Guild Wars 2

Which is exactly what ANY profession does when it’s not doing something better.

In what fashion is the Ranger actually good at this? because your basically saying doing good DPS and getting the job done promptly makes a profession not a “skirmisher”…

I think they’re saying that the point of the Ranger is meant to be that if another class can deal, say, 1000 damage over five seconds, then they’ll only be able to deal another 1000 damage over the next twenty, so 2000 total over thirty seconds, while a Ranger might be able to deal 750 damage every ten seconds consistently, so less in the first ten, more in the next two tens, and 250 points more overall when a fight lasts that long or more. The longer the fight takes, the bigger the difference. I’m not sure that’s how it works in practice, but that seems to be the intent.

Unfortunately the way this game is designed, burst damage is SO much more important than sustained damage in almost all circumstances, and in the few situations where sustained damage is important, like boss fights, the boss is either actively immune to condition damage (like Dragons or objects), or just mostly immune to it due to the way stacking works (when they have minutes worth of Poison already stacked or are constantly fluctuating between 23-25 bleed stacks), so for the most part sustained damage via conditions is pointless.

They really need to fix the way conditions are applied to “yellow life bar” targets, and also fix how conditions stack before they consider “sustained damage” to be something that can be balanced against burst, but that’s a general game thing that applies to a lot of classes, not just Rangers. As DoTs go, rangers with their pets actually do a lot better than Necros, Thieves, or Mesmers.

At the bare minimum they need to change up the way that rewards are distributed in a large mass situations. So long as you need to “tag” an enemy with a certain amount of damage before it dies if you want to get full reward for the kill, Burst damage will ALWAYS be highly favorable over sustained damage. The damage you could have done ten seconds after the enemy is already dead doesn’t really mean much to anyone.

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.

A skirmisher isn’t meant to be a pure archer, or at least should be an archer that switches between bows. It’s basically well suited to a playstyle in which you offload all your skills with one weapon, swap to the other and offload all those skills, and then swap back, taking advantage of the swapp buffs, and likely a sigil swap buff as well, similar to a D/D Ele or Kit Engi on rotation builds. It’s not a bad build, but it might not be the build you want, and if so, it shouldn’t be the one you focus on. The Marksmanship line is more intended for an “artillery archer” who just wants to hang back and rain arrows, right?

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.

This is a fair point, I’m wondering if it would be possible to give Rangers one exclusively Burst build. Tie it to a GM trait in either the Power or Precision based tree, pick a handful of weapons that would work well with this, and then make the trait read something along the lines of:

Damage dealt by [chosen weapons] is increased by 25%, cooldowns on [chosen weapons] are increased by 25% (specific numbers adjusted based on balance testing, of course).

The idea being that if you spec into that tree, slot those weapons, then you could do considerably more damage on your first pass, but then you’d be stuck on cool-down much longer than a standard Ranger, making you much more bursty, without retaining the sustain capabilities of a Ranger, but only if you put the effort into it.

Bryzy.2719:

BobbyT.7192:

Bryzy.2719:

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.

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.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people talk about “classes fulfilling any role” like they expect any class to be able to do everything. As far as I’m aware, they only said each class can do 3 roles.
Control, support, damage.
When it comes to the damage, they never said every class will have high burst, just that they will be able to do damage in a certain way. And having lots of sustain damage vs burst is still consider damage

“we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage.”

Now with PvE, it’s up for debate whether or not is effective there, But that’s more of a problem with the design of the content then it is with the mechanics of a class

There’s one simple fact you’ve neglected.

Ranger is the only class without a decent burst build (whether physical or cond.).

Anet have at least 2 options here; the first of which appears to be the one they want to take:

1. To nerf all other classes’ DPS builds and keep Ranger as a “sustained damage” class. Not only would this infuriate the other classes but it also deprives the Ranger community of the one thing we all want.

2. To leave other classes’ DPS as-is (perhaps with exception to warriors) and give Rangers a viable DPS/burst method. This simultaneously avoids the risk of kittening off the other classes and makes the majority of Rangers happy by finally allowing them to play a fun build and be useful in PvE. It’s also the option that would require the least effort.

Yes I am starting to feel slightly frustrated at these stubborn design philosophies. The game is supposed to cater to the players, not to withhold some grand ideology for each class even if it is detrimental to peoples’ enjoyment of the game.

Actually, ranger do have some burst, which is quite decent, but may or may not be reliable because it does involve the pet.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

When I play in lvl 1 zone for dailies (or lvl 80 zone, sometimes, for difference), I barely notice skill speed difference on my 8x different lvl 80 professions. All are capable of doing their stuff. For ranger however, LANDING that damage is harder. It’s the attacks that miss target (or are easy to interrupt), that make the ranger fall behind. Some examples:

Most magic ranged skills are heat seaking. Arrows aren’t. Lot of magic skills are aoe (even auto attack, making a strafe much harder then arrows). What’s even more, ranger (longbow) got 2 very easy to interrupt channeling skills.

Another problem that rises is kiting versus melee. Melee’s problem is to keep up with target. HOWEVER, there’s a crapload of solutions to that in the game. Mainly gap closers, but also ranged movement impairing effects. Now the kiting profession (ranger!), must be able to stay away from the enemy. And to be honest that’s why to hard. ‘Good sustain, good resilience’, is broken, exactly because of this. Warriors, gap close to us in no time, land their immobalize or stun on use and then their burst. Meanwhile we didnt damage. To keep even a (small) chance to survive you must heal and/or remove conditions. More time loss. Stunlock + healing easely takes 2-5 secs. 5 secs (potential) that the enemy had an easy time damaging you, that you could not damage him, and that you got in the worst spot of the duel (you are loosing the fight).
Continued in a proper proposed solution…

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Niche in Group Play; AOE Movement-based Crowd Control

Goal of Proposal
Sustain damage and Survivability can certainly be how the class is played, but it doesn’t much pan out as an overarching purpose in group gameplay.

That is to say, the only other Sustain Damage Survivalists I know of are all Tanks. And in a game without Taunt, that’s a really hard superpower to leverage for the benefit of others.

Just about the only time it ends up benefiting a group is those super rare down to the wire situations you could count on one hand. And even then, you arrive to those situations because of external forces, not any particular excellence of your own. And only getting to feel valuable or having some exciting part in combat when other people drop the ball is just not a very good feeling.

Ranger needs to feel as though they have a purpose in a group setting.

Proposal Functionality
AOE Movement Control.
Every time I make a post I end up mentioning it in some form or another. So I figured I’ll just make the actual suggestion proper.

The Control Role is the closest cousin to Tanking this game has. So it could probably grant overarching gameplay goals that makes the most productive use of our tank-like attributes. It’s a niche nobody else has claimed yet in group-play situations like WvW. If we get Control on the profession mechanic, (used defensively) it rounds out the whole ‘survivability’ angle in a way that makes it accessible to all builds in all gamemodes. It’s movement-based which is a good companion to the movement-based Skirmishing concept. And, Ranger has a bit of a pseudo-specialty in it already, so why not go ‘all in’?

It’s just the pet doesn’t do a very good job of reflecting it. It needs universal access to a hands-down brutal Hard AOE Control skill, and it needs to not break down in crowds.

Associated Risks
Workload
Specializing in Anything But Damage is not so great in PvE right now.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Also Allie, have you seen any pet AI improvements mentioned that you think would be a good idea? Anything to keep this thread going in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

While I am not Allie, I did see Nike.**** propose a decent mechanic that could work to give pets a chance to survive big hits. It basically came down to this:

- pets get a endurance bar, effected by all ranger traits, and same size as ranger.
- when a pet is hit with >20% of HP in one hit, this damage is neglected (so pet doesn’t take damage) and instead the pet takes a hit on endurance.

