Guild Wars 2

misterdevious.6482:

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps we should move away from the burst and damage discussion while we wait for Allie to check in and discuss some of the other issues plagueing this class?

I think now would be a good time to discuss the issues with our utility skills and why many of them don’t seem worth taking until we’ve first invested well over 20 or 30 points in various trees.

Signets for example; their activated portions have no impact on the Ranger as a whole with only a few exceptions unless we first get Signet of the Beastmaster in the Marksmanship line. We have similar issues with Spike trap not being useful without 30points in Skirmishing. Spirits not being useful unless they’re mobile. Guard not having any functional use without Nature’s Voice.

I would rather them not mess up signets. Untraited Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild provide a passive baseline of mobility and survivability for WvW. Many people use them for that.

But the point of a signet is that it should be worth activating… Allowing the untraited active to affect the ranger would not “mess up” with signet, it would allow more build diversity by taking off the obligation to have a GM trait for them to work like what one expect from a signet…

misterdevious.6482:

I would rather them not mess up Guard either as I use it often. As I posted earlier in this thread, Guard 1. Gives protection and stealth to the pet which is very useful in keeping it alive in wvw fights… 2. Allows the pet to automatically attack targets in the area without the target having to interact with you first which means less time waiting and more time hitting… 3. Prevents the pet from leaving the specified area, which can be used strategically. While you man the ac on the second floor, your pet can be guarding down in the garrison circle.

Most people who speak about changing gard want to take off the cast time… that is a great repositioning tool, but, if you have it in your bar, it’s not an advantage for you… Shouts in general are a mess. The ress one is not working most of the time, “protect me” hurts the pet…
A pet repositioning thing should be a base mechanic of the pet class, not a utility skill… by adding gard to pet mechanic, we can get a shout that would be useful in more situation, and not just a “trait trigger for buff”.

Too much things in the ranger class is about “ranger or pet”, not enough about “ranger and pet”. So anything I choose, I choose for only part of me.
We need more real synergy, even if it brings more limits (eg, pet and ranger could share boon (addition of ranger), but only from different sources, (while, as it is today, the pet can stack them twice by directly getting them and getting them again from the ranger).

Adding more ranger AND pet effects to pretty much everything (instead of ranger OR pet) would make it less feel like as if we would be better off without the pet…

But shared traits and competency is useless before a rework of the pet AI… (eg: guard could make ranger invisible for 3 seconds too, which would scale with a few traits, and give rangers a reason to equip that skill – BUT, it would then be too op for a 15 sec CD, so either pets benefits would be lowered / or CD, increased). Non working AI with such implementations would just hurt the class more

Honestly, at this point, just take a sledgehammer to the Ranger class and build it from the ground up. There are so many issues with this class and simply putting a band-aid on the pet mechanic is not going to make them all go away.

Chrispy.5641:

Prysin.8542:

jcbroe.4329:

Does anyone know when this CDI ends because I feel like we haven’t accomplished anything in the past 10 pages.

It looks like a bust to me at this point. The developer presence in this CDI versus the others that are going on is just really lacking. They can take from that what they will, this isn’t a “shots fired” comment, I’m just stating facts.

i feel the biggest issue so far is not the lack of comments, after all this thread is getting a lot of posts very fast. I feel the issue is that the representative, or rather the devs at large, seems to have lost their enthusiasm now that the players are saying what they want. At the voting thread, we were presented with a rather optimistic post, but the responses we get here now is more akin to “Cant be kitten d to fix this or that because this or that may or may not possibly lead to a power creep”…. well rangers, as is, are as a matter of fact pretty much at the bottom of the power scale, especially so in power builds, so a minor power creep wouldnt hurt, they just need to look at where they can introduce a creep and where they cant. So far, i think all rangers agree that direct damage need a increase, and conditions are fine.

In Anet’s defense, they have talked about power creep, and about wanting to avoid power creep for atleast a year now.

yet their actions has been taking the opposite direction. So what should we believe?

Jocksy.3415:

misterdevious.6482:

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps we should move away from the burst and damage discussion while we wait for Allie to check in and discuss some of the other issues plagueing this class?

I think now would be a good time to discuss the issues with our utility skills and why many of them don’t seem worth taking until we’ve first invested well over 20 or 30 points in various trees.

Signets for example; their activated portions have no impact on the Ranger as a whole with only a few exceptions unless we first get Signet of the Beastmaster in the Marksmanship line. We have similar issues with Spike trap not being useful without 30points in Skirmishing. Spirits not being useful unless they’re mobile. Guard not having any functional use without Nature’s Voice.

I would rather them not mess up signets. Untraited Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild provide a passive baseline of mobility and survivability for WvW. Many people use them for that.

But the point of a signet is that it should be worth activating… Allowing the untraited active to affect the ranger would not “mess up” with signet, it would allow more build diversity by taking off the obligation to have a GM trait for them to work like what one expect from a signet…

You need to consider just how powerful the actives of some of our signets are to start out, which is why we have to take a grandmaster trait just for them to work on us.

For example, if Signet of Stone were to be untraited, it gives us 6 seconds of taking no physical damage, us and our pets. (Its automatically better than Endure pain because of that, which gives the warrior, 4 seconds, even though endure pain is a stunbreaker and our cooldown is longer).

Also, Signet of the Wild gives us 8 seconds of stability, and +25% damage. What equal skill does that without traits?

If Signets are to be changed to affect Rangers to start, then their active effects will most likely have to be toned down, and then the grandmaster trait would only increase their active effects back to where they originally were, (which is something that Anet should consider)

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

I resent the fact that ANet views Ranger as “the pet class”.

it would be entirely unproblematic if they were willing to make the pets work, at whatever the cost.

That’s the problem – it would take a complete re-design to make it work

Anet messed up big time from the drawing board with this class, and now they have very few choices of actually fixing our class mechanic….

Devs have already stated pets are broken, yet for some reason, anet wants to continue around this “pet” mechanic….. I’m not exactly sure what kind of logic this is

You pubicly state that pets are a mess and completely broken, yet you want us rangers to suffer by saying “stick with this broken pet” we can’t do anything!!

almost 2 years… still waiting…

Seriously, if you can’t fix it, dump the pet. its utterly useless right now in 95% of the game. No amount of change unless it starts with the core mechanic will change that percentage, and everyone in this forum knows that this type of change WILL NOT happen.

