Guild Wars 2

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

But sustained is boring too…

All a Ranger does is strafe in circles all day with auto attack on while waiting for someone to die of boredom. It’s also not something anyone wants or needs and will never be something they want or need so long as it’s inferior to the sustained (don’t even need to talk about burst yet…) of other classes in the game.

Do you honestly think it’s the overpowered burst that other classes have that’s forcing Rangers to be obsolete in WvW?

I really don’t understand the logic in designing a class this way.

Allie, you have told us about the intentions behind this class and what the ranger should be, but I think it would be interesting to know what you folks think about their current state and what the ranger is. Telling us what the dev team feels are the ranger’s flaws and failings could help with getting people on the same page and brainstorm solutions towards a shared vision.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Bringing other class down in damage output seems like a lot of work. How about bring rangers up to their damage output?

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.

Melee not only has higher damage, but cleaves and are in the radius of boon application. While standing in melee range with bows is possible (weird, but possible), the multiple target hitting can be implemented with default piercing attacks, which are still far inferior to cleave.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
More Pet Varieties

Goal of Proposal
Increased Versatility to an already versatile class

Proposal Functionality
I would like to see more animal families brought into the fold of available pets.
Griffons
Skale
Skelk
Even Deer/Goats
Pretty much if it’s a creature too primitive to have a culture, and especially if any NPC anywhere in the game has already tamed and trained them as pets we should be able to. All of these also come in different varieties throughout the game world meaning they should work well as a family.

Associated Risks
None

Dalanor.5387:

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.

Melee not only has higher damage, but cleaves and are in the radius of boon application. While standing in melee range with bows is possible (weird, but possible), the multiple target hitting can be implemented with default piercing attacks, which are still far inferior to cleave.

And one can’t ignore the fact that PvE in this game is a sideshow to WvW/PvP. And in these areas, the range advantage means absolutely nothing because the class doesn’t have the means to maintain it unless they’re on a wall and the enemy is on the ground.

Unholey.3264:

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.

Can you elaborate? I hear this a lot, that pet AI needs to be separate from mob AI and then suddenly everything would be amazing – but I don’t know why this is. What vision do you have of this new AI that would improve pets from their current state? When I hear this, I feel like it’s akin to someone saying if it’s different, it’ll be better. But different doesn’t imply better, so I, personally, would love to hear the some brainstorming on what the specifics would/should be.

1- A class that relies on sustained damage needs to deal more AA damage and damage over time than a class that can burst… Which rangers fail at… it also need to have lots of ways to mitigate damage on demand, which rangers fail at…
- Most definition of skirmishes and skirmisher I read on the internet is about a small, brief, unexpected encounter.
- A WvW view of the skirmisher might be to harass enemies back line, an idea I like, but that is impossible without burst or consequent damage. Thieves are better for “small, brief, unexpected encounter” than the skirmisher…

2- Traps : cleaning up some traits (as discussed in a few posts of this thread) might allow room to have them in a condition branch.
- Otherwise, though it might be hard to keep them in a nature’s theme, they should deal primarily direct damage…

3- Pet : I don’t think the best AI in the world is going to keep them alive in WvW. In some scarlet’s event, it’s already hard to keep one alive 20 seconds – despite the PvE health increase… in WvW zerg fight? No way. I do not want to hurt my pet… but even telling it to attack some random ennemy out of the zergs is not working…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Ahh, ok. Thanks for clarifying that.

I say this half-jokingly, but we would like to present Ranger sword skill #1 as a great example of how to make something more risky. I bet, for example, Warriors would be more hesitant to use Hundred Blades if it locked them in place without being able to dodge for the duration.

Sorry, I’m still not convinced that Rangers in PvE do sustained DPS – lets not make this a gospel truth we don’t question – I agree we don’t do burst. I also think Rangers don’t do sufficent sustained DPS, with possible exception of the Hokey Kokey Sword.

I’m happy that you’re looking at fixing rangers, I really am. I love the class and would like to use it as my dungeon main, but I can’t.