- it then came with a ‘dodge’ of the pet, which I did not like that much, dodge roling moa, not to sure about that

But the mechanic itself, where there is an endurance bar (existing mechanic) that, for all intend and purpose can be ‘hidden’, that negates large hits for at least 2 hits, as it works like a dodge roll. Could well be an interesting way to increase the ‘toughness’ of the pets in various situations, while still keeping it somewhat ‘fair’ and within the confines of the gaming mechanics. (I added a + to it)

Aegael.6938:

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.

There is a lot of incentive to kite melee enemies . . . when solo roaming in PvE. WvW, well, enemy players don’t play that ballgame as well as AI enemies.

As far as keeping the enemy away from me? WvW I do this by running with people who are able to tie them up or a pet with an Immobilize/Snare effect. (This is less effective since a good warrior sneezes and they die, or a thief stealths and the pet forgets . . . )

In PvE, I only have problems when we talk certain Level 80 Veterans and any level Elites and up. I theoretically can solo the Queensdale Cave Troll, and did so once upon a time before the Champion Trains became a “thing”. Heck, I whittled Kol in Harathi Hinterlands (the giant) down to 33% health until someone found it. (I had someone watch and go “and you’re a ranger?” . . . yeah.)

Defiant/Stability makes it hard for me to control/lockdown enemies, but since it’s intended for those to be taken by groups, I don’t sweat it as much.

So in the one hand, I can solo-roam PvE and most places “get s**t done” outside of champion-spawning events. I can often handle Orr in places where others fear to tread, and usually with only two weapon sets: Longbow and Axe/Torch. I can escape from just about anything short of “pin you in place then crush you”. I dare say if it’s lower than an Elite . . . if I see it, I can kill it. I may need to prepare, but there’s enough in the ranger skill “toolbag” to handle many things PvE can throw at me.

Now on the other hand . . . WvW. Where my biggest asset isn’t my class skills but the fact I can get on a ram and drop a water field before I get cracking. Or I can put one extra Blast finisher in for a small skirmishing group. But in 50% of the cases versus another player I will need to escape rather than fight because they can burst me dead unless I specifically build for it . . . in which case I probably won’t be able to do much other than force them to run. And that’s not counting the “fun times” of thinking I got some solo-roamer and find out he’s merely about 15 seconds ahead of his four (or forty) friends, enter downed state and bag dispenser mode.

There’s . . . a considerable gap, which is somewhat heightened by the bone stupid enemy AI in PvE. Other players dodge, other players have stunbreakers and stability skills, and other players more probably put more time into figuring out how to counter anything I do than I could do. So I just leave WvW balancing in their hands.

. . . but rangers are far from useless in general PvE, it’s only the specialized things which fall apart for them.

And again, I worry about some of these suggestions which alter or otherwise change the ranger skills or other things into things which will negatively affect my PvE experience and survivability in favor of things I’m not too sure we need.

So the question to the nice ANet staff:

If Rangers are expected to be survivable, do sustainable damage, and not “Burst for 55K and rest”, how do they line up with what you envision and why . . . why, then are they so far behind everyone else? Especially since it’s been said Warriors are pretty much exactly where you folk want them to be and they’re potentially better at the survivable, sustainable burst damage?

Specific Game Mode

All

Proposal Overview

To have good sustain damage, you must be able to land it. That means, more resilience to stunlocks/immobalizes. It also means landing the skills should be easy. However bows are one of the easiest weapons to avoid, without relying on dodge. We must improve this (if anet doesn’t want power creep, but at the same time that ranger is ’viable).

Goal of Proposal

Rangers can keep up with fights better. Both in pvp, wvw, spvp, even pve, rangers often have (more then other professions) trouble to keep up.

Proposal Functionality

Definitely more condition removal. This is really behind other professions, and with pvp and wvw in mind that is totally unfair. Our stunbreakers lack imo. For instance the quickness one is like ‘wtf, i break stun to safe myself, but i get half healing power for it’. And with the quickness nerf the offensive part is not so good either. Warriors role (seems so, in your eyes anet), to be able to survive more then any other profession. More hp, more healing, even good condi removal, superior passives, superior stability. Warrior will and must stay in the fight. However to keep ‘sustained and not burst damage’ up, we need resilience against interrupts. Give rangers more stability, or traits that act similar. Cause every lockdown a ranger has to take, is the start of a loosing battle. Lightning reflex is good on paper, but other skills outmatch it be a lot. It’s not flexible enougn, to predictable.

Associated Risks

Rangers might become OP. But honestly with 4600 hours playtime (600+ on most professions), I’m kitten certain this would just make ranger ‘adequate’, by far not to strong. Notice that NOT A SINGLE THING i proposed, represents powercreep something, that Allie stated you guys don’t want. To give you an example, in mass farming events (LA now, scarlet invasions earlier), i compare professions ‘farming capabilities’. With the tricky enemies (like the stun aura – enemies) ‘highest dps’, no longer fits the bill. It also need heavy resilience, against stunlocks, good aoe, good sustain, and good healing skills. Ranger ALMOST fits the bill, but the useless pet (dead or chasing most of time), and the stunlocks are taking it down a notch. On other profs i just invest traits to compensate. But however like stated, most skills require so heavy trait investment to work good, that traiting defensive trait options is barely achievable on ranger, unlike other professions).

TL:DR

Pet fix (any improvement) + more resilience against interrupt/disabling/conditions + Slightly more accurate weapon skills (land a bit easier, but this is not to much of an issue. Just needs a minor tweak imo) = Fix the ranger (mostly), without powercreep. complex goal of Allie fullfilled. And for the love of god, please stop the nerfs. Nothing in the game (offensive skill) needs a number nerf. Only more telegraphing and tweaks, that’s it).

PS Associated Risks (on nerfing other professions).

Nerfing anything in this game left, will hurt it badly. I think from now on, any nerfs will hurt more then it goes good. I know nerfs are the easy way out. Please stop that. Think about this: Take the hard route and your job certainty (of keeping it), is raised a thousandfold, because you got more work. More work means more please customers. More pleased customers should be the endgoal, and imo, has been not achieved by Balance team. Take ranger for example. Easy solution (to completely fix the pet), almost aren’t there. That means: hard work in the coming days. Why not focus on that (and use the completely free, and btw very time consuming) advice from the community to build up the idea? Same should go for balance. Nerfing is wrong. Because to make perfect balance, you must nerf so hard that every profession has 1 skill, with 100% similar parameters. Then the game is balanced. Is it fun then? Nope. Having played tpvp, no burst is completely op anymore. If anything, bunker is op, but besides the piont. My point is, if burst is finally balance with barely any overpowered skills left, then the ‘nerf season’ is over. Completely. Officially. I know. I know. So tempting to go the easy way. Sorry Anet. The only way forward is tweaks. And if anything boosts, like you did recently quite a bit off, to very weak traits, etc.

BobbyT.7192:

Actually, ranger do have some burst, which is quite decent, but may or may not be reliable because it does involve the pet.

Ranger Burst is super bad. Go play zerk Ele, which is basically a much better version of power ranger.

Specific Game Mode
PvP
Proposal Overview
Reduce Search and Rescue cooldown while giving the pet more support while it attempts to revive the downed player.
Goal of Proposal
Make Search and Rescue more appealing for rangers who want a revive option
Proposal Functionality
Search and Rescue needs its current cooldown drastically reduced. Currently it is 180 seconds in spvp and 85 seconds in pve. I think a 60-75 seconds cooldown in both pvp and pve before traits will be much more usable, which means no need to split skills! Also, in order to protect the pet, during the startup, Search and Rescue will give the pet protection and stability for 3 seconds.

