Guild Wars 2

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Before things get out of hand, I want to address the aspect idea so we can move on. First of all, it’s a great idea, but there are many current issues with the profession that need to be addressed first. Our priorities to make the pet a more viable option will likely remain higher than giving an option to “permastow” the pet.

We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class, but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.

I don’t want you to think we’re going to ignore the idea or the feedback around the pet, but it could very well be the case that fixing some of the major nagging issues with the pet would make it a more desirable aspect of the Ranger.

That said, if you would like to consider discussing the aspect idea, I ask that you start a thread outside of the CDI to brainstorm.

Thanks so much for all the great, constructive feedback everyone! Let’s keep it coming!

Well, pet usability, on a short term fix, there is 4 things that should, and must be done.

A; Increased reliability of F2 function -> this is in the works, as have been said by other developers in the feature build thread.
B; Pet vitality must be raised in WvW equality to what was done in PvE. In WvW specifically, pet must have native reduction to condition duration (25-50%) and increased toughness
C; Pet Death->Respawn time must come down, even if you halved it, from 60 seconds to 30, it would still be far too long as not only do we lose out on a big portion of DPS, but also potentially vital utility functions. A BM build without a pet is like a party without guests. Amusing for the first 5 seconds then awfully boring and dull.
D; Pet DPS (outside of full BM traitline) must be brought up slightly in PvP and even more in WvW. The inability to accurately and reliably hit pretty much anything that has the potential to and/or do move are not compensated by todays damage output.

Allie Murdock.8152:

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

That’s really the biggest problem facing the ranger class right now, is that we have so little control over such a core class mechanic. Every other class can both actively and reactively work with their profession skills and synergize them with their builds. Guardians can pop their virtues when they need the extra heal or block. Mesmers can shatter when they need to interrupt. Elementalists can swap to water when then need to be supportive.

Ranger lacks that luxury because all we can do is tell the pet to attack, retreat, or use a single of its 4 skills. We can’t tell it when to avoid an incoming attack, we can’t tell it to utilize combo fields and finishers, and we can’t even have it move while attacking. Everything else is left at the mercy of an AI, and (you’ll have to excuse the bluntness) a rather poorly designed one at that. I’m all for the idea of the ranger being a pet class, but the pet design needs to be reworked so that skilled players can get the most potential out of using it without having to worry about an AI that they cannot actively override when necessary.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

This would explain the recent buffs to barkskin. Might I ask how you see power builds taking down bunkers with sustained damage? All the recent builds that were succesful in PvP or roaming revolved around conditions. Conditions, and going bunker fits the vision of Ranger doing sustained damage really well, and even there they only have 1 build currently viable in PvP. But what about power builds? Does this mean that full berserker will never be an option for ranger? It will not have enough sustainability to deal sustained damage, and going more defensive the ranger will have a very, VERY hard time taking down bunkers. Even on full berserker they have a very hard time dealing with bunkers.

Allie Murdock.8152:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Before things get out of hand, I want to address the aspect idea so we can move on. First of all, it’s a great idea, but there are many current issues with the profession that need to be addressed first. Our priorities to make the pet a more viable option will likely remain higher than giving an option to “permastow” the pet.

We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class, but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.

I don’t want you to think we’re going to ignore the idea or the feedback around the pet, but it could very well be the case that fixing some of the major nagging issues with the pet would make it a more desirable aspect of the Ranger.

That said, if you would like to consider discussing the aspect idea, I ask that you start a thread outside of the CDI to brainstorm.

Thanks so much for all the great, constructive feedback everyone! Let’s keep it coming!

If rangers truly are seen as the Pet class of GW2 then the devs need to be devoting time to handing more active control of the pet to the player. Currently if you look at other classes that are able to summon minions we really only have maybe one more level of control compared to them. This biggest difference between us and them is that our pets are mandatory.

Please please please give us more active control of our pets abilities in combat. Current f keys could be redesigned. You could also more closely link weapon skills to pet behaviour/ability (some weapons already have this a little bit). You could do a combination of these 2 ideas (that would be really exciting). Or who knows how else you could solve the problem?

As long as the pet is 90% tied to an ai though Rangers will be seriously kitten.

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

That will be really hard, especially if we can only use F1 to F4. To make the pet do what we want, we need more than 4 commands or a really lot better AI. That is why (i am sorry for bringing it up again …) there should be a pet/ aspect mix. One shouldnt choose an aspect and not use the pet but use the aspect as bridge mechanic, thus allowing to still have a benefit in situations where the pet normally dies. It would somewhat be some kind of a new “command” for it, where you passively benefit from it and then get back to your pet when you feel it is save to bring it out.

So yeah, im sorry for bringing the aspects again, but this is the last time ^^ I promise. Here is my idea more detailed: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/14#post3690732

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

Thats so “great” news… who has time to suffer 5+ minutes to take down an undead chicken? Without burst damages, that every class can do, we would be worthless hunters as long as we don’t have immobilise & knockdowns to keep our targets interrupted & under damage.
Seriously Allie, if some of us (a Lot) wants to burst, then let us to do so – in sacrifice of survivality or something. Without burst, just try to hunt down a thief who vanishes in stealth (which designed badly), or an invulnerable elementalist who heals up meanwhile hitting 8K criticals, or a guardian who has widescreen pushing buffline but still doing nice damages, or a necromancer who puts conditions on you that you have no tools to clean off, or an engineer who spamms bombs in your face, or a mesmer who spawns a horde of clones that eatch does ~2k dmgs meanwhile we try to retarget…
You know… those who load off their damage doesn’t need to care as mutch on surviving as those who needs to sustain… its like:
Warrior/Others: BANG you’re dead, who’s next?
Ranger: …why it can’t dieeee? kitten I won’t make it for the next heal :S
Quite """"funny""" when you can decide to flee & try to keep alive or take down half of opponent’s hp before death.
I’ve barely killed an AFK warrior a week ago… (~~high criticals)

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign – I can’t really comment on this specifically, but I can say that you should share your ideas because sometimes they inspire things to happen. Does that make sense?

