Guild Wars 2

Proposal
Change the description of the Ranger on the main page (Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation)
to
“The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.”

Goal of Proposal
You are not misleading your community that the Rangers is any good with bows.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Pets never will be good in 5+v5+ situations, arrows are just jokes

Goal of Proposal
Make the ranger usefull in teamplays (gw2 is a team game or what)
First we need to give real buffs. What if when we stove the pet the spirit of the pet stays with us and provide area buffs (we will be something like walking banners)
Preparations: that was the skills what made us useful in gw1

Proposal Functionality

A little more space to us in teamplays while not overpower rangers in 1v1.

Associated Risks

Will change the current team setup and zerg meta

Just rework the petcontrol in general. PvE, PvP, WvW it doesn’t matter. The pets aren’t following the player right now. You can’t “lure” them out of an aoe or something. They just move too fast, staying too far away from you when calling F3, they do skills we don’t want (bird speed buff, spider poison, etc), they feel like … like really stupid npcs.

F1: Auto Attack
F2: Skill 2
F2 F2: Skill 3
F2 F2 F2: Skill 4
F3: Dodge backwards
F3 F3: Dodge and come to me. Stay CLOSE to me.
F4 switch pets.

We need MORE control. F1-F4 atm are just a joke. I quit my ranger cuz of the uncontrolable pet >_>

Also if I hide my pet, it should stay hidden til i summon it → safe for skips.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The bold is not necessarily true. In unique situations, we are willing to split skills. Regardless, that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode. Sometimes feedback is pertaining to very specific scenarios in different game modes. Sometimes there is a way to balance the class that doesn’t hurt the other game modes, but helps to bring it up in the areas where it’s felt to be weak.

Knowing a players primary game mode is very important for us to understand where they are coming from. We also want to make sure that all 3 game modes get the love they need when it comes to balance.

If that doesn’t make sense, then here is an example: Sometimes one skill can be particularly good in PvP. If a player that plays solely PvE feels that skill is weak, it would seem strange if they didn’t specify that it is in PvE when we know that it is already good in PvP.

Does that make sense?

It would make sense…. except that we were told this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/It-s-time-to-balance-PvP-apart-from-PvE-WvW/1801535

That month (April), only 4 skills were “split”. The following update month, June, only 2 skills and clone HP’s were “split”. The next split after that (excluding bug-fixes) wasn’t until December and only used on Necro->M.o.B. And I can’t find anything beyond that. (other users can replicate these results quickly by searching the phrase ‘in PvP’)

Adding to this confusion: the Ranger has already overwhelmingly been voted a “unique case” once the votes were tallied, having over 800 mentions in the voting thread. Was that “feedback” accepted at face value? In the past year, the vast majority of changes to ranger over that time period or rather since April, resulted in real reductions in WvW & PvE effectiveness that were confusing to most players, until some core Conquest players explained how those changes were aimed at structured PVP only.

Saying: “unique situations” only, and then “that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode.” just confuses me even more in trying to craft any solution that has chances of being implemented. It feels like a hurdle against PvE’ers, honestly, where only very subtle “buffs” that walk around PvP on egg-shells, will be the best possible proposals due to our area of experience being such a dividing factor, in your own words.

Really Sorry, hope this isn’t seen as dragging anything off-topic. But would it be possible at all at this time to get a really rough estimate of how many “splits” your team would be willing to consider as opposed to last time? And if any of them would be directly related to how the pets function? Currently there’s a HUGE conflict here because the first couple pages of proposals I’ve read, would all be overpowering in PvP

snow.8097:

PvP

rework of torch #4

Making Torch more interesting for Powerbuilds

Currently the Torch is a condition based weapons. Thats okay, but i think with a Little rework a power build could use that weapon too.
My idea: make #4 a chain attack.
“Swallow the flame” – Gain X Stacks of might for some seconds/ one stack might per second
“Puke the Flame” – Apply some seconds of burn on ur foe

Maybe the combination of some stacks might with condition burn could be really strong

My poor Sylvari ranger

Specific Game Mode : PvX

This is about a core class mechanic and cannot be separated into separate modes.

Proposal Overview: Pet Rework

• Everyone hates the pet. It is a failure as a class mechanic. The reasons are well documented elsewhere.
• The pet is, as stated in OP, integral to the class.
• Fixing the pet AI is beyond the scope of Anet’s work load because it is tied to creature AI, as stated on the Ranger Forum recently.
• Solution: Remove core class functions from the AI. Rebalance the pet into a support, utility and/or control mechanic. Leave core function of the class (dps, sustain) in the hands of the Player.

Goal of Proposal

To make the pet into a useful and fun mechanic, without eliminating it entirely or asking for features that are beyond Anet’s range of feasibility.

Proposal Functionality

Summary: In place of the traditional pet mechanic currently in place, the pet will become a situational utility ability. Rebalance the Pet/Player DPS split in favor of the Player. Pet selection will serve a similar role as choosing traits or utility skills. Pets offer unique gameplay options by coordinating actions between two entities; design skills that take advantage of this.

Examples:

• A pet that you can swap locations with
• A pet that deals Burst AOE by leaping to a targeted location.
• A pet that gives an aura-style buff, similar to Spotter.
• Pets with various condition control mechanics. (such as cleanse, transfer, prevent poison application, stability, etc)
• Pets that deploy combo fields or finishers.
• Pets that are reactive to player actions or situations. (Grants retaliation to player when player is stunned; Attacks target when Player is Crit; Pet Gains Quickness when Player is Immobilized; etc and so-forth)

Associated Risks

• Potentially upsetting class balance.
• Upsetting those Ranger Players who are resistant to change, or prefer that the current mechanics be fixed instead of replaced.
• Delivering an incomplete product due to it’s large scope.

Chokolata.1870:

Game Mode All

Proposal Overview
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

Goal of Proposal
Enabling this play style by introducing an elite that is in line with the Nature magic theme.

Proposal functionality

-Introduce an elite called spirit form. This is a toggle ability with a small cooldown
-The pet is turned into a spirit aura around yourself
-You are allowed to swap pets and you keep all on swap effects
-You can use F2 abilities but they are centered on you, the pet is your cloak.
-All weapon effects that would buff the pet would buff the ranger instead, same for the traits albeit in a reduced effect, shouts are disabled

This might be a way to introduce a valid playstyle while keeping the core nature feel of the class. The player would use an elite slot for compressing his total utility into one entity but the draw back would be the loss of pet based dps. This would however allow pet survivability in clutch situations and WvW

Risks
Lots of number crunching.

This is almost identical to proposals I and others have made in the past. In my version, player would receive dps buff, f2 would be centered on player eg player would emit regenerating howl, player would launch web etc. similar to the engineer toolbelt skills. It would be more interesting, I think, to have a mix of the two ideas in regards to player buff eg. deps pets such as felines, birds buff attack to a greater degree, canines and drakes might buff HP/attack to a less degree, bears buff health to a greater degree.

Asscoicated risks?
Would it result in rangers abandoning pets entirely thus the end of the “pet class”? No, I honestly don’t think so. I think the majority of ranger players would see the advantages of having pets out in the majority of situations, greatly increases CC and utility

Rangers NEED to be able to stow pets in certain situations as others have already outlined. This suggestion would make that ability sacrifice an elite slot, allowing rangers more control, make them less of a hinderence, stop them being insta-debuffed when they prevent the pets death by having it return or any time it is in transit. I can see literally no downsides and only an overall class improvement. The only other way to fix this issue would be amassive overhaul of dungeon and NPC combat mechanics and AI. I ask which is the smaller, easier task?

Rangers NEED to be able to stow pets in certain situations as others have already outlined.

There is no situation in which pets NEED to be stowed, except maybe during jumping puzzles, and that’s more want than need. The only problem is that there are some situations in which they die more often than they are worth, and that is what needs correcting.

If you don’t want a pet out all the time, then you should pick a class that isn’t a Ranger. If you would like to have a pet out all the time, but find that this isn’t ideal because they die too often, or confuse agro in parties, or other such reasons, then the solution is to fix those problems.