If the pet dies before the downed player is defeated, the downed player is will automatically revive. Think of it as an animal compassion thing or the pet giving up its lifeforce. This gives the ranger the choice of letting his pet sacrifice itself in order to protect a teammate. This is mainly done as another means to cope with comps that put out massive aoe on a downed players.

Also (note: less srs), as a secondary behavior, if the pet is in “Search and Rescue” mode and the ranger downs, the pet will immediately come to res the ranger. This coupled the Instinctual Bond trait is sure to be quite fun xD

Associated Risks
This should have very little risk in upsetting the current meta. The Search and Rescue revive rate is only about 33% of a player. Although bumping up that rate would be nice too…

Specific Game Mode
WvW (Some PvE overlay)

Proposal Overview
Improve pet dynamics as well as improve the role of rangers in group play.

Goal of Proposal
Rangers have long been “hated on” by not offering anything (or much) to parties or zergs in group play. This is an MMO, rangers should be able to contribute to the group and not be a hindrance or the weakest link. To do this, I propose to dramatically change the pet mechanics and boost the functionality of a few weapons and utility skills. Overall this should give rangers more group support and make pets a truly unique mechanic for rangers.

Proposal Functionality

PETS:
The F-key skills need complete overhaul. First of all, activation time should be instant. The rest I propose to give more skills available for F1-F4.

F1: Attack my target: This will tell the pet to start attacking who/whatever is selected by the ranger. The pet will not attack anything else until the ranger instructs it to do so. Once the target is dead or breaks aggro, the pet returns to null (no aggro) state. This essentially micro manages the pet’s target so he doesn’t go all over the place.

F2: Special Pet Skill: No changes here other than quicker response time

F3: Specialized Ranger Skill Based on Pet: This would work similar to Engineer F1-4 skills based on their utility skills, except it is based on your active pet.

F4: Stow pet (toggle): Pet is put away, will not come out again until called out (clicking kittenain). Getting in combat WILL NOT DRAW OUT PET.

In this system rangers would only have 1 pet! But there’s more!

Unique Pet Buff: When your pet is active, the player is awarded a buff unique to the pet. For example, a bear would give “Ursan Boon” +100 Power, +70 Vitality. These would be on par with food buff but be less than warrior banners. This would also be able to be traited to affect allies as well. Unique pet buffs would not stack, but different pet buffs will. For example, 2 bears would not give +200 power and +140 vitality. But a bear on one ranger and a wolf on another, each player would get both buffs if traited.

TRAPS:

• Traps could be much more useful in WvW if buffed a bit.

• One thing I like to consider rangers is the defense against thieves. “Sick ‘Em” had a great implementation of the Reveal debuff…not allowing stealth for 4 seconds. I propose to give Rangers a trap which does something similar when triggered. It would both pull out of stealth and prevent it for a few seconds.

• Traps could also be traited to stun for 1-2 seconds upon activation (Grandmaster).

WEAPON SKILLS:

• Longbow: Rework the #1 and #3 skills on the longbow. For example, #1 could always crit, and #3 could be a channeling skill. The longer you channel it (up to 3 seconds) the more damage it does. You would be rooted while channeling.

• Axe Offhand: Remove the ridiculous telegraph to #5. Make it near instant like warrior’s “spin to win”.

• Greatsword: Give it more versatility if a ranger wants to be a power melee build (zerging). Increase damage of #1 and make #2 a blast finisher.

• Shortbow: Rework #4, needs to do more than just cripple. Shortbow is the condition bow, longbow is power bow. Give #4 shortbow a good condition (Torment for example).

Associated Risks
Some may argue that the Unique Pet Buff to allies would be too powerful if you have say 5 rangers in a party with 5 different pets. To that, I say if 5 warriors can give each other perma-fury and perma-25 stacks of might plus banners…then 5 different pet boons would not be OP.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Additional aggro patterns for pets.

Goal of Proposal
Right now the pet is limited to full passive (don’t attack anything until I tell you to) and full guard (attack anything even when I didn’t tell you to), and F1/F3 for attack/do not attack, and it’s contributing to the clunky feel of the entire pet mechanic. The pets could use a few more in-between behaviours.

Proposal Functionality

Some examples of attack patterns:
- always attack my target (this is basically focused dps)
- always attack your assigned target (while I attack mine. This lets the ranger and pet focus on two separate targets)
- always attack things that are attacking me (this helps “tanky” pets pick up aggro on things that they aren’t already tanking)
- always attack things that are attacking you (this helps squishy pets self-preserve by focusing on damage source first)

Some examples of aggro management:
- do not attack anything (i.e. full passive mode)
- attack everything within aggro range (i.e. full guard mode)
- do not attack anything until I start attacking (and then adopts the assigned attack pattern when you do. I.e. semi-passive mode. Game is missing this. This is basically passive mode with automated F1. This allows the ranger to control precisely when to engage, without having to press F1 to get pet to engage as well (redundant keypress), when the intention is clearly to engage fully.)
- do not move and guard this point (basically “Guard” utility skill. This is too niche a function to be taking up a utility slot. It should be a basic behaviour.)

etc.

(I stole all these ideas from LOTRO’s Loremaster class. The class is accessible to players of all skill levels because the pet control options range from fully automated to absolute micromanagement, and it works. GW2’s pet class doesn’t offer that flexibility.)

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

Specific Game Mode PvX
Proposal Overview
Give pets a base speed buff, longer leash and combat close abilities
Goal of Proposal
Allow pets to combat moving/kiting targets more effectively
Proposal Functionality
Pets should have always enter combat with a higher base speed, I would even consider 33%. Some (probably not all) pets should have a combat close ability. All should have the ability to use melee skills whilst moving and leash range needs to be doubled to support ranger/pet synergy without pets either refusing to enter combat on command or inexplicably breaking combat.

Pets are very slow to enter combat, unlike melee players they have no speed buff or combat closer mechanics. In PVE this dramatically decreases their damage contrbution in multi-mob fights and in PvP/WvW skirmishing their damage output can be pretty much reduced to zero by semi-skilled players exploiting this weakness.
Associated Risks
This will make a big difference to the overall damage output of a ranger against single targets and give rangers more of a first strike and ranged capability. Though this seems odd to mention as a risk as this is basically what a ranger should have but this will change the meta, especially around roaming activities.

- it then came with a ‘dodge’ of the pet, which I did not like that much, dodge roling moa, not to sure about that

Heh, when most animals in this game “dodge,” as you can see for yourself when using transformation potions, it just makes then dash quickly in a given directly, they wouldn’t need new animations for it.

Sugested change

A Ranger dodges, his pet “dodges” aswell? If that’s heavy time intensive, due to developing of dodge animations for pets, consider giving them evade frames during the Ranger’s dodge.

This would help a bunch.

Cufufalating.8479:

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

Nobody is suggesting we take away the sustained damage role. We’re just asking for the option to be able to provide decent burst or DPS. It’s a role many of us want to play particularly in PvE. I’m happy to keep my bunker/regen build for PvP and solo WvW roaming, but I want to be wanted in dungeons etc too.

Cufufalating.8479:

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

I honestly don’t understand…. what they have now is this supposed sustained DPS role. It doesn’t work. It isn’t fun. The creation of this very thread is proof of this. We didn’t need a CDI thread if the solution to the Ranger’s lack of fun and inefficient/bad/wrong sustained dps was simply to nerf 7 other classes.

The Ranger has A LOT wrong with it, but the worst thing is the class doesn’t work at its very core. There isn’t a single thing this class has that anyone wants. It needs something to elevate it to the point WvW will take notice of it.

Heck, power creep the [censored] out of it. Make it stand up with the other classes and then simply change power scaling so all classes take an enormous hit right off the top. Even that would be a better solution than to think that what hasn’t worked for the past 1.5 years will magically fix itself once pets can hit a moving target and traps are in a condi line.

gawker.8340:

I’ll be honest, i’ll will suggest ways to compete not ways to “glow” with aspects.