If this thread is unable to get you to redesign the aspects (no pun intended) of the ranger that keep us from being welcomed in Dungeon and WvW groups because it doesn’t fit your desired direction then I’ll take my leave. Collaboration means working together to achieve a goal, and many of our suggestions would require very little effort in terms of coding. Saying rangers have good sustained range damage does nothing at all for us in dungeons where the style of play is push boss in corner stack on boss. No fix to the pet is going to change that style of play, either we can melee like everyone else, or we won’t be welcome.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

I don’t like this approach. From a ranger point of view, it would probably take too long to nerf all other classes. From the point of view of all other classes, you will get alot of hatred and I can understand them. Most classes doing fine IMO. Ranger is the one class who lacks of competitive damage. From an overall point of view I’m also agaist this approach. You may not believe it but any sort of grinding, dungeonpaths in particular, is not funny and you’re happy if you’re faster. Toning down every source of damage will just slow down the gameplay.

Aegael.6938:

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.

I think you are mixing two things here: Interrupt and Lockdown.

Rangers capabilities of interrupting are fine and on par with most weapon sets on other classes. You indeed do not get many traits which benefit interrupting. If this playstyle is supposed to be more important for Rangers new traits would have to be introduced. I personally would appretiate it because I enjoy interrupt builds. The weapon skills are fine though and the duration CC doesn’t matter here.

When it comes to lockdown, 1s Dazes are probably more baseline than 2s. Same for Stuns. That is why I personally perceive Moment of Clarity as a quite interesting trait since it doubles the duration. It actually is a lot better/more practical than comparable traits Mesmers get (Confounding Suggestions/Chaotic Interruption).

Kal Spiro.9745:

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.

What if we had a tool that could avoid that 15k instant on us in certain scenarios beyond evade capacity from unskilled players and with adequate investment could share that ability?

SafiMoyo.5130:

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.

See that’s the thing. I addressed this in my main post, but I will put my points in this one to address what you’re saying. Ranged is no “safer” than being melee anymore. Marionette event, revamped Tequatl, Mai Trin fractal, Molten Alliance fractal, mobs with defiance, mobs with one hit ranged AOE and one hit ranged attacks, mobs immune to range attacks (Maw fractal/collosus) are all perfect examples of rangers/ranged players being in more danger than melee players. Many ranged players get one-shot by the new mechanics that are being implemented, and in turn they are becoming better players by learning how to dodge and work with their party. It’s promoting synergy.

Obviously Claw of Jormag, Shatterer, and Inquest Golem Mark II need a rework, since 99% of the players just sit back out of mob range and DPS away. That is a problem with the boss encounter, not range weapons themselves.

If ranged weapons were just as powerful as melee weapons, rangers could stack on their fellow teammates, while using a shortbow to attack the target, and not suffer from “oh it’s a ranged weapon, therefore it must do less DPS”.

WvW is no different. With the enormous amount of gap closers, class mechanics such as stealth, dodge rolling, clones, teleports, etc. a ranged player can’t kite a melee player, therefore having the decreased range damage is unnecessary and just promotes not using range at all.

SafiMoyo.5130:

Unholey.3264:

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.

Can you elaborate? I hear this a lot, that pet AI needs to be separate from mob AI and then suddenly everything would be amazing – but I don’t know why this is. What vision do you have of this new AI that would improve pets from their current state? When I hear this, I feel like it’s akin to someone saying if it’s different, it’ll be better. But different doesn’t imply better, so I, personally, would love to hear the some brainstorming on what the specifics would/should be.

From my understanding, as is, they are unable to freely change pet AI to what would make it desirable because they are restricted by the connection between pets and other creatures. Correct me if I’m wrong, Allie, but I believe the current state of affairs doesn’t allow for one to change without the other also changing in the same way.

That is to say, separating the systems wouldn’t necessarily or inherently better ranger pets, but it would create the possibility of bettering them through a now unrestricted (or at least less restricted) system.

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?

