition removal that doesn’t rely on a pet that too easily gets caught and killed.

Specific Game Mode – PVX

Proposal Overview – Review of pet mechanic to reiterate the role of ranger and pet. As with all professions, the class mechanic is a supporting feature which reinforces the class. However for the ranger the class mechanic in its present stage is a shackle. In theory the synergies between the ranger and his pet should make him the best overall class in the game capable of adapting to any situation. But implementation wise it is seriously flawed because of pet limitations (ai, unable to hit moving targets etc). At present about 30% of damage is split by the pet. Therefore the ranger is always deprived of his 30% damage when the pet is downed or when it is unable to hit moving targets. This is a serious handicap.

Proposal Functionality – Split the damage so that the ranger deals 95% of the damage and the 5% is shared by the pet. As a result people are in more control of damage and situation and more satisfied. The role of the pet is restricted to support. Right now the pet tries to do too much of everything and it fails. But if the role of pet is strictly confined to support it can provide the best synergy to the rangers. The support can include cc, boons, conditions, combo fields, shouts etc. there are tons of possibilities. This along with the pet skill responsiveness update should solve a huge chunk of ranger class problem. Different pets can provide different support roles and since only two pets are allowed, balance wise its not a problem. Advantages – Now since the ranger has most of his damage under his control, he is not severely handicapped by the flaws or death of the pet. Moreover, since the pet provides support to him, he has a relaxed incentive to keep it alive. This should also be rewarding sPvP wise as it opens up build diversity and most important of all, it gives freedom to rangers. This is because eventhough the rangers are well placed in sPvP, at present their meta is restricted to very few builds.

Aoe damage in WvW – The pet never lasts for more than 2 seconds in WvW zerg fights because of aoe damage. With the above mentioned damage redistribution to rangers, the dead pet should not be a serious handicap anymore. However for the WvW alone, the pet can also be given aoe resistance ranging from 30 to 90% in order to rectify mistakes and recall pets to support rangers. This is an issue only in WvW.

Associated risks – Redesign of number of skills and traits. Time consuming balancing issues that has to be sorted out. But the end result would be well worth the wait.

Thanks for this oppurtunity

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Traps should be activatable on second skill use, while the internal cooldown of the trap still moves onward.

Goal of Proposal
It would make Traps functional for large scale encounter (Tequatl, Worm and other world bosses), as well as giving the possibility to reliably spawn Combo Fields and would not change the overall functionality/ damage, except giving it part of its functionality back, where it normally is to fail. (if mobs don’t run into it/ on game objects)

Proposal Functionality
At the moment, you can place a trap, then the cooldown starts going down. If a foe goes into it, you can place a second one instantly, if you waited long enough. Nearly every trap holds a combofield. The problem is, the traps are not reliable. Mobs can suddenly move and render a trap a wasted skill, thus making traps not really usable in pve content. Also they cannot set off on Tequatl or Worm.
This could easily solved by making the trap skill activatable, so that it sets off on second use. Like this it could atleast be a reliable combo field, which is ok and gives the trap atleast part of its functionality back if failed.
Obviously they should still go off, if a mob enters the trap.
Also, the internal cooldown of the trap should go down, while it is activatable. As soon as you use, and thereby destroy the trap, you can place the second one, just as before this functionality change.

Associated Risks
It does not really hold any risks. You could already wait for the cooldown of the trap, let a mob run in and place another one instantly. That would still be possible. This change would just give the trap a reliable functionality, if mobs move awkward or if you try to use the traps on game objects. It also gives the ranger reliable combo fields for large scale encounters, where traps are rendered useless normally. This would only make the traps actually give a reliable effect, that is maximum half as good, as if the trap would go off normally.

runeblade.7514:

zumu.6795:

…

About that, I would like to see Rangers be the condition hate class. Instead of condition removal, I want to see a -33% condition duration. This is so that it feels very rangerish.

Actually yours is a great idea, so i will used to form some suggestions of mine, hope you dont mind. ;-P

Specific Game Mode PvP (and all other by extension)

Proposal Overview
Reduced time of condition suffering through some specific skills, specifically: Heal as One, Aqua Surge (from Water Spirit) and Regenerate (from Fer Hound F2 Skill)

Goal of Proposal
Gain some unique ways to deal agains Condition Damage with already in game mecanics for she, her pets and all party members.

Proposal Functionality
Include in the Skills listed above a Condition Damage reduction time fact betwin 25% to 50% of time reduction. This will vary fron one skill to other in, but a possibility could be 50% cd time reduction For Heal as One. 33% cd time reduction for Aqua Surge. And 25% cd time reduction for Regenerate. This could vary depending on internal test.

Associated Risks
Hard to see without proper testing. But no risk at first glance.

Edit: forget to say that the cd time reduction should last at least 3 seg. to it have some meaninfull impact.

Here is my suggestion and its goes for all game modes basicly.

Let me start of by saying i have pretty much only played ranger/hunter(bow) classes in every previous mmo and will probably in future aswell. So far the best ranger class i have played in a mmo was when i was playing Rift online. Why you ask? Simply because of the freedom they gave us to choose exactly how we want to play. Wether it be with a pet or without.

This is how it worked:
We could put our trait points in a pet mastery tree which made strong pets avaible and the playstyle depended highly on pets. Tanking pets became tankier the more points you spent on this tree and dps pets became stronger the same way and this was a popular playstyle in PvE/Dungeons/Raids. Pets was only avaible when you put points in the pet mastery tree.

And then you could put your points in a marksman tree, which focused on the player characters only and not the pet. Which gave us the freedom to play without relying on a pet. The more points you spent on this tree the more you were able to play without having to focus on pet. Your damage, survibility and stats were increased when this tree was used due to not having the pet. This was very popular playstyle in group PvP/Raids and solo pvp, because lets face it the pet is pretty useless in pvp and raids. Afcours as mentioned above pets were not avaible in this tree.

And thats what i would love having in gw2, especially with gw2s combat system this would be a super awesome way to play. Right now if you dont put trait points in beastmastery your character’s dps and survivebility is crippled and if you do put points in beastmastery your character is still crippled due to bad pet AI and precious trait points used on useless traits because the pet is dead 70% of the time.