Good to know I’m not the only one astonished with some proposals!!!

gawker.8340:

BobbyT.7192:

Actually, ranger do have some burst, which is quite decent, but may or may not be reliable because it does involve the pet.

Ranger Burst is super bad. Go play zerk Ele, which is basically a much better version of power ranger.

Never said it was good, just implying that on paper, once a blue moon, when all the stars align, and Karl makes a post on here, that the damage is decent

Ohoni.6057:

They really need to fix the way conditions are applied to “yellow life bar” targets, and also fix how conditions stack before they consider “sustained damage” to be something that can be balanced against burst, but that’s a general game thing that applies to a lot of classes, not just Rangers.

Well this could be ‘somewhat’ easily done by the following mechanics:

stacking in intensity
- When a stack is ‘full’ (so 25 stacks) the stack is considered ‘full’ and no stacks are added to it. It runs the whole duration of it’s intended time for the intended intensity.
- Meanwhile a new stack is started, which starts to run for it’s intended time and intended intensity (given it is full).
so basically it first stacks in intensity, then it stacks in duration.

stacking in duration
- When a stack is ‘full’ (so 25 stacks) the stack is considered ‘full’, and no stacks are added to it. It runs for the whole duration on it’s intended intensity.
- Meanwhile it opens up a new stack, which runs for it’s intended time and intensity, alongside the filled stack.
so basically it first stacks in duration, then it stacks in intensity.

self feedback come to think of it, the continued application of conditions that stack in intensity already make for a stack in duration. So it be better if these would also stack in intensity on a new stack, instead of duration.

Another way to ‘solve’ this, is to have a diminishing effect on the intensity, so stack 1 does full intensity, stack 2 does 75% etkittenil stack 5. Where each stack also adds one stack of some other condition, like vulnerability f/e. Or meekness.

PvE

I must support a choice for stowing pets and giving the ranger a buff if the player makes this choice. It is hard imagine a feasible improvement to pets that would compensate for the shortcomings they have.

Allow those who want to use a pet to do so, and those who want to stow pets to do so without being penalized.

Esthetically, I prefer pets. Practically speaking, I would prefer the option to stow the pet without being penalized.

Risks:
Will offend those who insist upon every ranger using a pet.

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!

Allie, Bravo!

And thank you, thank you.

Game Mode: PvX
Proposal Overview:
Ranger longbow lacks the tools that it needs to function for sustain or in group battles. Creating traits to promote the skills of the longbow and modifying the skills to synergize better with each other may improve the longbow’s performance in these aspects.
Goal of Proposal:
“Spice up” the skills on the ranger longbow to help it fulfill a more defined role.
Proposal Functionality:

• Trait: Splintering Shots: Creates an AoE effect on Longbow auto attack. Gives ranger longbow another method of fighting group battles.
• Trait: Torn Hide: Increases the potency of Vulnerability. Vulnerability is an abundant status on the ranger, but there are no traits that directly improve it. It would help make a rapid fire attack off a longbow exhaust the foes survival skills .
• Trait: Barbed Arrows: Increases Vulnerability duration. Same as previous explanation.
• Skill: Barrage: Enable cast while moving. As what should be a great kiting weapon, standing still for nearly three seconds makes you a sitting duck (especially against thieves). Unlike ele’s firestorm, we can’t teleport away while casting it. This skill ends up like churning earth, where it needs the effect of another skill to reliably work.
• Skill: Hunter’s Shot: Make it function like thief autoattack, where when stealthed, a different skill is available. This skill could allow the ranger to displace its location and confuse the enemy to keep distance.
  These are just a few suggestions as to what could be done. It’s not an all or nothing deal.
  Associated Risks:
  Vulnerability buffs may improve the ranger’s burst more than it’s attrition.

Ision.3207:

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!

Allie, Bravo!

And thank you, thank you.

Stowing the pet isn’t meant to be mandatory, if you like yours, keep it out. Pets and our class mechanics in general make rangers the least wanted dungeon and wvw class, so forgive me for asking but what are you applauding here? They haven’t fixed pet AI in close to 2 years since I started playing in beta, I doubt an AI fix is coming soon.

Game Mode:
WvW

Overview:
improve damage of greatsword auto attack

Goal:
improve the GS so that it can be a worth rival to longbows direct damage and warrant using it in spite of its slow cast times.

Functionality
with the slow speed of the greatsword i feel the weapon needs to have its auto attack damage improved so that with the appropriate investment the damage from a non crit boosted chain can do enough to rival three of the longbows farthest shots. with this change melee rangers can effectively whittle down enemies health even as they use heal skills. I feel as a weapon the GS is capable of great defensiveness but lacks some of the direct offensive pressure the class would need to keep up a sustain damaging role role. as well as make the slow action times feel justifiable.

associated Risks:
of course the major risk is making it too powerful. the GS should not outdo the Longbow but rather compliment it as its melee counterpart. another thing to take into consideration is the pet. if the pet stationary issue can be alters so they are a true threat in WvW and PvP then this change would possibly become too much damage on this weapons AA.

Tempus.9540:

Thanks Nike for the Madlibs, I’ll take all the fun from this thread I can get.

urgh. It’s not like I’m trying to be a pain here with my stress relief post, but when it hits you how very different the Dev’s perception of what the class currently is, and your own…I think I got Hope Whiplash. I need another cup of tea.

Well this doesn’t just seem to concern the Dev’s, it concerns a lot of other players as well. That is why I think this discussion is filled with somewhat contradictive suggestions and feedback.

I tried to ‘explain’ this a few pages back. Basically the two other ‘original base professions’ being warrior and wizard, have split up into all sorts of other professions that by now can hold their own. The ranger on the other hand (at least in GW2) did not split up, and ‘needs’ to fulfil all the roles it had, and all the left overs it got dealt to it from the other two base professions.

The ranger has to be a:
- Woodsman
- Hunter
- Logger
- Trapper
- Archer
- Pet-tag-team
- Beast master (convey with animals)
- Druid (convey with plants/trees)
- Shaman (somewhat of mix of beast master/druid, but also with tribal magic)
- Nimble agile med armour warrior

And consequently you get opinions from players that all want ‘their’ choice out of the above to at least be in the ranger in some way shape or form where it is a viable way to play GW2. Top on that, that the development team has also made their pick from what they think the ranger should be.

Now I personally think the Ranger can be most (if not all) of the above sub professions rolled into one like an entwined and overgrown old forest of nature inspired profession build. But ‘only’ if the ranger ‘specializes’ with in weapons on a certain thematic role of one of the above. As well as doing the same in the ‘choice’ skills. And by making smart use of the traits, to exclude certain combination from becoming over powered. We might all not get exactly what we want, but if done right we might all get mostly what we want. And in this case ‘all’ includes the dev.team and their current setup of the ranger.

But I do hope that with the result we will all have choices for our kind of play, and a strong nature themed profession. Because lets face it, nature will go anywhere it can, no wall strong enough to not be overgrown, not road paved enough to not be broken up or overgrown. No niche location on earth that isn’t filled with at least one form of life.

The ranger to me has always felt like somewhat of a pocket knife. Well perhaps we should embrace that, and try and create the ‘best’ pocketknife possible, with some of the strongest specialized skills on it, but, like a pocketknife, with features build in that make it either impossible or dangerous to have multiple tools out at the same time.

Atherakhia.4086:

Cufufalating.8479:

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

I honestly don’t understand…. what they have now is this supposed sustained DPS role. It doesn’t work. It isn’t fun. The creation of this very thread is proof of this. We didn’t need a CDI thread if the solution to the Ranger’s lack of fun and inefficient/bad/wrong sustained dps was simply to nerf 7 other classes.