ItIsFinished.9462:

ItIsFinished.9462:

Elementalist: Ability to change Attunements.
Engineer: Wide array of kits and additional abilities dependent on equipped slots skills.
Necromancer: Death Shroud and Spectral Walk
Guardian: Virtues.
Thief: Steal/Initiative and most access to stealth.
Warrior: Adrenaline/Burst
Mesmer: Clones and Shatter abilities.
Ranger: Pets…

This is what makes the classes Unique.

But the funny thing is, every class can have a pet…..via racial skills but at the same time, they won’t suffer a damage loss for having a companion..go figure. They are on par with the rangers pets, especially if the rangers pet dies and is on a 1 min cooldown which is close to most racial elites….

I’m quoting myself because I brought this up a long time ago and it is still relevant. Us Rangers have a broken mechanic.

We need to have the ability to use ALL the pets skills on demand. Also, since we are a jack of all trades, we need to make the pets ability’s on par with the other classes.

What I mean is take thief for example, their class mechanic is stealth and mobility. Why not make a series of pets that offer/have access to stealth and mobility skills…just on a smaller scale. Or Mesmer, their mechanic is clones, can we have some pets that offer clone type abilities? Take Engineer, their class mechanic is kits. Lets make the Ursine pets dig up Ascalonian Rifles or Charr mines, allowing us to use a new weapon for a short period of time during combat. These suggestions are simply allowing the ranger to have a “unique” class mechanic.

After all, we are a “jack of all trades” kind of class, right?

I really hope you read this. I think it’s important to note that ALL CLASSES have access to pets. Whether it be racial elites, armor rune sets(ogre), or other various ways. BUT without the penalty of damage reduction like Rangers.

Our pets need more skills, more control, better AI and my suggestion above.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Let me ask you something simple Allie;
What is the most time consuming and difficult?
A; Rebalancing and shaving the burst of several other professions
B; Bringing a single profession up to the level of the others

The ranger has, for quite some time now, been keeping up but barely. It is not that others do everything we do, just better. They do it with less effort and specialization. Rangers are in need of a power creep. Not a huge one, but a specific power creep in certain areas.

SafiMoyo.5130:

Unholey.3264:

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.

Can you elaborate? I hear this a lot, that pet AI needs to be separate from mob AI and then suddenly everything would be amazing – but I don’t know why this is. What vision do you have of this new AI that would improve pets from their current state? When I hear this, I feel like it’s akin to someone saying if it’s different, it’ll be better. But different doesn’t imply better, so I, personally, would love to hear the some brainstorming on what the specifics would/should be.

Many specifics have been given in this thread and others…
Here’s some:
- A pet that currently attacks from 140 of it’s target, taking 2 seconds to launch the skill is missing it’s target given it just have to side step. If the same pet starts attacking at 140, but have a 300 range with target tracking it would be able to hit a moving target
- We could get faster casting pets skills if it wasn’t linked with mob AI (eg, I want that might/fear, etc. now, not when the ennemy moved to 600 / is already on me)
- They might be able to see they are going to get a big hit/AOE and get out of there…
- They might be able to better use knockdown/knockback or else. (don’t we love when the devourer gets the ennemy out of Entangle?).

These are just a few things that can’t be worked on right now because of the link with mobs AI. Not necessarily that would be changed, if they were not tied, but still…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Finally, its a real good news this time!
Let me tell you how it works IMO;
We LOVE to slay horde of targets massively (PvE), but when we’re bursting, our “last stand” at surviving is to rely on our gamer skills. Manouvering, dodges/evades, smart use of terrain such as using heigh advantage or objects for shelter.
So whoever decides to risk high damage output, needs to control the character as good as possible. This is a real risk to play it. Above this, timers on skills are designs from the last century… I believe we should move on now.

“Dead man don’t talks…”, right? In games, “Dead things won’t kill you…”
It has a reason why millions playing games of “Kill or Die” style, such as COD & else.
Ofc I don’t want to compare GW2 to COD, but the basics of risky skirmishing is the same. Move smart, use map smart, shoot first & precisely as well as possible. If you fail it, you have high chances to die… because you don’t really have survivality things to use to buff your lack of skill or just to compensate something. This is a popular kind of playerbase style. Every game based highly on combat needs this in first step – if there is no special rule. Even SuperMario is a serial killer ^^

Xaylin.1860:

I think you are mixing two things here: Interrupt and Lockdown.