I would be fine with this, I just personally believe there is to much emphasis on the pet even when its not traited. The class really needs more group utility in WvW, placing the focus on the pet is hurting the class more then helping (my opinion of course). Currently the pet soaks up boons intended for players, dies if an enemy zerg looks at it, and brings zero utility to the players around you.

I agree with the problems, I just think the solution involves making pets easier to keep useful. I made a suggestion on page 1 to that effect, allowing them to be a DPS/buff source even when “dead,” so if it dies in the middle of a zerg, who cares? My specific proposal might not be the best one, but I think the solution has to be something that makes pets more self-sufficient rather than one that rewards players for ignoring that element entirely.

I think that giving Rangers a “petless” buff just would encourage Rangers to go without their pet, and I think that defeats the purpose. Better to just make the pet less annoying to have as a portion of your expected DPS.

There is a large following of people who argue that forcing players onto the pet ruins their experience, but as it has been stated the ranger is THE pet class of the game. However, their argument is their inability to roleplay a medium armor archer class and it has merrit

There’s a perfectly good medium armor archer, it’s called the Thief. Now where’s my light armor dual pistol?

Make a Dual-wield skill in the number 3 key of the weapon skill bar when ranger use two wepons. It would work in two fases like thief Dual Skill Flanking Strike – Larcenous Strike but without the spameable capability of the iniciative thief system.

I think the split-weapon skills are too integral to the Thief class to share. I like the idea of DW buffs though. How about this as an idea, make it so that if you trait into it, then whenever you make a main hand attack, it reduces the cooldown on offhand abilities, and vice-versa, meaning that if you keep alternating between the two then you can attack faster than if you stick to one hand.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
New Beastmastery Traits instead of [Stability Training, VIII] [Rending Attacks, VII] [Intimidation Training, IX]. Giving the Pet the possibility to gain boon duration, condition duration and Player/Pet synergy.

Goal of Proposal
Gives the user the ability to specialize more on what they want to roll with their pets. For example, boon duration on a pet would help to make more supportive builds, as many pets have a F2 skill, that aoe buffs the whole group. The possibility to make these better, would give many rangers a reason to go into Beastmastery.

Proposal Functionality
At the moment, the traits VII, VIII, IX have big problems. They special certain pet families. Most rangers role with completely different pets. Also Rending attacks may be useful for Feline pets, but why is it on Drake pets? They never crit. also Intimidation Training and Stability Training have their problems, so those Trait should be changed.

Here would be my ideas for those traits.

VII [Encouraging Companion]: The pet receives 20% Boon duration (Maybe higher or lower. Requires a bit of testing)

VIII [Deadly Companion]: The pet receives 15% Condition duration (Should probably be lower than the Boon duration, since many pets have alot of conditions)

IX [Ranger’s Utility]: The Pet gains a boon depending on the Utility skill you use.
On Shout use: The pet receives 10s of Might
On Trap use: The pet receives 6s of Protection
On Sigil use: The pet receives 5s of Fury
On Spirit use: The pet receives 7s of Regeneration
Others (racials): The pet receives 8s of Stability

The trait IX is pretty speculative, but it allows the ranger to roll alot of different builds with their pets, and still renderin it useful. The numbers may need some tweeks, but in generall, the idea is to allow synergy between player and pet, and the different kinds of builds you could roll.

Associated Risks
It might be a little bit strong if the numbers are not tweeked correctly. Other than that, it would make more rangers go into Beastmastery.

If the decision to remove pets is made, I would support it.

~ If not, I would also support it under the following conditions;
When I press F3 to put my pet on passive, make it a permanent passive. i.e. Instead of the pet randomly becoming aggro’d again in mobs, and attacking other enemies, it stays on passive until I hit F1 so I don’t repeatedly have to spam F3 every few seconds to make sure it stays passive.
Add a permanently stow pet option. Personally, I enjoy my pet despite it’s stubborn nature. But there are many situations where it would be better off not with me all together.

Bow damage ~ A slight buff to short and long bow damage would be great. I’m not asking for a huge increase, just a smidge to make them more viable as a primary weapon.

If new pets are an option, I would love to see; Basilisk [drake family, would be amphibious], Skelk [amphibious], Griffon, Dolphin, Minotaur

Signet Of The Beastmaster Remove this. Many of us Rangers would prefer to not have to spend trait points for our own signets active effects to effect us as well.

More mobility. As a profession focused on ranged combat, it would make sense for us to be able to more easily keep distance between us and our opponents. As is, we really aren’t all that fast. Quite average speed even if traited and with Signet Of The Hunt infact.

There are many other things I would suggest but I’m not completely sure of how it might affect the profession as a whole. So this will be all I say and I’ll hope at least a few of these things are implemented with the upcoming changes. The Ranger is my favorite profession and even with its bad reputation and obvious flaws, I enjoy it far better than the rest. If some of the glaring issues with the profession are fixed, I couldn’t express how happy I’d be.

[Mode]
PvX
[Overview]
Pet rework
[Proposal]
Give the pet more functionality that with the current limits of technology
[functionality]
Pet Skill 1 Move pet – Pet goes to target location, if enemy is targeted by this action, the pet attacks that target and sticks to that target until another is selected.
Pet Skill 2 Return – Pet comes back to you and sticks by you untied ordered otherwise
Pet skill 3 Special skill – Pet uses its skill with NO CAST TIME (meaning the skill fires off instantly).
Pet skill 4 Switch pet – OR pet combo attack? Maybe depending on the combo of pets the pet leaving can use its special “leaving attack” and the pet comming in can use another combo move to support that move. The potential spike in damage is nice, and can be balanced, making pet switching a very sexy thing.

[ADVANCED IDEAS IF TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS]
Pets should be able dodge (on a separate energy bar than the ranger) and be able to tell which dangerous AOE’s they can path through and which ones that will kill them. (WvW zergs in particular)

[Risks]
There are none, there really are none. Other than the fact that you will have to rework shouts because of the new functionality, but that’s a bonus really, and a topic for another post.

i have a million ideas, I’m not sure how much we are allowed to post, so ill just leave it at that

@starspear
Ultimately, I’m just not sure how to feel about these kinds of suggestions.

On the one hand, I’m definitely against the Damage Division.
But on the other hand, when people suggest this the fact they won’t be punished when the pet dies is a core argument.