Go as far as needed. I’ve shared my unique redesign, that would fulfill our Role.
Its up to the team if they want just adjusting & remixing meanwhile working on AI,
or to come up with a “completely new” mech such as mine. I don’t know how brave this company really is, we keep hope, I design for “Next-Generation”.
In this market, “First who moves always wins…”

Allie Murdock.8152:

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

Except that the majority of burst builds for other classes are capable of maintaining comparable sustain even once their burst rotations are down.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Before things get out of hand, I want to address the aspect idea so we can move on. First of all, it’s a great idea, but there are many current issues with the profession that need to be addressed first. Our priorities to make the pet a more viable option will likely remain higher than giving an option to “permastow” the pet.

We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class, but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.

I don’t want you to think we’re going to ignore the idea or the feedback around the pet, but it could very well be the case that fixing some of the major nagging issues with the pet would make it a more desirable aspect of the Ranger.

That said, if you would like to consider discussing the aspect idea, I ask that you start a thread outside of the CDI to brainstorm.

Thanks so much for all the great, constructive feedback everyone! Let’s keep it coming!

and what will the pets do against more than 1 opponents? (WvW example) Harder to make the pets viable in 1vX situations as let them to permastove. and this game is full of with 1vX situations.
BTW in PvE you need burst damage, in wvw you dont need pet. So you cut away us from 2 parts of the game.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

No, I don’t at all understand what you’re saying.

What you’re saying essentially means that a high-burst class can offload all of their damage at once, then back off, wait for essential skills to come off cooldown (meanwhile stalling with defensive abilities) and then go for another round of burst.

In the meantime, the Ranger does the exact same damage except slower, and because he can’t offload all his damage at once, he has to constantly doing damage just to keep up. While he’s doing this, if he stops to defend himself, he’ll already be behind the damage capability of other classes.

Also, in exactly in what situation is it preferable to do the same amount of damage, except slower? Either the wording here was poor or the justification is. The whole purpose of “sustained damage” isn’t to do the same as burst over a long period of time, it’s to do MORE over a long period of time. And, from personal experience and your own admission, this currently doesn’t happen in the game.

Honestly, seeing this definition of “skirmisher” makes a lot of things clear to me.

I’ve always flat out HATED the Skirmisher line’s minor traits~

Tail Wind. Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat.
Furious Grip. Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat.
Hunter’s Tactics. Deal more damage while flanking.

To me, operating under the misapprehension that I’m on a class that’s an “unparalleled archer”, swapping weapons is a sign of weakness. It means I’ve lost control of the situation and I’m having to scramble for my back-up plan. Forcing me to take swap-based benefits on the way to picking up fundamental Archer Traits has always bugged me.

But now I see that “skirmishing” means having to whittle my foe down over a span of time so long I could swap weapons repeatedly… like its supposed to take 40 seconds or more to kill something (cue hip-hop beat) all Ranger-Skirmish-Style! Man, I am just so awesome against foes that stick around and let me kill them. Awesome I tell ya.

The problem is in 40 seconds I can swap to a character that can get the (*#^&$ job done. Without the enemy having to be a willing participant in their own demise.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

Wow I was on the right track focusing back to defense as our problem in the upper tiers. Note: I personally agree that’s a fine balance model provided you can enhance survivability of both the ranger and pet(Helps band aid pet issues might even fix them entirely if we can keep DPS pets up to deal the damage they already can deal).

In fact what always attracts me to ranger like classes is that model but everyone gets the defensive values wrong. Would love to see them gotten right.

A whittling ranger must have a tool to force his opponent to whittle in the skirmishing line or they and pet die to fast for sustained to work

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

The way this game is set up in pvp/wvw is that you want to down the opponent quickly as possible, especially so you avoid the chance of them calling in back up. Sustained doesn’t work for that.

Example:
You burst someone down to 30% in 5 seconds skills on cd for 15s, they heal to 60% you finish them off with second burst before they can heal again.

Sustained: you sustain them over 30 seconds they get to like 30% heal to 60% you sustain them and give them enough time to heal again because you took too long and now their buddy is there.

Sustain is a nonfactor outside of pve.

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign – I can’t really comment on this specifically, but I can say that you should share your ideas because sometimes they inspire things to happen. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, and I think it would be worth it to invest in re-writing the AI for pets. Hands down, if done correctly, would make so many players happier. Sharing mob AI with pet AI is not good.

Let our pets move while attacking. This has got to be the biggest problem with current pets. Most of our pets are melee. If pets can’t hit a moving target, especially in a game where movement is key, then they aren’t useful.

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign – I can’t really comment on this specifically, but I can say that you should share your ideas because sometimes they inspire things to happen. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, yet it does not.

I am absolutely sure you guys know by now (through the CDI, the ranger forums, the WvW forums, the PvP forums) that rangers are beyond the point of “band’aiding”.