The reason why is because in GW2, the two aren’t very distinct at all. Stability and stunbreakers pretty handily counter interrupts, so rather than trying to wait for your enemy to use a skill and interrupt it, it’s often more viable just to stun them and prevent them from doing anything at all.

Maybe I misspoke though. I’d like to see Ranger as a disrupter, whether that be lockdown or interrupt. My point is that neither playstyle is viable.

If the pet AI is tied to the creeps in general, wouldn’t giving them cleave damage, extra range, immunity to AoE attacks also then be applied to all the other creeps in the game?

xallever.1874:

If the pet AI is tied to the creeps in general, wouldn’t giving them cleave damage, extra range, immunity to AoE attacks also then be applied to all the other creeps in the game?

Not to mention defiant stacks that scale with the number of enemies nearby.

I honestly don’t believe how much re-design effort its going to take to fix the following about our class mechnic

Pets: no use in Dungs / fracs party, period. They don’t provide the party with ANYTHING besides taking a bit of aggro or a little bit of fury/might which every other class can provide except it’s not their class mechanic….

no use in WvW zerg – Instant dead. Same with Spirits. Its been over a year anet. Is this really that hard to fix?

Little to no use in sPvP and WvW roam- again, its good if whatever cc/immob the pet has actually hits the target… too bad its only for a few seconds at best than the pet is basically useless.
Warriors, guards, eles , engineers, everyone basically just flat out ignore pets because they are not a threat to them at all.
Theives – get easy application of Cloak and Dagger. Pets are Absolutely useless against theives

Only one aspect in this game where I would want to unstow my pet… soloing content… they make a fine tank and can aggro pretty good in PvE lol. Which is only useful for the leveling process of 1-80… then I have no use for it.

So again, its been over a year, there have been tons of suggestions. And still what I just listed above is happening… Please tell me anet, what are your actual rememedies to this awful class mechanic?? Because right now, I can see most of the rangers just re-rolling if something big doesnt happen… its been over a year now of this same mess…do something

What it sounds like, is that the game’s meta isn’t the vision of the developers (understandably—I don’t think they wanted everyone to stack in a corner with zerker gear, DPSing away). But it also sounds like, rather than changing the ranger to fit the meta, they’d want to change the meta to fit the ranger. While admirable, and understandable, the class needs help now, not 1+ years from now.

And because this needs more exposer: Rangers need more team buff options (that the current meta would love to have on their team, preferably)

Aegael.6938:

xallever.1874:

If the pet AI is tied to the creeps in general, wouldn’t giving them cleave damage, extra range, immunity to AoE attacks also then be applied to all the other creeps in the game?

Not to mention defiant stacks that scale with the number of enemies nearby.

aye i want that.

Actually, why can’t Anet just let me “charm” that sexy Legendary Defender outside my spawn in WvW. You know, that tall guy with the shiny smile, and the nametag that says “Johnson”

Specific Game Mode

PvE

Proposal Overview

A new collection of pets that acts as normal pet do but also give buffs like aspect. This new collection of pets come with the stay put option. Pets that have magical properties and act as medium for Rangers are called familiars.

Goal of Proposal

Familiars with the stay put option can solve the aspect issue, the stow issue, and satisfy Anet defining the ranger as a pet class.

Proposal Functionality

Anet have to introduce the familiar pets and introduce the stay out options for all pets with the ranger/pet camera view switch back function.

Associated Risks

The familiar class of pets need to be balanced by trade off between buffs versus pet attack skills.
Edit: Another trade off is buffing allies in a very localised area versus buffing only the ranger across one map or across different maps.

Back on the topic of pets, I’ll speak from personal experience and confirm that. I don’t fear pets at all.

I imagine pets should have play and counterplay. Something like “I need to focus down the moa first, or else he’ll keep healing the ranger,” or “if I’m not careful, his bird is going to DPS me down.”