That’s just kind of wrong.
You should want to have your pet around. It’s our profession mechanic. If a pet isn’t doing something that makes you want to have it around, it darned well needs to start. We should be carving out a place for ourselves because of it, not in spite of it.

‘Not Losing your Damage’ is legitimately an awful reason to try to keep the pet around. But if you downplay that, you have to create an interdependancy in some other manner.

Like,
Currently our gameplay is just general skirmishing and the pet’s role in this process was left vauge and undefined. But, say, what if our gameplay was about manipulating the pet’s position on the field to have it hard control enemies to aid your Skirmishing. Say you no longer had access to ranged snares, but pets had universal access to some undisputedly nasty AOE hard control instead of featuring Aggro.

The dependance here is that you would need the pet’s help to secure temporary tactical retreats because it’s your only means of ranged snaring. It’s not taking any of your damage, but you definitely still depend on your pet and want to have it around.

Specific Game Mode

WvW, but applies to PVE/SPvP also.

Proposal Overview

To have a coherent frame work with pets that makes sense, given the design of the pet centric class and to have proper balance.

Goal of Proposal

Give the class the flexibility in builds and to help balance the damage dealt by pets. To encourage proper pet management and to be selective in pet usage across the whole spectrum of changing game content.

Proposal Functionality

Problem: Damage from pets has too many variables to have proper balance, especially with Beastmastery trait line. (e.g. 30BM Jag vs 0BM Bear) As a result, weapon coefficient is being low balled but at the same time you can’t even decide how often a pet should land a hit despite the unreliability of pets.

Solution: Let players modify the weapon coefficient on a sliding scale. Let’s assume pets account for 15% of the class’ damage. The deeper you spec into BM, then the more damage pets will do, and less your weapons would do. If you spec 0 into BM, pets will be as is currently and weapon damage goes up 15%. If you spec 30 into BM, they’ll be faster and hit harder than they do currently at the BM30 lvl and the weapon coefficient will go down 15% accordingly.

Problem: Pets are part of the DPS calculation, then why should there be pet down time? It does not make sense given the damage model that we have currently as pets are expected to do some DPS, however little.

Solution: There should not be any pet down time. The penalty for ineffective pet management should be the inability to use the pet/utility that you want, but pet uptime should be 100%.

This could also play into traiting BM as mentioned above, like the way eles trait into Arcana, the cool down for the pair swap back to the one with the wounded pet would be lower the deeper you trait into BM. Change the controls as follows:

F1 = toggle for attack/retreat
F2 = pet utility, same as currently
F3 = cycles through pet pairs. (e.g. Wolf + Bear into Jag + Moa etc.)
F4 = swap pets within the current active pair, same as currently (e.g. Wolf to Bear.)

Associated Risks

Players might end up not specing into BM because it’s easier to manage. But that is a problem of not having a fully functioning pet system that works on a competitive lvl, not an issue with this proposal. The onus would be to improve pets to a point where players can find it advantageous to spec into BM.

Secondly, there should be a way to stop a player from cycling through all the pets and blowing all their F2s in spams. Perhaps maybe F2 of same type s will share a cool down across pet pairs? However I don’t see it as a severe issue given pets can’t CC chains even when all pets are used.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
I feel that Hide in Plain Sight should be changed to stealth and the duration should be 10 seconds, given the current ICD with this trait.

Or else five seconds stealth and the ICD lowered to like 10 seconds to make this trait a viable option.

Goal of Proposal
The current state of the ranger trait Hide in Plain Sight is lacking, for better choice of words.

I don’t know anyone who plays the class with any competence that would seriously use this trait as it is.

Camouflage seems to be an early concept of the stealth mechanic and stealth as we know it today is the finished product.

The stealth mechanic is superior in every way. Hunters Shot get’s stealth for example. I don’t see why that functionality can’t be extended to a much neglected trait.

Proposal Functionality
This change would open up a new gameplay style for the ranger, something I think the original trait intended.

When getting dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned the ranger is given a short reprieve.

Something that thieves are undisputed masters at, whereas this trait functions entirely on what is done to the ranger.

It’s inherently risky. It’s not something the ranger can reliably control or depend on like the thief can do at will.

However, the potential utility this brings to the table is undeniable.

Associated Risks
Stealth is very strong.

If the traits ICD is too low there’s a risk it’ll make rangers a little too good at resetting fights like thieves.

Of course ranger can’t hit like thieves can hit and rangers have no inherent synergy with stealth. If the ICD is too high, no one will use it. Ranger traits in general are very tight.

To sacrifice something like Martial Mastery or Off-Hand Training (which are always active) for something that’ll rarely be active is asking too much.

It depends entirely on what you want to do with the ICD relative to the potential stealth granted.

If you intend to keep the ICD at 30 secs, 10 secs of stealth doesn’t seem unreasonable to me given the condition needed to meet the trait.

If you want to use a lower number such as five seconds of stealth, the ICD needs to be tweaked appropriately.

10 sec ICD for 5 secs stealth may be to generous. Maybe 15 sec ICD for 5 sec stealth.

runeblade.7514:

zumu.6795:

…

About that, I would like to see Rangers be the condition hate class. Instead of condition removal, I want to see a -33% condition duration. This is so that it feels very rangerish.

Yea, there’s some serious design space there.

However, I maintain mild QoL improvements to the current skills are still a must (e.g. Lightning Reflexes really needs to break immobilize, crippled and chilled, SoR should never completely WHIFF, etc.)

Specific Game Mode
PvP

Proposal Overview
A Beastmaster trait called Primal Aggression. This increases pet damage by 20%.

Goal of Proposal
I want to revive the BM build that fallen out of the meta. With the major pet nerf, BM build practically died.

Proposal Functionality
Replace Instinctual bond with Zephyr speed. Then fill the missing grandmaster slot with Primal Aggression. The idea with the BM build is that the ranger tanks while the pet dps. This playstyle define the ranger and pet bond. There needs to be condi mitigating/removal that doesn’t hurt pets.

Associated Risks

Ranger might be strong?

Specific Game Mode

WvW, but applies to PVE/SPvP also.

Proposal Overview

F2 Pet buffs are unreliable and it’s counter intuitive to use in some cases. This needs to change given the context of how this class is suppose to function.

Goal of Proposal

Quality of life improvements for game play feel and to make the pet compliment the class.

Proposal Functionality

Problem:Why are F2 buffs counter productive to use?