The majority of changes to the class is mostly bugfixes. Bugfixes caused by bugs, caused by band-aiding. More band-aiding and minor tweaks are not going to fix the current system’s problems.
The pets need a thorough work-over, even if you did what i mentioned above, fixed F2, increased sustain, decreased respawn on death, increased DPS. It would still only bring pets up to the point where we can tolerate them being a part of the profession.

So far there is only THREE pets i trust doing their job every time;
Brown Bear, thanks to short activation time of skill
Krytan Drakehound thanks to the F2 being AOE and immob allows it do successfully follow up with the knockdown.
Marsh Drake – Because the attack itself is “heat seeking” and ranged.

Now, you can look at the reasons i trust these pets and then you realize that if it hadnt been for special circumstances, they wouldnt even work.

I can tell you right here and now, that the majority to pet functions (internal skills included) are underpowered, badly chained, have little or no synergy with the rest of our attacks. Not to mention the god awful activation time and or after cast on most skills completely ruins AI reliability. However i KNOW, i KNOW you cannot fix these things properly without putting in massive amounts of time and effort, yet this is the core issues. The pathing, the after cast, the skill balance, synergy, basic functions, range, projectile speeds, attack radius, AI refresh rate…

If this is the developers mantra, then i have to say, YOU ARE SO WRONG ON THIS ONE!!!
Sustained damage is irrelevant in this game. It is all about the AOE burst be it PvE or PvP. No wonder the ranger works poorly in so many areas of the game if this is the design all tweaks go buy.

Guild wars 2, for better or for worse, is about min-maxing. PvE is about maxing out on damage dealt because you can completely sidestep any incoming damage by LoS stacking, reflecting or dodging.
Hybrid builds rarely work in competitive play, are absolutely frawned upon in PvE and are borderline useless in WvW. Maybe they can be used in solo WvW roaming, but that is niche as the server match ups that allow that kind of play are few and far in between. WvW is about the zerg.

I was very happy when this topic started and have posted a few sugestions myself. But i am very keen on seeing what are the developers changes and what are their EXACT plans that we can be expecting. It has been over a year since i have started playing GW2 and i want to know if i will be able to play my preferred fluff class properly in the near future or should i be looking for a new game that lets me.

ty, Vlad

Yeah, I kind of have to agree that there needs to be more incentive to go for sustained DPS over burst damage. Dealing the same damage over a span of 30 seconds seems nice on paper, but the fact is that once you’ve gotten your opponent’s health to 0, the timer stops. Because of this, people will always opt for the 20k damage in 10 seconds instead of the 20k damage spread out over 30 seconds, because even if the burst damage falls off for the remaining 20 seconds, if you’ve killed your opponent it makes no difference. That’s just 20 seconds that they no longer have to try to kill you first.

Nike.2631:

Honestly, seeing this definition of “skirmisher” makes a lot of things clear to me.

I’ve always flat out HATED the Skirmisher line’s minor traits~

Tail Wind. Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat.
Furious Grip. Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat.
Hunter’s Tactics. Deal more damage while flanking.

To me, operating under the misapprehension that I’m on a class that’s an “unparalleled archer”, swapping weapons is a sign of weakness. It means I’ve lost control of the situation and I’m having to scramble for my back-up plan. Forcing me to take swap-based benefits on the way to picking up fundamental Archer Traits has always bugged me.

But now I see that “skirmishing” means having to whittle my foe down over a span of time so long I could swap weapons repeated… like its supposed to take 40 seconds or more to kill something (cue hip-hop beat) all Ranger-Skirmish-Style! Man, I am just so awesome against foes that stick around and let me kill them. Awesome I tell ya.

The problem is in 40 seconds I can swap to a character that can get the (*#^&$ job done. Without the enemy having to be a willing participant in their own demise.

This is another problem I have. Not just with this class, either, but it pertains more to this class than any other.

There’s simply no incentive in this game to kite melee enemies. Melee mobility in this game in general is very, very high. Typically, a player will simply swap to his melee set as soon as the enemy gets within melee range. In my eyes, this completely cuts out an entire playstyle, kiting the enemy and keeping a safe distance from him.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Many of you have suggested removing traps from the Skirmishing line. It seems the primary reason for this is because it is the crit line while traps are primarily focused on conditions.

Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

Now for a related suggestion (actually a more detailed look of traps from my long list of trait suggestions from page 2)

Proposal overview
Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise swapping places.

Goal of Proposal
Trap Potency is a trait that is “must to have” if you are going for a trap build and it being a GM trait in a traitline, that doesn’t otherwise give benefits to conditions, isn’t helping. By lowering the trait to master level, players who prefer the more “traditional” way of trapping would get the damage bonus they need without getting too invested into skirmishing. Swapping these two traits and tweaking them a bit would also allow both traits to find a more comfortable place in the traitline.

Proposal functionality

• Base durations for traps would be increased by 50%. (to make them more viable even when used without traits.)
• Trap Potency would have it’s condition duration bonus lowered from 100% to 33% to reflect the previous change. Changed to master level from GM.
• Trapper’s Expertise would have it’s range increased to 900, moved to GM level and have additional effects added when triggering a trap (like with Spike Trap but extended to all traps.).
  • Spike Trap: immobilize (1s) & revealed (0s)
  • Flame Trap: blind (3s)
  • Frost Trap: knockdown (2s)
  • Viper’s Nest: bleeding (3 stacks for 5s)
• Cooldowns should be increased as traps are made more powerful.