Instead, it’s pretty much just ignore the pet and kill the ranger. Bonus points if you’re a class that can take advantage of the forced pet mechanic with bouncing attacks or similar mechanics.

The only pet I really pay attention to is the wolf, since it has a fairly reliable, on-demand ability that can drastically change the outcome of a fight. But once that’s on cooldown, it’s back to ignoring the pet again.

Prysin.8542:

Aegael.6938:

xallever.1874:

If the pet AI is tied to the creeps in general, wouldn’t giving them cleave damage, extra range, immunity to AoE attacks also then be applied to all the other creeps in the game?

Not to mention defiant stacks that scale with the number of enemies nearby.

aye i want that.

Actually, why can’t Anet just let me “charm” that sexy Legendary Defender outside my spawn in WvW. You know, that tall guy with the shiny smile, and the nametag that says “Johnson”

While I laughed hard at this, I realized it’s been over a year since we’ve had a new pet to tame

Right now the pet damage is like the opposite of Torment. 100% damage to targets that don’t move, and reduced damage the faster the target moves. Building heavily into the pet, my pets have killed players who didn’t move enough, but good players avoid the pet much of the time.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Glad to hear that. I would rather have the crazy broken builds brought into line instead of the ranger being given a crazy broken build so that it can compete.

WATCH ME PULL A MOA OUT OF MY HAT…
While pet AI may not be entirely satisfactory, MMO combat is hardly a Turing Test. We can, with a little stagecraft, easily create the illusion of intelligent play.

Nothing Up My Sleeve…
Ranger companions gain an endurance bar, identical to player endurance bars in all ways. They gain Vigor any time their master gains vigor and they benefit from Natural Vigor if their master has that trait.

Any time the pet takes more than 20% of their maximum health in damage (a trigger we know the game recognizes due to traits like Nature’s Protection) and they have more than 50% of their endurance left, the pet instead takes no damage, evades for 2 seconds, and performs a dodge animation/movement towards its master (whom we can only hope is standing somewhere not stupid…).

Presto!
Pets now pretend to dodge, using their master as a reference point to give the appearance that they roll in a sensible direction when something massive is dropped on their heads. They also interact more consistently with the boon removal and corruption skills of other players, adding value to those skills.

Are even Players that Smart?
While I feel that triggering automatically when a major hit comes in is probably consistent with the level skilled players display, it would be possible to add an addition check with a <100% chance before the “dodge” triggers to simulate lapses. Also, because the trigger is damage-spike based, there are smaller attacks the pet will not expend a dodge to avoid. Finally, some of the pets with larger HP pools might be unnecessarily reluctant to dodge. Thresholds would have to be tuned following playtesting.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Well I can say that I speak for everyone here and must say I hope you are taking into account Condi Burst in these talks

As for crit burst classes not having enough risk associated with them….which classes are we talking about here?

Aegael.6938:

Back on the topic of pets, I’ll speak from personal experience and confirm that. I don’t fear pets at all.

I imagine pets should have play and counterplay. Something like “I need to focus down the moa first, or else he’ll keep healing the ranger,” or “if I’m not careful, his bird is going to DPS me down.”

Instead, it’s pretty much just ignore the pet and kill the ranger. Bonus points if you’re a class that can take advantage of the forced pet mechanic with bouncing attacks or similar mechanics.

The only pet I really pay attention to is the wolf, since it has a fairly reliable, on-demand ability that can drastically change the outcome of a fight. But once that’s on cooldown, it’s back to ignoring the pet again.

In WoW, you can have the option to develop your pets to be the main threat or the Hunter. I think is also how the traits ought to give you the option to do that.

I don’t care whether a Ranger can be both a beastmaster or an archer, just as I don’t care that Mesmers go clones or phantasm.

Nike.2631:

WATCH ME PULL A MOA OUT OF MY HAT…
While pet AI may not be entirely satisfactory, MMO combat is hardly a Turing Test. We can, with a little stagecraft, easily create the illusion of intelligent play.