For instance, LB users need 1k range to get optimal damage. But when you send your stalker/red moa out to attack, none of the F2 buffs will reach the pet owner. But if you keep your pet on passive to try and self buff, you lose the dps you’re expected to get via the pet damage. All F2 buffs of this sort are counter intuitive to use for range weapons, LB/SB/Axe, especially in large crowds.

Solution:: F2 pet buffs should ignore range for the pet owner and should be guaranteed to benefit the owner even in massive player filled events.[/b]

Associated Risks

None. It’s how it should be functioning given how this class is designed.

Specific Game Mode
WVW … applies to every mode, I also play everything.

Proposal Overview
Add a blast finisher to Maul

Goals of Proposal
- To give the Ranger access to a reliable blast finisher
- To create more combo synergy with fields
- To boost the team functionality for Greatsword

Proposal Functionality

• Maul is a highly predictable/visible skill
• It is easy to dodge
• The animation is long and easy to interrupt
• Adding a blast finisher makes up for these qualities

Associated Risks
With trait cool downs it may be too frequent of a blast finisher (although there is precedent for this in the game)

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Change of [“Protect Me”] and [Signet of Renewal]. The ranger is supposed to have synergy with their pet, but both of those skills actually harm/ kill the pet, which is highly counterproductive.

Goal of Proposal
Giving the Player/ Pet synergy a big boost and making the nearly untouched Utilities [“Protect Me”] and [Signet of Renewal] useful, while keeping their actual meaning and name.

Proposal Functionality

[“Protect Me”] (changed version): Shout. If the pet is alive, both the Pet and the Player receive 3s Aegis. Breaks Stun. 30 seconds cooldown

The low duration of the aegis gives the “Protect Me” shout a very cool ability. It would be a skill, used when you think, “Oh sh.. that attack would onehit me”. It requires a little bit foresight to use and still has the spirit of “Protect Me”, while actually also synergizing with your pet. Also, it gives the pet more or less the long wished “dodge” ability inform of aegis.

[Signet of Renewal]: Signet. passive: Cures a Condition every 10 seconds.
active: Cure 1 Condition from every nearby ally.
Cooldown 30s

So this would change the “all condition” to “1 condition”, but also lowering the cooldown, making the passive a bit more useful. This also allows more Player/ Pet synergy and is a not completely easy skill to used. Getting your pet into position for everyone and using the skill on timing with all of the teammembers on conditions. Quite impressive if a ranger could pull that off perfectly, and all in all probably not even stronger than before.

Associated Risks
Both spells could easily end up too strong. Especially the cooldown on the “Protect me” needs to be very good tested. It could easily be too strong or too weak.

Specific Game Mode

WvW, but applies to PVE/SPvP also.

Proposal Overview

Give life to longbow builds by allowing players to kite via quick weapon swaps because it lacks the means to take meaningful subsequent shots due to the range penalty. Kiting is what’s missing to make longbow a viable dueling weapon.

Goal of Proposal

Improve longbow function.

Proposal Functionality

Give rangers a quick weapon swap skirmishing trait like Fast Hands from warriors. Given that every class has gap closers, range options and CCs, range is countered far too easily, often only within a move, so there’s zero reasons to disable kiting in this game especially when LB is already penalized on sub 1k range.

Associated Risks

None. Trait currently exists on warriors, which you never hear it as being an OP trait. Moreover, if a ranger can hornet sting/monarch leap, or swoop and attack with bows/axe consistently, it is a L2P issue on the part of the target, not a balance one.

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Make bows viable. Ranger does not have enough survivability options to enable ranged combat that isn’t babysat.

Proposal Goal

Bows are a weak option in WvW. When it comes to “having some of the best single target and sustained damage”, Ranger is beat by most of the other classes, particularly Thieves. Single-target-dps is already incredibly niche in large battles, and while Thieves have the tools to achieve it and survive, Rangers do not (with bows especially). Goal: enable a ranged combat playstyle by improving survivability.

Proposal Functionality

• Add mechanics to traitlines for faster weapon swapping, allowing Ranger to switch over to a kiting/evasive weapon and then back to bow quickly.
• Fix the bow weapon skills themselves, such as making SB #3 work like lightning reflexes instead of an evade that keeps the enemy in your face. With longbow you could make it so that Barrage is a two step attack, pressing it again while channeling causing an effect similar to Staff Elementalist’s Burning Retreat.
• Fix the pet utilities, such as making the pig forage abilities a) non random (perhaps based on your hp) b) placed immediately in your hands. Another possible would be allowing you to share the F2s, such as Jaguar stealth.
• Fix the main utilities, such as Lightning Reflexes with either a shorter CD or curing soft CCs.

Associated Risks

Ranger has one strong build in Spvp and the proposed changes could have an impact with that build (Spirits).

Specific Game Mode
<PvE>
Proposal Overview
<Improving pet scaling>
Goal of Proposal
<Pets make up 30% damage of a ranger’s damage. That direct damage is only increased through the beastmastery trait line and the odd +30% critical damage for pets in the skirmishing line.

If rangers choose to invest in the beastmastery line they lose out on personal damage (which is a greater loss compared to other classes because of crit damage from gear) or another way to say this: rangers gain less overall damage compared to other classes because of the amount of crit damage that can be gained for the character and not for the pet.>
Proposal Functionality
<1.Remove beastmastery points and double healing power on the beastmastery line. Make stats gained from traits also apply to the ranger’s pet.

Ex- 30 points in marksmanship increases ranger’s power by +300 and +30% condition duration, it will also increase the ranger pet’s power +300 and +30% condition duration.

OR
2. Make each point invested into each line increase the pet’s condition duration/crit damage/condition damage/boon duration/extra pet attributes/ depending on the line that you have invested in.

Ex – 30points in marksmanship increases ranger’s power by +300 and +30% condition damage, it will increase the pet’s condition duration by +30% only.>
Associated Risks
The ranger gains more overall stats than other classes.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Specific Game Mode
<PvE/WvW>
Proposal Overview
<The longbow is weak compared to other bows, has no group synergy and no synergy with the pet unless 15 points are placed into the nature magic line. Even then, nature magic line does nothing for the longbow because you will be ideally 1000+ range away from foes (in addition to being out of range from party buffs) in order to maximize longbow damage and you will not need extra health from being at a relatively safe distance.>
Goal of Proposal
<To increase the overall usefulness of the longbow with skill adjustments.>
Proposal Functionality
<Remove damage variance based on distance from skill #1

Increase coefficients/base damage from skills #3 4 5

Change skill #3 to a charged shot —3 second cast time that deals damage and gain stealths the ranger and pet for 1 second at the end of the cast—.