I don’t understand why you are being so hesitant about trying to fix something you have already stated that cannot be fixed because you don’t have the resources to do so… stop wasting all the poor players time that play this broken class and let us know what you are really up to please

SkiTz.4590:

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

I resent the fact that ANet views Ranger as “the pet class”.

it would be entirely unproblematic if they were willing to make the pets work, at whatever the cost.

That’s the problem – it would take a complete re-design to make it work

Anet messed up big time from the drawing board with this class, and now they have very few choices of actually fixing our class mechanic….

Devs have already stated pets are broken, yet for some reason, anet wants to continue around this “pet” mechanic….. I’m not exactly sure what kind of logic this is

You pubicly state that pets are a mess and completely broken, yet you want us rangers to suffer by saying “stick with this broken pet” we can’t do anything!!

almost 2 years… still waiting…

Seriously, if you can’t fix it, dump the pet. its utterly useless right now in 95% of the game. No amount of change unless it starts with the core mechanic will change that percentage, and everyone in this forum knows that this type of change WILL NOT happen.

I don’t understand why you are being so hesitant about trying to fix something you have already stated that cannot be fixed because you don’t have the resources to do so… stop wasting all the poor players that play this broken class and let us know what you are really up to please

Re-concept Ranger and give it a bit more of a Druid feel. Allow Rangers to equip Staffs so that we finally have a CC/utility weapon that will actually be useful in large-scale WvW.

Fix longbow; it’s not only clunky but also ineffective.

Scrap the pet mechanic and find ways to incorporate the pet idea into weapon/utility skills (the Warhorn skill that summons a flock of birds is a perfect example).

Create more exciting utilities that aren’t horribly tied to traits (signets, traps, spirits have an all-or-nothing design philosophy behind them).

Please destroy spirits as they currently stand today; they’re toxic to sPvP in every imaginable way.

I personally feel that unless ANet drastically changes how they view the Ranger, this class is forever doomed to mediocrity and terrible pet AI.

Would there be any advantage in creating a mechanic (whether the Ranger’s F# skills or through a utility) that would switch player control directly to the pet? Yeah you’d run into coding AI for your now-NPC Ranger, but it would open up some neat mechanics…

Also this:

Re-concept Ranger and give it a bit more of a Druid feel. Allow Rangers to equip Staffs so that we finally have a CC/utility weapon that will actually be useful in large-scale WvW.

Phenn.5167:

Would there be any advantage in creating a mechanic (whether the Ranger’s F# skills or through a utility) that would switch player control directly to the pet? Yeah you’d run into coding AI for your now-NPC Ranger, but it would open up some neat mechanics…

i think, if they should focus on any new coding, it should be either the “Aspects” idea that came up in this thread, or a brand new totally refurbished responsive AI.

I see people repeatedly asking for rifles and staves. Am I the only one who wants a mace/club? Mace needs love. And it could have a blast finisher on its chain skill or skil 2 or 3!

SkiTz.4590:

Prysin.8542:

Flytrap.8075:

I resent the fact that ANet views Ranger as “the pet class”.

it would be entirely unproblematic if they were willing to make the pets work, at whatever the cost.

That’s the problem – it would take a complete re-design to make it work

Anet messed up big time from the drawing board with this class, and now they have very few choices of actually fixing our class mechanic….

Devs have already stated pets are broken, yet for some reason, anet wants to continue around this “pet” mechanic….. I’m not exactly sure what kind of logic this is

You pubicly state that pets are a mess and completely broken, yet you want us rangers to suffer by saying “stick with this broken pet” we can’t do anything!!

almost 2 years… still waiting…

Seriously, if you can’t fix it, dump the pet. its utterly useless right now in 95% of the game. No amount of change unless it starts with the core mechanic will change that percentage, and everyone in this forum knows that this type of change WILL NOT happen.

I don’t understand why you are being so hesitant about trying to fix something you have already stated that cannot be fixed because you don’t have the resources to do so… stop wasting all the poor players time that play this broken class and let us know what you are really up to please

+1 also people are getting frustrated here and want final answer and promises from the devs.

Dear Allie,

What can we talk about that will get done? So far, all I have seen in this CDI are topics that have been denied.

1. Perma-Stowing – This idea was shut down and sent to make another thread because it was too intensive / difficult to program and goes against the dev ideal that Rangers are a pets class.

2. Pet AI Fix – Fixing the pet AI so it actually hits, dodges attacks, avoids AoE’s, and generally is not a drag on the class was deemed too intensive / difficult to do.

3. Improve Ranged Weapons and Raise Damage / Burst / DPS – These ideas were denied because other classes currently are too strong at DPS, burst damage, and any other measure of damage. This is considering that other profession’s autoattacks outperform Ranger’s DPS, burst, or damage most of the time across any scale of time (short or long term). Burst was also tossed because it does not meet the dev ideal of the Ranger.

These issues are the main focus of the Ranger CDI because the Ranger is a poorly done class. The Ranger pet has poor AI that hits nothing unless it remains stationary. Because of the pet, the Ranger has some of the lowest damaging weapons period. The Ranger does not do more damage by any measure. Similarly, the Ranger is not an exceptionally good bunker class. Its survivability is mediocre, at best. This does not include the pet, which can never survive unless the most basic of pve situations.

It appears to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that the goal of this CDI was to provide small and simple ideas to tweak some numbers to improve the Ranger, similar to all other balancing patches to date. This type of discussion is appropriate for a competent class, like Warrior or Guardian. But, as I hope Anet can see by these discussions, the Ranger is fundamentally broken and will require some intensive effort to fix. Especially before we talk about bumping up the power to some shout or signet and call it a day.

a rifle like what is this wow now. staff i agree rifle has nothing to do with nature

John.5732:

Dear Allie,

What can we talk about that will get done? So far, all I have seen in this CDI are topics that have been denied.

1. Perma-Stowing – This idea was shut down and sent to make another thread because it was too intensive / difficult to program and goes against the dev ideal that Rangers are a pets class.

2. Pet AI Fix – Fixing the pet AI so it actually hits, dodges attacks, avoids AoE’s, and generally is not a drag on the class was deemed too intensive / difficult to do.

3. Improve Ranged Weapons and Raise Damage / Burst / DPS – These ideas were denied because other classes currently are too strong at DPS, burst damage, and any other measure of damage. This is considering that other profession’s autoattacks outperform Ranger’s DPS, burst, or damage most of the time across any scale of time (short or long term). Burst was also tossed because it does not meet the dev ideal of the Ranger.