Associated Risks

• Traps getting both more direct damage and increased functionality from Trapper’s Expertise might make them too strong.
• Possibility to combo Frost Trap for 4s kd might be too strong.

Allie Murdock.8152:

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

I do not understand why it has to be one or the other … as a player that is fairly neutral about having a pet (I much rather play a true beast master with a pack of pet ‘minions’). But in other cases much rather just play without a pet… I would like both to happen.

I would like you to give players more control over the pet, through the F keys. I would like you to do everything you think is reasonably possible to make the pet function properly. BUT, at the same time I would really like you to take the feedback serious… of all those people that are basically saying, give me an option to get rid of that thing…

I mean, don’t these people deserve as much attention and effort to get ‘their ranger’ playable in GW2 as it is reasonable to ask for those that DO want a pet. Sometimes it is good to be stubborn and hold on to your choices. But sometimes it is better to concede and see that doing both (improve pet, offer non-pet option) is a way better solution to make more people happy.

Because, as I just done 2 posts on the history of fantasy tropes/professions. Your current ranger has a ‘pet-master druid’ main profession feature, with a ‘spirit shaman/druid’ spirit party buff. And both offer the ‘unreliable support part’ of the Ranger profession, one of the ‘per your opening post’ qualities of the ranger. Where the other quality seems to be ‘squirmish fighter’. Which by my analysis is a ‘med armour warrior aspect’.

And it so happens to be that I like the ranger for everything BUT the bows. I am no archer ‘ranger’. But I for one can see how the pet makes the ranger into something they do not want to play as. And from the suggestions I have seen they are more then reasonable towards those that do want a pet. Foremost they want the pet to improve and be reliable, but second ‘if you were to ask their egoistic opinion’ they would rather have it gone. And for all the amount of true egoistic wish of myself to play a true beast-pack-master. I understand why!

Now I am sorry if the direct from the heart language in this post is perceived to be offensive. But it is not meant as such! what I do hope it is, is something to wake up the ‘ranger team’. The 2 most suggested things in this feedback thread are: ‘Improve the pets and our control over them’ and ‘give us a suitable way to not have a pet’. My foremost suggestion would be to take that to heart.

We are all here to improve the ranger and I personally think it is possible to incorporate all the functions that the ranger has to fulfil. Even fairly within the confines of the outlines that the ranger-developers have set for it. But as we ‘hunters, loggers, bowyers, archers, druids, beast-masters, pet lovers, trappers, woodsmen’ for the most part are trying to point out where ‘our choice ranger’ is lacking. We are also trying to work out ways to see eye to eye and come to something that could all give us ‘The Choice of How to Play GW2’, perhaps the ranger team should ‘join in’ on that effort. And with that I do not mean post here, I mean by letting go of some strict set idea for this class. And give the ranger some forest freedom, to become something we can all be proud of and enjoy.

Once again I am sorry if I offend somebody with my direct from the heart formulation of this post, but I do not mean to do so. I hope for this CDI to lead to a better ranger, one that offers more valid choices for all those that hope to find a ‘main’ in the ranger class. And for the most part I already love what the development team have set out for the ranger to be, I mean why else would I be here to give suggestions to improve upon my main character…

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

This is crude but it’s what we have to deal with since there aren’t real parsers for this game…

Short Bow – Crossfire – 1,206 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot – 1,070 DPS
Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 1,664 DPS
Axe – Ricochet – 700 DPS
Great Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 1,183 DPS

SHORT BOW SKILLS
Crossfire – 717.335 effective damage
Poison Volley – 1,328.295 effective damage

SHORT BOW ROTATION
Crossfire (x14), Poison Volley (x1)
Total Delay – 8.113 seconds
Effective Damage – 11,370.988
DPS – 1,401.576

LONGBOW SKILLS
Long Range Shot (1000+) – 1,665.723 effective damage
Long Range Shot (500+) – 1,213.120 effective damage
Long Range Shot (0) – 941.559 effective damage
Rapid Fire – 6,813.120 effective damage

LONGBOW ROTATION
Long Range Shot (x8), Rapid Fire (x1)
Total Delay – 12.500 seconds

Effective Damage (1000+) – 20,138.906
DPS (1000+) – 1,611.112

Effective Damage (500+) – 16,518.083
DPS (500+) – 1,321.447

Effective Damage (0) – 14,345.589
DPS (0) – 1,147.647

Warrior Axe – Chop (Combo) – 2,079.056 DPS
Thief Dagger – Strike (Combo) – 2,469.400 DPS

That’s just auto attack for a Warrior and Thief. The numbers for the Ranger are maximized DPS for a ranged DPS rotation. Now do you think you gave the Ranger enough evades, cripples, immobilizes, knockbacks, stuns, etc. to justify this gap? Just for auto attack damage…

It’s scary when you look at the real rotations for the above mentioned classes.

And where’s the pet? Well in WvW it’s dead 100% of the time…

i just hope allie that are expectation of the ranger will come true. that the redesign of the ranger will improve that new ranger and will still feel the same as it does know but improved by a lot biggest problem is the pet i don’t want my pet removed its a part of the ranger but the pet mech needs a lot of attention mostly in wvw the pet is an extended of our being and i think mo st people want it removed because they don’t see the utility anymore something that i do understand. our f1 – f4 are pretty much useless in large scale event like wvw pets dies to quick and there is no chance to use pet ability proper enoughin pvp you see pet use more often then in pve or wvw. and when you do use them its often too late and didn’t achieve what you wanted
also i personally think that the redesign should happe step by step not one big ranger patch rather progressive patch to see how people will react to it

Taushullu.6180:

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

I really like the idea of giving more direct damage to traps. Just this one change would open up a new playstyle of power/traps rather than just condition/traps.