Add a daze to skill #4 after the knockback.>

Associated Risks
<None, the longbow is in desperate need of a buff.>
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Specific Game Mode
<PvE/PvP>
Proposal Overview
<Make the shortbow more condition based and improve lackluster traps.>
Goal of Proposal
<To improve shortbow function, increase usefulness of trap traits, make traps worthy of being a utility skill>
Proposal Functionality
<Skill #1 – targets hit by arrow will now gain a stack of bleed regardless of direction

Skill #3 – drop a random trap before the self knockback evade.>

Skirmishing trait VIII – Loses ability to throw traps. Merged with Skirmish trait XI and now makes traps instant cast (drop traps), in addition to the 60 radius range gain.

Skirmishing trait VIII is swapped with Wilderness Survival trait X.

Skirmish trait XI a new grandmaster trait – Launch a random trap with the shortbow on a successful hit with shortbow skill #5 with trait with a cooldown on the trait.

Utility – Viper’s nest is now a poison field.

Associated Risks
<Decreases the usefulness of torch skill #5.>

I’ve posted my idea in format but I’d also like to put it in out of format to expand on my point.

This is PVX

30% of the ranger’s DPS comes from pet damage while pet AI is terrible and they are just bad at hitting a moving a target. We as a class have a third of our DPS out of our control or dead, which nerfs us to 70% (reliable) damage of other classes.

The Fix

Without asking for complete re writting of the game code to pet AI, simply make our stow pet permanent until WE call the pet back, and give us the 30% damage allocated to the pet back to the ranger.

Drawbacks?

None.

Game Mode

PvE

Proposal Overview

Pets can attack while moving/ Evades render your pet evasive

Goal of Proposal

Pets being able to attack while moving would make them much more reliable and solve their problems. no more stutter stepping. Pets also die to quickly to aoe even the tankier ones. This change will allow them to survive boss’ one shot aoe skills.

Proposal Functionality

Granting swiftness to pets having them traited so they have a permanent 15% move speed increase using Sic Em’ so grant 40% would make actually cause your pet to be lethal. Imagine fighting someone who is always moving evading etc.. but every auto you do is like Hundred Blades. locking you down and a channel. Thats pretty much what pets do. Having them able to move would fix this issue.

Pets being able to go invulnerable for a duration of your evade would mean that when you have to move from that one shot boss aoe your pet wont die from it either. You could even go as far as putting a trait in beast mastery that allows weapon evades and lightning reflexes (SB 3, Sword 2 and 3, GS auto #3 etc.) to grant the same thing to your pet. Pets are a part of ranger, Giving the option to permanently stow them for additional stats is like taking adrenaline from warriors or illusions from mesmers. Learning to control and fight with your pet instead of acting like its dead weight is key to mastering this class. And these small changes will allow just that. Oh and legendary pets would be cool since pets are a portion of our damage, a Warrior for example has 100% max damage potential with exotic weapon and 110% with ascended/legendary, Where as a Ranger has 70% damage potential with exotic and 80% with ascended/legendary. Could also change the trait masters bond to be more effective but i think legendary pets would be cooler =D.

Associated Risks

These changes may require extensive Ai reworking.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Add utility to under-utilized ranger off-hand weapons.

Goal of Proposal
Increase build diversity, gameplay options and add to overall utility of the class.

Proposed Functionality

Warhorn

*4 – This skill now inflicts blind on the target
*5 – Cool-down has been reduced to 30 seconds

Axe

*4 – This skill now causes .1 seconds of Daze to enemies in its path
*5 – This skill now evades for the duration of channeling (channel time reduced to 3 1/2 seconds)

Rangers have good survivability, but bring limited utility to group play. Adding utility to their under-utilized off-hand weapons, improves upon this issue, while also promoting new styles of play.

Specific Game Mode
< PvP
Proposal Overview
< Improving beastmastery and its usability within the game, making it more viable for multiple play styles. >
Goal of Proposal
< to bring pets up to speed with being a “weapon.” Increasing build diversity. Make pets an actual threat that needs to be dealt with or face consequences rather than the mosquito annoyance it has become to most of the ranger targets. As well as to give an alternative to the current bunker beastmaster. >
Proposal Functionality
There is multiple things that need to be done to bring beast mastery up to scale.

1. Improve pet AI to allow them to run out of AOE instead of standing in red circles that tick their health away. Much like the AI that was tested for foes in beta or the AI in GW1 where mobs ran out of AOE.
2. Improve pet pathing. They should be able to go over ledges and suffer the same falling damage as players and be able to go straight onto ledges below jumping height. Right now their pathing pushes them to the nearest ramp and will waste a lot of time getting to a target that only has to jump down and jump back up to avoid pets completely. Pets also already do suffer from falling damage currently in-game.
3. Scale pet stats to ranger stats or at least to stats added over base stats such as gear and traits. This would open a lot of utility to rangers since pet base stats would be less of an issue and make them more dependent on the rangers stats, allowing for pet utilities to be available much more readily without sacrificing damage in one case or health and toughness in another. This would also open up the possibility of conditions and condition duration to pets much more, as well as critical damage.
4. Change the functionality of the + pet attributes in the beastmastery trait line to be half of what they currently are and adding from 0.5% through 1% damage reduction for pets, to it for every point spent in the beastmastery trait line. With pets scaling from gear the attribute bonus would not be as needed but the damage reduction would be much more helpful especially with classes that have heavy AOE.
5. Change how melee pet attacks function/ their animations. Melee attacks would connect with moving targets much more if they functioned the same as the first attack from moa morph Claw, which causes the caster to “leap” at the target with each use much like how the one handed chain works currently with the ranger sword. It would allow the melee pets to stay on a moving target and to hit a target that is moving, currently a moa morphed pet hits more reliably than a non moa morphed melee pet because it will spam that move Claw and will stick to a running foe while attacking dealing significantly more damage overall than a non-morphed melee pet.
6. Replace Stability Training the master trait in beastmastery with one that grants pets damage immunity (or at least a 90% reduction) for 7-15 sec (this would be more dependent on game type, 7 sec in pvp but would be longer in pve and wvw to help mitigate AOE damage and allow pets to participate in fights that currently destroy them such as Tequatl and zerg fights) after the ranger uses a healing skill..