These issues are the main focus of the Ranger CDI because the Ranger is a poorly done class. The Ranger pet has poor AI that hits nothing unless it remains stationary. Because of the pet, the Ranger has some of the lowest damaging weapons period. The Ranger does not do more damage by any measure. Similarly, the Ranger is not an exceptionally good bunker class. Its survivability is mediocre, at best. This does not include the pet, which can never survive unless the most basic of pve situations.

It appears to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that the goal of this CDI was to provide small and simple ideas to tweak some numbers to improve the Ranger, similar to all other balancing patches to date. This type of discussion is appropriate for a competent class, like Warrior or Guardian. But, as I hope Anet can see by these discussions, the Ranger is fundamentally broken and will require some intensive effort to fix. Especially before we talk about bumping up the power to some shout or signet and call it a day.

This.

can we consider it possible that pet health can be alined with ours make pets is invulnerable and + some additional ai and quicker skill response. meaning that pet will only die if the ranger does because they are bounded to each other. so in a way don’t make pet a tool but make it a true part of us. we die pet dies only to kill pet is to kill the ranger behind the pet.

Hammerguard.9834:

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.

AA is their strongest skills. kitten …

a rifle like what is this wow now. staff i agree rifle has nothing to do with nature

Agreed. Too many people confused Ranger with “Range-er,” and insist on ignoring that they are much more Druids than they are artillery.

This thread in my opinion went already far out of control…
Just 2 days have passed and this thread has already nearly 25 whopping pages.

You clearly see, that this thread absolutely NEEDS alot more guidance by the Devs of Anet. Just Allie alone in my opinion can’t handle all of this. She simply gets overwhelmed by us, like a huge tidal wave of frustration, that hits the shore of ANet Coast that Coast Guard Allie is just mightless against to prevent it from destroyign the whole coastline.

This thread has already become more, than just a tidel wave, it quickly formed over the past 24h into a huge tsunami…. its really overwhelming, how the thread was just like 8 pages big 24h ago and then the thread went down like a massive snow avalanche down the mountain and took everythign in its way with it….
—-

What this thread needs now to get back on track is people for now stopping to flood the thread further to give Devs more time to read and to actually respond also directly to the ideas and the discussions around the ideas without losing the director’s scepter out of their hands instantly.
Then we need a clear summary that summarizes all of the ideas, sorted into categories, by Game Mode and so on.
Then this thread needs to get extracted out all of the offtopic discussions to thin out everythign, that doesn’t belong to this CDI.

ANd once this is done, we should focus on one topic one after another going systematically through the whole concept of gameplay of the Ranger Class step by step.

It makes absolutely ZERO sense to discuss completely wildly and unfocused basicalyl just everything of the ranger all at once.
You don’t have any clear direction of the topic thats beign discussed right now, when everybody just suggests wildly stuff.
Classes are extremely complex You can’t just discuss over them and jump every few postigns from one topic to an other and await, that the whole discussion around the class will be a success. – no, all of this what we see here so far over the past 25 pages nearly is only a huge mass of pure chaos to me.

It disappoints me alot to see this thread going so completely out of hand, because if this thread continues like that, we will reach together nothing
However – I also want to mention, that so far some good ideas have been posted here, but this whole discussion must become alot more structured!

So I absolutely strongly suggest to everyone and to Anet (Allie) in this case to set up a clear structure now about how we want to discuss further. I think the most best structure, that is easy to follow would be this:

• Ranger Play Mechanics & Pet Discussion
• Ranger Weapon Skill and Weapon Discussion
• Ranger Healing Skill Discussion
• Ranger Elite Skill Discussion
• Ranger Utility Skill Discussion
• Ranger Trait Discussion.

I think where we are now mostly is the category of Ranger Game Mechanics and Pet Discussion

So everyone should in my opinion just focus their thoughts, ideas and proposals about this one topikittenil Allie as Topic Coordinator ends offcially the topic and starts the discussion for the next category discussion.
Meanwhile I think its very important, that we should see alot more of the other Devs that play an important role in Game/Class Balancing should participate also here in the disccussion, to help Allie out guiding the discussions with important questions, like Colin did in the earlier CDI’s which brought us – the think tank – to brainstorm into the right directions like police officers that regulate the flow of the traffic you know?

By seperating the ranger into many more detailed category discussions, I think its alot easier for the community and also especially the Deves to follow the flow of the discussions and to actually participate in the current topics of discussion.

Current ideas I saw here so far regarding about Ranger Pets and their mechanics are these:

• Making Pets permanent stowable/ Animal Aspects as passive Buff Effects
• Moving the Shouts into the Game mechanics of F1-4
• Making Pets more controlable like Heroes of GW1
• Active/Passive Symbiosis Skills between you and your Pet/ Symbiotic Pet Evolution
• Adding new charmable Pets and giving Pets more Skills
• Letting have Pets Downed Modes/Downed Skills for reducing their importance and buffing the damage rate therefore of the ranger’s weapon skills so that the Player deals the main part of the damage and not the Pet
• Pet Combo Attacks
• General Pet AI Improvements/Fixes

and many more for sure, cause I haven’t read through all pages yet

Here we go again on profession name meaning.

misterdevious.6482:

I see people repeatedly asking for rifles and staves. Am I the only one who wants a mace/club? Mace needs love. And it could have a blast finisher on its chain skill or skil 2 or 3!

I think a mace/club doesnt thematically fit the profile. One handed blunt weapons are more a muggers weapon, not a survivalist/hunters weapon.

I would however LOVE to see us getting a 2h Spear and another mainhand weapon, like Dagger, a whip, a mainhand focus (just an idea although i got no idea how it would work out for us)

John.5732:

Dear Allie,

What can we talk about that will get done? So far, all I have seen in this CDI are topics that have been denied.

1. Perma-Stowing – This idea was shut down and sent to make another thread because it was too intensive / difficult to program and goes against the dev ideal that Rangers are a pets class.

2. Pet AI Fix – Fixing the pet AI so it actually hits, dodges attacks, avoids AoE’s, and generally is not a drag on the class was deemed too intensive / difficult to do.