If this is done, I’d like it if more direct damage was added onto the utility traps: spike trap, frost trap and viper’s nest.

Then, the current trap traits could be moved into wilderness survival (don’t traps belong in the wildernes, anyways?) and new trap traits in skirmishing such as “knockdown on frost trap” could be implemented, so you’d make a decision about what kind of trap style you wanted to play.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

Would it be a valid comparison to consider the strengths of the GW 1 Ranger then, Allie?

Rangers in GW 1 had an innate increased damage resistance to elemental damage built in their armor. I know GW 1 was a little more concrete in its roles and class design (instead of, everyone has the potential to do everything), but the illustration is – the GW 1 Ranger through the use of elemental armor, snares, interrupts, and stances, was much more survivable and versatile compared to the GW 2 Ranger.

The design of Conquest mode for PvP makes the original style of GW 1 Ranger weak in comparison, because a player must stay on point to capture it – removing much of the potential for snaring and kiting.

To encourage more active “skirmishing” that fits the intended design of the class, additional measures of block, evade, or damage mitigation through sources like Blind may need to exist within the Ranger profession (ACROSS ALL WEAPONS), so it can remain on point and survive without the use of crazy spirit builds that just provide passive buffs and don’t encourage reactive combat.

Also, Kyubi’s observation below is 100% true.

Aegael.6938:

Taushullu.6180:

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

I really like the idea of giving more direct damage to traps. Just this one change would open up a new playstyle of power/traps rather than just condition/traps.

power trapper would be crazy awesome. However it may turn out to be too strong,

Allie altrought Sustained damage would work agaisnt a burst that goes on a long cooldown ill remind the devs that a character running its double weapon set all right can keep itself bursting about 90% of the time. Warriors meta involve using HB fellowed by whirlwind before switching to axe deliver a heavy adrenaline burst damage in a single second auto attacking 1 or two hit then switching to sword again and repeating without even having to wait. Burst skills have so little of a cooldown its 100% possible to be permanantly bursting. Guardian chains up greatswords and sword/focus while mesmer are relentlessly spamming more clones to shatter at will.

Burst doesnt exist in its proper meaning in guild wars 2 because of how short it takes for skill cooldowns to recharges and even spec wich should be deemed as ’’burst’’ actualy end up behing an over strong version of sustained damage due to how skill chains are done (this is what high end players calls a rotation). A decent warrior will likely very rarely end up autoattacking as he will constantly activate burst skills that runs off cooldowns or swap weapon bar. Sustaining class such as necro (dagger mode) and ranger end up as 1 button spammer for the purpose of using the most damaging ability as fast as possible to even manage to reach the same level of damage in the same lap of time.

clint.5681:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

Would you (anet) be willing to change that design philosophy around? Because the class you having been designing is not the class a lot of us thought we have been playing.
Are you guys thoroughly against adding burst capability to rangers? Every other class has burst capability so why not ranger? Like someone else mentioned sustained isn’t important outside of pve and even in pve our sustain isn’t good. Ranged Dps is unwanted and uneeded in pve

And really the only way to actually fix pets is to rework and seperate its AI from general monster AI. Also give it aoe protection, boost stats to ascended and give it the pve hp boost in wvw.

Maybe you guys should have called this class a hunter instead of ranger because it doesn’t really resemble the idea of ranger from launch or gw1.

I too am curious if this is even on the table of possibilities

In what situation would a sustained damage be more desirable than burst, actually? Does that situation happen frequently to warrant a space for a sustained damage specialist?

I can imagine this being the case for WoW where there is a place for ranged DPS and a sustained one at that (this way, in WoW, thieves or warriors will hardly ever out-DPS a Hunter and a Mage in PvE content).

But how would you want a Ranger to excel in sustained damage? In WvW? Why? Because the Champion would go down much faster? Not at all.

In PvE? Dungeon? In like 1% of the content maybe? Where having a Ranger would not add a substantial advantage in that content, I doubt a Ranger would ever feel justifiably useful.

I don’t even think that burst damagers should be able to do the same damage to a sustained damage given the same amount of time. The nature of burst is usually a huge spike that cannot be compared to damage over time.

I do agree with the majority on here about rangers in WvW Allie. Sustained damage is not good in WvW. I spend a large amount in WvW, and I can say sustained damage will get you killed. Try to sustain damage on a thief who can go invisible and disappear, reset their health, come back and one shot you. Try to sustain damage on a warrior with healing signet traited who can outheal your sustained damage. Try to sustain damage on a pure bunker guardian who can deal out just as much sustained damage to yourself. Sustain damage on a mesmer? Which one?

Sustained damage gives the enemy too many chances to heal themselves, reset the fight, call backup or just plain run away.

kyubi.3620:

Burst doesnt exist in its proper meaning in guild wars 2 because of how short it takes for skill cooldowns to recharges and even spec wich should be deemed as ’’burst’’ actualy end up behing an over strong version of sustained damage due to how skill chains are done (this is what high end players calls a rotation).

+1

I remember how in WoW you could definitely tell the difference between a burst damager and a sustained damager and how a sustained damager can have a significant advantage in PvE and burst more in PvP.

Obviously, the Hunter in WoW also then suffers to be one of the worst PvP classes.