Associated Risks
< What are the risks of this? Well I would have to say other players complaining about pets being overpowered in other classes. Though it would be more along the lines of other players adjusting to killing pets intently rather than letting them run freely and as a counter balance to pets actually becoming lethal;

• I would suggest that the trait Master’s Bond in beast master also have the secondary effect of causing pet swap to go on cool down for 30 seconds should a pet with any number of stacks be defeated and locking the ranger out from pet swapping to their secondary pet that is alive for those 30 seconds. Also starting the minute long cool down for the downed pet once swapped after those 30 seconds. If the ranger gets out of combat within 30 seconds of their original pet dying that was under the effects of the Master’s Bond buff the ranger will still have to wait the remaining time of the 30 seconds until they can swap pets.

This trait would also be affected by load whistle reducing the down time by 20%. The pet down time would give time for counters to this build to be played out preventing it from becoming more powerful than it should and making pets both a target for other players and a real threat to players being defeated. >

A lot of this can also applies to pve and wvw aspects of the game.

Specific Game Mode

All really, but preference would be WvW

Proposal Overview

Overhaul longbow skills to give Rangers back their archetypal weapon of choice

Goal of Proposal

“Unparalleled Archers”. Even Warriors have a better longbow skillset than we do.

Many Rangers would love to use the longbow if it wasn’t such a stagnant weapon. Longbow skills are clearly designed towards DPS functionality (as the GS is to the warrior, guardian, mesmer, and dual daggers are to thieves and eles), but they don’t pack enough punch. Open up a viable DPS build option for the ranger (for which there is currently none). Though “sustained damage” is included in Anet’s Ranger philosophy, it is not fair that every other class gets a decent physical DPS build. There is no holy trinity in this game, and Anet themselves said that any class should be able to perform any role. Allow the Ranger to take back more control over their own DPS rather than relying on terrible pet mechanics.

Proposal Functionality

Here I present some simple skill-change ideas that have frequented the Ranger forums for quite some time.

LB skill 1 suggestions:

- Either speed up the arrow flight or increase its damage
- Create a chargeable shot by holding down the key; in line with the sniper-esque image

LB skill 2 suggestion:

- Either increase damage or decrease cast time. LB auto attack currently gives more DPS than rapid fire, and this just isn’t right. It’s also too easy to dodge.

- Or replace the skill entirely with a single, powerful shot that could perhaps also add a condition such as stacked vulnerability or cripple.

LB skill 5 suggestion:

- Allow movement during the casting of Barrage. This skill isn’t good enough to warrant such vulnerability.

- OR, if no movement, then grant the player stability during the casting time

Associated Risks

There should be none as long as the buffs aren’t TOO much (which would be wishful thinking anyway). People might say “factoring in pet damage means that Rangers would be too powerful with these buffs”, but pet damage (or lack thereof) is the problem in the first place. Pets are just totally unreliable and hold back too much of what SHOULD be the Ranger’s DPS.

Game Mode: PVE

Overview:
Naturally allow the pet to get exact copies of boons applied to the ranger (but is unable to get un-shared boons)

Goal:
To prevent pets negatively affecting the ranger or group.

Functionality:
Many boon sharing skills (i.e shouts, warhorn) have maximum number of recipients. Most of these are 5 people, the same number of a dungeon or fractal group. Since as it stands now the ranger and pet count as 2 targets. This means that either a player in the group will not receive the buff or the ranger will not receive the full effect of the buff. Allowing all boons that the ranger gets to be innately shared (exact copies) with the pet allows the ranger to function as one individuals in group when considering supports. This would make it so warhorn skills with a max of 5 targets would benefit the ranger to a full degree like other classes without punishing the rest of group.

Risks:
That the pet will receive buffs that are not expected (i.e. ranger is in range but pet is not) or miss out on buffs (i.e. pet is in range but ranger is not)

Specific Game Mode
PvX, but mostly group environments.

Proposal Overview
In my opinion, a major contributing factor toward the ranger’s suffering over the past year can be attributed to a lack of focus in regard toward the ranger’s role/specialty in a group. Even though all professions can fill any “role,” most are known for a particular talent that only they do best (thief infiltration, guardian defense, etc). While the ranger can do a little of almost anything, they are outclassed at everything by at least one profession. This needs to change if the ranger is going to have a role in any party situation.

Goal of Proposal
First, we need to figure out what the ranger does better than other classes. In GW2, the answer is nothing, so we must look at other games and genres. For one, when I think of rangers or hunters in other games, three things come to mind:
1. Crippling and disabling the enemy to assist allies, while providing consistent and reliable damage
2. Multitasking; includes hitting multiple enemies at once (piercing arrows, splintering shots, and, yes, sending pets out to hold an enemy down) and securing one area while aiding another with ranged attacks
3. Control over the environment, thanks to traps, slowing skills such as cripple, and AOE buffs
These things hint at a potential overall theme for the ranger: A master and protector of their surroundings that controls the battlefield, using traps and nature spells to turn their environment into a safe haven for their allies, while using ranged power and utility to weaken and pick off foes from afar.
I firmly believe that this was Anet’s goal for their ranger, and that they gave them a pet for this reason. It’s a great idea in theory; with the ability to send the pet after one foe and attack another themselves, they are capable of doing more at once. The sheer variety of available pets also should add great versatility to the ranger.
I’m not going to rehash all the technical problems pets suffer from currently; others have that covered. Now that I have an idea of what a ranger should be, I’ll try to evaluate some of their weapons and suggest how they can fulfill the ranger’s role better.