3. Improve Ranged Weapons and Raise Damage / Burst / DPS – These ideas were denied because other classes currently are too strong at DPS, burst damage, and any other measure of damage. This is considering that other profession’s autoattacks outperform Ranger’s DPS, burst, or damage most of the time across any scale of time (short or long term). Burst was also tossed because it does not meet the dev ideal of the Ranger.

These issues are the main focus of the Ranger CDI because the Ranger is a poorly done class. The Ranger pet has poor AI that hits nothing unless it remains stationary. Because of the pet, the Ranger has some of the lowest damaging weapons period. The Ranger does not do more damage by any measure. Similarly, the Ranger is not an exceptionally good bunker class. Its survivability is mediocre, at best. This does not include the pet, which can never survive unless the most basic of pve situations.

It appears to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that the goal of this CDI was to provide small and simple ideas to tweak some numbers to improve the Ranger, similar to all other balancing patches to date. This type of discussion is appropriate for a competent class, like Warrior or Guardian. But, as I hope Anet can see by these discussions, the Ranger is fundamentally broken and will require some intensive effort to fix. Especially before we talk about bumping up the power to some shout or signet and call it a day.

haha, thats the thing.

Can Allie and other devs actually come to this CDI and pubicly state that rangers are indeed a broken class right now and “small” balance changes will not effect it in the slightest bit…. this class requires more work than all the other classes combined because right now
-We don’t even have a class mechanic , that automatically puts us at an obvious disadvantage in most of the game
-We bring nothing to a group enviroment outside of traited frost spirit (who cares) + spotter (warriors with banner is >>>>>>>>> than spotter)
-Worst DPS in the game (don’t even dare say sustained because right now, everyoneo knows sustain is useless in the current state of game and literally every class has waaaaay better burst)
-mediocre survivbility (only way to even condi-cleanse is through a GM trait or unreliably with a signet….. and also killing our pet…. great design there)

Chrispy.5641:

Jocksy.3415:

misterdevious.6482:

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps we should move away from the burst and damage discussion while we wait for Allie to check in and discuss some of the other issues plagueing this class?

I think now would be a good time to discuss the issues with our utility skills and why many of them don’t seem worth taking until we’ve first invested well over 20 or 30 points in various trees.

Signets for example; their activated portions have no impact on the Ranger as a whole with only a few exceptions unless we first get Signet of the Beastmaster in the Marksmanship line. We have similar issues with Spike trap not being useful without 30points in Skirmishing. Spirits not being useful unless they’re mobile. Guard not having any functional use without Nature’s Voice.

I would rather them not mess up signets. Untraited Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild provide a passive baseline of mobility and survivability for WvW. Many people use them for that.

But the point of a signet is that it should be worth activating… Allowing the untraited active to affect the ranger would not “mess up” with signet, it would allow more build diversity by taking off the obligation to have a GM trait for them to work like what one expect from a signet…

You need to consider just how powerful the actives of some of our signets are to start out, which is why we have to take a grandmaster trait just for them to work on us.

For example, if Signet of Stone were to be untraited, it gives us 6 seconds of taking no physical damage, us and our pets. (Its automatically better than Endure pain because of that, which gives the warrior, 4 seconds, even though endure pain is a stunbreaker and our cooldown is longer).

Also, Signet of the Wild gives us 8 seconds of stability, and +25% damage. What equal skill does that without traits?

If Signets are to be changed to affect Rangers to start, then their active effects will most likely have to be toned down, and then the grandmaster trait would only increase their active effects back to where they originally were, (which is something that Anet should consider)

I believe (if comparing class signets) that war’s 10 seconds of unblockable attacks on a 25 seconds CD is pretty good, especially in a burst rotation… And our 8s stability and 25% damage on 60 sec CD – taking in consideration we give up 60 seconds of regeneration (and given the pet’s inability to hit moving targets, and given our ranged options are easy to kite, meaning we have to go melee, where we are more at risk than the war) – is making it all pretty much on par with their 60 sec CD signet that’s a break stun and that grants 8 sec of stability – against a loss of reduction of incoming damage (not sure the amount, but usually it’s either 10% or 33% protection – if they lose 33% reduction, it’s more a sacrifice, but at 10 %, it really is nothing).
But, you can also compare it to their balanced stance – 8 sec stability and swiftness on a 40 sec cool down, that is also a break stun… or, you can compare their 60 sec CD stance that is a break stun and give them 4 seconds immunity, allowing them to safely do a burst, to our 80 sec CD signet that protects us for 6 seconds.
Ours might give us more protection, but we also are more squishy to start with, and given Anet’s comment that we should do damage over time- is something we need to stay alive long enough to deal damages…. while war does not have too much survivability issues, in the current meta…
If we did have war’s ability to kill foes fast enough to not take the damage they would deal us over time, signets active on pet and ranger would be op, and their base active effect would need to be reduced, with maybe a trait to bring them back to where they are…
But, given the state of our damage and of our survival abilities… not sure they would be op enough to warrant a GM trait…

TL;DR
The less damage output a class has, the more protection it needs to last – would it be through regen, breakstun, protection, condi removal, etc.
So given our current damage output, signets don’t feel overpowered

What I got from this thread so far:

Players – Please fix the pet mechanic.

ANet – We can’t.

Players – Then please give us a new class mechanic.

ANet – We won’t.

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

This is literally saying a Ranger cannot nor ever will be proficient with power based builds.
On top of this you say that we must be forced to have a profession mechanic that is literally a complete liability (even at it’s core concept) in multiple situations…

How do you expect to improve the class while so vehemently sticking to the exact same tried and failed ideology? Honestly, I’d like to know.

Flytrap.8075:

What I got from this thread so far:

Players – Please fix the pet mechanic.

ANet – We can’t.

Players – Then please give us a new class mechanic.

ANet – We won’t.

Don’t forget,

Players – we have the worst DPS in the game
Anet – So lets keep it that way.

A Survivalist simply takes basically EVERYTHING what he /she can get to survive..

Everything in your hands that can be used as a weapon to survive is better, than nothing.
So your point is unlogical.
Rangers need weapons, that thematically do fit to them as ranged adventurers.