For sustained damage to become efficient ALL burst cooldown should at least be doubled on all class wich can actualy proc a constant bursting dps or sustain damage (autoattack, condition) in itself should be increased wich i dont see as a very good idea because condition damage curently rules pvp and while pet stat scaling could easily be controlled by the fact gear is awfully nerfed in spvp condition damage would become even stronguer then it is now.

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign…

PvE Hat on
Out of interest, would you redesign it so Ranger’s long range weapons were nearer the DPS of other classes melee weapons. Across all classes we have that ranged weapons are much, much lower than the melee weapons (with the possible exception of Ele) which had lead to a complete melee dominant PvE Meta – bring melee or go home. If you say that you wouldn’t redesign it in this way, half of the posters here can go home now – bows are a big draw (HoHoHo) to the class, but if they are going to be suboptimal/unwanted for Dungeons, none of the changes to the Ranger will matter if we don’t get to play the archetype we’ve envisioned.

Sustained damage is great in PvP and WvW where you CAN, i emphasize CAN because the enemy can CC you, sidestep/mitigate burst damage quite easily. So if you look at things in a black and white manner, then yes sustained damage is better if you only count dodges. However movement, evasive weapon skills, blocks, invulns and such makes it just as easy to mitigate sustained damage.
In the end, if you look at a series of 10 attacks, statistics favor the damage of a sustained setup, because over 10 shots, you are more likely to land several medium-hard hits then one or two insanely strong ones.

however, in practice, this is not the case. Sustained damage is only really beneficial in defensive situations, where you want to damage as many, as much as possible as easily as possible as efficiently as possible. however since rangers only have 2 forms of ranged AOE (Barrage and Axe MH AA) they cannot even fill that role.

Taushullu.6180:

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

I would like to see this made viable as well. Though it would have to be much more significant that 50-200% increases. At current, even with a very high power build, they only have a base of 40-150 damage.

Speaking of GW1 ranger, I’d like it if the ranger received more interrupts. Currently it’s only possible to take two at once. The entire style of “interrupt ranger” is gone, especially considering the fact that GW2 interrupts are way less rewarding – Even Mesmer, who gets multiple on-interrupt traits like Halting Strike will rarely run an interrupt-style build.

The main reason I mention interrupt ranger in the first place is because of the trait Moment of Clarity. The fact that this trait exists makes it clear to me that the devs wanted to give a nod to an interrupt-styled playstyle, but…There’s just so much wrong with our hard CC.

GS and Shortbow will only stun if you hit the enemy from behind. And even after that conditional, they only stun for 1 second. Taking Moment of Clarity will only put your stuns on the BASELINE duration of some other classes – See: Magic Bullet, Backbreaker. Even then, you STILL have the conditional of needing to hit from behind.

Considering this is a grandmaster trait, it either needs a huge buff (remove interrupt requirement for bonus damage proc, triple daze/stun duration, removes conditional of needing to be behind opponent) or ranger needs more interrupts to take advantage of it. Implementing changes based around interrupt / shutdown would complement our “sustained damage” nicely and perhaps move it closer to the dev’s vision.

Tempus.9540:

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign…

PvE Hat on
Out of interest, would you redesign it so Ranger’s long range weapons were nearer the DPS of other classes melee weapons. Across all classes we have that ranged weapons are much, much lower than the melee weapons (with the possible exception of Ele) which had lead to a complete melee dominant PvE Meta – bring melee or go home. If you say that you wouldn’t redesign it in this way, half of the posters here can go home now – bows are a big draw (HoHoHo) to the class, but if they are going to be suboptimal/unwanted for Dungeons, none of the changes to the Ranger will matter if we don’t get to play the archetype we’ve envisioned.

This, this, this, so much this. Is it possible for PvE bows to become just as strong as melee weapons? We already have bosses that have ranged AOE and can range one-shot hits, and mobs with defiance, making it impossible to kite, would it be reasonable to bring ranged weapons up to par with melee weapons? “Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” This is what I want.

susniand.9460:

Undertaker.7451:

Game mode
PvX
Proposal Goal
improved Pets to acceptable level
Proposal Functionality
- base pet speed is base character speed +25%
- slighty longer range to pet attacks and/or very short distance leap on all pet attacks

(enemy will have to actualy have to keep an eye on pets to avoid being hit from it. With smart movement enemy will be able to avoid most pet attacks, with swiftnes he will be able to outrun the pet. At this time everyone is just ignoring ranger pets because they cant get hit from them in most cases anyways)

- pets cannot be damaged if they are not targeted
(I dont mind my pet to be killed very fast IF someone want to focus on pet, but that should not happen from randome cleave/aoe, again, this would force enemy to pay attention to our pets and not just ignoring it)

- improvements to pet response to commands
- all 4 skills pet skills should be controlable with assigned key

Associated Risks
-none

With those few small/(easy?) changes Id consider pets fixed.
I would like to hear everyones oppinion about pets being damaged only when targeted(pvp/www) or took agroo(pve).

Brilliant !

That would actualy solve most of pet problems;
pet wouldnt die to random aoe or cleave (no need to aoe damage reduction for pets), pets wouldnt be 1-hit killed in dungeons unless they pull agro, pet would better hit moving targets and be more responsive.

I love it.

+1
this would make pet usuable and balanced through all game modes.
Anet make it happen !