The Ranger has A LOT wrong with it, but the worst thing is the class doesn’t work at its very core. There isn’t a single thing this class has that anyone wants. It needs something to elevate it to the point WvW will take notice of it.

Heck, power creep the [censored] out of it. Make it stand up with the other classes and then simply change power scaling so all classes take an enormous hit right off the top. Even that would be a better solution than to think that what hasn’t worked for the past 1.5 years will magically fix itself once pets can hit a moving target and traps are in a condi line.

You dont need to understand, and I never said ranger didnt have a lot wrong with it. But just because Ranger “won” the CDI vote doesnt mean everyone agrees with whats wrong with it and I feel its important to say that, in my opinion, I dont think that aspect of rangers needs fixing. Also, saying ranger isnt fun and has nothing anyone wants is clearly untrue, since ranger is the 2nd most popular profession. So clearly its either fun (most likely) or does have things people want.

And since you bring it up, I dont agree with moving traps either.

What I want to see fixed is pets and group support options, both of which I suggested a fix for in an eariler post, as well as reduced dependancy on Gm traits. Thats what would make me happy.

Well this could be ‘somewhat’ easily done by the following mechanics:

stacking in intensity
- When a stack is ‘full’ (so 25 stacks) the stack is considered ‘full’ and no stacks are added to it. It runs the whole duration of it’s intended time for the intended intensity.

There have been a TON of suggestions of how to fix Condition damage over the past year and a half, all of which seem to have been completely ignored by ANet, so I doubt that’s getting fixed any time soon. In any case, it’s more of a general issue than a Ranger issue so this isn’t really the best place to discuss it.

But suffice it to say, finally fixing Condition damage certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Actually review and apply the design philosophy of the Ranger and other classes

Goal of Proposal
The current design philosophy for the Ranger is inherently flawed in either it’s conception or execution and needs to be remedied.

Proposal Functionality
Let’s review the philosophy as it was posted shortly.
The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.

1) The words ‘Along with their pet’ already imply that the Ranger becomes a subpar profession as long as the Pet is either dead, immobile or neutralised in some way. This is a huge issue for the class in WvW, Dungeons, Fractals and World Events. In PvP and general roaming PvE, the pet can survive well enough, but that does not cut it. Many, many suggestions have been made with regards to this, ranging from permastow to Vit/Tough buffs. The issue I have with the design philosophy is that the Ranger by itself should be class balanced against the rest with the Pet balanced against the unique features other classes have. In the current implementation of the idea, the Pet either brings the ranger on par to other classes or provides a huge risk. Recent PvE LS instanced have illustrated several times how the Pet and its current flawed AI can be a large negative factor. It is an unreliable mechanic that impacts the DPS of the class too greatly for the limited control we have.

2) ‘Along with the Pet’, yet the Ranger/Pet interaction is not very nice. While the class should be promoted to keep the Pet alive as much as possible, several of our skills and traits negatively impact any bond we can have with the Pet. A review of these is needed to improve both Ranger and Pet survivability.

3) ‘Along with the Pet’, yet Pets and builds conflict. They do not gain from the armors and stats we wear. An easy example is the power scaling introduced with Ascended Weapons. A Warrior would do ~5% more damage with a Longbow. Rangers themselves gain the same, the pet gains nothing, and since Ranger + Pet should equal warrior, the items we use are curved down. I do not know what armor/damage scales Pets were balanced off, but since they gained no buff recently, I can only assume the current Best Available was not counted. It would be better if Pets gained their stats based on the player gear with certain factors scaling based on family. A Cat would complement the Zerker, while using a Bear with zerker would hinder the bear’s survivability but improve damage.

4) Nature based Party Support. Rangers have arguably the single worst party support in the game. Some would say Thieves are worse, but I value Shadow Refuge and their Boon steals a lot more. While the recent Spirit Buffs were nice, realistically, only 1 of them is actually useful in the current Meta. Shouts are only marginally useful and that’s only after you invest 30 Trait Points. They should be useful period. It’s also quite troubling that nearly all the Ranger support is based on a single trait line, and investing in that line is almost a necessity to get the Ranger Support at even minimum viability.

5) Sustained Damage vs Burst Damage. The latter is pretty much always better in the current meta. Rangers should have access to it as well. Discussed a lot already.

6) Sustained Damage and Kiting. While the GW1 Ranger could dominate small skirmishes using Hit and run tactics using cripples and conditions, the GW2 Ranger can not. Mostly because most classes have more than one way to deal with snares, but also because the snares on Rangers just aren’t that good and -to top it off- are relying on the whim of the Pet AI to be used. CC skills play an important factor in PvP and WvW, not so much in PvE because Defiant, having a more active control over them is needed to improve the very basis of sustained damage, namely you being alive to sustain it.

7) Nature class, worst active Condition cleansing options. Call me a nitpick on semantics, but a nature class could really use more and better active condition cleanse options.

8) No viable AoE damage support. If you look at other classes, they have at least some for of both single target and AoE weaponry. Ranger is pretty strictly tied down to single target weaponry. Barrage and Axe Auto are weak at best and do not provide the utility and support Warrior Longbow or Thief Shortbow have for example. A good AoE alternative is necessary in current WvW and PvE Zerg groups to be able to “roll with the crowd and swim in the loot”.

Associated Risks
Workload, lots and lots of workload.

P.S.: Not trying to sound to negative, or pessimistic, but given the responses so far, I’m suspecting the Ranger will still be main focus of the next Profession Balance CDI…possibly a few after.

I might be a bit confused… but here’s how I understand this thread so far…

1. Permastowing pets is tabled until all other options to improve the pet are exhausted.
1b. All other options does not include Pet AI improvements, as it is an issue too big to tackle.

2. Due to powercreep, suggested improvements to the profession need some severe tempering.

3. Sustained damage is the rule of the class, and is as sacrosanct as the Pet. The various game modes may not value sustained damage very much, but that is an issue with the gametypes.

4. Trap traits might not move, but instead get different stat boosts attached to the trait line to better accommodate the trap builds.

I mean… aside from the nod to Traps, this thread reads like nothing got accomplished 20 pages in, as the suggestions seem to run into philosophical differences with Anet as to what a Ranger should be/how powerful the Ranger should be, or run into logistical/technical nightmares of coding.

Specific Game Mode
PvE; Traitlines

Proposal Overview
Returning to the topic on Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival and Traps, I’d like to offer a different viewpoint on how the Traits correlate with the skills. Skirmishing Can still remain the same thematically, however instead of helping the Ranger stay two steps ahead through tricks and traps, it’d be a more straight-forward version with modified Weapon Skill traits rather than Traps.
Furthermore, I always personally felt that the Trap skills of a Ranger adhered more to the Hunter archetype of the Ranger, rather than the Scout/Skirmisher Archetype, setting traps for unfortunate Prey.

Goal of Proposal
To keep the overall theme and feel of the Ranger trait trees, however still optimizing them for their purposes Game Mechanics-wise.

Proposal Functionality

• Trapper’s Expertise – Remains unchanged and is moved to Wilderness Survival, as a Master Trait.

• Off-hand Training – Remains unchanged and is moved to Skirmishing, as a Master Trait. Thematically, having an increased range is a real good boon when Skirmishing, as control of Range can be the deciding factor between life and death.

• Trap Potency – Remains unchanged and is moved to Wilderness Survival, as a Grandmaster Trait. Only stands to reason that the Ranger who knows what makes the best tools, position and ingredients can make the best traps.