Any time the pet takes more than 20% of their maximum health in damage (a trigger we know the game recognizes due to traits like Nature’s Protection) and they have more than 50% of their endurance left, the pet instead takes no damage, evades for 2 seconds, and performs a dodge animation/movement towards its master (whom we can only hope is standing somewhere not stupid…).

Pets now pretend to dodge.

I really, really like this idea.

Specific Game Mode
PvX – thematic

Proposal Overview
Rename the signets to ‘charms’

Goal of Proposal
To give the Ranger a more ‘nature based’ theme.

Proposal Functionality
Rename the signets to ‘charms’, f/e:

oakbark charm = signet of stone

cleansing charm = signet of renewal

Hunting Charm = signet of the hunt

Wild Charm = signet ot Wild

elaboration when analysing the ranger in comparing it to the ‘green color’ from Magic tG. I noticed how ‘green’ as a lot of artefact and enchantment ‘counters’. Yet there also seem to be numerous green ‘charms’. Charms can also be considered a more ‘tribal’ form of conveying magic. Hence I thought it might be a great way to enforce the ‘nature theme’ of the ranger, by simply changing a name.

The ‘charms’ in Magic tG also have choices associated with them (mostly 3), so having a passive (choice to slot) and a choice to activate seems to go functionally well with the name.

Associated Risks
Depending on the way the #item.name is coded into GW2 this might be a long and elaborate process. On the other hand it might be a quick database change. I do not see any other risks to this change.

Well there might be a slight risk of elaborating on the ‘charm’ idea and adding another functionality to these charms. Perhaps something that gives it a 2nd activation option during it’s ‘recharge’ in exchange for an even longer recharge.

Something like:
Hunting Charm:
passive : 25% movement speed
active : next pet attack more damage (recharge 15 sec)
active : your next attack cripples (optional for 15sec, recharge set to 30 sec)

But this ‘risk’ is entirely optional and is mainly suggestion mode running rampant , but I thought idd throw it in non the less.

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.

Don’t want to sound rude but what were you thinking when you choose pair sustained damage and ai controlled pet in same class? You should have make warrior and guardian sustained damage class as they have much more survivability than us and don’t have rely pet do big part of they damage. There wont be easy way fix ranger class if you want keep thous things together, because that mean you really need ’’fix’’ pet and add us more abilities to survive in fight so we have time to do that damage. But anyhow good luck and have fun cleaning up this mess:P

Nike.2631:

WATCH ME PULL A MOA OUT OF MY HAT…
While pet AI may not be entirely satisfactory, MMO combat is hardly a Turing Test. We can, with a little stagecraft, easily create the illusion of intelligent play.

Nothing Up My Sleeve…
Ranger companions gain an endurance bar, identical to player endurance bars in all ways. They gain Vigor any time their master gains vigor and they benefit from Natural Vigor if their master has that trait.

Any time the pet takes more than 20% of their maximum health in damage (a trigger we know the game recognizes due to traits like Nature’s Protection) and they have more than 50% of their endurance left, the pet instead takes no damage, evades for 2 seconds, and performs a dodge animation/movement towards its master (whom we can only hope is standing somewhere not stupid…).

Presto!
Pets now pretend to dodge, using their master as a reference point to give the appearance that they roll in a sensible direction when something massive is dropped on their heads. They also interact more consistently with the boon removal and corruption skills of other players, adding value to those skills.

Are even Players that Smart?
While I feel that triggering automatically when a major hit comes in is probably consistent with the level skilled players display, it would be possible to add an addition check with a <100% chance before the “dodge” triggers to simulate lapses. Also, because the trigger is damage-spike based, there are smaller attacks the pet will not expend a dodge to avoid. Finally, some of the pets with larger HP pools might be unnecessarily reluctant to dodge. Thresholds would have to be tuned following playtesting.