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give the ranger more reliable support by viewing the pet as an ‘ally’, and by doing so go through the skills and traits and consider if it could be reasonable to replace the word ‘pet’ with the word ‘ally’ (in range, nearby, etc options), and obviously with that also the functionality

Goal of Proposal
When analysing the ‘support’ part of the Ranger, which by scrutiny of all the options must be concluded it has a lot of. It also turns out that the systems that give the Ranger it’s support (apart from warhorn / healing spring) are the systems that are also their ‘weaknesses’, mainly defeat able pets and spirits.

By viewing the other ranger skills, and their traits, and by treating the ‘pet’ as an ‘ally’, it might be possible to broaden the support of the ranger, as well as improve the reliability of the ranger support. Simply by replacing the word and functionality ‘pet’ in these skills and ‘traits’ with the word ‘ally’.

Proposal Functionality
Specifically on signet activation, the effect could read ‘allies near’ or ‘in reach’ opposed to ‘you and pet’ or ‘pet’. Giving the ranger more reliable options to offer support to their allies.

But more skills and traits may offer options for this kind of improvement.

Associated Risks
Possibly giving them to much support, especially if other improvements are made to the current support systems (pets, spirits). Hence this suggestion carries the words ‘consider to be reasonable’.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Tempus.9540:

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign…

PvE Hat on
Out of interest, would you redesign it so Ranger’s long range weapons were nearer the DPS of other classes melee weapons. Across all classes we have that ranged weapons are much, much lower than the melee weapons (with the possible exception of Ele) which had lead to a complete melee dominant PvE Meta – bring melee or go home. If you say that you wouldn’t redesign it in this way, half of the posters here can go home now – bows are a big draw (HoHoHo) to the class, but if they are going to be suboptimal/unwanted for Dungeons, none of the changes to the Ranger will matter if we don’t get to play the archetype we’ve envisioned.

This, this, this, so much this. Is it possible for PvE bows to become just as strong as melee weapons? We already have bosses that have ranged AOE and can range one-shot hits, and mobs with defiance, making it impossible to kite, would it be reasonable to bring ranged weapons up to par with melee weapons? “Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” This is what I want.

I’m +1ing the kitten out of this idea.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

The sort of definitive sustain damage in this game seems to be weapon skill #1, which has auto attack enabled by default, and typically has no real cool down. Skill #1 is what you use to “whittle down” enemies. Skills #2-5 all have cool downs of various lengths (or in the case of thief, they take initiative whereas skill #1 does not), which make them inherently bursty. So one would expect that a bursty class would have lower skill #1 damage and higher skill #2-5 damage, while a sustain class would have higher skill #1 damage, but lower #2-5 damage.

However, as pointed out in numerous posts above, Ranger weapon #1 skills seem (by our rudimentary calculations) to be significantly lower DPS than the #1 skills of more bursty classes… so much so that even if you add in an optimistic +50% DPS from pet, we still aren’t out-damaging the bursty classes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about this without hard math, which players don’t really have access to in this game. :/

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

Hi Allie, your point makes totally sense and we see that Ranger can sustain high damage over time. The fact is that other classes have the choice of going burst damage or sustained, Rangers have not this option by now.

You too stated that in some situations is better to go burst and some other times is better to deal damages over time; as you said it is situational: when I’m in a world event or in a dungeon boss fight I’d rather sustain high damages over time but when I’m in the middle of a PvP 3vs3 fight with a DPS build I’d appreciate the option to have a viable burst and to deal all my damage in a few seconds.

It is just a matter of choices, let to us the decision whether or not to go burst by open the possibilities to choose between more builds!

Blind Jimmy.1634:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

The sort of definitive sustain damage in this game seems to be weapon skill #1, which has auto attack enabled by default, and typically has no real cool down. Skill #1 is what you use to “whittle down” enemies. Skills #2-5 all have cool downs of various lengths (or in the case of thief, they take initiative whereas skill #1 does not), which make them inherently bursty. So one would expect that a bursty class would have lower skill #1 damage and higher skill #2-5 damage, while a sustain class would have higher skill #1 damage, but lower #2-5 damage.

However, as pointed out in numerous posts above, Ranger weapon #1 skills seem (by our rudimentary calculations) to be significantly lower DPS than the #1 skills of more bursty classes… so much so that even if you add in an optimistic +50% DPS from pet, we still aren’t out-damaging the bursty classes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about this without hard math, which players don’t really have access to in this game. :/

Hard math says pet doesnt even hit 1/5 attacks over a 60 second period in any PvP/WvW encounter.

PvE mobs are immobile, and thus, hardly ever a issue

In PvE content, this is how I imagine someone who only has a burst capability for instance:

Take Mesmer against Tazza in Sorrow’s Embrace Path 1.

For the first AoE, the Mesmer can use the 2.5 sec evade skill to avoid it. However, since this is a burst, the Mesmer will not have it ready for the second AoE to use it again.

So for the two AoE, the Mesmer can only summon the phantasms once and are left with no phantasm if they are killed in the AoE until the 2nd AoE is over.

Meanwhile, the sustained damager will be able to out-damage the Mesmer who has to wait a long time for it to come up with burst damage.

By design, there is very little window of time for a sustained damager to be able to even come up with the same amount of damage (I think sustained damager ought to out-DPS someone with burst).

The solution to this would of course either make the skills have a much longer cooldown, or buff the sustained damage to Herculean heights.