The solution I proposed would be to make it so that when a pet “dies” they can continue to deal DPS unaffected, but no longer generate threat, preventing players from “pokemoning” battles, but any similar solution would work as well.

I’d be fine with allowing players to permanently stow their pets, but not if it means making them stronger than a current Ranger with a dead pet is. That would only encentivize them to deliberately stow their pet in combat, and then they might as well just be a different class.

Thanks to those people who kept the proposal title/overview to one line – it makes it much easier to find suggestions along the same lines. I basically wanted to +1 this one:

JorneMormel.9850:

Game mode: PvX

Improving Player Input for Pet Control
I would suggest starting with the profession’s primary mechanic, while it being the pet, it is tied to F1-4 for player input. (With the exception of “Guard!”, which is arguably used mostly to trigger Nature’s Voice with.)

In general I think that pet behavior could do with some improvement – it’s by no means the only thing needed for the Ranger but would go a long way to help. Making the commands a little finer without adding too much complexity, like JorneMormel mentions here, is a good start.

Similar things that might help go along with guessing what the player is trying to do:

• If the pet is set to “guard” and the player starts shooting stuff with a bow, they might be pulling targets – don’t attack until they get within range 300. This is probably the whole idea with the “guard” setting: I want you to attack targets, but only when they get close. And probably one that’s attacking me, if any.
• When stowed, the pet should probably not come out, even in combat. This tends to be intentional, to avoid screwing up jumping puzzles or something.
• The AI stuff. Avoiding AoEs, and also timing the use of skills (could potentially apply to F2 if it were automatic; but making it work instantly is just fine) for best effect. I acknowledge that this is probably a pipe dream.

Specific Game Mode
Pv[all]

Proposal Overview
Instead of pets dying when losing all hp they should enter aggroless mode. Enemies will ignore the pet and transfer aggro to the ranger.

Goal of Proposal
Allows pets to not die from aoe spam, or instant kill abilities from boss mobs without being able to tank unlimited amount of dmg.

Proposal Functionality
This allows rangers to keep their full dmg potential even during boss and zerg battles.

Associated Risks
Possibly very annoying because it allows the ranger to attack a player with a pet without the player being able to do anything about it.

Ohoni.6057:

Rangers NEED to be able to stow pets in certain situations as others have already outlined.

There is no situation in which pets NEED to be stowed, except maybe during jumping puzzles, and that’s more want than need. The only problem is that there are some situations in which they die more often than they are worth, and that is what needs correcting.

If you don’t want a pet out all the time, then you should pick a class that isn’t a Ranger. If you would like to have a pet out all the time, but find that this isn’t ideal because they die too often, or confuse agro in parties, or other such reasons, then the solution is to fix those problems.

The solution I proposed would be to make it so that when a pet “dies” they can continue to deal DPS unaffected, but no longer generate threat, preventing players from “pokemoning” battles, but any similar solution would work as well.

I’d be fine with allowing players to permanently stow their pets, but not if it means making them stronger than a current Ranger with a dead pet is. That would only encentivize them to deliberately stow their pet in combat, and then they might as well just be a different class.

There however is precedence for content to have a no win for the pet (pet can not dodge, pet can not jump, just the pet has no active defense). Sure you can swap, but most mechanic in this game repeat in under a minute so after the first you can be in a pet-less state no matter how well you otherwise manage the pet.

We can not ask the designer to limit their mechanic due to one profession, but we can ask that they work on adjusting the ranger’s class mechanic to exist within the game they are designing for.

Or we need a notice on entering pet unfriendly content and ranger be label an advanced profession as it is likely that a player will need a different character to deal with the short coming of ranger with the pet in the current state.

If the pet will optionally be removed there is a big risk…

The rangers that run without a pet are risking to get better than their pet-followed friends, unless the pets and how they work in form of Control and AI are geting improved so that they can balance an un-followed Ranger.

Specific Game Mode
PvX.

Proposal Overview
Utility improvement.

Goal of Proposal
At the moment most of ranger utility skills need 30p investment to be useful or are other ways weaker than similar skills.

Proposal Functionality
-Signets should give they active effects to ranger and pet without 30p gm trait. Some of them should also get small improvement on they active or passive effect, like signet of renewal active should not pull conditions to pet and signet of the wild need small buff on its passive effect.
-Shouts should be directed for group play like guardians and warriors shouts, but they should give things like quickness from sic’em for us and 5 allies, revive 5 downed allies all at search and rescue, protect me remove boons and conditions and group stealth from guard.
-Traps are closest thin of AoE option we have, so they should use ground targeting and have 900 range without any traits.
-Spirit need they hp bar and activation time removed like many person here have say, small tweak on passive effect icd and active effect cast time.
-Survival skills need mostly bug fix like quickening zephyr(doesn’t seems to effect on all weapons and skills), sharpening stone should prog torment instead of bleed. Muddy terrain should cause longer immobilized or pulse it instead of cripple. Remove damage from lightning reflexes and make it remove conditions. Entangle need hp improvement on its vines hp, so it would not be so easy to escape from it.

Associated Risks
Mesmers might fell they spot threaten by some of thous shouts.

Specific Game Mode
PvX.

Proposal Overview
Pet improvement.

Goal of Proposal
Make pet more reliable partner.

Proposal Functionality
- Increase mele pets skill range to 240 like mesmers moe which seams to make they hit much more reliable and try add cleave effect on some of mele pet skills.
-Increase pet hp at WvW to same level whit PvE.
-Small speed buff to pet.
-Decrease activation time of F2 ability and make it overdrive every thing pet was doing, so we get that effect right a way when we need it.
-Remove death penalty or at least decrease it by 50%.
-Try add some kind of dodge mechanism to pet witch move them away from aoe fields or make it invulnerable when we call it back to us, so player can actively protect pet from damage.
-If these proposals make pet op decrease they damage.

Associated Risks

Allie Murdock.8152:

Nuzt.7894:

Allie Murdock.8152:

barabajaga.7652:

I know that im out of topic here and not using the format proposal and i apologize for it ,but before posting any ideas about the ranger and having into consideration that this will be read by some dev ,i will like to ask something :

Would you ever (or have you) considered the removal of the pet ,knowing how borked the ai is ,and as anet says ,it can not be reworked because its tied to mob ai?

Or would you consider split the class in to two, ranger/beastmaster ,and rework the pet ai from the ground.

Again sorry for the offtopic and thx for any possible answer.

Removing the pet was something that was discussed in initial design of the class, but it is such an integral part of the Ranger’s design and philosophy.

There might be some ways that we can redesign the pet and it’s AI, but those are big projects. For the time being, we are happy to take any suggestions regarding the pet.

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!

This is it – start here

There however is precedence for content to have a no win for the pet (pet can not dodge, pet can not jump, just the pet has no active defense).

Sure, I’m not defending the pet in its current implementation, but my point is, what if they tweaked the pet so that it wouldn’t HAVE to dodge, wouldn’t HAVE to jump, and wouldn’t HAVE to actively defend? In the scenario I proposed, yeah, pets would still take a lot of damage on the chin and in bad situations would probably “die” almost instantly, but then they would just keep on attacking, and so long as you were using them as pure DPS only, they would be doing their job just the same as if they were “alive.” It should shift them more to being a permanent, re-assignable DoT, rather than something you’d need to worry about micromanaging.

If there is absolutely nothing that they can possibly do to make pets less killed by massive AoE-slosions, then ok, last resort I’d be fine with “pet fusion” type overhauls that would allow a Ranger to be fully functional without a pet, because pets in their current form are a mess, I just think that there are ways that they could relatively easily tweak pets to make them less of a problem, without having to give them genius AI or making them Pokemon tanks.

“The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.”

This is the problem with the ranger. Thieves, warriors, eles (and nearly everybody else) have better dps, team support and sustain as us. And in this game single target and pet gameplay is week

Ohoni.6057:

Rangers NEED to be able to stow pets in certain situations as others have already outlined.

There is no situation in which pets NEED to be stowed, except maybe during jumping puzzles, and that’s more want than need. The only problem is that there are some situations in which they die more often than they are worth, and that is what needs correcting.