Weapons I see that fit for the Ranger are:

Daggers, Swords, Axes, Maces, Torchs, Shortbows, Longbows, Recurvebows, Crossbows, Quarterstaffs, Staffs, Halberds, Warhorns, Whips, Flails, Shields, Greatswords, Hammers, Halberds, Claws

No Rifles, no Pistols!! These should be the only exception, because they simply don’t fit to the natural design of the Ranger.
If one wants these weapons, he/she should go play Warrior,Thief/Engineer, because thats the classes, where Pistols and Rifles partwise do fit or fully fit.
If it would go after me, in my opnion should be at all only the Engineer the only clas,s that should be able to wield these 2 weapons, because for me it makes absolutely 0 sense that thiefs wield loud pistols and warriors wield rifles, where I just think, thats there just so that the Warrior has more options than only the longbow for ranged combat >.>

If Rangers would just have all of the weapons that I’ve listed up there, I think GW2 would have then the most awesomest playable Ranger Class there is in any MMORPG out there.

PS: I’ve said it from the begin on and always, that the Ranger Class needs a real redesign and not just only some small band aid changes/fixes.
You can’t just make only some tiny changes and await from them, that they maxically fix everything in such a flawed class design, like the ranger is

You need to overlook all of its Weapon Skills, you need to overlook all of its Healing,Utility and Elite SKills, you need to overlook all its traits and you need to overlook especially its gameplay mechanics and everythign around the Pets and even then once you did all of this – you still need to hold your eyes on all of the other classes, because every fundamental change that you do here with the ranger, can result inchain reactions of game balance, that require buffs and nerfs to all of the other classes too.

Thats imo one big reason, why I find it senseless to talk about mainly only 1 class, but I guess, somewhere you naturally need to start and its always best to start with the classes, that need rework the most, or where reworking and rebalancing the class would result in the biggest effort with the biggest optimal outcome as a “reward” to improve the whole game.

Redesignign the Ranger is imo one important big step forward in makign the game more balanced and we shouldn’t absolutely be afraid of it to overhaul the class completely, if its required to make Rangers as much as balanced as possible and naturally also fun to play with Pets, because thats the core design of the class.

I like the aspect idea, but these aspects should be only something temporal, so that players would want to use their Pets when possible at any given time over the aspect in most of all times, except in those situations, where having pets out would be more of a strategetical disadvantage or where you would want to protect your pets from damage sources.

On the whole burst vs sustain, skirmish discussion, and associated nerfs and what not.

I think we need to acknowledge that GW2 is balanced around sPvP. And from what I read on this discussion so far, the performance of the Ranger in sPvP, which largely contain 1v1 2v1 2v2 3v2 fights, the ranger performs fairly ok. The nerfs as I understood them were mainly done to tone down various aspects of the Ranger that could be considered OP in this format. Obviously you can discuss whether balance around this game mode is the right thing to do, but for all intend and purpose, the nerfs (for as far as I read about them) were justifiable for this format (maybe a bit to much but still).

Now, if you were to add ‘burst’ to the ranger as well, the ranger would mostly benefit from this, IN this game mode. It would have all it already has, AND get burst as well. While you can argue that other professions have this too, or benefit from to much burst. We are talking about the ranger here, and from that point of view I think you can justifiably argue that adding burst to the ranger ‘could’ make it too power full again in this format…

This whole ‘thought train’ lead me to ponder about what Anet means when it says skirmish. Because (and somebody in this thread actually took the dictionary to look it up) for most people it means ‘Short violent encounters’. In essence the word skirmish IMPLIES burst! … And due to this I think a lot of people here feel they are hearing ‘politicians’ talk, when Anet uses the words ‘Skirmish’ and ‘Sustainable damage’ in one sentence. BUT!

If Anet means ‘1v1’ or ‘2v1’ encounters as ‘skirmish’ … aka, skirmish is a SMALL encounter. Then all of a sudden you can somewhat see that indeed, from a small encounter view. The ranger may well be where it needs to be, and burst would only increase their strength, where, from what we have seen the ranger has endured nerf after nerf to bring it’s ‘skirmish, as in small encounter’ strength back in line with other professions.

One could say that ‘semantics’ in this case make a world of difference, and it is mainly the inherent flaws of the written word that make for a misunderstanding that seems to be taking a life of it’s own…

Having said all that, and while I understand I could be wrong, I will have to say that the ranger development team needs to realize that sPvP is only 1/4th of the game. And while the nerfs have helped bring the ranger in tune with the sPvP goals, it has hurt the ranger in 3/4th, which is the rest, of the game.

In all honesty, I am more and more starting to think that the Ranger Devteam are making a Ranger for a whole different game then the one we are all playing. While a ‘skirmish’ (small encounters) approach is fine and dandy for sPvP and some parts of solo PvE. It is mostly useless in Dungeon and WvW. When adding ‘short and violent’ to the definition of ‘skirmish’, we can all agree that ‘sustainable damage’ isn’t even in the same ballpark. Now ‘tweaks’ and ‘comparisons to other professions’ aside, from what I read so far the ranger is fine in the ‘Skirmish’ department.

Where it lacks considerably, is the 3/4th that is the rest of GW2. And for this ‘rest’ of the game. The definitions and stance that the developers use aren’t even use full. In fact, they seem to be hurting the Ranger more than doing them good… There is no, and has not, been ANY skirmish (small encounter) in any of the LS story parts we seen so far. All dungeon content is 5 vs X and as such, there is NO skirmish in that either. And just writing down WvW should be more then enough.

And when I read a comment here from jcbroe near the bottom of page 24 , where he argues about ‘holding on to your confictions’ or ‘giving the customer what he wants’. I somewhat feel the urge to pull out my hair. I mean, I don’t like to be harsh to the ppl that made my main character possible, which I enjoy a lot playing. And while ‘we’ analyse the Ranger, and pull it apart, it must be somewhat pain full to see how on each and every ‘bit’ a large dose of salt is placed.

Then again, I think I have to mention that I think the ranger team is having a to strict view on their ranger, they are to anally holding onto their prior convictions. And if that does NOT change, the ranger is unable to move forward. It will remain useless in 3/4th of the game, and while it may excel in 1v1 sPvP skirmish fights, a large amount of ranger players couldn’t care less. So really, maybe the biggest problem with the ranger is the development team, obviously not in their technical capabilities, nor in their original vision, but in their ability to wake up to the reality of what GW2 demands from any profession, thus including the Ranger.