• Martial Mastery – Is moved from Wilderness Survival to Skirmishing and made into a Grandmaster Trait. Increasing it a tier will allow you to add something to the Trait to make it more interesting.
  Suggestion 1 – Decreases Cooldown on Sword, Greatsword and Spear Skills. Break out of Stun and Gain Stability (3s) when Switching Weapons while in Combat. Cooldown: 90s. – This Increase will give the Rangers a very useful Trait that will allow them to turn the tide of battle even with the odds against them, such as when an enemy attempts to lock you down before scaling the distance. With such a Trait, the Ranger could retaliate in an instant, avoiding the attack or set up a counterplay, preying on audacious enemies.
  Suggestion 2 – Decreases Cooldown on Sword, Greatsword and Spear Skills. While wielding a Sword, Greatsword or Spear, Duration of Movement Impairing Conditions (Cripple, Chill, Immobilize) is reduced by 100%. – While this might sound overpowered, remember that it only affects Movement Impairing conditions and only treads into effect while the Ranger wields melee weapons. However, this change will allow the Ranger unparallelled levels of mobility, another key feature of victory. This trait would have its uses both for engaging and disengaging enemies, making the Ranger a tough enemy to escape or pin down.

Associated Risks

• The Trait changes might be difficult to Balance properly, but it shouldn’t pose much of a problem to add some form of increase to their effectiviness.

Game Mode PVX (Primarily PVE)

Proposal Overview: At the moment archer style rangers are fairly well despised in almost all forms of group play that I have encountered. One of the primary reasons I have heard for this is the inability for the ranger to receive boons at mid/long range as well as the proportionately low damage of ranged weapons in general. I believe a set of pet based trait changes could go a long way to solving this.

Goal Of Proposal: Help close the gap in effectiveness between ranged and melee play styles.

Proposed Changes : Have Fortifying bond (The minor trait where any boon you receive is given in part to your pet) work both ways or have a sister trait in the Beast Mastery line that grants boons your pet receives to you. This would help negate some of the boon loss (affecting both survivability and damage) for long range play styles.

In addition to this another pair of “sister” traits in the skirmishing and marksmanship lines.

Marksmanship: Possible rework of eagle eye where whenever your pet lands a hit it inflicts a stacking (token) debuff on the target. This debuff (Exposed) causes your next attack to deal 10% more damage which consumes a token. Allowing your pet to “soften up” the target for you.

Skirmishing: Possible rework of existing trait (companions might) or a new trait added to the line. Whenever you deal damage to a target you inflict a stacking (token) debuff which causes your pets next attack to deal 10% more damage while consuming a token.

Both tokens should have separate symbols and names to enable to target (in the case of pvp) to identify which of the two is applying it.

Associated Risks: Possibility of needing to rework the actual damage/boon duration granted by the traits at a later date to account for shifts in other professions.

Counterplay: The elimination or crowd control of one part of the “Bond” to more easily facilitate the elimination of the other. However I believe that this is how a pet based class is MEANT to be fought.

In response to my own post just above here (or the last on page 20).

suggestion
PvX

short explanation
Reduce the amount of skills in a group to 3 instead of 4. so room is freed up for more skill groups.

elaboration
One thing that comes to mind in this respect is (making the best ‘pocket knife’ possible), maybe we don’t need 4 of all skill types. Maybe 3 will be enough, so we can make room for more functionality in more skill groups. 6 x 3 = 18, which would give room for 5 ‘flavour’ skills, and 6×3 skill groups.

Because when ever I make a build, I mostly end up taking 2 skills from one particular group, and 1 skill to ‘buff’ its overall function. And even if you were to want to take 3, well if there are 3 you wont have much choice, but at least you have the choice to take 3. And obviously most categories also offer an elite.

It would be a bold move, that is for sure, and it would ‘free up’ one set of 3 skills for an added ‘group’ and increase the flavour category by +1. It isn’t ‘much’, but it may well be an option to have the ranger do something more than it does now…

Risks
- Complaints that the ranger is to ridged in it’s choices, only offering 3 choices for 3 slots.
- Grief/tears over removing somebodies favourite skill.
- Still not managing to deliver on all the needed functions and thematic skills to please all the ‘nature loving’ enthusiasts that hope to find a main in the ranger profession.

nods @ Ohoni.6057 and will leave it at that, mainly to convey I read and agreed with all he said not far above here.

Just thought of another proposal:

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Shortbow #3 gives stability as well as swiftness.

Goal of Proposal
To give ranger another way to access stability other than burning the elite, and to provide a way to flee a situation without getting stun-locked. Stability duration could be 1-2s, which is more than enough time to get in a better position. Also would make the shortbow a more viable weapon to take and promote the idea of skirmishing by letting one get in and out of a fight at will.

Proposal Functionality
Shortbow #3 + stability

Associated Risks
None really.

EverythingXen.1835:

I might be a bit confused… but here’s how I understand this thread so far…

1. Permastowing pets is tabled until all other options to improve the pet are exhausted.
1b. All other options does not include Pet AI improvements, as it is an issue too big to tackle.

2. Due to powercreep, suggested improvements to the profession need some severe tempering.

3. Sustained damage is the rule of the class, and is as sacrosanct as the Pet. The various game modes may not value sustained damage very much, but that is an issue with the gametypes.

4. Trap traits might not move, but instead get different stat boosts attached to the trait line to better accommodate the trap builds.

I mean… aside from the nod to Traps, this thread reads like nothing got accomplished 20 pages in, as the suggestions seem to run into philosophical differences with Anet as to what a Ranger should be/how powerful the Ranger should be, or run into logistical/technical nightmares of coding.

Your understanding of this CDI is in line with my own, maybe we’re both wrong, but I doubt it. It seems as though they would like us to play a guessing game on our own on how to improve the class and then when one of us guesses the fix they had in mind all along they can swoop in and say “I LOVE THAT IDEA YOU CAME UP WITH” and call it collaborative.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Just thought of another proposal:

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Shortbow #3 gives stability as well as swiftness.

Goal of Proposal
To give ranger another way to access stability other than burning the elite, and to provide a way to flee a situation without getting stun-locked. Stability duration could be 1-2s, which is more than enough time to get in a better position. Also would make the shortbow a more viable weapon to take and promote the idea of skirmishing by letting one get in and out of a fight at will.

Proposal Functionality
Shortbow #3 + stability

Associated Risks
None really.

I like the idea of giving rangers more stability, but SB3 already gives about a second and a half of evade, so this wouldn’t do much unless it activated after the evade frames.

Maybe another weapon skill would be a better choice? Or how about a moa with a stability screech?

Aidenwolf.5964:

EverythingXen.1835:

I might be a bit confused… but here’s how I understand this thread so far…

1. Permastowing pets is tabled until all other options to improve the pet are exhausted.
1b. All other options does not include Pet AI improvements, as it is an issue too big to tackle.

2. Due to powercreep, suggested improvements to the profession need some severe tempering.

3. Sustained damage is the rule of the class, and is as sacrosanct as the Pet. The various game modes may not value sustained damage very much, but that is an issue with the gametypes.

4. Trap traits might not move, but instead get different stat boosts attached to the trait line to better accommodate the trap builds.

I mean… aside from the nod to Traps, this thread reads like nothing got accomplished 20 pages in, as the suggestions seem to run into philosophical differences with Anet as to what a Ranger should be/how powerful the Ranger should be, or run into logistical/technical nightmares of coding.

Your understanding of this CDI is in line with my own, maybe we’re both wrong, but I doubt it. It seems as though they would like us to play a guessing game on our own on how to improve the class and then when one of us guesses the fix they had in mind all along they can swoop in and say “I LOVE THAT IDEA YOU CAME UP WITH” and call it collaborative.

I’m hoping its more of a lost in translation issue with Allie’s responses. I had the same problem with Chris’s first CDI.