Proposal Functionality
Here are some changes to the Ranger’s weapons that would help him become a master of control.
Longbow- Put vulnerability on auto attack, make #3 immobilize, and add confusion to #4. The LB should mainly be a damage weapon, but we don’t want it to be a clone of the warrior’s rifle. The ranger is about debilitation and positioning, so these changes, along with small damage buffs and pet fixes, should be sufficient.
Axe- Turn #3 into a ground target skill that produces an ice field. It chills and damages more foes and provides a combo field for allies.
Sword- Make Serpent Strike skill #2 and reduce the CD. This makes the ranger more mobile while providing a consistent DOT in poison.
Greatsword- Buff the damage and make #2 weaken instead of vuln. The weakness condition fits a defensive weapon more.
Torch- Maybe add blind to one of the skills? Makes sense with the bonfire theme and adds some utility/defense to the weapon besides “moar fire!!”
Utilities- I think this is where the ranger should show his mastery of the terrain. Traps and spirits are a step in the right direction. I think the problem with most utilities is that they’re just boring or have little impact on the battle. Better animations would make them more fun to use, and the functions can be tweaked to fit the ranger’s theme as a master of his surroundings. Shouts need a buff, but can potentially be great. For instance, “Protect Me” could apply to all allies within 300 units of the pet and his master.

Associated Risks
In PvP, CC is plenty fun to play with, but usually frustrating to play against. If the ranger gets too much CC along with a damage boost, they can be very hard to take down and not much fun to fight. But seeing how UP the ranger is now, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, eh? :P

WvW / PvE

Proposal Overview

Changing the Ranger’s pet stowage ability to give the Ranger passive buffs when the pet is stored away, returning half of the lost damage output, and altering Trait Lines to give non-pet Rangers more viability.

Proposal Goal

The goal of this proposal is to make the Ranger class a more desirable option for players that don’t want to use a pet or find themselves in a position where having one is detrimental to solo or group play.

Proposal Functionality

When the situation arises or based on the players personal taste the Ranger can choose to stow his pet indefinitely and gain a Passive Aura buff based on the pet.

(Ex. A stowed Raven has the “Bird Aura” buff which grants Swiftness)
(Ex2. A stowed Black Bear has the “Bear Aura” buff which grants Protection)

Stowing a pet will also return 15% of the lost damage output Rangers have from using pets.

Passive Auras can be further buffed and diversified by newly added or altered Traits within each Trait Line that boosts the performance of the Passive Auras, changes what the Aura does, or adds to the functionality of a specific Aura.

(Ex. Marksmanship Grandmaster Trait: Bird Aura makes every Longbow shot have a 20% chance to cause Bleeding)
(Ex2. Wilderness Survival Master Trait: Canine Aura grants faster Endurance regeneration)

A cool down will be applied when the player stows their pet, and removes their pet from stowage.

Associated Risks

Balancing Issues
Reworking of the Traitlines

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Rework on utilities and traits.

Goal of Proposal
Most ranger’s traits and utilities have so little impact that you feel like your actual number of options excessively limited for a profession that is supposed to be versatile.

Proposal Functionality
You have to seriously consider any trait and utility skill (actually some weapons too) in a PvE environment and understand how useful they become. I can give you examples and explain what’s wrong but I cannot give suggestions for replacement because I have no knowledge of the 2 other environments.
Signet of stone/the wild : decent passives but the actives have a very short uptime with huge cooldowns for so-so effects. As a result, those signet, if ever used, are almost only for their passives i.e. not actually a skill.
Protect me : likely to kill your pet, losing damage from your pet and huge cooldown while I can’t really see a situation where a dodge wouldn’t be a better option, why should I use this ?
Search and rescue : huge cooldown for an unreliable rez, you can rez without a skill so if you want to use your pet and a skill instead it should be interesting to do so, not less effective.

I could go on and particularly on traits but it’d be way too long. I think you really have to do this yourselves.

Associated Risks
The difference between PvE usefulness and other modes’ might be really huge and you might find yourself in a lot of trouble to give every skill/trait something interesting for PvE. That being said, as many skills/traits are (at least to me) in a need of rework for PvE, it should be easy to find space to add options for the PvE ranger.

WvW

In large groups, Rangers do not have a niche to fill. They bring nothing unique and have low dmg/utility.

Suggestion: buff utility for larger groups to carve out a new niche for ranger

New skills
utility Natural Spirit: 1.5c 25cd Summons a spirit that has grants allies a chance to remove boons (35% chance 10s cd).
utility Natural Spirit → Natural Cleansing: Remove one condition from yourself and nearby allies 0c 20cd
elite Quicksand Trap: 1.5s 300cd Set a trap that reduces movement speed of up to 15 enemies by 50% (effect is unique and can’t be removed). 180 trigger radius 240 effective radius untraited, 7s duration

Trait changes
Trap Potency: now doubles the number of targets traps can hit
Evasive Purity moves to adept tier
Circle of Life is removed

New trait
Nature’s Realm: Spirits grant their effects to twice as many targets and triple their radius. Master in Nature Magic

Risk Level: low
with many of these effects not stacking and only effective in large groups, these changes won’t change spvp/pve and won’t encourage stacking rangers. The changes I propose also will hopefully provide some counterplay to the current WvW meta which is currently warriors and guardians stacking tight and sharing tons of boons.

Not much time to post (and using phone, bleh) so please excuse the truncated formatting. I’m going to touch on two major issues I see with Ranger:

Game Mode: WvW

Issue 1: Lack of condition cleanse kills build diversity.

In player vs. player combat, condition spam is extremely prevalent. To counter this, most Ranger builds are taking Empathic Bond. This leaves only 40 trait points to define the rest of you build, severely limiting build diversity. Several good ideas for resolution have already been mentioned in this thread, including:

• Lightning Reflexes removes movement impairing conditions.
• Add condi cleanse to existing heals, HaO or TU.

Issue 2: Rangers and pets should be symbiotic, not parasitic.

Based on the class description and design, the Ranger and the pet should be working together at all times to achieve maximum efficiency. However, there are far too many aspects of the class where either the Ranger or pet is weakened in order to provide a buff to the other, including:

• Traits that transfer negative effects to pets (e.g. Empathic Bond, Shared Anguish).
• Signets – Ranger and pet must sacrifice passive for only the pet to gain the active.
• Shouts that only benefit the pet without helping the Ranger (e.g. Guard) or shouts that benefit the Ranger at the expense of the pet (e.g. Protect Me).

IMO, these aspects of the class should be reworked to be mutually beneficial to both the Ranger and the pet. A perfect example of this symbiosis is the elite Rage as One.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
1st Proposal: Give us the ability to put skills for pets we have active, on our utility bar.
2nd Proposal: Replace some Survival Skills or Shouts and traits with new abilities that improve diversity and synergize well with other skills.