If you don’t want a pet out all the time, then you should pick a class that isn’t a Ranger. If you would like to have a pet out all the time, but find that this isn’t ideal because they die too often, or confuse agro in parties, or other such reasons, then the solution is to fix those problems.

The solution I proposed would be to make it so that when a pet “dies” they can continue to deal DPS unaffected, but no longer generate threat, preventing players from “pokemoning” battles, but any similar solution would work as well.

I’d be fine with allowing players to permanently stow their pets, but not if it means making them stronger than a current Ranger with a dead pet is. That would only encentivize them to deliberately stow their pet in combat, and then they might as well just be a different class.

Interesting, so rather than reading my whole posts, explaining why pets need to be stowed in certain situations, as opposed to changing the entire combat system just to fix pet issues, rather than addressing my points in their totality, you choose to quote me out of context, and attack me.

Good post.

So what you’re saying is, because I think pets would be better stowed on minorty occasions, I shouldn’t play the class at all? Good logic. It hasn’t occurred to you in the slightest that I enjoy using the pet in many occasions? You just assume the worst. It deosn’t occur to you that I like the class for its themes and abililites, playstyle and utility in most situations?

Let’s reverse that shall we?

Ohoni.6057:

The only problem is that there are some situations in which they die more often than they are worth

You don’t like that pets die, maybe you should pick another class.

Yes, there are situations when the pet NEEDS to be stowed. Dungeon obstacles and puzzles, inescapable mass AoE. It needs to be stowed because there is no fix that wouldn’t require changes to NPC AI and a combat overhaul. These situations, with this system are inescapable. If a ranger had the ability and foresight to stow their pet in one of these situations, but another didn’t and their pet dies, then yes, that ranger deserves to be more powerful than the fool who didn’t stow.

Likewise in other situations; a ranger who stows his pet for a weak buff and loss of elite, in a situation where crowd control is necessary, will die hideously and deservedly so, when they could have used their pet to mitigate damage.

This ‘pokemon’ you refer to already exists in the form of insta-pet swapping. Having pet stow wouldn’t change that, only reduce pet downtime in situations where pet-death is unavoidable. Ranger is debuffed by thirty percent, when ever the pet is not in direct contact with an enemy and this occurs far too often because of the present mechanics. The pet is essentially wasted and the ranger is weakened all for the beligerant and pointless ideal of having a permenantly active pet.

Not to mention the fact that not only by keeping their pet alive in mass AoE or having it forced to die in obstacles, the ranger automatically debuffs themselves, in addition they’re also dividing their attention an extra step, keeping the pet alive, means they’re not watching their teammates, hindering the group further.

Then there’s the fact that the pet is basically useless in PvP unless it’s guarding an area, flushing out a stealther or resurrecting a teammate. If you’re fighting a group of people or 1v1, it’s dead weight. It literally cannot harm the opposing player and the ranger is borked for it. I ask again, since, you conveniently ignored this point last time,
which is easier to change? The NPC AI and combat system, for the sake of one class, or adding pet stow with a buff?

As I said before, but again, you conveniently ignored, pet use will be preferable in the majority of situations. In those few where it isn’t, stow it. It’s that or recode NPC AI. Unless you can explain how to fix these problems without such drastic measures? Something else you conveniently forgot to do.

Specific game mode – PvE/WvW

Proposal overview – Improve rangers utility skills which are pretty selfish at moment

Goal of proposal – Give rangers a better place in group support

Proposal functionality – (various change to utilities)

Shouts
Protect Me : your pet gives aoe regeneration and protection (5 sec, 360 radius) and take all your damage (5 sec, 60 sec CD); breaks stun.

Guard : command your pet to guard target area (1200 radius) for 60 sec. Your pet gain stealth for 60 sec, when your pet attacks a foe it gives aoe might (3 stacks, 6sec) and fury (6 sec). 20 sec CD.

Sick ’Em : Gives revealer malus to target (8 sec), your pet deal 40% increase damage (8 sec) also your pet gives aoe might (6 stacks, 8 sec). 40 sec CD

Search And Rescue : command your pet to revive target ally at normal speed if downed or halved speed if dead. Your pet also gain protection (6 sec) and gives aoe protection (6sec, 360 radius) if the target is revived. 80 sec cd, halved if the target is not resurrected.

Signets

Signet of Beastmastery : improves signets passive effect by 20%

Signet of Renewal : passive: removes 1 condition every 10 sec. active: your pet takes all conditions from party and gain 1sec regen and 1 sec protection per condition.
(with SoB: 2 condition per 10 sec)

Signet of Stone: passive: +180 toughness. active: you and your pet take no damage for 5 sec.
(with SoB: + 216 tougness)

Signet of the Wild : passive: heals ranger and pet for 200hp/sec. active: same as actual effect shared for ranger and pet.
(with SoB: regen 240 hp/sec)

Signet of the Hunt : passive: increase movement speed by 20%. active: increase you’r next skill damage (not single attack) output by 50% (same for your pet).
(with SoB: 25% movement speed)

Spirits
General : increase base chance for effects to trigget to 50% (100% with trait) they also follow you and changed/fused traits to a new grandmaster tier trait which increase their life and chance to trigger.

Storm Spirit : gives aoe swiftness (6 sec) and has a chance to discarge a bolt of lightning (hitting up to 3 enemies)

Frost Spirit : gives aoe increased damage by 10% for 3 sec

Sun Spirit : gives aoe chance to burn your foe (2 sec) and give aoe might (1 stack, 20 sec)

Stone Spirit : gives aoe protection (4 sec) and makes your next attack to cripple your foe for 1 sec

Associated Risks – damage coefficients and boon duration/stacks need to be balanced in order to avoid and excessive boon spamming but in general this would be a good deal for party support.

Game Mode – PvX, Mostly PvE

Proposal Overview
The one feature about the Ranger as a whole that seems to always pop up and cause the most amount of problems for both balancing and freedom of play is the pet. My proposal is simple, remove the pet as the F-key feature for the profession.

Goal of Proposal
The over all goal of this proposal is to remove the negative aspects of the pet as it is now from the ranger and move it to a more manageable home under the utility skills such as how necromancer minions work. In place of the pet under the F-keys a new system that is both indicative of the old ranger from gw1 as well as allowing the ranger to be different from every generic pet archer class from any other mmo.

Proposal functionality
The way this proposal functions is simple take the pet system as is which is a unique and hard balancing project that right now only affects the rangers and move it to sync with a system that is already being balanced and is balanced over several other professions, A.K.A. the minion/summon system. Take all pets, dumb them down to be of minion status, rework all shouts. One of the new shouts will, like necromancer minion skills, summon the pet, once the pet is summoned it uses it’s basic attack, as they are now or reworked and that is it. When the skill is activated again while the pet is summoned it uses a special attack or ability, just like necromancer minions do, this replaces either the original F2 key skill for the pet, or the pet’s own secondary attack skill it auto used. To better expand upon the ability to be a beast master for those who still wish to or had an interest in it, Rampage as One would be reworked to summon a pet similar in strength to the necromancer’s flesh golem elite.
The left over 3 shouts would have new dual functions. With no pet summoned they do an animation that, for a single attack, summons some critter to come and execute an ability then said critter disappears, similar to the norn call owl racial skill. This allows them to be used with out a pet summoned and lend to the beast master mentality. With a pet summoned how ever, the skills would change to activate a secondary, tertiary or other attack of the selected pet. This allows specialization in the pets as well as keeping the pet menu and pet types completely intact. The separation between a normal utility skill and an elite skill allows the menu to keep it’s Dual pet functionality, but instead of selecting a pet to swap to you are selecting a normal pet and an elite pet.
As for the F-keys, I propose they be changed to a core functionality of how the ranger should be based on the guild wars universe, preparations. The premise is this, F1-3 would be used because I feel 4 would be too many. The core design is similar in function to a hybrid of the elementalist attunement system and the guardian’s virtue of justice. You can only have 1 preparation attuned at a time, when under that preparation, every so many attacks/hits you take/what ever other mechanic you wish to try, triggers an effect, a boon a condition. Nothing over powered but something that does stand out. Second function is this when activating a preparation it goes on a sizable cool down, probably atleast 30-45 seconds if not 60. For that duration so many attacks, hits you take, or what ever, automatically trigger said effect, giving the ranger control over a situation in a tight fix and for a short amount of time. Activating a preparation triggers a universal short cool down of about 5-10 seconds on the other preparations so that a Ranger cannot just blow preparations one after another or jump around to them willy nilly with no consequences.
The last part of this proposal has you combine the now much uneeded beast mastery tree with the nature tree or hybrid it into a new Expertise tree in it’s place that changes the boost to pet attributes to either a cool down reduction to preparations or an increase in duration/uses. Which ever works or balances better.