RyuDragnier.9476:

rpfohr.7048:

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?

Allie, I personally dont want the change because I like to also go down and grab empathetic bond. I also think pairing the crit chance and crit damage in the same line is the only way power builds are even viable because i can pick those up on 1 line.

However, I could possibly see skirmishing (though I wouldn’t like it because it messes up power builds more)
Crit chance and condition damage
WS having
Toughness and crit damage

If you were willing…….no other class has done this. (not due power and condi duration in the same line)

Marksmanship
Power and Crit damage / ferocity

Skirmishing
Crit chance and condition duration

I think the later could be really good for rangers ability to skirmish and trap. Plus putting power and crit damage in the same line could be the boost power rangers have been looking for.

I JUST CAME UP WITH IT THANKS TO YOUR IDEA!!
sniped for quote length

Here’s the con to that…every trap ranger will still be forced into the same 2 traitlines we are now. Every trap ranger is already in skirmishing for the trap traits and wilderness survival for the condition damage. This would change nothing. Every trap ranger is already x/30/30/x/x, we need to move condition damage’s location for an actual change and opening of traits. I’d willingly mix things up and not use Wilderness Survival if I knew I had the full power of my traps from a single traitline. But since Wilderness Survival is REQUIRED for the condition damage, and Skirmishing is REQUIRED for all the trap traits, we’re forced into 2 traitlines.

NOT SO FAST!!!!!

Traps like Poisson and Frost trap don’t really use Condi damage. they work better with Condi duration, this opens up possibilities for power trap rangers with CC!!

This brings me to a new proposal. sPvP and WvW

Goal
Increase trapper specs so that rangers feel like they are getting a condition stat out of skirmishing. Improve opening strikes to function with crit damage and rework ranger applied vulnerability duration as is no longer in power, to slightly buff power ranger

Functionality
Marksmanship: Power, Crit Damage
Skirmishing: Precision, Condition duration
Wilderness Survival: Toughness, Boon Duration
Nature Magic: Vitality, Healing Power
Beast mastery: Profession Specific Bonus, Healing

Opening Strikes – Minor
Your initial attack crits.

Alpha Strike – Major Minor
Your Pet’s initial attack Crits

Remorseless – Grand Master Minor
(as it is now, gaining stealth gets pet opening strike back too.

New Grandmaster Trait -Fresh Pet
You and your pet re gain opening strikes when you swap pets

Longbow –
Rapid Fire changed to Charged Shot
1 second cast time
(shoot a powerful arrow at your that inflicts heavy damage.)
This works great with Hunters shot and stealth

Risks
You say you don’t want rangers to burst, some of these do that. Charged shot also becomes to hit or miss (land it or your toast) If you don’t want that keep rapid fire

Specific Game Mode – PVE, team play of all kinds

Proposal Overview – Put away pet during fight and earn enhanced stats through an invisible pet shield buff

Goal of Proposal
Allow Ranger to have enhanced stats when pet is put away. I use my pet as a tank and a weapon. When fighting with a team, however, I would like to put him away and earn some bonus stats instead so I can be a harder target to hit.

Proposal Functionality
-Have option to toggle pet to invisible mode. Perhaps a see-through shield could appear around the player with a pet emblem on it. No pet would be present.
-The effect of this is to make the ranger a harder target to hit and to have a boost in dps, health or range with weapons.

Associated Risks
-Objects still get between player and target and increasing weapon range only works well with good line of sight.

Angela Ranna.5638:

Gotejjeken.1267:

Just thought of another proposal:

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Shortbow #3 gives stability as well as swiftness.

Goal of Proposal
To give ranger another way to access stability other than burning the elite, and to provide a way to flee a situation without getting stun-locked. Stability duration could be 1-2s, which is more than enough time to get in a better position. Also would make the shortbow a more viable weapon to take and promote the idea of skirmishing by letting one get in and out of a fight at will.

Proposal Functionality
Shortbow #3 + stability

Associated Risks
None really.

I like the idea of giving rangers more stability, but SB3 already gives about a second and a half of evade, so this wouldn’t do much unless it activated after the evade frames.

Maybe another weapon skill would be a better choice? Or how about a moa with a stability screech?

Evade is listed as 0.75s, so if they made it something like 2.75s of stability you’d get the 2s out after the evade. The only reason I suggest the shortbow is putting it on quick shot lets you jump back and decide whether to stay or run. If you run, you aren’t getting stunlocked from behind, if you stay you don’t have to immediately burn the elite if a hammer comes out.

Pet screech could work, but then again it promotes pet tiers. If I had a moa that gave 6s of stability every 25s or something I would find little reason to take another pet along as that is super useful. Possibly if the ranger could rotate through more than two pets, but I am not sure of balance implications if that happens.

That does bring to mind a quirky idea with pets. Why tie abilities to them at all? What if a pet was just a skin, and you could slot the F2 skill? This brings a bit of a logical inconsistency in with things like forage, but surely a way could be thought of to make any pet able to use any single utility? That way if I like the look of a pet I don’t have to keep it stowed away because another pet has a vastly superior F2.

Also there would still be uniqueness among the pets in look and attack method. So basically it would then boil down to what you think looks cool and whether you want range or not.

Q: Would adding rifle, (or another weapon), to the ranger’s repertoire as a burst-damage option be an acceptable stopgap while the broader mechanical issues are being worked on?

NOT SO FAST!!!!!

You know it’s a pretty intense CDI, when people start Ace Attorney’ing the thread.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Add a separate archer/survivalist class.

Goal of Proposal
Allow the many players, including myself, who rolled the ranger because of the “unparalleled archer” description and have relatively low interest in the pets to play the game the way they desire.

Proposal Functionality
Quite simple: make a ninth profession.

Check out the description copied directly from the guildwars2.com page on the ranger profession:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

The ranger does not feel like a ranger because it’s not; it’s actually a beastmaster. Even the description posted on ANet’s own page only mentions pets like they’re one of many tools available to the ranger – not something setting the destiny of every ranger ever created within the game. Currently, the ranger is so closely tied to pets that none of the profession’s other tools are granted the attention and effectiveness they need.

Some people like pets more or less how they are. They could continue playing the existing profession quite happily.

Btw, the new profession ought to receive the name “ranger” while the current profession is re-branded to “beastmaster,” “charmer,” “tamer,” or something similar.

Associated Risks
The risk is associated with the larger amount of work it would take to do this – new graphics, entire new trait tree, new skills (keeping the non-pet ones just the same on a new class would be fine to me, though), and so on. All of these things would need to fit within the balance of the existing game.

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.

Well the problem here is that rangers already play like a very weak burst class that uses their strongest skills then spams AA ’till the cooldowns are up.

Vox Hollow.2736:

NOT SO FAST!!!!!

You know it’s a pretty intense CDI, when people start Ace Attorney’ing the thread.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

OBJECTION! Put our ranged weapons on par with warrior’s greatsword!

On my warrior, who is in berserker exotics, I can hit 42,000 damage, using 100 blades inside Arah explorable with 25 stacks of might. That is a non-crit hit.

On my ranger, who is in fully ascended berserker armor, hitting the same mob, with the same 25 stacks of might, I critically hit 22,000 damage on my longbow. The no-crit hit right before that was around 15,000 damage. Yes I was standing at max range for the full dps.

Whenever my guild fractal group is having trouble dpsing a boss down, I have to log off my ascended armored ranger, and get on my exotic armored warrior to finish the job. If anyone else in the party is on their ranger, they too will get off their ranger and get on a warrior/ele to come back in for “proper DPS”.