Goal of Proposal
1st Proposal: To improve control of pet functions and to better sync player actions with pet actions.
- To increase Build Diversity

2nd Proposal: To Increase build diversity.

Proposal Functionality
1st Proposal: Give us the ability to put skills for pets we have active, on our utility bar.
If technically feasible the functionality would be similar to swapping pets and the F2 changing with each swap, only this time it functions with the utility bar.
For instance; I can take Harmonic Cry from a Moa put it on my bar, when I swap my pet to a Canine, I could have Brutal Charge in that slot instead or Crippling leap.
Or if the above is not feasible, you could try giving the Ranger another designated slot for pet skills that can also be used for utility skills if so desired.

2nd Proposal:
Distracting Shots; Survival skill; Your next 5 attacks miss. Your target is confused. Confusion 5 stacks for 5s. Replaces Muddy terrain
Reasoning: This attack synergizes well with an evade/condi Ranger. It would give them a bit more condi diversity.

Splinter Shot (Marksmanship Trait) – At 800 to 1200 range, Long Range Shot Splinters and hits enemies within a 140 radius. Replaces Piercing Arrows or Beastmaster’s Bond
Reasoning – The Longbow is one of the only weapons a Ranger has for AoE. One skill. Let’s give them something that allows to be effective in dungeon groups and doesn’t require lining enemies up in a straight line.

Merge Beastmaster’s Might and Signet Mastery. Move Remorseless to Master tier and create a new Grandmaster trait.
My Suggestion; Marksman, Gain 50% crit chance when you’re 600 range or more away from your target.
Reasoning- Not forcing the Ranger into Skirmishing to get crit chance frees up a lot of points for survivability and/or more damage. The devs also have been merging similar traits before and it’s time the ranger got a similar treatment.
- Moving Remorseless to master tier gives a bit more diversity in how you can set-up traits.

Move Trapper’s Defense to master tier, bringing agility training to adept, replace Trapper’s defense with Kindled Arrows; All projectile arrows are 100% projectile finishers.
Reasoning: More diversity in the build department. A Ranger can decide to make a chill build or a burning build or just a trapper build that mainly focuses on exploiting the new fields.

Add functionality to Eagle Eye; Take less damage from retaliation whilst wielding a bow.
Reasoning – Retaliation kills.

Associated Risks
1st Proposal: Implementation. I might be difficult to implement when it requires altering the original make-up of the ranger.
- Skill range increase. Both the enemy and the Ranger will now have to factor in more skill combinations. Possibly causing skill bloat but I believe that situation is better than what we have now.

2nd Proposal: Condition Rangers will have another skill they can use to stack a different type of condition and this may aggravate players who hate the passive abilities that the Ranger has.
- The boost to crit at mid to max range would make them formidable kiters and that could pose a problem for some classes who are not so good at keeping up.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Give each pet a different set of support oriented skills when in passive mode, make them immune to attack as well as unable to attack and just stick to the ranger when in this mode.

Goal of Proposal
Pets can’t dodge, yet most encounters in the game are designed with this functionality in mind so in a lot of encounters pets are going down in a few seconds because of high damage attacks or the floor covered in red circles which a player can block or dodge out of. In such a situation the ranger could just hold the pet back without it being useless. I actually like having a pet with my ranger, this proposal would retain that aspect of the class and still make choice of pet matter. Rangers would receive benefits from their pets and have the choice to not send it into battle if they know it will just die in a few seconds.

Proposal Functionality
Pets would have 2 skill bars depending on which mode they are in (guard/avoid combat). Most active skills could remain but some would be moved or replaced, while passive mode would give pets access skills like Quickening Screech, Harmonic Cry or Mighty Roar.

Associated Risks
The alternative solution – making pets not die all time – would become unnecessary.

Specific Game Mode
PvP
Proposal Overview
Rework and merge some traits together. For example, merge Piercing Arrows and Quickdraw into a single trait.
Goal of Proposal
To make Ranger traits less redundant, and also make them more competitive with traits currently seen as “must haves”.
Proposal Functionality
As with the example given, a commonly requested change is merging of some bow talents like Piercing Arrows and Quick Draw into a single trait.
Associated Risks
May require some tweaking and reordering of traits, but such a simple change shouldn’t be that difficult to implement. Simple solutions are often better then convoluted ones.

Specific Game Mode:
PvP –

Proposal Overview:
The ranger is, as stated in the Ranger Design Philosophy, a skirmishing profession with sustained damage that “whittles” down their opponent. The problem I see with the ranger is how the Axe primary weapon skills were designed. When I visualize a Ranger throwing an axe, it is big, heavy, sharp, and thrown with a lot of momentum. The skills should be hard hitting and leave an enemy stumbling around, bleeding, much like the offhand skill “Path of Scars”.

Goal of Proposal:
While not changing the mechanics or visuals of the skills, the Ranger’s primary weapon (axe) needs a little quality of life improvement to really feel like it hits hard, and keeps hitting till the enemy has fallen. Because of its low base damages the axe ricochets could be almost ignored and the 2nd and 3rd skill didn’t really provide the utility and conditions that the set needed to synergize well. The goal of this proposal is to change the primary weapon (axe) skills of a ranger from low damage spam skills, to a consistent skirmisher weapon choice for kiting and sustained “whittle down” damage.

Proposal Functionality:
Ricochet – Bounce your axe between foes, dealing heavy damage to the first target, and reduced damage to subsequent targets. [Vulnerability x2] 5s (With a buff to the base damage)

Splitblade – Throw a spread pattern of five whirling axes that bleeds foes and grants swiftness if foes are hit.
[Bleeding x5] 6.25s and *[Swiftness] 5s

Winter’s Bite – Throw an axe that removes a two boons. Your pet’s next attack inflicts Chilled.
[Chilled] 3.25s (Increase the base damage by a bit)

In addition to buffing the damage from the ranger, boon removal was also added to make up for the ridiculous amounts of Boons that are seen in PvP [Almost every class spams boons because of how powerful they are!!], which really made rangers with axes more of a nuisance then a threat.

Associated Risks:
The only risk I see would be the many stacks of Vulnerability. However, since the ranger doesn’t have too many conditions and most professions run more than one form of condition removal, this does have a counter.