They dont even need to add a dodge animation, they can simply add some obscure blurred animation similar to Blurred Frenzy (Mesmer MH Sword 2)

Give pet auto – dodge
Give pet auto – self-heal independent of the player (system is in use by WvW guards, and it works!!!!)
Give pet similar HP in WvW as in PvE
Reduce dead pet respawn timer

Sounds like a good start while we wait for a complete overhaul.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

will de grijze jager.6594:

an idea let the ranger do 100% of the damage and let the pet do extra damage so like with pet you have 130% and not ranger 70% and pet 30%.
a second one is give ranger more aoe skills

This would be overpowered. However you could drastically lower the base damage the pet is dealing but also increase the power on beastmastery. So if you gonna play zerker ranger you will do alot of damage, while your pet doing nearly nothing.
If you invest points in beastmastery, your damage will be lowered but the damage of your pet increased.

it was more a example like a guide line

Allie Murdock.8152

can you please comment on Undertaker.7451’s post and tell what do you devs think about this kind of solution ? Seens quite some people like that idea…

Nike.2631:

stuff

If you make an actual dodge animation to pets, how would they use it?
How would you prevent that when you aren’t on the exact same spot as your pet and use a dodge the pet wont dodge right in a aoe circle?
If you make an invulnerable frame to pets while the Ranger use a dodge, how would you prevent them to move out of dangerous zones?
(Okay, micromanaging with F3 would solve this but you get it.)
How would a possible built in damage reduction (be it single target or aoe) affect the pet and the Ranger in a PvP environment?

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?

Honestly, It does not make one iota of sense…just simply based on what has happened this past year and a half

The playerbase has had a myriad of ideas and brainstorms in the forums since the game was released….you are telling me at this stage of the game, all the ideas of over a year+ has lead to what exactly? I don’t see anything thing inspiring done by the devs lol.

That is disappointing. No other way to describe it. Huge disappointment in the fact that a year and a half worth of feedback to everything possible about this class has apparently led to little or no inspiration to the devs…

Atherakhia.4086:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

But sustained is boring too…

All a Ranger does is strafe in circles all day with auto attack on while waiting for someone to die of boredom. It’s also not something anyone wants or needs and will never be something they want or need so long as it’s inferior to the sustained (don’t even need to talk about burst yet…) of other classes in the game.

Do you honestly think it’s the overpowered burst that other classes have that’s forcing Rangers to be obsolete in WvW?

I really don’t understand the logic in designing a class this way.

Allie did not say that Burst is boring. So in other words, “sustained is boring” is the correct sentence.

Burst is boring in my opinion. You press all these buttons to drop the enemy from 100-0 or the enemy drops you 100-0. Sustain is about trying to survive and dps the enemy down. It is a race between the player and the enemy on who survives the longest.

Ranger that strafe in circles all day with auto-attack means no one is attacking the ranger.

Specific Game Mode
PvE (basically every game mode)

Proposal Overview
Increase the damage on weapons so that pets will become an addition to rangers

Goal of Proposal
Basically that the pets will be an addition to the ranger damage, for example if your pet uses a normal attack, and it hits, it should add to your damage, and not that the damage should be toned down to a 80% ranger 20% pet thing because your pet only has a chance to hit. All in all this would mean that if you attack something, your damage would be the same to other classes in raw damage, and that your pet allows you to really have that additional burst if it decides to actually hit an attack.

Proposal Functionality
Basically this would really give the pet a purpose, if it stays alive with its current AI (though improved AI, dont get me wrong, i would like to see it changed) we actually get a damage boost, and we dont suffer that much from our own damage, the damage that we really can control. it would make for that special feeling that you do deal damage on par, so you would be allowed in dungeons and stuff, so you can actually deal more sustained damage and control it way better, and just order your pet to attack for that extra burst, but if you think your pet will die, keep it beside you and dont suffer the damage loss from your pet not being able to do anything.

Associated Risks
Not really that much, in PvE the pet is usually dead quite fast even if you try and micro manage, with this change rangers can just decide that its a safe time to make your pet attack and have the damage, but if its not safe you can still dish out your regular damage. in wvw it would open up rangers having a chance against other classes in damage, even though our pet decides to die running blindly into aoe fiels

(also as a note on the side, as suggested before i agree with the lack of combo finishers like a blast finisher on greatsword 2, and the lack of active condition remove, think about lightning reflexes having movement CC remove or something, immobilize, crippled, chilled. or having heal as one function the same way as the warriors mending)

So you want to balance the class what was voted (without a shadow of a doubt) the class that needs the most help, but you dont want to buff us to be on par with others because of power creep?

wat

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.