I am, by no means, bad on my ranger. I managed to kill Liadri on my ranger. I’ve done everything in this game on my ranger. I can solo champions, elites, heck, I’ve even soloed the legendary grawl fractal boss at the end twice when the rest of my party died. I got all of the skill challenges solo, even the ones with champions guarding them. I’ve had to solo the marionette platforms a few times because the zerker warriors stood in AOE while #YOLO 100BLADES. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I consider myself to be pretty good at the ranger class. So when my fractal party members can’t bring the dps, and I have to log into my warrior to make up for them, not because my ranger playing skills are below average, but because the ranger is “sustained dps” by design, then yes I have a problem with this design.

On my warrior I can use 100 blades, switch to my sword/axe, use a bunch of those skills, go right back to greatsword, use 100 blades, maybe use my #4, pop a utility, then 100 blades again. I can turn my burst damage into sustained burst damage the entire fight.

Just compare these 2 pictures. The top one is my Charr zerker Warrior. She has exotics on. She is 20/20/0/20/10.
The second picture is my zerker Sylvari Ranger with ascended gear on. She is 30/20/20/0/0.

Look at how close the stats between the 2 are! Very close. Yet my warrior can put my ranger to shame in a dps war. TO SHAME!

I wanted to keep my previous post within the format of the thread, but I feel there are some other things that need to be said. These relate not only to the ranger but also to collaborative development in a broader sense.

Side comments

There seems to be a lot of trepidation on the developers’ side when it comes to making any significant changes to the game (lots of patches tweaking numbers here and there, fixing tooltips, etc). One of the decisions ANet will need to make is whether the game is made for ANet or for the players. The community seems to be quite vocal on certain topics (example: ranger pets, ele survivability, warrior’s blatant OPness in many situations) while dev’s will post replies essentially saying “thanks for sharing, but we’re going to leave that the way it is anyhow.” The exceptions for game-changing patch content have often been negative such as too-big nerfs to ele, too-big cumulative buffs to warriors, and a too-insulting Aquaman transformation to the ranger. This only serves to further frustrate the player base. Eventually, more meaningful large-scale changes need to occur. If this isn’t going to happen prior to an expansion’s release, let people know so they can spend their time on other things and maybe come back to try again after the expansion arrives.

Tell us more about what you are doing. Simply saying “we can’t do the things you request because our resources are tied up” accomplishes nothing. I’ll be far more understanding if you say “I can’t make the ranger’s arrows pierce by default right now because I’m too busy creating a new version of Cantha ruled by Bubbles the dragon. By the way, I’m hoping you can join me there when the expansion launches next year!” (Yes, that’s right, I’ll trade auto-piercing arrows for the next dragon realm.) I know you can’t reveal everything you’re doing, but this needs to start somewhere.

Finally, please consider giving the existing game some fixes and a higher level of polish before spending tons of time on new content which frequently comes with brand new bugs and game-mechanic-related problems. I’ve stopped following the living story forum as closely as in the past, but it used to be that players were very divided on whether the living story was worth it or not. Personally, I think the living story is awesome…in concept. I do not want it to disappear. However, I also believe that the game needs to be in total working order as it is before each new step in the living story. Otherwise, you get bugs on bugs created by other bugs introduced by fixing older bugs which…you get the picture. For example, ranger pets couldn’t survive in dungeons or WvW previously; why on earth would I suddenly want to hop into the Aetherblade dungeon or into new fractals or into the Edge of the Mists where the pet will be just as dead as ever?

WatchTheShow.7203:

Vox Hollow.2736:

NOT SO FAST!!!!!

You know it’s a pretty intense CDI, when people start Ace Attorney’ing the thread.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

OBJECTION! Put our ranged weapons on par with warrior’s greatsword!

On my warrior, who is in berserker exotics, I can hit 42,000 damage, using 100 blades inside Arah explorable with 25 stacks of might. That is a non-crit hit.

On my ranger, who is in fully ascended berserker armor, hitting the same mob, with the same 25 stacks of might, I critically hit 22,000 damage on my longbow. The no-crit hit right before that was around 15,000 damage. Yes I was standing at max range for the full dps.

Whenever my guild fractal group is having trouble dpsing a boss down, I have to log off my ascended armored ranger, and get on my exotic armored warrior to finish the job. If anyone else in the party is on their ranger, they too will get off their ranger and get on a warrior/ele to come back in for “proper DPS”.

I am, by no means, bad on my ranger. I managed to kill Liadri on my ranger. I’ve done everything in this game on my ranger. I can solo champions, elites, heck, I’ve even soloed the legendary grawl fractal boss at the end twice when the rest of my party died. I got all of the skill challenges solo, even the ones with champions guarding them. I’ve had to solo the marionette platforms a few times because the zerker warriors stood in AOE while #YOLO 100BLADES. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I consider myself to be pretty good at the ranger class. So when my fractal party members can’t bring the dps, and I have to log into my warrior to make up for them, not because my ranger playing skills are below average, but because the ranger is “sustained dps” by design, then yes I have a problem with this design.

On my warrior I can use 100 blades, switch to my sword/axe, use a bunch of those skills, go right back to greatsword, use 100 blades, maybe use my #4, pop a utility, then 100 blades again. I can turn my burst damage into sustained burst damage the entire fight.

Just compare these 2 pictures. The top one is my Charr zerker Warrior. She has exotics on. She is 20/20/0/20/10.
The second picture is my zerker Sylvari Ranger with ascended gear on. She is 30/20/20/0/0.

Look at how close the stats between the 2 are! Very close. Yet my warrior can put my ranger to shame in a dps war. TO SHAME!

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
A proposal to increase the viability of Ranger condition damage/trap builds.
Goal of Proposal
Currently, condition damage rangers, especially trap rangers, are undervalued and underpowered, because there are too many trait splits with too high an investmest cost to make them desirably viable. Why does a trap ranger (condition damage) have to invest so heavily into a precision/crit damage line to make his skills effective? Futhermore, while investing his points into Skirmishing, a condition dmg Ranger must choose between a trait that improves his main weapon, short bow (Quick Draw), or devote himself entirely to his traps (Trapper’s Expertise). My proposal will help address this and, in a minor way, help address other commonly complained issues, such as pet options and weak trait skills compared to other classes.
Proposal Functionality
I propose that the traits that deal with traps be moved to Wilderness Survival, simple as that. The trait skills could even remain unchanged and at the same tier, but more trait points in WS would yield more effective traps, and would allow a condition dmg/trap Ranger to utilize more trait lines to make them more effective.

I also propose moving the Quick Draw trait skill to marksmanship and combining it with Piercing Arrows, bringing it more inline with the Warrior trait skill, Burning Arrows.

This would free up room for a new trait skill in Skirmishing.
Something more suitable for a Skirmishing build. You could create more synergy for a pet build, like pets do 5% more dmg while wielding a ranged weapon; or pets have a higher crit chance (synergizes with Pet’s Prowess). You could also offer more offhand options, like increase the duration of conditions caused by offhand skills; or offhand skills do 5% more dmg. I’m sure melee Rangers would love some attention in Skirmishing, too, maybe something that offers some sort of payoff for sword, greatsword, spear, such as a chance to grant a boon on crit; or some sort of conditional (not condition) dmg increase, like 5% more dmg while flanking.

Associated Risks
Moving the traits to Wilderness Survival would require that other traits in Wilderness Survival be removed from the game or moved to another trait line. Removing traits from the game would require replacement trait skills to be designed and implemented. However, this could be a MAJOR opportunity to further improve the Ranger.

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

Also, warriors have no problem hitting because they can stick to rangers so easily.

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

Ok, I am trying to follow what you’re saying. I kind of understand, but in the game, this never happens. My warrior’s attacks always connect with mobs. I can stand on top of the boss and facetank it while hitting it continuously until it is dead. My warrior’s greatsword auto attack hits faster than my ranger’s longbow auto attack does. Did you mean specifically in WvW?