Associated Risks This is a huge over haul to the ranger and a complete change of how it works now, currently the ranger is entirely too much about the pet and this would liberate it from that, it also adds in a different set of mechanics to tune and balance which may or may not be easy. The biggest risk is that this frees the ranger from the damage reduction it gets due to having a permanent pet, which may disrupt where other professions find themselves with dps in comparison to the ranger.

As a final note, I’m terribly sorry if this ran a bit to long or was too convoluted, thank you to every one who took the time to read it.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Addjust Longbow to be a good choice in PvE.

Goal of Proposal
Goal is to get the longbow on par with other ranger weapons so that you are not always told to do something else for more damage.

Proposal Functionality

• The arrows are flying too slow, which leads to often missing when enemies are moving
• Skill 3 is really useless which the stealth and on top of it, you are loosing your target and not attacking anymore, so you are loosing damage. Here is one of the situations where I think the stealth should either be removed or a skill split between PvE/PvP is needed.
• Longbow is very passive, since because of the auto-attack scaling with range, you try to be at a range of 1200-1500 normally, with that you are almost always far away from everyone, so you can’t support the group and they can’t support you. So only “usefull” choice for secondary skills are sigils. Also this range-scaling really hurts the longbow when you have to be near the enemy (for example Mai Trin in fractals or else she is porting all over the room), so I think it should be removed. Of course longbow by word means you will be standing on range, but this kind of thing is hurting the longbow ranger at the moment.

Associated Risks
Changes would have to be carefully tested to not make the longbow OP.

((I also wanted to write about the ranger pet, but seeing a lot of other people allready did it, I think everything is allready covered, just mentioning it, so that the devs know there is one more concerned player with the state of the pet))

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Let the ranger stow the pet forever so it doesn’t appear when you enter combat

Goal of Proposal
Problem of moving around and exploring/gathering, also problematic when you need to use stealth to move through content (skip). Pets hinder movement

Proposal Functionality
When you stow your pet, let us stow it forever. Simple

Associated Risks
None…

specific Game Mode
All modes.

Proposal Overview
Make some of the personal stories less friendly for rangers

Proposal Functionality
Don’t get me wrong. The class needs an overhaul and there are excellent suggestions here. But another issue is that leveling a ranger is too ‘easy’. Other classes need to learn important tactics like dodge early on.
A ranger is often (not always) chosen cause you get a cute animal. This means the type of player is (in general) more concerned bout esthetics then being good. This is enhanced by how easy it is to play (let your furry bear tank for you while you nuke them with your barrage).
In end game content this simply doesn’t work anymore and has leaded to the distaste many pugs have for rangers. By making rangers better players early on this can be bend around.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Convert Longbow 2 (Rapid Fire) into an aim-based Kill-Shot

Goal of Proposal
With maximum DPS gear and a fully aimed attack, Rangers will once again have the highest “Ranged” attack

Proposal Functionality
1.) Select target
2.) Press and hold 2
3.) Release to fire based on duration held down (Variable DPS at 1, 3, 5, and 10 seconds) assuming target is still in Range
4.) Enemy players get a snipe-esque marker when the attack is held down between 5 – 10 seconds allowing them to dodge.

Associated Risks
A 10-second duration should kill most players (50k crit) which many might consider severely high, although with a visible target marker and the attack being dodgable / blockable / etc, they are given ample warning.

Interesting, so rather than reading my whole posts, explaining why pets need to be stowed in certain situations, as opposed to changing the entire combat system just to fix pet issues, rather than addressing my points in their totality, you choose to quote me out of context, and attack me.

Good post.

Nope.

So what you’re saying is, because I think pets would be better stowed on minorty occasions, I shouldn’t play the class at all? Good logic.

Nope.

You don’t like that pets die, maybe you should pick another class.

I don’t think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, as plenty of other have noted, there’s very little way to prevent pet deaths in the current system. They’ve designed the game’s mechanics so that players are meant to avoid attacks, and yet they’ve made it so that it’s difficult, if not impossible to get pets to effectively avoid these attacks, and that’s even if you’re very good at micro-managing them. If you just try to play as a single character then there’s almost no hope of keeping them alive.

Given all that, I think that the simplest solution is to make it so that they are just as effective after taking a boss AoE to the face as before it, but if you have a better solution that keeps the pet an active part of the gameplay than I’m all ears, I just don’t think that having the option to power up the Ranger by stowing the pet is a good solution. All that will lead to is a lot of pet-less rangers in most situations. If there is a “pet-less ranger” build then either it will be strong enough in situations where a pet might possibly die that players will use them constantly in those situations and pets become about as commonly used as a mini-pet, or they tune it to be not strong enough, in which case people will complain that it’s not worth bothering with.

Yes, there are situations when the pet NEEDS to be stowed. Dungeon obstacles and puzzles, inescapable mass AoE. It needs to be stowed because there is no fix that wouldn’t require changes to NPC AI and a combat overhaul.

As I said, if they just made it so that pets don’t interact with environmental obstacles, and made it so that a “dead” pet does just as much DPS as a “live” pet, then it wouldn’t matter how much damage the pet takes, he’d still be useful and active DPS/support to the Ranger.

This ‘pokemon’ you refer to already exists in the form of insta-pet swapping. Having pet stow wouldn’t change that, only reduce pet downtime in situations where pet-death is unavoidable.

The “pokemon” situation would have nothing to do with the “pet storing,” you advocate, I was just allaying previously raised concerns that allowing for immortal pets would allow players to use them as invincible tanks, allowing the Ranger to fight in total safety. I had explained a page or two ago why this wouldn’t be a problem.

It literally cannot harm the opposing player and the ranger is borked for it. I ask again, since, you conveniently ignored this point last time,
which is easier to change? The NPC AI and combat system, for the sake of one class, or adding pet stow with a buff?

I’m honestly not sure, it depends on the complexity of the systems they’ve designed and that varies from game to game, so only they could tell us for certain. I don’t think AI alterations would be strictly necessary though (although it would be the ideal option).

As I said before, but again, you conveniently ignored, pet use will be preferable in the majority of situations. In those few where it isn’t, stow it. It’s that or recode NPC AI. Unless you can explain how to fix these problems without such drastic measures? Something else you conveniently forgot to do.

Page two.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Re-design the class mechanic and trait-lines.

Goal of Proposal
Change the existing broken class mechanic (pets), and remove spirits
Reduce the number of pets to 4 (F1, F2, F3, F4), with specific boons/support utilities on timers with cooldowns, making them optional for situational use.
Pet can follow, draw aggro, be directed for positioning, be dismissed, but is always passive. All direct damage output is from the ranger.
Improve synergy between traits, weapons skills and utilities.

Proposal Functionality
The proposed design is in keeping with the current GW2.

Associated Risks
Development and testing time to implement the above.

Reelix.6319:

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Convert Longbow 2 (Rapid Fire) into an aim-based Kill-Shot

Goal of Proposal
With maximum DPS gear and a fully aimed attack, Rangers will once again have the highest “Ranged” attack

Proposal Functionality
1.) Select target
2.) Press and hold 2
3.) Release to fire based on duration held down (Variable DPS at 1, 3, 5, and 10 seconds) assuming target is still in Range
4.) Enemy players get a snipe-esque marker when the attack is held down between 5 – 10 seconds allowing them to dodge.

Associated Risks
A 10-second duration should kill most players (50k crit) which many might consider severely high, although with a visible target marker and the attack being dodgable / blockable / etc, they are given ample warning.