Honi.4281:

susniand.9460:

Undertaker.7451:

Game mode
PvX
Proposal Goal
improved Pets to acceptable level
Proposal Functionality
- base pet speed is base character speed +25%
- slighty longer range to pet attacks and/or very short distance leap on all pet attacks

(enemy will have to actualy have to keep an eye on pets to avoid being hit from it. With smart movement enemy will be able to avoid most pet attacks, with swiftnes he will be able to outrun the pet. At this time everyone is just ignoring ranger pets because they cant get hit from them in most cases anyways)

- pets cannot be damaged if they are not targeted
(I dont mind my pet to be killed very fast IF someone want to focus on pet, but that should not happen from randome cleave/aoe, again, this would force enemy to pay attention to our pets and not just ignoring it)

- improvements to pet response to commands
- all 4 skills pet skills should be controlable with assigned key

Associated Risks
-none

With those few small/(easy?) changes Id consider pets fixed.
I would like to hear everyones oppinion about pets being damaged only when targeted(pvp/www) or took agroo(pve).

Brilliant !

That would actualy solve most of pet problems;
pet wouldnt die to random aoe or cleave (no need to aoe damage reduction for pets), pets wouldnt be 1-hit killed in dungeons unless they pull agro, pet would better hit moving targets and be more responsive.

I love it.

+1
this would make pet usuable and balanced through all game modes.
Anet make it happen !

This is probably one of the easiest and best fixes.
Could it be possible that we get to pick pets skills but they still saty on autocast. That way we can choose and control without the need to massively convert the AI. Then we could use whatever skills we want, and pet type is cosmeticish.

Prysin.8542:

Hard math says pet doesnt even hit 1/5 attacks over a 60 second period in any PvP/WvW encounter.

PvE mobs are immobile, and thus, hardly ever a issue

Fair enough. The PvP/WvW issues are more or less covered by the pet AI issues and/or permastow suggestions peppering the thread. My point was more that, even with a perfect pet that always hits, our sustain damage appears (to us) lower than the sustain damage of more bursty classes, which is counter to the idea that we are one of the best sustain damage classes in the game.

Prysin.8542:

Aegael.6938:

Taushullu.6180:

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

I really like the idea of giving more direct damage to traps. Just this one change would open up a new playstyle of power/traps rather than just condition/traps.

power trapper would be crazy awesome. However it may turn out to be too strong,

Power condition trappers with carrion lack only a means of more reliable survivability to be fully viable. I say this from experience as it’s what I’ve settled into since returning to the game. LB Sword/X 10,30,30,0,0 has potential but armor to health ratio makes it glass whose defense isn’t enough with the stat combo’s available to sustain. It works off condition/power/ (Crit/toughness/vitality) – currently survival is positioning and opponent finding you when their health is low enough your traps going boom when they close panics them and you clean up.

I proposed a detailed bubble shield along an opening strikes concept in skirmishing that properly balanced may create that survivability so whittling works. If we can’t go damage we must enhance survivability which goes back to being forced into 30 wilderness. If you want to check my posts.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

In order for this to be a reasonable situation there needs to be more to the game than DPS beats all. Currently that’s the game. If you can do 15K instantly, then you are far more desired than someone who can do 15K eventually.

I love the ranger, and I love the design of the Ranger. I don’t mind being slow to kill things because I know that I can outlast a mob, but so what? Mobs are stupid and that’s me on my own. In a group, the group doesn’t want to have to wait for me. Against another person it doesn’t matter if I can survive their burst, because they can definitely survive my lack of burst and then run away.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Tempus.9540:

Allie Murdock.8152:

To those asking how far we would redesign…

PvE Hat on
Out of interest, would you redesign it so Ranger’s long range weapons were nearer the DPS of other classes melee weapons. Across all classes we have that ranged weapons are much, much lower than the melee weapons (with the possible exception of Ele) which had lead to a complete melee dominant PvE Meta – bring melee or go home. If you say that you wouldn’t redesign it in this way, half of the posters here can go home now – bows are a big draw (HoHoHo) to the class, but if they are going to be suboptimal/unwanted for Dungeons, none of the changes to the Ranger will matter if we don’t get to play the archetype we’ve envisioned.

This, this, this, so much this. Is it possible for PvE bows to become just as strong as melee weapons? We already have bosses that have ranged AOE and can range one-shot hits, and mobs with defiance, making it impossible to kite, would it be reasonable to bring ranged weapons up to par with melee weapons? “Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” This is what I want.

It’s not just the damage though. If they (Anet) wanted rangers to be archers, then simply matching the damage wouldn’t be enough in PvE.

Melee/range weapons are balanced between risk and reward. There’s little risk with attacking from a distance. However, due to this, players have found another way of mitigating that risk while keeping that reward: by stacking, you can keep yourself and your team safe while also providing max damage.

If you decide to melee while you’re group stacks, you’re hurting them. They’re required to tank for 1/4 instead of 1/5 and if one person in the stack goes down, there’s only 3 instead of 4 people there to revive them. Just because you’ll be able to do comparable damage from a distance (assuming you’ll be able to recieve and share all the boons between the team somehow) you’ll be hurting the team regardless.

While I don’t think Anet intends rangers to be “the archers” in this game anymore, if they did, then it would take a lot more than just damage matching to make this play style viable.

I need to ask again: What is it that we can expect in the coming months as far as Ranger changes go??

With every word typed i feel as if I am shooting a moving target in pitch black dark room that is fully sound proof.

Allie Murdock.8152:

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

Does “everything we can” include redesigning and separating pet AI from open-world creature AI? I can’t speak for everyone but I believe most would agree that, while perhaps not necessary, this would be a tremendously helpful starting point.