We need, solutions to the pet problem in Dungeons, WvW and LS.
We need, viable and trustworthy support options in Dungeons, WvW and LS.
We need, good AE options for WvW and LS
We need, decent survivability in WvW.
We need, a development team that understands GW2, that isn’t afraid to challenge their own convictions to better their ‘baby’, so that it is a viable profession in ALL that GW2 has to offer.

When looking at the design philosophy (NOT considering sPvP), and summing up the feedback as I read it sofar, we could somewhat conclude that:
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.

- The ranger is not resilient, because both the pet and the spirits are dead in the blink of an eye. And the same goes himself in WvW zergs (though that goes for the thief as well).

- The ranger ‘excels’ as skirmish for as far as ‘skirmish’ means 1v1 or 2v1 fights in sPvP. The moment skirmish includes ‘short’ and ‘violent’ in the definition, the ranger has no burst and thus it doesn’t excel. At this point ’sustained damage is the entire opposite of skirmish.

- ‘Draw upon nature’ well that is debatable, speaking from my own taste, and using ‘Magic tG Green’ as a rough guideline for ‘drawing upon nature’, then it does so way to far and between. Pets and Spirits, well look at the first point. And when looking at various ‘nature’ skills, they are more ‘elementaly’ focussed than they are on trees, plants, pollen, resin or what have you.

- ‘To support themselves’ Yeah that one is true, even with pet harming traits it is fairly egocentric in it’s approach to self support.

- ‘As well as their allies’: apart from the warhorn and healing spring (Well maybe the possibility of the torch with warhorn self combo for some extra might could count as well, and some traits here and there), all the support is tagged onto the all but sturdy and trustworthy ‘pets and spirits’.

- Along with their dead pet, they have 30% less single target damage than any other profession in the game.

- To send their opponents in to a wooden spoon whittling mode, that they will more then likely use to cut the ranger apart when it is done.

Now I didn’t enjoy doing that, although that last one made me smirk a little. But I think it does show how the perception and convictions of the design team are caught up by the reality of GW2 as an open world MMORPG with various game modes. And thus when giving feedback, I think it was justifiable to tare that conviction apart in such a way. Feedback simply isn’t a ‘confirmation bias’ exercise.

Now either they hold on to their convictions and they have their work cut out for them to hold true to them, and which case, more then likely, the ranger will still lack in 1/2 to 3/4th of the game. Or they take a good look at GW2, and identify the needs of a ranger class in this game, and from that draw up a new set of convictions, and have their work cut out for them. In which case i would say that there is a lot that can be salvaged from the ranger as it is. Like I said, the biggest problem may not be the ranger design…

(Sorry if something like this has been outlined previously. This thread has certainly gotten large and I’ve only been able to scan it.)

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Make F2 change the skill bar from weapon skills to pet skills.

Goal of Proposal
To give ranger pets the control necessary to make them feel like a unique and powerful part of the profession.

The main control we have over our pets is activating a special ability with F2. Other professions have pet utilities that play similarly (a single special ability), though lack Return to Me and cannot have 100% pet uptime. This means what sets ranger pets apart, interactively, is more aesthetic choices, permanence, and feeble attempts to get pets to run out of red circles.

GW2 also lacks the trinity, which most pet class AI depends on. It’s straightforward to take aggro, spam heals/buffs, or spam attacks. In GW2, none of these are effective strategies, and spamming attacks seems all pets are currently capable of doing.

They need to be more than all of this, and this is the least intrusive solution I’ve been able to come up with.

Proposal Functionality
Giving players direct control of pet skills means pets can be more than attack spam. This could be taken further, with one kind of F key opening utility skills (stay, go here, guard, etc) and another opening the direct attack skills. This also allows pet skills to be expanded into things that are not merely attack based.

Some AI is still necessary to prevent extreme micro management. If pets could learn to dodge that would be pretty great, with declining to dodge during counterattack or block commands.

Associated Risks
The possible loss of weapon swap for balance, in the same way that elementalists and engineers lose weapon swapping for their attunements and kits.

Micro management goes way up. Dancing between pet and ranger stances may be too complicated or frustrating. It’s definitely going to be a turn off to those looking for a more woodsman archer archetype.

Pet skills would need to be expanded. Pets may lose some individuality for the sake of simplicity and balance.

Possible alternatives or additions for control: the ability to directly switch to pet control (which would temporarily subject the ranger to the questionable AI, but has interesting downed potential), making weapon skills 2-5 focused on pet commands (far more extensive of a change, with several potential consequences), or only ever allowing the pet to attack alongside the ranger, sacrificing basic control in order to expand the F1-F4 skills.

Castaliea.3156:

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

This is literally saying a Ranger cannot nor ever will be proficient with power based builds.
On top of this you say that we must be forced to have a profession mechanic that is literally a complete liability (even at it’s core concept) in multiple situations…

How do you expect to improve the class while so vehemently sticking to the exact same tried and failed ideology? Honestly, I’d like to know.

I like the idea of Rangers being resilient but can only do sustain damage.

However, Rangers then need to actually be resilient. Longbow survivability drops when someone gets into melee range and behind. Lightning Reflex is not even helpful when immobilized. There is too many skills that aren’t even good unless traited to the max.

Hey guys,

This discussion is starting to become non-productive. As a fellow frusterated ranger player, I understand how difficult it can be, but we need to put on our optimistic faces for this thread and work with Allie and the other Anet-ers to reach a shared vision.

Believe me, I understand how all of you feel, but mud-slinging and negativity aren’t going to get this class to where it needs to go.

Allie – it would behoove this CDI to have a little direction right now so that we can move past the burst/class vision discussion. Perhaps paraphrasing some of the points you’ve taken away from this and what suggestions could be in the realm of possibilities? Preferably touching on the big stuff, not our nuances.

so far the best idea has been aspects and some improvements to the weapons/traits.

I think, maybe, we should build on these.
Find out how to make it work, how to change the pet and us selves to make this work.
Why?
It seems like it is a idea that can be implemented in a relatively short timeframe

Flytrap.8075:

What I got from this thread so far:

Players – Please fix the pet mechanic.

ANet – We can’t.

Players – Then please give us a new class mechanic.

ANet – We won’t.

Best summary ever made in any Forum
It is short and exact in the same time.
Best post so far ^^

Castaliea.3156:

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

This is literally saying a Ranger cannot nor ever will be proficient with power based builds.
On top of this you say that we must be forced to have a profession mechanic that is literally a complete liability (even at it’s core concept) in multiple situations…

How do you expect to improve the class while so vehemently sticking to the exact same tried and failed ideology?