Hey Reelix,
i was going to say the same… and this suggestion is great in my opinion but why not to put this “hold effect” on LB 3# skill (which gives stealth if only pressed and damage by holding) ? Also reducing a bit the damage output and max hold time (to 5 sec) will make this more realistic and doable.

+1

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ranger Design Philosophy: Please keep this in mind when posting feedback.
The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.

Wow! I think you guys really, really have your work cut out for you to even just reach this. That aside, just as a little commentary leading to…

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Longbow #4: Most ranger players would agree that the longbow needs a burst skill. I would propose that a charge-up is added to this weapon skill.

Goal of Proposal
To give the longbow, a power weapon, a kill shot, while keeping it in line with what the five weapon skills already do.

Proposal Functionality
You either shoot immediately, giving you the current function, or hold-and-release for a telegraphed high-damage shot that also does the knock back.

Associated Risks
The ranger player will have to balance using the instant in those “oh kitten” moments, or the charged version. While the charged version could have the potential to outright kill an enemy, it could very easily be dodged, evaded or simply interrupted. I therefore see no risk.

Game Mode
PvE, but will apply to all of the gamemodes.

Proposal
To give the ranger more active/reliable condition removals, aswell as giving them some more party support.

Goal of Proposal
Rework Empathic Bond and the active effect of Signet of Renewal.

Proposal Functionality

Empathic Bond:
Changed to remove 3 conditions on pet swap instead and to bring more group utility it removes 1 condition on every party member aswell(only in Pve).
Internal cooldown of 20 seconds as the petswap , 15 seconds with the minor trait Loud Whistle. Stays in the Wilderness Survival traitline.
This would give the ranger a more reactive/available condition removal aswell as giving it some party support.

Signet of Renewal:
Change the active affect to make it so regardless of where the pet is at the moment of activation it will pull all the conditions on the ranger to it and from all the allies around the player and not the pet. But the pet needs to be alive for it to work ofcourse.
This change is necessary to make the signet activate a 100% condition removal, since as of now the pet needs to be fairly close for it to work, else it wont do nothing at all.

Associated Risks
The only risk I can see with this change is that the ranger class can become slightly harder to play, considering the change to Empathic Bond. Other then that, I see no risks with these changes.

Specific Game Mode
Primarily written from a PvE perspective, though applicable to other modes.
Proposal Overview
Improve the versatility and feel of using ranger pets by expanding on their unique gameplay possibilities with mode-switching skills.
Goal of Proposal
Pets should feel more like an useful and dynamic part of the ranger’s kit, and less like a superfluous burden or an inept NPC. Being able to switch pets into a safe passive mode while still allowing them to be useful will prevent them from feeling like a wasted class feature in battles and environments where a pet might have difficulty fighting, while adding an attack/retreat dynamic to the ranger’s battle cadence will provide more engagement than the rather flat feel that pets currently have.
Proposal Functionality
Pets have a passive and active mode. In active mode, they can attack and be damaged, while in passive mode they can neither deal nor receive damage. Each pet gets a total of four commandable skills, two in each mode (plus autoattack). In passive mode, there is a Support skill, which provides some non-damaging effect (cleanse a condition, grant a boon, etc), and an Engage skill, which switches the pet to active mode and performs an opening attack (such as a pounce for cats). In active mode, there is an Attack skill (used on a targeted foe or area, or the enemy the pet is currently engaging), and a Retreat skill that switches the pet back to passive mode, with either a parting shot or a supportive ability (so, for example, bears could block an incoming attack with their Retreat skill). A pet dropped to 0 hp in active mode is forced into passive mode, locking the pet’s skills until it recovers.
Associated Risks
There might be more of a cognitive load with more pet skills to be aware of and more state to track (though I don’t expect it to be as complex as engineers with kits and toolbelt skills). With individual pets having a more dynamic repertoire, it might be reasonable to have rangers stick with one pet instead of two (with passive/active mode filling the role that pet-swapping has now). A pet choice would then be a build decision like weapon choice is – “I’m a longbow and jungle stalker ranger, the knockdown from Pounce helps me keep my distance.”

Specific Game Mode WvW PVE

Proposal Overview
Fix Signet of the beastmaster trait.

Goal of Proposal
Give rangers more access for their signets to affect them and not their pets by default

Proposal Functionality
revise trait to 10 or 20 points to affect pet on active instead. Rangers, like all other classes should by default be affected by their own signets on active.

Associated Risks

Game mode:
All

Proposal Overview:
Sight changes to the longbow abilities

Goal of Proposal:
Tweaking the longbow to be a more stable and usable weapon. At the moment its pretty bad for both PvE and PvP.

Proposal Functionality:

-compress rapid fire cast time from 4.5 seconds into 2.5 seconds. Keep the number of attacks, damage and vulnerability the same, just speed up the animation if possible

-hunter shot stealth should occur when the arrow is fired and not when it hits the target. This will allow a much more reliable escape mechanism in all game modes as it is completely negated by blocks or reflects.

-allow movement during barrage cast times

Associated risks:
Absolutely none what so ever. Nothing is being remade here. Old abilities are reused in a way that will allow consistency and reliability on use (barrage and hunters shot) or fixed as to not be a raw DPS drop (rapid fire)

Specific Game Mode WvW PVE

Proposal Overview
Remove the 30% reduction in DPS/overall stats that are given to pets

Goal of Proposal
make rangers less dependent on pets unless they trait for it.

Proposal Functionality
make us be less dependent on a broken mechanic unless we trait for it. if our damage is reduced like that then clone spamming mesmers’ stats should be reduced too.

Specific Game Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
Ranger’s Pets are, as you say, very much tied to the class but our control over their actions and movement. As changing the functionalities of the Ranger and its specific Profession Skills (F1-F4) would require a massive overhaul, I suggest the following band-aids as solutions to the problem that often causes Pets to feel redundant in PvE, where they spend the majority of the big battles dead.
Also, some trait changes could make do for the Ranger as well, that has to do a bit more with Pets but adds also an extra flavor to the Ranger.

Goal of Proposal
Rangers are currently lacking in PvE due to the fact that they have visually no control over their pet. Especially in open-world content such as Lion’s Arch they will see their pets get burned down in an instant by AoE’s and the like.

The goal of these revamps would be to increase the Pet’s Survivability and usefulness in PvE but make it so that it’s more reliant on Player skill than just flat stat increases.

Proposal Functionality

• Attack – Now adds a Unique Speed Buff (Similar to Sic’ Em) to the Pet, which will allow them to chase down distant targets attempting to flee. This extra effect could be on a 10 seconds Cooldown, to avoid spamming it in WvW.

• Return – Would now add a 1 or 2-seconds Evasion Buff (Similar to Mesmer’s Blur) which causes the Pet to avoid attacks as it returns to you. This will let Rangers manually control their pet’s evasiveness, so that they can avoid having them downed in one go by A world Boss’ Deadly and Telegraphed AoE. This could also be at a 10 seconds cooldown.

• Skirmishing and Wilderness Survival – This is something that has always struck me as odd. Why are Traps, who are exclusively Condition Damage-based, located in the Trait tree that adds Precision and Critical damage? It makes no sense as a Trapper Ranger won’t be using Critical Damage if he’s specced into Condition Damage. Same with Wilderness Survival and Melee Weapon Skills, such as Martial Mastery. Greatsword and Spear are generally Power-related weapons, why’re they located in the Condition-damage tree? To me, it feels like these two focuses oughta switch places, to make the Ranger capable of focusing more on one or the other without being forced into either tree.

• Trait line Stat increases – Should be applied to the pet, but in a lesser extension (Maybe 1/5th of the total increase, giving them +60 on a full traitline?).

Associated Risks

• Changes to Attack and Return needs to be carefully maintained so as to not make them overpowered in other game modes.

Game mode: WvW

Proposal Overview: Make design team play a ranger for one week

Goal of Proposal:
To make designers understand the problems Rangers have on WvW and to create better solutions

Proposal Functionality:
I don’t know how many designers play active ranger and how many of them play WvW, but right now, rangers have a big disadventage on WvW. Warrior LB builds does much better than any ranger zerg builds and this is a huge disappointment for most of us. If a designer would accept my proposal and play a ranger in WvW for one week, I am sure he will understand the weak points and the injustice between other classes.