Burst is possible on the Ranger 10k GS mauls + 7k pet mauls are a testament to that. The problem that arises with that build is, landing that damage.

I recognize that the Ranger is a sustained damage class and I totally agree but what I would like to see is more options when it comes to how that can be specced for.

I await the March 18th patch to see what changes there but with regards to this CDi; More options are needed, and better pet control is required.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

To be honest, I think the opposite is more constructive. When you have frequent, small balancing updates, you can adjust previous changes accordingly as you add new changes, which leads to a much steadier and more stable climb toward desired balance. Having infrequent, large balance patches gives the illusion of laziness (even though I know that not to be necessarily true; not everyone does), and can dramatically impact gameplay because of how many new elements are introduced simultaneously.

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.

I find this a bit disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate where you’re coming from and the fact that you guys want to stick to your Ranger philosophy.

All things considered, many of us, the players, would dearly love to be able to play a viable burst build, or have some aspect of decent physical DPS. To limit the Ranger class to sustained damage is to contradict your own paradigm-shifting philosophy of “any profession can fulfill any role”. Furthermore, it’s actively mitigating our enjoyment of the profession. Essentially, there are those of us who only ever want to play Ranger, and, forgive the childish phrasing, but it is frankly unfair to deny us the potential enjoyment we can get out of this profession.

Rather than focusing on nerfing the DPS builds of other classes to achieve balance, the more reasonable solution would be to provide an up-to-par DPS build for the minority without (i.e. Rangers). The longbow has so, so much potential for giving the Ranger back control of their DPS, and there are some good ideas floating around for improving that weapon.

A final thing I’d like to address is that while other professions may have to wait longer to recharge their bursting abilities, they can all too easily withdraw from the fight (thieves & warriors in particular), heal or simply dodge the Ranger’s sustained attacks (see: Rapid Fire) until their next burst.

Simply put, bursting is just much more fun than sustained damage. And a game should designed to provide precisely that quality.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

So, quarterly, like in Guild Wars 1? Or is it going to more than likely be bi-yearly? Not looking for a set in stone promise, just a projection. Since obviously if the “feature” patch isn’t going to be in March (only confirmed as not being on the 18th by you so speculation here), you might as say a fair projection is 4-6 months.

Some sort of projection like that would give people a better idea on how long it takes for changes to be implemented is all, and it might get the community’s foot a little bit off of the developers necks when it comes to pressing for changes now, since projected time frames would allow the community to know not to expect balances every two weeks just because there are living story updates.

Food for thought.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

As much as I like the idea of preventing the game from becoming “burst or die” fights, I don’t see how giving risks to bursts will solve the inherent disadvantages sustained damage has. Enemies can heal, run away, have time to cc you to disrupt your sustained damage, you take more damage from enemies conditions because you give them more time to (re)apply them, their burst can force you to back off and stop/run/die, you are more susceptible to retaliation, confusion, torment, fire shield, etc etc…there’s just so many disadvantages in sustained damage that no amount of risks in burst damage will ever make it a better choice. Even if it is, other classes can already choose to be a sustained damager, while rangers have no choice but to be one.

Not to mention in PvE burst damage is rewarded; bosses and difficult mobs have condition purging skills(alpha, CoE stationary golem boss), vulnerability phases(destroyer boss in CoE p3, dredge suit/ice elemental boss in fractals) where you are required to burst. The zerk meta already proves killing enemies faster are far better than whittling them down over time with higher survivability- and guess what the two most shunned classes in PvE; necros and rangers, are good at.

Also, bringing other classes’ bursts down/adding risks would be a nightmare of a balance fix, and something that I can’t see happening in the near future. How long would it take? 4 months? 8 months? A year? How long will rangers have to wait still to be considered useful?