Not necessarily. Sustain does not just mean conditions, sustained means that the one missed/avoided/block/etc attack does not really stop the ranger momentum. This does mean that in WvW (the mode most focused on kills) this give the opponent time to run/or get help.

The problem with that sustain model is that the burst cool-downs are too short and the auto attacks on the burst heavy builds are additionally too strong as well. So combine that with a general method of PvE being kill it so we don’t have deal with as many dodge-or-die mechanics

The problem is that they are asking the rangers basically to wait until they have time to slowly re-balance everything else (which is unacceptable).

On our side there is also a resistance to the idea of sustain as burst is perceived as more fun (not to mention without a certain amount of damage/time the a player is basically not getting any rewards in the large group content).

Hopefully they will at least work with community on some (even if only temporary) solution to make the transitions in the game style not as painful as leaving the profession to wait until the rest of the game in the place where sustain ranger is welcome and maybe even desired.

runeblade.7514:

Castaliea.3156:

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

This is literally saying a Ranger cannot nor ever will be proficient with power based builds.
On top of this you say that we must be forced to have a profession mechanic that is literally a complete liability (even at it’s core concept) in multiple situations…

How do you expect to improve the class while so vehemently sticking to the exact same tried and failed ideology? Honestly, I’d like to know.

I like the idea of Rangers being resilient but can only do sustain damage.

However, Rangers then need to actually be resilient. Longbow survivability drops when someone gets into melee range and behind. Lightning Reflex is not even helpful when immobilized. There is too many skills that aren’t even good unless traited to the max.

Ideas are easy to like. The problem is that the ideas simply don’t work in the context of the game.

There is plenty here to take in, until I see a thought out dev post breaking down why certain arguments won’t work, or which ideas they like, I believe we will just see in-fighting and lengthening to pointless proportions.

A conversation is more than a lecture, but sure, let’s argue semantics on the meaning of words until we hear a response.

No developer response in the CDI today….. hmmm

Prysin.8542:

misterdevious.6482:

I see people repeatedly asking for rifles and staves. Am I the only one who wants a mace/club? Mace needs love. And it could have a blast finisher on its chain skill or skil 2 or 3!

I think a mace/club doesnt thematically fit the profile. One handed blunt weapons are more a muggers weapon, not a survivalist/hunters weapon.

I would however LOVE to see us getting a 2h Spear and another mainhand weapon, like Dagger, a whip, a mainhand focus (just an idea although i got no idea how it would work out for us)

Spear would be cool. The maces in the game are either very much a soldier’s weapon… metal, and indeed Warriors and Guardians can use them. The other maces are natural materials and spikey like you might see Ogres using. If any other class was to get access to maces, I think Ranger would be high on the list.

Chokolata.1870:

No developer response in the CDI today….. hmmm

Too busy to collaborate.

What i would like the conviction, definition to be.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Change the definition of the ranger, to better line up with what it needs to be in GW2.

The ranger is an agile profession, that excels at sustainable single target damage, while holding their own in larger encounters. They trust upon the force of nature to support their allies, their pet, and themselves (in that order), while they use the wits and tricks of the seasoned woodman to whittle their opponents down.

Goal of Proposal
To let the development team see that their conviction of the current ranger can easily be changed slightly to stay true to their prior convictions, and the current ‘feel’ of the ranger, while still give room for improvements in areas the ranger needs to improve.

Proposal Functionality
The word ‘agile’ fits the way the ranger stays alive and fights much better than the word ‘skirmish’. The focus of the ranger can be on sustained single target damage, there is nothing wrong with that. BUT the ranger needs to hold his own in larger encounters. The ranger should be able to trust on their support to have their allies (including pets) and themselves to survive. And the woodsman obviously hints at the traps and support skills. The ‘seasoned’ also show that this ranger is capable of adapting and surviving, he is ‘seasoned’…

Associated Risks
Some ranger somewhere may rather read a different description of their ranger…

I think that it may be for the best if we keep posts here down to a minimum for a little while (spend more time refining ideas or talking among ourselves in a thread in the ranger sub-forum) to give them the chance to catch-up, form a PR statement, or whatever. The weekend is coming and the continued flooding will just be more deterrent to getting anywhere is discussion.

could we get a list of what is being taken from this thread so far by the Arena net team to see where we should focus on things that they might have missed or ideas yet to be expressed, there has been several ideas on things to help pets as well as to try to get rangers off of the bottom of the power build efficiency compaired to other classes on top of a lot of things with conditions, utilities…. and then a lot of useless crap.

So can we please see what is being taken from this thread (ideas that have been passed on to development teams) as of now so we can figure out what we should focus on for the duration that this CDI thread is open (ideas that have not already been passed on to development teams)?

Criminal.5627:

could we get a list of what is being taken from this thread so far by the Arena net team to see where we should focus on things that they might have missed or ideas yet to be expressed, there has been several ideas on things to help pets as well as to try to get rangers off of the bottom of the power build efficiency compaired to other classes on top of a lot of things with conditions, utilities…. and then a lot of useless crap.

So can we please see what is being taken from this thread (ideas that have been passed on to development teams) as of now so we can figure out what we should focus on for the duration that this CDI thread is open (ideas that have not already been passed on to development teams)?

agreed. It is about high time that Anet tell us what they like, and what they think can be done.
So far only ONE post out of over a thousand has been highlighted, and that was like 20 pages back

John.5732:

Dear Allie,

What can we talk about that will get done? So far, all I have seen in this CDI are topics that have been denied.

1. Perma-Stowing – This idea was shut down and sent to make another thread because it was too intensive / difficult to program and goes against the dev ideal that Rangers are a pets class.

2. Pet AI Fix – Fixing the pet AI so it actually hits, dodges attacks, avoids AoE’s, and generally is not a drag on the class was deemed too intensive / difficult to do.

3. Improve Ranged Weapons and Raise Damage / Burst / DPS – These ideas were denied because other classes currently are too strong at DPS, burst damage, and any other measure of damage. This is considering that other profession’s autoattacks outperform Ranger’s DPS, burst, or damage most of the time across any scale of time (short or long term). Burst was also tossed because it does not meet the dev ideal of the Ranger.