Associated risks:
After one week of try, designers might actually delete the whole class

==Specific Game Mode==

PvE (This feedback is generic and works for any mode anyway)

==Proposal Overview==

I feel like rangers are boring. Their unique mechanics aren’t interesting enough, specially the pet. I think making the pet be “optional” would be a nice change.

Yeah, the way the profession works right now, it would affect it too much. But maybe this could be done with less intrusive pets, or different pet slot roles, letting ranger players choose between different categories when selecting what they want in their mechanic bar.

Aside from the classic pets, rangers could select pets with non-active roles and skill bars with both active and passive abilities.

==Goal of Proposal==

Make rangers more interesting by giving them more playstyle options through the mechanic bar of the profession, giving alternate options to the current iteration of pets without removing what we already have.

==Proposal Functionality==

Right now, we only have one role, an active pet. The proposal is to define the existing role and add two new ones:

• Beastmaster – Unit role: The current version, you can give basics orders to a unit, your pet, that can be killed, leaving you without his benefits.
• Druid – Skill role: A skill bar with nature-themed magic abilities. It could follow the pet theme, too, but without the unit, like a swarms of insects. Maybe they could work like effects. For example, rain effect, you summon a small rain that is used like a pet. The basic difference is that it can’t be killed.
• Marksman – Passive role: A series of passive and active abilities that improve your skills while the skill bar is selected. If you switch to another skill bar you lose the passive bonus. Ideal for playing as the classic ranger archetype that has no pet.

The idea is that, in the special slot of your mechanic bar, you can put many things, and not just a pet, giving you many customization options. Kinda like letting you choose a style between beastmaster, druid or marksman. And of course you could always combine them, having a pet in one slot and a skill bar in the other one.

==Associated Risks==

Balance is the obvious one. Also, it could be hard to adapt the new system to the existing content. Maybe these changes should come in an expansion or release where more variety is added to the mechanic bars of all professions, so everyone has a fresh start with equal new variety options.

Theme overlap is there, too, but I don’t think any profession (Existing or future) will cover nature themes so much without overlapping with the bit the ranger already covers, so I’m all for pushing the nature themes of the ranger further.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview

Making ranged combat in PVE work more like ranged combat in all other areas of the game.

Goal of Proposal

To give ranged combat as a whole more purpose. To add more depth to the combat overall.

Proposal Functionality

Allow players to attack monsters from higher ground, without them turning invulnerable, and regenerating. Allow rangers to take the high ground, position themselves strategically, and make use of the terrain like they can in WvW or PvP. If monsters can’t get to you, tough for them. That is the whole point of having a ranged weapon. Rangers could do this in GW1, why not in GW2?

Great to see this discussion underway! I have a lot to say that I’ve been holding onto, so I’m going to let it all out now. Please read it. I didn’t cover everything, and I got a bit tired near the end, but it’s pretty long so probably enough for right now. I love this class and have spent more than 2,000 hours playing my ranger. Spending that much time on one class, you feel so invested, but you also feel almost personally hurt by the handicaps. I hope to see improvement on this class, and many, many more hours of me playing it on this very fine game!

[All] Traited vs. Untraited Skills
If a trait improves a skill by 100% or more, that trait becomes necessary for that build. The ranger, in particular, has many of these traits, all tucked away at the 30pt branch. Signets, traps, shouts, and, until recently, spirits, all fall within this dilemma. If you are not traited for signets, they are considered useless. If you aren’t traited for traps, they’re flimsy and weak. When not traited, the ranger has a difficult time deciding what to put on her toolbar.

Solutions
Like mobile spirits, some of those 30pt traits really need to either move down to become more accessible, the untraited versions need buffs, or even the traited version needs a nerf[sup]1[/sup]. Other options would be to change them entirely.

[PvE] Handicapped by Class Mechanic
By design, the ranger relies on her pet to the degree where it can harm her. Rangers were balanced around the idea that they would have this companion by their side, helping them to take down this target. While that’s fine on paper, much of the game is not balanced around the idea that sometimes a player will be two entities instead of one. This leads to some content (open world PvE) to be relatively easy, while other content (living story, dungeons) wipes out your furrier half. I can say I’ve died or downed more times than I’d like to admit trying to make sure my dear pet is safe from harm, because I need it. When rangers look on other class mechanics—Death shroud, adrenaline, passive guardians, heck, even mesmers—we envy how their mechanic doesn’t hold them back. Rangers feel punished when our pets die (as it’s been said that our damage is lowered to account for the pet) instead of rewarded for our pet being alive.

Solutions
There isn’t one solution to this problem, so I’ll go over a couple possibilities. Pets, in their current state, should be our icing on the cake. If our pet dies in combat, it should not become useless or dead weight—it’s a very significant piece of us. (Solution 1) Our class mechanic is disabled for 60 seconds upon pet death—but it’s more than that. We, as a class balanced around having these pets by our side, are significantly weakened by having our pet dead for a whole 60 seconds. It has been suggested that there really shouldn’t be a cool down if we are tied to these things. While I’m not sure that’s a balanced solution, it’s a fair point to consider. (Solution 2) Allow rangers to disable the class mechanic for situations where it’s handicapping them. Let rangers regain the strength that they lost by having this mechanic. Sometimes pets are a pain because they’ll die too fast, but sometimes they’re literally hurting the team by existing (for example, pets disabling Canach’s bombs, or more recently, the Marionette’s Warden II).
Note: I don’t know the best solution here. I can only really see the problem. It’s a very large problem though, and one of the biggest reasons rangers are frowned upon.

continued….

Specific Game Mode
General for PvE (also applies to PvP and WvW, since I see no reason why it should be any different.)

Proposal Overview
Pet AI rework, sword root rework

Goal of Proposal
Since Ranger’s overall dps is adjusted because we have a pet that does a certain percentage of dmg for us, it would seem logical that it would actually do some damage, to moving targets. Right now there is this attack-stop-cancel-run after-try to attack combo that lands absolutely no hits. A player, or mob, could move just a little right and left and the pet wouldn’t hit them at all. This is the greatest downfall of rangers, especially in PvE, because it’s literally a 20-30% dmg loss; so why would anybody take a ranger if they can just take a more safer profession? So, my proposal regarding this is either lower pet damage and give it to the ranger themselves, or make pets faster and more responsive when attacking—after all, they are beasts that stalk and kill. Also make pet f2 skills instant. The other thing is also a common problem, which is the sword root. I really like the leap animation and sticking on your target mechanic, it’s great, but dodge, and skill 2 and skill 3 on sword, should really overwrite the auto-attack chain immediately.

Proposal Functionality
I suppose it’s not much of a change than it’s a fix. Pets should be our mechanic that works in our favour, not the liability that it is now. Same goes for sword, with it’s great stalking mechanic, it brings some of the most annoying downfalls: the inability to dodge on time.

Associated Risks
No risks at all, except less rangers crying about getting kicked from dungeons and having an useless pet.

PvE] Pets, Scaling, and Death
We all know that pets die. A lot. Particularly in large scale gameplay. I talked about in the point above why pets dying is such a big deal, but usually, in small scale gameplay, the death of a pet is the ranger’s fault. When you start playing the game in large scale, you have a dead companion following you around. If you choose to follow the zerg, or even play with a skill group that’s larger than 5, there’s nothing you can do to keep the pet alive except command it to be on passive. The problem, though, is that there’s nothing different between a passive pet, and a dead pet, except for the option to use its F2 (to which it’ll immediately change to aggressive mode). The boons or utility proved by the pet are not large enough to take it over a fully singular class, who is not divided by its pet.

Solutions
This is my favorite solution that solves many problems, and I’ll mention it a few more times as I feel strongly that THIS, above all else, is what the ranger class needs the most. Our pets are focused DPS machines. Even bears are made to get in and fight, despite their terrible damage. What I feel would behoove the ranger the most, is to have another class of pets that are akin to spirits. These pets would focus on the ranger and the team, giving them various boons or utilities. Calling out these pets would give back the power a ranger loses by having a pet, and these new pets would not do any damage themselves. In turn, they cannot be harmed, making them useful in fights against Tequatl, zerg warfare, skill groups, world bosses, Scarlet and her troops, and one-shot-and-done dungeon bosses.

PvE] Rangers: The Selfish Class
We are a class who cares about two and only two: Ourselves, and our pet. Our beloved pet cares only for us. While traits and skills of other classes work to help the team, the ranger is satisfied if she can help her pet. We offer so little, and ask for so much. I can’t remove your conditions, I probably can’t blast your field. Here, use my frost spirit. Oh wait, it just died. ? Eles, necros, mesmers, guardians, warriors, are all about helping the team. Even the thief brings more to the party with its burst, utility, and super low CD blast finishers. We are not wanted in WwW due to our selfish style, and often dejected from dungeons for the same.

Solutions
As I outlined in Pets, Scaling, and Death, if we had support-oriented pets, this could all change. Rangers could become great team players who are sought after for what they can bring to their group—not what they can bring for their pets. Oh, and it’d be nice to have another access to blast finishers through a 1 handed weapon, preferable SB or GS.

[All] The 1,1,1 Ranger
Due to the nature of the Shortbow and the Sword, we can become 1 spammers. While there are other buttons and they’re very much useful, 1 does the most DPS. It’s a very simple problem. The shortbow is interesting as it requires proper positioning to get the best bang for its buck, but #3 and #4 are so very underwhelming (to me).

Solution
SB #3 could provide vigor instead of swiftness, but really what’s missing here is burst.

[All] Burst, AoE, and Utility
The Holy Trinity of Guild Wars 2. Provide any two, and your team will love you. Provide one, and at least that’s useful. But the ranger, we cannot really offer any. This hurts most in WvW skill groups and PvP.

Solution
I will refer again to the support-oriented pet solution above. That could open the door to bringing utility.

[All] Pet Masochist
It’s emphasized how important our pets are to us. I’ve talked about above how necessary it is for us to keep our pets alive, and how they are a burden to us for that reason. And yet the game encourages us to harm our pet. Traits like Empathetic Bond and Beastmaster’s Bond encourage you to harm the beast that aids you. Why? It’d be one thing if you were just hurting the mechanic, but as I explained above, the mechanic for the ranger is part of the ranger in a way no other class can relate. And then we have traits that conflict entirely: Master’s Bond requires you to keep THAT PET alive. You cannot pet swap nor can the pet die, so you have to pop your heals and do whatever it takes to make sure fluffy survives the onslaught.

Solution
Look at the traits mentioned, and all pet swap traits (as they also nullify Master’s Bond) and rework them so that they all want the same thing. It would also be nice if these sort of traits didn’t just help the pet, or just help the ranger, and instead helped the group. Master’s Bond should only reset upon pet defeat, and all pet-injuring traits should be reworked to reward the ranger for keeping their pet alive[sup]2[/sup]. Or perhaps new traits for the support-pets?? ?

continued….

[All] F2 Is Like Rolling Dice
It shouldn’t be. It should be reliable, on demand, and not send the pet off into combat-mode. If my pet is on passive, it should remain on passive even after pressing F2. F2 should be priority, and I shouldn’t have to get on my knees and pray. Nor should I have to ask my party to please stand around while my pet executes his F2.

Solutions
F2 should either be instantaneous or castable by the pet while moving. It should also always take priority in their attack queue. And it should not send pet into combat if the pet is on passive.

[All] Condi Removal – Or Lack Thereof
I can’t bring Troll Urgant, Heal as One, the new water spirit, or anything except healing spring because I have no other way to remove conditions. I have to hope my party will help me out here, since I’m lacking. Many find that it’s necessary to place 30pts in a trait line to get Empathetic Bond, since besides healing, it is our only other way to remove conditions. Sure, we could bring brown bear, but between its unreliable F2 and inability to do any damage, it’s not worth it and too risky.

Solution
More active ways to remove conditions through our traitline. Why not remove 1 or 2 condis upon pet swap when traited? Or shouts, or signets, or spirits upon activating their attacks.

[All] Taught By Game to Play as “Bearbow”
Bearbow is a derogatory term for rangers who choose to play at range (likely with the longbow, which was previously not a good weapon) and a bear (who does minescue damage). These players are teased with this nickname for not understanding their class mechanic, and hampering themselves—and thus their group—for it. But this is exactly how the game teaches rangers to play. At low levels, all the way up to arriving at Orr, the ranger will discover that she is actually pretty safe. Her pet is able to hold agro, and she can easily snipe them off while distracted by Fluffy. Cats die fast, but she’ll soon discover that bears have lots of health, lots of defense, and even a skill that makes them invulnerable for a few seconds! And it can hold agro very well. Now she’s not dying like she would be with that aggravating sword that won’t let her move and gets her killed more times than naught. This is great, and she can spend much her solo play very successful without needing to learn how to swap pets, dodge, or spot enemy tells.

Solution
The best solution I can think of right this second, I guess, would be to place more agro on the ranger and not the pet in those early levels. It’s so annoying to learn later that suddenly the enemies couldn’t care less about your pet and go straight to you, and there you are in full zerker gear at level 60, going down to everything because you didn’t have to dodge or tank prior.

[All] Minor but Incredibly Useful Tweaks

• Allow ranger to see the pet’s boons and conditions on the UI (So important!!)
• Attack and Return be merged into 1 button
• Passive/Aggressive mappable to a key (if it’s not already?)

[sup]1[/sup] I do not feel, given the choices, that they should be nerfed, due to the state of the ranger. But that option would increase the optionality of traits, expanding hybrid builds.
[sup]2[/sup] Though I say this, my mind goes back to the times it is impossible to keep one’s pet alive.

Proposal Overview
Some suggestions and things (changes) that could make the Ranger better than he is NOW.

Goal of Proposal
The goal is to play WITH the ranger’s pet and NOT against it and making the ranger a better class in this game and new weapon ideas I have too.

Proposal Functionality
these are my suggestions:

Dear Allie and dear Forum,

these are my changes and my suggestions for the ranger I would like to see:

• 1st: Ranger should play with his/her pet and not against it! That means the current situation of the pet system is not acceptable (for me). You just target a foe and click F1 and maybe f2 for the pet’s skill. Thats all. Nothing really “special” I think. Because other classes do have a much more variety of the f-skills!
  That must change!

So my suggestion is that the pet becomes a part of the ranger’s playstyle. (At least more than it is now). That means my idea is to give each weapon 1-2 new “Pet Skills” that makes your pet do a special skill (like Mesmer got skills on each weapon for Phantasms/Clones).

One “Pet weapon skill” could be like command the pet to rush to your foe and knocks it down and causes 3 stacks of bleeding (this skill would be nice for catching a “running away player” in pvp or WvW.

The pet would get for the duration of the skill 50% more speed (for 5 seconds I think) And the skill would get a longe range like 250 Metres . I could imagine this skill on horn or GS! What do you think about it?

Another idea of me would be to make the ranger more “spiritual” and “magical”.
I think it would go well with him, because rangers already can call magical spirits (utility skills). This proves already that he has magical approaches.

• So my 2nd suggestion is:
  Give the Ranger a new “magical” weapon. Maybe a completely new one or a staff. The skills could call “nature spirits” (but not like the ulitity skills), these “spirits” help the ranger with attacking.

I see approaches on the GS skill 2/3 or sword skill 2/3. I find this idea of helping spirits on attacks very interesting and I think that we could still improve this idea a little more to give the spirits a more imporant role in gameplay.

• 3rd:
  New Pets:

I heard alot about the wish of new pets for the ranger and I think this is a very important question!

The variety of tameable pets for rangers is not big today.
I think it would be very nice if we would get new tameable pets! I do not want completely new pets but already existing ones! Like a firefly (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firefly) or an imp (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Imp) or a wurm (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jungle_Wurm_Hatchling). I hope that will come somedays!

So thank you for your attention and I like to hear comments from you or critics!

Associated Risks
Maybe some “too new things” but I think in general it would very well fit the ranger!