These issues are the main focus of the Ranger CDI because the Ranger is a poorly done class. The Ranger pet has poor AI that hits nothing unless it remains stationary. Because of the pet, the Ranger has some of the lowest damaging weapons period. The Ranger does not do more damage by any measure. Similarly, the Ranger is not an exceptionally good bunker class. Its survivability is mediocre, at best. This does not include the pet, which can never survive unless the most basic of pve situations.

It appears to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that the goal of this CDI was to provide small and simple ideas to tweak some numbers to improve the Ranger, similar to all other balancing patches to date. This type of discussion is appropriate for a competent class, like Warrior or Guardian. But, as I hope Anet can see by these discussions, the Ranger is fundamentally broken and will require some intensive effort to fix. Especially before we talk about bumping up the power to some shout or signet and call it a day.

Again don’t think it’s your fault personally Allie, but this is the crux. In 25 pages we’re just going over the same ground now. We now need Red posts. Good Luck

Criminal.5627:

could we get a list of what is being taken from this thread so far by the Arena net team to see where we should focus on things that they might have missed or ideas yet to be expressed, there has been several ideas on things to help pets as well as to try to get rangers off of the bottom of the power build efficiency compaired to other classes on top of a lot of things with conditions, utilities…. and then a lot of useless crap.

So can we please see what is being taken from this thread (ideas that have been passed on to development teams) as of now so we can figure out what we should focus on for the duration that this CDI thread is open (ideas that have not already been passed on to development teams)?

I second this. I’m glad that discussion is finally starting to pick up compared to how the thread was a few days ago, but it would be nice to see what Anet has taken from this thread so far so we’re not discussing things that don’t need to be.

No red responses today…. hopefully they are busy gathering all the ideas on this CDI and preparing a nice, long post about the future of this class…

As it stands right now, there is 25 pages worth of ideas which is more than enough…

the ball is in anet’s court…. we have got to recieve feedback on what they are forumulating

SafiMoyo.5130:

Hey guys,

This discussion is starting to become non-productive. As a fellow frusterated ranger player, I understand how difficult it can be, but we need to put on our optimistic faces for this thread and work with Allie and the other Anet-ers to reach a shared vision.

Believe me, I understand how all of you feel, but mud-slinging and negativity aren’t going to get this class to where it needs to go.

Allie – it would behoove this CDI to have a little direction right now so that we can move past the burst/class vision discussion. Perhaps paraphrasing some of the points you’ve taken away from this and what suggestions could be in the realm of possibilities? Preferably touching on the big stuff, not our nuances.

Yes this discussion has become un productive , but it’s not the peoples fault here… we are patiently waiting on some form of feedback on what is going through the minds of developers right now about this class… until we recieve some sort of feedback, we can’t move any further

there is more than enough suggestions in this CDI… the players here who have posted have obviously stated what all is wrong with this class (basically everything lol) and what are some possible fixes….

The thing anet has to realize is , almost all of the rangers in this CDI STRONGLY believe bandaid fixes will not help this class AT ALL… we need to see some form of commitment or serious idea from a developer stating their intentions on the future of this class…. other wise, its just going to be constant bickering like this

We have given anet plenty of ideas here, it’s on them now.

Specific Game Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
In short, I propose that you give Rangers kit utilities that function in a similar way to that of the Engineers of the game. Which, should focus on things like arrows and rune stones (of which can be placed on the melee weapons/war horn and torch.) maybe even traps.

Goal of Proposal
The Problems that this addresses: The fact that the Ranger can only seem to achieve effectiveness by heavily traiting themselves into one specific tree, meaning that the jack of all traits must become master of one. Kits would permit for more variety for a Rangers play style. As currently, it feels stagnant and dull.

Proposal Functionality
Arrow kits could function much like the Elemenatlist’s attunements:
Glass arrows- cause either bleeding or higher damage, having more skills focusing on burst damage.
Flaming arrows- burning AoE skills or attacks that cause burning to adjacent foes, maybe a reduced hit damage to compensate for the burning.
Poison arrows- much the same as flaming.
Water arrows- more focused on healing and chilling .
(these all sound like how the traps function, but for traps to be viable you need to grandmaster the second tree.)
Associated Risks
The risk is that my proposal sounds too much like a complete overhaul, rather than some basic improvements. Also a possible risk of over complicating the class or maybe overpowering.

Imho: Every other class is a better Ranger than the Ranger- you need to make it more FUN to play!

Castaliea.3156:

runeblade.7514:

Castaliea.3156:

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

This is literally saying a Ranger cannot nor ever will be proficient with power based builds.
On top of this you say that we must be forced to have a profession mechanic that is literally a complete liability (even at it’s core concept) in multiple situations…

How do you expect to improve the class while so vehemently sticking to the exact same tried and failed ideology? Honestly, I’d like to know.

I like the idea of Rangers being resilient but can only do sustain damage.

However, Rangers then need to actually be resilient. Longbow survivability drops when someone gets into melee range and behind. Lightning Reflex is not even helpful when immobilized. There is too many skills that aren’t even good unless traited to the max.

Ideas are easy to like. The problem is that the ideas simply don’t work in the context of the game.

It is also equally easy to dislike an idea.

SkiTz.4590:

there is more than enough suggestions in this CDI… the players here who have posted have obviously stated what all is wrong with this class (basically everything lol) and what are some possible fixes….

The thing anet has to realize is , almost all of the rangers in this CDI STRONGLY believe bandaid fixes will not help this class AT ALL… we need to see some form of commitment or serious idea from a developer stating their intentions on the future of this class…. other wise, its just going to be constant bickering like this

We have given anet plenty of ideas here, it’s on them now.

There’s still room for plenty more ideas. I’ve actually been waiting for the thread to slow down a little so I could post more of mine (which I will be doing tonight), so they can actually be discussed instead of being passed over and flooded by everything else. I’m not saying these ideas will be any better or worse, I just wanted to wait a day or two and let the initial rush of posts to slow down. I can think of atleast 1 other person that was thinking of doing the same.

Aside from that, yeah, while the thread is dead for many people and the thread could be a little more under control, but, its not buried yet.

No responses from anet in over 24 hours. The only responses we got are from Allie who in the grand scheme of things is unimportant (no offense and all) since she isnt the one thats going to be making the changes nor is she one of the designers of the class.

Would love for someone else who can actually answer some of the questions we have about the direction of the class since unfortunately Allie isnt in a position to do so since that isnt her job.

The tread isnt going anywhere atm.