Game Mode: WvW/PvE

Proposal Overview: I’ve made the updated version of my
[iR] Ranger Redesign v2 | NEW Mechanism

I don’t think we should keep up with this current mech we have,
this new Endurance/Stamina based may suits mutch better.
(Crysis 3 just good base to start imaginations, lol!)

Goal of Proposal: Fixing the lack of hunting abilities and spinning up the combat to be more dynamic.
Proposal Functionality: Nearly same as Thieves, but still different enough.
Associated Risks: None I know of. People still can use the class as now if they want to. Some may find it Overpowered, but its not. Good in 1v1, have its own weakness that just cames from bad playing.

P.s.: No aggro pet would only work if their mechs allow us to control them well enough to catch’them before reaching us. + then we need mutch more HP and survivality than right now when a whole mob can stuck at the pet.
I would agree with a rule of 100% dmg when pet isn’t in combat, and ~5% dmg transfered when it hits the target. So its like sacrificing a bit of dmg for more precise manouvers like immobilise, torment, knockdown, etc.

I’ve saw a lot of nice suggestions here, and I really hope AN takes the efforts this time…

i don’t have idea of where to even start to fix rangers but one thing like many have said are pets. I am no MMO expert but i remember back when i played WoW hunter pets were an annoyance and sometimes people even killed the pet because it was a problem, in GW2 everyone ignores them because lets be honest they don’t do much and don’t hit lol. Back in wow the implemented AoE damage reduction which helped pets a lot, probably would work nicely in WvW.

I do hope that finally Rangers get the love they deserve, its been almost 2 years. Also Anet unique pets (like wow for example to mention something) would be nice, GW2 need more stuff, maybe rare pets you need to hunt in certain places and stuff but that is subject for another day, get your minds rolling :P

Ohoni.6057:

If you don’t want a pet out all the time, then you should pick a class that isn’t a Ranger. If you would like to have a pet out all the time, but find that this isn’t ideal because they die too often, or confuse agro in parties, or other such reasons, then the solution is to fix those problems.

I’ve created my ranger expecting an archer. Yet the bows are pretty weak and useless in any coordinated group. Furthermore I’ve gotten a pet which I don’t care about, since I wanted to play an archer. So my damage gets not only reduced because of my pet has to attack the enemy as well, but gets nullified if my pet dies to its dump AI.

Game Mode
Pve/Spvp

Proposal overview

Beast master ranger (30pts and all other trait pet oriented) hardly feels like the pet actualy realy is doing dps to begin with. The pet is utherly squishy and deals next to no damage. Pet stat should be based on the master stat to determine their damage and armor level instead of the meaningless + 300 point. Also id like to note that pet gains no benefits from food and that this deeply undermine pet ranger dps.

Goal of Proposal

While minion master and turret enginer are build by choice ranger is forced into using the pet therefore its only natural for the pet of the ranger to actualy be able to deal damage with this many trait centralized around it. Why a maximised cat pet with 25 stack of might on a full berserker set ranger against a full 20 stack of vulnerability cant deal 4k auto attack is beyond me. Goal is to ultimately invalidate the possibility of playing bunker pet ranger while actualy making beast mastery (pet damage lover) path viable to glass cannon ranger using zerker or rampager.

Proposal Functionality

-Replace the 300 stat point to a +2% of master total stat per trait point (up to 60, it could also be 45 or 30). This effectively make a ranger with 3000 power give 900 power to his pet base stat (30%), Of course you should tone down pet base stat if you go for this but not so much as to make it feel worse then before in everything else (aka a pet should be able to cap the 4k+ power when having 25 might stack if the master is actualy geared for damage)

-remove the pet critical damage and condition damage bonus trait from the game unless you dont plan adding ferocity to the beastmastery % bonus given formula wich i highly recommand

- Change the beast mastery trait that give + 25 stack of bonus stat to the pet functionnality so that it isnt removed when the pet dies but when the ranger dies or is downed.

Associated Risk

Risk? Main risk we have here is likely the pet ranger will actualy be able to rival top dpsing class on the single target damage level if not even above (oh right it actualy already do by spamming sword auto attack but know what i think that move should be nerfed anyway as it doesnt promote inteligent playing), however id like to mention pet rangers are single target dps by default unless using drakes and that the damage we do is situationaly proportionnal to how long our pet stay alives. If the glassy pet gets killed by a boss aoe we have to switch pet to even start dealing damage again and if both pet dies its litteraly a good 45 second cooldown before we can resume hiting seriously. If i spend 30 point in my pet i guess its only normal i get something decent. if we tie our pet stat to our gear our pet will likely become even more glassy but im willing to pay the price if its to get something decent.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I’ve created my ranger expecting an archer.

Was this because of just the profession’s flavor text? Or because of some other game’s idea of what a ‘Ranger’ is? Please don’t say it was because Ranger has the ‘range’ as the first five letters.

Specific Game Mode
PvE (dungeons/fractals, based on competive teamplay not zerging)

Proposal Overview
Pet´s need help, a few weapon improvements

Goal of Proposal
Pet´s are important, but lackluster. They can´t hit moving target, their F2 Skills are slow and they are hard to control. Because they finish they´re current animation before they follow your order.
Weapons – more viable weapon choices

Proposal Functionality
Weapons:
Longbow 1 should reward maxrange. But dmg should not scale with max range. It is important to share boons/buffs and stay near (that means not stacking) together to control a fight by controlling mobs movement.

Rewarding maxrange with more dmg is the opposite of this GW2 combat rule. Let it apply more Vulneratbility, torment/cripple higher chance to procc a combofinisher or anything else at maxrange.

Sidenote: If u change this, u should change mesmers greatswords aswell

LB 2 should be a “Burstskill”, reduce the casttime but let dmg/vul as it is. At the moment it is doing less dps then 1 at 900+range.

Greatsword:
Increase the weapons dps by at least 20%, and utility to be onpar with the 1h sword. Rangers need more viable weapons. They don´t need a “DPS Rotation” like warriors or guardians, but they need a “utility rotation”. Or at least a second weapon which they can use if they want without losing too much dps/support.

1h sword: dogding should override the jump animations.

Pets: They need a cleave/aoe reduction in dungeons.
They should scale with the rangers stats/weapon dmg.
AI improvement to make them faster. As a example did u ever played a hunter in World of Warcraft? The pet is there, it is doing it´s job, u can command it. But it´s not a chain which is holding the hunter back.
Or at least, make them invulnerably when the ranger is using a dogderoll/skill.

Associated Risks
- It is a risk to play the 1h sword now. It is a risk to use pet´s. I think these changes are rly needed they´re part of the rangers and GW2 core mechanics.

Bran.7425:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I’ve created my ranger expecting an archer.

Was this because of just the profession’s flavor text? Or because of some other game’s idea of what a ‘Ranger’ is? Please don’t say it was because Ranger has the ‘range’ as the first five letters.

Rangers are “unparalelled archers”.

Probably because of that. And why shouldn’t he?

Bran.7425:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I’ve created my ranger expecting an archer.

Was this because of just the profession’s flavor text? Or because of some other game’s idea of what a ‘Ranger’ is? Please don’t say it was because Ranger has the ‘range’ as the first five letters.

I can’t think of a single MMO in the past 25 years that has had a Ranger/Hunter class that wasn’t focused on range. I’ve played several that ranged combat was about even with melee. I’ve played several where the class didn’t have a pet, or the pet was optional. I’ve never played one that ranged combat was the least viable option by far.

Even if we go by the class description in GW2, we’re left with the impression that this is a ranged combat class and the pet is a support feature. This is obviously not true as ranged combat is more of a support feature while the pet is so invested in the class there isn’t a single tree without pet traits.

I think in terms of the “Philosophy of the Ranger” I think you need to be willing to re-establish what that Philosophy is.
Other parts of the game have been subject to this already and have changed in accordance with a sense of ‘Progression is adapting’.

Drop the past philosophy (which is most likely overarching from GW1 and from pre-launch GW2) and build a new one taking in all the information here, and from what you learnt during this year and a half of post-release limitations and struggles.